The Silver Cup by Constance Leeds Page A

these dreamless nights just might be your fate? No husband? ” asked Agnes.
    Anna looked at her aunt and wondered if she would ever hear a kind word from this sister of her mother. Meanwhile Elisabeth looked horrified. Uncle Karl began to laugh.
    â€œThat’s not a worry for our Anna. You’ll have a handsome husband. Your aunt is just having fun with you,” Karl said. “We shall have trouble deciding who is good enough for you.”
    â€œI hope so! But husband or no husband, fasting has made me very hungry. And this feast looks matchless. I love food better than anything,” added Anna cheerfully.
    â€œBetter than a husband? ” asked Elisabeth.
    â€œI may never know,” said Anna, laughing and taking her seat next to Lukas.
    The table was laid with steaming lamb sausages and a pot of yellow turnips, red beets, and green leeks studded with black raisins. It was a meal and a morning filled with rare color and abundance, a break from the cold and stingy times. But the cheer ended when Lukas offered a blessing.
    â€œDear Lord, we are thankful for all that we have, but do not let us forget our little brother, Thomas. Please keep him safe with you in heaven and forgive—”
    Agnes interrupted. “Yes, yes, we’ll pray for his poor unburied soul each and every day, but this isn’t a day for sadness. It’s my day. Thomas is gone, and we’re all better off. Here on earth, the winters are long. His was another mouth to feed, and hands that would never earn. And when Thomas was your size, Lukas, would you have cleaned his soiled britches? I think not.”
    Lukas said nothing. The meal became silent. Anna looked anywhere but at her aunt.

10
    BAD FEET, BAD TIMES
    February 27, 1096
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“A sleeping person eats nothing, so the shorter the day, the better.” Anna had heard her aunt say these words countless times. By late winter, the cupboards were bare, and meals were especially meager. Even the barn animals went hungry, for hay and oats were used with stingy care. Each grain of food was treasured. Anna was tired of porridge and dried peas, but she knew that when she complained she sounded like the weak and greedy girl Agnes said she was. Still, sometimes she would just blurt out her complaints. Then Martin would insult her, and her father would look disappointed. Anna smoothed her threadbare, patched kirtle and wondered if there would ever be a good time to ask her father for some cloth. Certainly not in the winter, and by February, winter seemed permanent.
    Anna was helping her father patch the cracks and the holes in the daub walls of the house. It was easy work, and she was glad to spend time with him, without Martin, who was off with Dieter. They mixed dirt and straw and animal hair and stirred in manure and water until they had a paste. Gunther carved away the wall where it had softened and exposed the basket work structure.
    â€œAnna, give me some water. This is too thick,” he said as he began to smear the mixture into the wall.
    â€œHere, Father,” said Anna, passing a steaming basin. “It smells awful.”
    â€œIt keeps out the cold,” said Gunther reproachfully.
    â€œFather, do you think I’m sinful? I know I should be so glad for all that we have. But it’s hard to be glad of anything in February.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI’m so tired of the dark. All winter, our house is shut so tight. There’s no light except the hearth and maybe a sputtering flame from a reed floating in a dish of foul-smelling old fish oil.”
    â€œI think you are beginning to sound sinful.”
    â€œThe smell chokes me. The oil smokes, the hearth smokes, and my eyes tear. I can barely see this work. When I walk outside, I am blinded by daylight.”
    â€œAnna, it’s winter for everyone. Not just you.”
    â€œI know. I’m sorry. But I hate the darkness.”
    â€œHand me the