then—"
"I'm asking now!"
"No. I'll not answer now. Daylight for both of us then." And she pulled away and was gone. Gird stared after her, then followed the distant voices of his friends toward home.
He caught up with them within sight of home. By then it was light enough to see their expressions; he could feel himself going red. Amis elbowed Jens.
"You see I was right. He just needed to get a little fresh air—"
"He got more than fresh air, I'll warrant. Look at his face. If I'd gone out like that with Torin—"
"You wouldn't. You'll be learning how in your marriage bed, Jens."
"I know how." Jens shoved Koris, who shoved back. "It's just that with her father—"
"Come on, Gird," said Amis, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "Tell us—you drag the girl out in the middle of the dancing, did you just throw her on the ground, or what?"
He could hear the undertones in their voices—they weren't sure if he was going to be angry, or sulk, or what. He felt like singing, and instead burst out laughing.
"That's new," said Amis. "I like that—Gird laughing again."
"Be still," he said, ducking away from Amis's arm and the finger that was prodding his ribs. "You were right: I admit it. I needed to go dancing—"
"You didn't dance," said Jens.
Gird shrugged. He could feel more laughter bubbling up, like a spring long dry coming in. "I did well enough," he said.
"Watch him go to sleep behind the hedges today." Koris grinned, but it had no bite to it. "You may be tired by nightfall, eh?"
Gird grinned back. He felt that the bad years had never happened; he felt he could work for two days together. He drew a long breath—sweet, fresh air of dawn—and said nothing more. He had never expected to be happy again, and now he was.
He came in through the barton, aware of the stale, sour smell of the cottage after the freshness outside. All very well to fall for a girl, to marry her—but where would they sleep? He'd have to build a bed. He'd have to earn the marriage fee for the count, and the fee to her family for her parrion. He'd have to—
"You're looking blithe this morning," said Arin, from the flank of the red cow. Milk hissed into the bucket. Arin's voice had sharpened, in the difficult years, but he sounded more worried than angry.
"Sheepfold last night," said Gird. He took down the other milking stool, and a bucket.
"You? I thought you'd gone to Kirif's."
Gird washed the cow's udder with water from the stable bucket and folded himself up on the milking stool. The brindle cow flapped her ears back and forth as he reached for her teats, and he leaned into her flank and crooned to her. "Easy, sweetling—I was at Kirif's first, and then Amis came along and we went over to the fold—"
"Good for you," said Arin. "Meet anyone?"
He might as well admit it; it would be all over the village by the time they came to the field. "You always meet someone at the fold," he began, but he couldn't hold the tone. "Someone," he said again. "Arin, there's a girl from Fireoak—"
"Where?"
"Fireoak. Sunrising of here. You know, Teris's wife's sister married into Fireoak. And her parrion is cooking and herblore—"
"Teris's wife's sister?" said Arin, with maddening coolness.
"No. Mali's parrion. The girl I met."
Arin's eyebrows went up. "You were talking parrions? In one night?"
"We did more than talk," said Gird, stripping the first two teats and going on to the next.
"You can't mean—you're not betrothed? Gird, you know you have to ask—"
Gird grinned into the cow's flank and squirted a stream of milk at Arin, who had come to stand by her hip. "Not betrothed, but more than talk. Lady's grace, Arin, you know what I mean. And I will ask for her, just you wait."
"But are you sure? The first time you've been out with the lasses since before—" he stopped short, and reddened. Gird laughed.
"Since before I left the guards, you mean, and you're right. So you think it's like a blind man's first vision, and I should wait and
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