“Aye,” she said without glancing from her work.
He watched those capable fingers loop the wool around and through and off thin pieces of wire. Soon rows lengthened the work already begun so long ago.
Hagbard made a pallet near the left side of the door. It took less than five minutes for the little room to fill with the steady puffs of breaths of the man. Zeke took a seat across from Beti.
“I would think ye would be planning yer journey.”
“What makes ye think I am not.”
“Ye are knitting.”
“And what do you do when ye have important decisions to make?”
“I study the facts. I pray. Sometimes I consult with a good friend.”
“Mr. Woodbridge?”
He grinned. “Not usually, no. Although he has an uncommon wisdom sometimes.”
She raised her eyebrows without missing a stitch.
“I admit it is an uneven offering. I trust Isaac.”
The conversation paused as once again he realized how alone she was and how brave. “And what do ye do?”
“I find it helpful to busy my hands when I have much to think about.”
“Ye may trust me.”
She brought her hands to rest on the table. “That jest is not in good taste, Mr. Smith.”
“My friends ye call me Zeke.”
“And now ye are my friend, Mr. Smith?” She picked up her needles.
“Aye. And more if ye will allow it.”
She glanced back up again body stiff ready for an argument. “Mr. Smith—”
“Zeke.”
“Zeke. Ye have lead me to believe that ye loved me then dropped me like a hot pipkin the next minute. I have no reason to trust ye as friend and certainly not as anything more.”
“I was wrong about that.”
“Yes, ye were. Now if ye will excuse me.”
She stuck the needles into the ball of yarn and tucked them under the voluminous cloak. She settled herself down in front of the fire and closed her eyes.
Zeke took his blanket and claimed a spot on the right side of the door.
Eighteen
Early the next morning she caught up with Hagbard outside the small cabin as he returned from the woods. The decision became as clear as the angel in the woods when she’d placed the coronet on her head. The responsibility forged into the silver straddled her crown like an empty stew pot. And she was the empty one. Oh, she could learn, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t what the country could give to her. Could they love her? It didn’t matter, what mattered was whether or not she loved them. And she did, enough to recognize her limitations and say “no.” No she would not go across the sea and supplant her uncle and her cousins who’d worked all their lives to serve the people of Fjellyoricket.
“May I speak with ye?”
He pointed to a couple of old stumps near her mother’s old sheep pen. Several of the rails suffered rot, but it could be salvaged. “What troubles ye?” Concern softened his deep voice. Hands rested on his thighs.
“I have remembered what the angel said.”
Hagbard inclined a few degrees forward. “Yes?”
“He said a horn is rising in Fjellyoricket and the land will know peace under his hand.”
Hagbard turned his gaze to the heavens as if he was hearing an angelic choir himself. A smile broke out across is face. “Dane,” he said.
“Dane?”
“Yer cousin. The eldest of King Anders.”
Slowly Beti’s spirit began to lighten. “I thought ye said the kingdom will be ruined if I do not come right away.”
“Agmund said that.”
“So it’s not true.”
