the water, but she didn’t dare inspect it. Hod had said to keep it hidden, so she would. Just knowing it was there was a comfort.
“Surely not, Lady Lothgar. Surely not. She should be dressed in the colors of the clan,” Lagatha said.
“But that will take time. When will the lord present her to the king?” Lisbet argued.
“Word is already spreading. Lothgar will take her to the temple in the morn. He says we will have no peace until she is gone, and I suspect he is right,” Lady Lothgar worried, wringing her hands. “Where in the world did you come from, child?” she asked, her voice ringing in disbelief.
“I am from Leok,” Ghisla said. Lady Lothgar waited, blue eyes searching, but when Ghisla refused to offer more, even after persistent questioning, the lady of the keep left her in the care of the old women and promised to return with suitable clothes.
“Do your best to untangle her hair. She must remain in here. Lothgar has put a guard outside to keep the curious away,” she said, closing the door behind her.
The old women spoke excitedly as they soaped and scrubbed at her hair. They conversed as though she couldn’t hear—the way grownups tended to do with children—about what it meant to have a girl child of Leok.
“She just appeared out of nowhere!” Lagatha marveled.
“She is a gift from the gods, surely,” Lisbet added. “She looks like the daughters of Leok—she is not from one of the other clans.”
“Yes, yes. Though she’s a mite bit sickly looking.”
“Nothing a bed and a few meals can’t fix. And look at those eyes! She’s a little beauty. Who are you, child?” Lisbet pressed.
“I am Liis of Leok,” Ghisla said numbly, and the women grew quiet for all of ten seconds.
“Mayhaps she is touched in the head,” Lagatha murmured.
“In these times, we are all touched in the head,” Lisbet answered.
When she was sufficiently clean, Lagatha urged her from the tub and wrapped her in a blanket, directing her to a stool in front of a fire Lisbet had built. They rubbed oil into her hair and let it sit before picking their way up the length with combs and careful fingers. It lay shining against her back when they were finished.
They even cleaned between her fingers and her toes and buffed her nails with a small stone. She’d accidentally hissed when Lagatha grabbed her hand, but the women didn’t seem to recognize the rune. They thought she’d defended herself against a whip. They clucked and murmured all over again, their sympathy stoked once more. They put a salve on it and bandaged it up when they finished with her hair.
Lady Lothgar returned with stew and bread and a nightshirt borrowed from someone’s young son. It was clean and white, and it’d been worn into softness. They pulled it over her head and told her to eat.
By the time Ghisla was done she was so weary she could not keep her eyes open, and they tucked her into the bed in the corner of the room.
“Sleep, Liis of Leok,” Lady Lothgar urged, and the awe was back in her voice. “No one will harm you here.”
They left her for a time, and she was grateful for the solitude, though she knew they lingered outside the door.
She tried to sing a song for Hod, to reach out and test their connection, but she was asleep before humming a single note.
The women had found her a frock in what they called “Leok green” and dressed her like she was to be married to the king. Her hair was braided and coiled and her cheeks pinched for color, though they had days of riding ahead of them. The people of the village gathered to see them off and cheered and waved like she was a princess. Mayhaps they were simply grateful their own daughters had been spared.
Lothgar asked her if she could ride alone, and when she nodded, he placed her on an old horse so docile that the only thing that differentiated wakefulness from sleep were its plodding legs. Chief Lothgar rode in the lead. His long braid matched his horse’s tail, one long rope running into another. It was even the same color.
All of Lothgar’s men had long braids. Lykan explained that when the king of Saylok died, it was tradition for the men of the clans, in recognition of his passing, to cut their hair. The long, tight braid they wore down their backs was