red heart of the fire.
She reached out in a little while, and pointed at the purplish scar that showed below his sleeve. ‘It was in the battle you got that?’
‘Yes,’ he said again.
Regina gazed at it in silence. Then she thrust out one small bare foot and turned the sole upward for him to see. ‘Look, I have a scar here. I got it on a piece of broken glass.’
Owain looked. Her foot was dusty and scurfed, ingrained grey and brown with ancient dirt; but through the dirt he could see the thin white scar running jagged from the arch down towards the root of the big toe. For a moment, because he had grown up in the past months and forgotten some of the things he once knew, he was not sure why she was showing it to him. Was she proud of it? Had she perhaps used it in her begging, to get sympathy and so more charity? And then he understood, remembering himself and Ossian comparing their backs after a beating. Comparing scars was a companionable thing to do. It was a gesture of friendship; probably the first she had ever made.
He reached out and touched her foot, feeling it icy under the caked dryness of the dirt. ‘That must have hurt,’ he said gruffly. ‘Your feet are still frozen. Put them nearer to the fire.’
She did as he told her, sighing in the warmth, and asked, ‘What is your name? I told you mine.’
‘Owain,’ he said. And then, ‘I set the snare again before I came away. Maybe there’ll be another hare tomorrow.’
When the little fire burned out, they spread the bedding-grass wider, and shared Owain’s cloak. It was ragged at the hem by now, but thick, and big enough for two if they lay close together. Dog slept with his chin across Owain’s knees, and growled very softly in warning, every time the girl moved in the night.
In the morning they were hungry again. They went, all three of them, to the lion-headed fountain, and then to get some apples. ‘The one you tried yesterday came from a tree they used to make apple wine from,’ Regina said. ‘That is why it was so sour. But I can show you the apple trees that are sweet.’ And if the water and apples did not really satisfy them, it killed some of their hunger for the time being. And when Owain went back to the deserted burial ground, he found another hare in one of the snares. So they were sure of full stomachs again tonight.
It was a piece of unbelievably good fortune, but he realized that he could not go on snaring the same runs over and over again; he must widen his hunting grounds. He reset his snares on the edge of the woods above the river gorge, about a bowshot beyond the last of the gravestones, the girl Regina tagging along behind him like a shadow, though he felt her scared unwillingness, and knew that she did not like to come so far beyond the city walls. ‘I might get a hedgehog hereabouts,’ he said. ‘We will not cook the hare until this evening. It is better to eat at the end of the day, and sleep with something in one’s belly.’
And together, Owain carrying the hare, they made their way back into the city.
In the Wild, Regina was lost and unsure of herself, but once back within the walls, it was another matter. She slipped into the lead, catching his free hand and pulling him after her by back ways and short cuts, in at the gaping doorway of one house and out through the broken wall at the back of another; and about every corner of every ruin she seemed to have something, mostly disgraceful, to tell of the people who had once lived there.
Down an alley off the street to the West Gate, they came to the blind-eyed shell of a house, with a fire-blackened hawthorn twisted as wrought-iron-work leaning over the doorway in its courtyard wall. ‘That is the house of Ulpius Pudentius,’ said Regina. ‘He was very old, and they said he had bags and boxes full of gold under his bed. They said—everybody said—that his forefathers made it by doctoring broken-winded mules and selling them to the soldiers while they
She reached out in a little while, and pointed at the purplish scar that showed below his sleeve. ‘It was in the battle you got that?’
‘Yes,’ he said again.
Regina gazed at it in silence. Then she thrust out one small bare foot and turned the sole upward for him to see. ‘Look, I have a scar here. I got it on a piece of broken glass.’
Owain looked. Her foot was dusty and scurfed, ingrained grey and brown with ancient dirt; but through the dirt he could see the thin white scar running jagged from the arch down towards the root of the big toe. For a moment, because he had grown up in the past months and forgotten some of the things he once knew, he was not sure why she was showing it to him. Was she proud of it? Had she perhaps used it in her begging, to get sympathy and so more charity? And then he understood, remembering himself and Ossian comparing their backs after a beating. Comparing scars was a companionable thing to do. It was a gesture of friendship; probably the first she had ever made.
He reached out and touched her foot, feeling it icy under the caked dryness of the dirt. ‘That must have hurt,’ he said gruffly. ‘Your feet are still frozen. Put them nearer to the fire.’
She did as he told her, sighing in the warmth, and asked, ‘What is your name? I told you mine.’
‘Owain,’ he said. And then, ‘I set the snare again before I came away. Maybe there’ll be another hare tomorrow.’
When the little fire burned out, they spread the bedding-grass wider, and shared Owain’s cloak. It was ragged at the hem by now, but thick, and big enough for two if they lay close together. Dog slept with his chin across Owain’s knees, and growled very softly in warning, every time the girl moved in the night.
In the morning they were hungry again. They went, all three of them, to the lion-headed fountain, and then to get some apples. ‘The one you tried yesterday came from a tree they used to make apple wine from,’ Regina said. ‘That is why it was so sour. But I can show you the apple trees that are sweet.’ And if the water and apples did not really satisfy them, it killed some of their hunger for the time being. And when Owain went back to the deserted burial ground, he found another hare in one of the snares. So they were sure of full stomachs again tonight.
It was a piece of unbelievably good fortune, but he realized that he could not go on snaring the same runs over and over again; he must widen his hunting grounds. He reset his snares on the edge of the woods above the river gorge, about a bowshot beyond the last of the gravestones, the girl Regina tagging along behind him like a shadow, though he felt her scared unwillingness, and knew that she did not like to come so far beyond the city walls. ‘I might get a hedgehog hereabouts,’ he said. ‘We will not cook the hare until this evening. It is better to eat at the end of the day, and sleep with something in one’s belly.’
And together, Owain carrying the hare, they made their way back into the city.
In the Wild, Regina was lost and unsure of herself, but once back within the walls, it was another matter. She slipped into the lead, catching his free hand and pulling him after her by back ways and short cuts, in at the gaping doorway of one house and out through the broken wall at the back of another; and about every corner of every ruin she seemed to have something, mostly disgraceful, to tell of the people who had once lived there.
Down an alley off the street to the West Gate, they came to the blind-eyed shell of a house, with a fire-blackened hawthorn twisted as wrought-iron-work leaning over the doorway in its courtyard wall. ‘That is the house of Ulpius Pudentius,’ said Regina. ‘He was very old, and they said he had bags and boxes full of gold under his bed. They said—everybody said—that his forefathers made it by doctoring broken-winded mules and selling them to the soldiers while they
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