I looked at her, the traitor. “You are not a part of this.”
Wulfric lowered himself beside me, bringing with him the cold scent of the night air and steel.
“I brought food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You are.”
“That is an extremely arrogant thing to tell someone.”
“You have looked at the bowl three times.”
I looked down.
He had given Eadgyth a wooden bowl and was holding a second containing some kind of stew. Steam curled from the surface in fragrant little ribbons.
The stew was thick with barley, onions, and a few precious pieces of meat, and the smell alone made my empty stomach tighten hard enough to betray me.
He held out the bowl as Eadgyth pointed to the door.
“Eat elsewhere and rest.”
I stared at her. “I’m not leaving.”
Gilda stirred and every muscle in my body tightened at once.
“She sleeps,” the healer said. “I will call you if she wakes.”
We sat just outside the shelter beneath a low overhang of branches, close enough that I could still hear every movement within. Firelight slipped through the entrance and warmed one side of Wulfric’s face while the forest beyond remained dark, the trunks rising pale between pockets of shadow and moonlight.
I ate because arguing required energy, and I had very little left. Women I knew back in my own time were always jealous that I didn’t care much about food. It was fuel, nothing more. Sometimes, I’d go all day before I realized I was hungry.
The first spoonful of the stew nearly made me groan. Someone had added wild garlic and enough salt to pull theflavors together, and after hours of smoke, blood, fear, and the cold damp that seemed to creep through every layer of clothing, the warmth spread through me so quickly I realized I had been shivering.
Wulfric nodded. “I knew you were hungry.”
Instead of saying something snarky, I shoved another spoonful in my mouth. Once I’d swallowed, I touched his arm.
“Thank you. You’re always feeding me.”
I took another spoonful and looked toward the shelter.
“Ibuprofen.”
His brows drew together. “What?”
I looked down into the bowl.
“In my… where I come from, there’s medicine you can buy almost anywhere. Little tablets. Cheap. Ordinary. You take them for pain or fever.”
He was quiet for a moment, and I became acutely aware of how close I had come to saying too much.
“A miracle.”
In this time something so simple would be a miracle.
Inside the shelter, Gilda made a low sound. I set the bowl down so quickly pottage sloshed over the rim and onto my fingers.