Maud never took the main road into the village or to the stream. She always preferred the wooded paths, even to the stream that followed through the village and under the ancient concrete bridge of the main road. She would rather follow the crooked footpath through the forest to her favorite hiding place under the bridge than walk the short bit down the road to get to it.

  No one ever asked, but if they did, she had long memorized her reply. ‘I prefer the smell of flowers and cedar to sweat and shit.’ But that was never the real reason.

  Even when she was little, still spending her time with Senna as they pinned and teased the boys, sometimes maliciously and sometimes just to catch their beady eyed attentions, it was the peace of being alone. Independent.

  None of the squirrels told her she needed to find a husband, none of the rabbits with their floppy ears asked her to embroider even though her shaking made it impossible to put the needle anywhere but in her own fingers. No bears would ever tell her that she needed to smile more or scrub harder or stir a pot that had already been stirred a thousand times. The world in the forest didn’t care about those things. She could just wander as she liked, be as she liked.

  Sometimes, she was a princess, like Lady Isabella Taggerty, from some distant kingdom in the east, with painted hands and feet. She would calm her servant girls when they were mistreated or comfort them when their loves broke their hearts. She picked up sticks along the path as she daydreamed and used them as switches on the stable boy who discarded her favorite maiden or fend off her husband’s assassins. A husband who was a knight that saved her from a tower ruled by an evil dragon, like the ancient stories. Upright, strong, handsome beyond comparison to anyone she would ever lay eyes on. She would see herself in long trailing skirts and bodices that made her the envy of his brothers and rivals, not the thick cotton woven dress and apron the color of the mud and not just from the stains. Her shoes were slippers, in her dreams as she pranced down the path each day, and not the wood sandals that made her toes cold.

  Other times, she’s a strong-willed merchant woman with a fleet of ships. She had never seen a ship but imagined that they looked like the small riverboats that the men used when they fished, but with sails as big as houses. Mighty sheets that draped from the sky, always bowed in the middle. Once to her favorite spot, under the bridge, where the concrete slab went into the dirt under the road, she would speak to her captains, issuing her orders to take their ships to far off lands and return with gems and spices. Cinnamon was her favorite. Her stick would be her staff to thump the floor whenever her captains were defiant. They would mutter something about how a woman should never manage a business and she would only slam the staff once to remind them who was in charge.

  Slipping under the bridge, Maud slid the long stick she had found along the odd hard concrete that sloped down to the stream, drawing pale lines. The stream sounded like trickling rain and smelled like fish and wet grass. Its waters were like brown glass bulging over soft pebbles. Between daydreams, she would unbuckle her sandals and walk barefoot through the water, picking up pebbles to feel their porous textures and hold them up in the light so she could see their colors. Most of them were only gray or black, but every so often she found a purple one, like what father gave to mother. They were rare finds. White ones were the rarest, but they were never as smoothly round and porous as the others. Those were always jagged and often sharp edged, though between the edges were smoother than anything else in the world. Smoother than sanded wood.

  ‘Find one soon or your father will…’ Mother had said. Maud let out a long sigh. ‘He’s an eye for Dalfur.’ Of course he does. Egan the Blacksmith’s son, who would always have work regardless of the season. Stone house in the village and carts. The Smith’s family were plump and round as melons. No stains on their dresses from cooking or cleaning. Dalfur was nearly her age and still had cheeks round as a squirrel with a mouth full of nuts. She did like his lips and those doe eyes of his though. If they didn’t always bulge at her like she was more than a shaky leaf in the wind with thick hair darker than anyone but her Aunt Leta’s that couldn’t be tamed if her life depended on it. Infuriating. He didn’t see her, he saw what he wanted to see.

  She rested her chin in her hand and scraped another line across the concrete. She wasn’t in the mood to search for pebbles, but the sound of the trickling water, like rain slowly spilling from the roof, comforted her.

  How would Alcer be different? Or Berone, on the other side of the Kelger farm where that man and his pretty horse live now. She had cousins in Alcer, her mother’s side. But she didn’t know them. They never came to Talkro, and for good reason. The men drove off anyone who wasn’t one of them. Even if they were relatives, they weren’t of the Talkro blood. They were offlanders, foreign, outsiders.

  They knew none from Berone except the captain of the Baron’s Men, Gerard. It wasn’t far over the river beyond the Kelger farm and was much bigger than Talkro. Further than Alcer, too. More farmers. More merchants. Canals. Shops and houses as far as the sky. Dirty fingered men who expected their wives to wash their feet and not spill their beers.

  What choice did she have? Dalfur, she knew. She had her hopes on the offlander, but he’s a mute old man. Handsome old man, perhaps, but he would die of old age before the wedding was over. Well, maybe he’s not that old. But he is old. And an offlander. An offlander who gave him a deer that will feed them for a month rather than fight him. Dalfur would have fought him. All the men in Talkro wanted to. Even father, but she knew his hesitation. ‘A man with a sword like the one I saw,’ father had said, ‘knows how to use it.’ Like a knight with his white steed. White thieving steed that made mother plop out the window and into the garden like a squirrel missing the branch it leapt for.

  She smiled at the memory, finally relaxed. And the horse! She laughed and snorted at how it looked at her mother as if she had no business interrupting a perfectly good breakfast. What would it be like to ride one of those? To fly down the road with nothing but the world in front of you and clouds of dust behind you? Maud tilted her head. The offlander could show her. If he wasn’t their enemy or so old.

