The Crimson Lady by Mary Reed McCall Page B

lips, she scooped some of the stewed vegetables into the curved, hard bread, berating herself for her lack of foresight concerning this and many other aspects of her life that were going to have to change for the time being. Peculiar as it all felt, she knew she had no one to blame but herself for coming up with the idea.
    Silently, she handed the trencher back to him, by her action inviting him to sup first while she cut their portion from the roasted venison that was making its way around the fires. She was surprised to see that he disregarded her offer, choosing instead to wait until she’d sliced off a few small hunks of the sizzling meat. It was another bewildering courtesy, she thought, daring a glance at him as he sat—especially considering that he still looked as brooding as a storm cloud about to rain. She decided it would be best not to attempt a conversation, settling instead into a rhythm of eating with him, taking a bite of the vegetables and venison, and then blowing on her fingers to cool them.
    A pouch of ale made the rounds of each fire as well; conversation swelled and ebbed around them, punctuated by laughter and the occasional cough. Will and Joan were sitting at another fire, and those with Fiona and Braedan seemed reluctant to talk, even sitting a bit removed from them. Fiona tried to make eye contact with one of the children sharing their fire—a young girl of no more than four or five, whose eyes sparkled in the firelight. The girl ducked her head shyly, leaning into the shoulder of a woman who must have been her mother, from the similar hue of her sandy blond hair.
    Fiona smiled at the child. “What’s your name, lass?”
    “Rosalind,” she lisped, before tucking her head again behind her mother’s arm. After a moment, she apparently worked up enough courage to peep out with half her face, adding in a whisper, “Is it true that you’re the Crimson Lady, mistress? The one who makes men fall in love with naught but a look at you out of your smock?”
    Rosalind’s mother hissed a scolding, and Fiona felt Braedan stiffen beside her. Her own heart seemed to skip a beat, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. It had been a long time since she’d had to face such a question from a child—so long that she’d almost forgotten the emptiness that always filled her when it happened. The lump that formed in her throat now prevented her from answering at first, and her eyes stung, making the firelight suddenly waver behind the glaze of tears.
    “Some have called me the Crimson Lady, it’s true, Rosalind,” she managed, forcing herself to blink them away. Swallowing against the thick feeling in her throat, she tried to muster a smile, wanting to set the girl andher mother at ease. “Here in the forest with Will, and people like you and your mum, I’ve always been known just as Giselle.”
    “But you don’t look crimson—you look light blue.”
    That brought another smile, this one less forced than the last, even though the truth behind the subject was another painful memory for her. “Aye, I am wearing light blue today, Rosalind. As it happens, I rarely wear crimson anymore if I can help it.”
    “Why not?”
    Fiona could feel the weight of Braedan’s attention on her, waiting to hear her answer, along with that of the little girl’s mother and everyone else seated around their fire. She tried to focus on the little girl’s gaze and think of a way she might make sense of it for her, without getting into the darker aspects.
    “Perhaps I could best answer that with a question of my own, Rosalind. How would you like having naught but black bread every day, in the morn, for dinner and then for supper, too, for a whole year—nothing but black bread?”
    Rosalind wrinkled her face. “That was all we did have this past winter, lady, every day. Naught but foul black bread.”
    “Hush, child. You should be grateful for having it at all,” her mother chided.
    Fiona’s heart lurched; she