With that he is gone again, as swiftly as he arrived. Tova blinks as she sits up. Morning can’t be far off; a faint half-light glimmers through the finger’s gap beneath the door where the passage of feet has worn a groove in the earth. Everything has taken on a grey hue.
How she managed to sleep with so many thoughts dancing inside her head, she isn’t sure. She doesn’t feel well rested. Her limbs are stiff from lying on the hard boards and the old, flattened straw; her neck is paining her, and there’s a pounding in her head and she doesn’t know why. Beside her, Merewyn continues to sleep, as serene as ever, curled in a ball with the blankets drawn up around her face, murmuring something that Tova can’t understand. Gently she lays a hand on her lady’s shoulder to rouse her. She wakes with a start, her expression putting Tova in mind of a deer that has just heard the sound of the hunting horn.
They find some hard bread on which to break their fast and have just finished washing that down with the remains of the ale when Beorn returns. He’s saddled their palfreys, which spent the night in a shed behind the hovel together with his own grey, snorting stallion. Although maybe not his own. Maybe he stole it from the Normans.
Tied to panniers across the two palfreys’ backs are bundles of kindling, a coil of rope, leather flasks, small iron cooking pots, thick winter blankets. Fastened on either side of his saddle is a roll of linen and what look like wolf pelts. He unbuckles the leather straps holding them in place and tosses one to Merewyn and another to Tova.
It’s heavier than it looks, and Tova almost fumbles hers.
‘What’s this?’ Merewyn asks.
‘A gift,’ he says in a way that makes it hard to know whether or not he’s joking.
‘A gift?’
‘Dry clothes. I thought you might appreciate them.’
‘Where did you get them?’
‘Where do you think?’
‘They aren’t ours to take. They don’t belong to us.’
‘They do now. Whoever they belonged to would have wanted us to have them. Now, put them on and be quick about it. Or leave them here if you prefer, but in that case don’t complain to me later if you’re shivering and there’s snot dripping from your nose.’
Tova can’t remember the last time anyone dared speak to Merewyn in such a manner. Her husband, of course, but only rarely and, besides, that’s different.
Merewyn stands there, open-mouthed, clearly not knowing quite what to do or how to respond. She isn’t happy, that much is sure, and she’s even less happy once they’re inside and unwrapping the rolls to see what Beorn has found for them. Rough-spun dresses of grey wool cloth, thick but plain. Linen undershifts, frayed a little at the hems and worn thin in places but serviceable. Wolf-pelt cloaks, with cord for belts, and gloves as well. Gloves! Tova tugs them on over her pink knuckles, her chilled, cracked hands, delighting in the feeling of the wool against her fingertips, then takes a closer look at the rest of the clothes, turning them over in her hands. Dry, free from holes and, as far as she can tell from a quick inspection, no lice either. She sheds her damp, slept-in overgown and is about to peel off her old much-worn shift when she sees Merewyn marching outside, her dress clutched in one hand.
‘You expect me to wear this?’ She flings it at Beorn, who is checking over the panniers, tightening knots and straps. It falls to the ground long before it reaches him.
‘If you’d prefer to keep those mud-stained things you’re wearing, that’s your choice,’ he says, without looking up.
‘Are these the best you could find? These rags, these penitents’ sacks?’
He snatches up the garment from where it lies and thrusts it at her, but she won’t take it.
‘Listen to me,’ he says darkly. ‘This land is being torn asunder, is overrun with men who would kill us the moment they see us, and you’re complaining because the clothes I’ve done my best to find for you aren’t fine enough for your high-born tastes?’
‘You will not insult me in this way,’ she snaps back at him. ‘You will not treat us like we’re your servants.’
He steps closer, so that their faces are almost touching. But still Merewyn won’t take it from him, nor will she budge.
‘Do you think I care who you are? I’ve said I’ll do my best to protect you, to keep you both from harm, and that’s what I mean to do. If you’re determined to catch your death from cold, that’s your choice.’
Merewyn eyes him for a moment longer, then snatches the dress from him and stalks past Tova without a word, back inside.
When at last she does emerge again, she’s wearing the clothes Beorn found: all except for the wolfskin cloak, which she has passed over in favour of her own, the one she brought from home with the ermine trim, even though it’s thinner and not really suited for winter’s travelling.
Beorn doesn’t argue. They haven’t gone anywhere yet but Tova hopes he isn’t tiring of them already.