  “Funny pretty horse, though,” Maud giggled aloud. She pushed her mouth to one side, eyeing the lines she drew as she forced herself to imagine him handing her the reins of the horse for her to ride while he watched. He would smile with hands on his hips as she galloped here and there, perhaps even laughing at how wonderful she looked on such a creature. Like a father.

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  She rolled her eyes at herself for the last thought. Why did she have to be settled with such terrible choices? Alden will find a wife whether he pursues one or not, why did they need her to marry anyone? She could stay where she is, help mother. That should be enough.

  “Thought I’d find you here,” Dalfur said from the other side of the stream.

  Maud’s smile faded. She tossed the stick and buried her head into arms crossed over her knees. Cursed. She was cursed. That must be it. The gods had cursed her to be surrounded by filthy morons.

  Dalfur clumsily crossed the stream in loud splashes. Please, great Bonaparte, save me. She pleaded to her favorite god of the village. As if answered, Dalfur stumbled and fell into a roll through the water when his sandal slipped. She raised her head and laughed as he straightened, sopping wet, with a sheepish grin sprinkled with confusion.

  “There,” he met her eyes and beamed, “I knew that would make you laugh, that’s why I did it.” He leapt savvily but slipped and plopped into the water with a bounce of his forehead on the gravelly concrete at the water’s edge.

  “Clearly!” She snorted and nearly collapsed onto her side from laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.

  He rubbed at his reddening forehead and climbed up beside her. Maud tried to take a breath and hold it, but it only made her laugh harder. When he opened his mouth to say something, she only held her hand out to stop him while she continued laughing.

  “Okay,” he looked away from her. “It wasn’t that funny, you can stop now.”

  “No,” she snorted again, tears dropping from her eyes. “It was. It really was.”

  “So, you saw the offlander, then?”

  Her laughter faded into a giggle as she nodded. He turned to her with his puppy eyes begging her to return their gaze. She knew the look all too well. Ever since she had grown a bust, he had that look on his face. And, sure enough, the giggle became guffaws again. She slapped his shoulder, then pointed at him.

  He only frowned at her, those plush lips stretching and his bulged cheeks hardening. She swallowed dryly and cleared her throat to end her jolliness.

  “Sorry,” she tucked her lips at him. He may not be who she wanted as a husband, but he was dear to her as a friend. Always had been. She missed when he looked at her like she was just that and not with that…that…begging look of lust or whatever it was. Certainly not love. Love doesn’t begin with filling the top of a dress.

  “I heard you say something about his horse. Pa said they were going to string him up if he ever comes back into town, but he wants them to wait until he can get at least a gold off him to shoe his horse.”

  “My pa said much the same, but,” she avoided turning to him but felt his gaze on her, “he said the man’s ready for a fight. Injured or no.”

  “Old Morrin thinks he’ll be strung up by the administrator after they tell him about the way his horse stole from your garden. What do you think they’ll do with the horse?”

  “Sell it, eat it maybe,” she hadn’t thought about that before. Maybe she could talk father into buying the horse with some of her dowry, since she was certainly not going to need it. If Dalfur had his way, he’d be the one paying them for her hand. Better than any other. “I like the horse. I think it’s beautiful. And funny. You should have seen how red mother got! She looked like milk poured on blood pudding!” And the laughter was back, this time with a firm shake of his arm for him to join in. She was glad to see him smile and laugh like they used to.

  “She…fell…out…the…window…like…like…this…” Maud threw her arms in front of her with her eyes as wide as they could go, struggling between guffaws and snorts to get the words out. Then she rocked as she cackled and he tucked his chin to stifle his own loud laughter.

  “I like the horse, too. I think I’ve a mind to get myself one. Maybe that one, if they hang him soon.”

  “Yeah?” Maud bit her fist to stifle another roll at the seriousness on his face. “What if I want the horse, hmm?”

  “Then I’d give it to you,” Dalfur’s grin was warmer than she expected. He meant it.

  “You’d just give it to me?” Maud raised a brow. Then she snickered in disbelief. “For what in return?”

  Dalfur hurriedly looked away from her with a solemn shrug. “Nothing, I guess.”

  She knew what he really wanted. She didn’t want to laugh anymore. A heaviness weighed on her with the way his eyes searched the other side of the stream from a stoney face.

  “Look, Dalfur,” she straightened and slid slightly away from him, but he only shook his head and stood.

  “I’ll get you that horse. Or a better one,” he brushed at his wet shirt and pants, pinching bits to pull them from sticking to his barrel chest and thick arms. “I swear it, I will.”

  “Dalfur…”

  “I have to get back to the forge,” he slid down to the stream and slowly crossed it with overly cautious bounds.

  Maud sighed as she watched. She didn’t mean to hurt his feelings. All she wanted was for him to understand that she had no interest in anyone. He wasn’t the worst of them. In fact, of all of them, she preferred him, but that was like choosing which slug tasted better raw. There was no dragon keeping her imprisoned in a tower, no knight on a valiant steed to save her, no ships to carry her off to exotic worlds. Just her parents trying to sell her to whoever she made the least fuss about because she had gotten too old, waited too long.