Punching bread dough proved a very good way of working through the details of the previous two days and relating them to a sympathetic Sarah. At the end of Eleanor’s story, the older woman shook her head. “Well, all I can say is I’m glad it was our Cadan who walked through your door at that moment. Your life is going to be very different to the one you’re used to, but I think you’ve the wit and will to make it work for you.”

She gathered up the mound of bread dough Eleanor had been pounding and shaped it into a couple of oversized sausage shapes on a flat metal tray before putting them to one side to rest. She then moved Eleanor on to chopping and grinding various leaves, roots and dried flower petals. “For all your lad’s as close-mouthed as they get, word of you will be all over the village by tonight. We’re likely to be getting visitors on all manner of pretexts and their favourite is going to be some tonic or tea for an imaginary ailment.”

Spending the evening being stared and verbally poked at by nosey strangers? No, absolutely not. She’d simply have to be ill, a chill from the horrible trip here. Except she was living with the village healer, and Sarah would likely take more convincing than just Eleanor’s word. Just how long would it take to walk back to town?

Escape plans were interrupted by a brisk knock on the door and a woman’s voice calling through. “Sarah, my dear, word is you have a new resident, may I come in?”

Sarah called back. “Please do, Ingrid. I’ve just been terrifying poor Eleanor with predictions of tonight’s influx.”

The woman letting herself into Sarah’s kitchen was small and wiry, with a twinkle in her eye and an air of suppressed energy. Sarah said to Eleanor. “This is Ingrid, our village head. Ingrid, Eleanor is Cadan’s new wife and comes to us from the trade world of town.”

Eleanor stood a bobbed a curtsey, uncomfortably aware of the probable flour smudges up her arms, across her face and she was sure her hair was half white. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

Ingrid’s smile was warm and kind. “It’s lovely to meet you too. I couldn’t believe it when Matthew murmured in my ear this morning, but you know he’s not the type to carry tall tales.”

Sarah snorted. “Matthew doesn’t carry tales at all unless he deems them important. He’s fond of our lass already and no doubt worried about the smithy family’s reaction.”

That didn’t sound good. Eleanor eyed Sarah worriedly, but Ingrid waved a dismissive hand. “You let me deal with Evan Smith and that girl of his.”

Sarah grinned. “That I’ll do, and gladly. Eleanor is already a far better foil and partner to Cadan than Martha Smith could ever manage.”

Eleanor bit her tongue. Sarah was being kind. She’d not seen their interaction for more than the short time between their arrival and her falling asleep the night before, and she must have heard them arguing that morning.

Ingrid sat at the long bench normally tucked under the table, sipping on Sarah’s tea and over the course of mixing up two batches of stomach tonic, and one of burn paste, extracted most of Eleanor’s life story.

She finished her tea and said. “You’ll find this place a change from what you’re used to. I’m afraid we don’t do much trade here, other than with the castle, so not much call for scribing and calculating. Sarah’s suggestions are good ones.”

Ingrid stood, a small furrow between her brows. “I’ll need to think on your account of the Stoney Hill Farmers taking advantage. It rubs my fur wrong to be treated so, but we need somewhere to stay for Gandry trips.”

Eleanor said. “Then pay them in coin, same rate as one of the cheaper inns in town. You’ll still come out on top and they’ll be obliged to treat you as proper guests rather than vagabonds.”

She bit her tongue on other ideas, such as backing the set-up of a proper guest house along the Tradeway. Ingrid was kind, and seemed a careful, caring leader, but she didn’t think like a merchant.

Sarah started Eleanor on chopping vegetables for dinner as Ingrid left for her own hearth, saying as she left. “I’ll send my Tilly around the other houses, let them know they’re not to badger you this evening. The women can meet you in the bath house tomorrow, and they’ll carry word enough back to the menfolk.”

The bath house was sounding worse and worse, but now there was no way of getting out of it.

Sarah said. “You can take a break from that knife for a moment if you wish, and help me gather tomorrow’s clothes for Matthew and Cadan. I leave them out on the verandah so they don’t track mud all over the place before their wash.”

Eleanor felt her cheeks heat. She had no idea what went into deciding what a man should wear each day. It felt more intimate than waking up next to him. She stood and followed Sarah in and out of the two bedrooms. It proved fairly simple in all, there wasn’t much choice to be made. Cadan had three of everything, including what he was wearing out in the forest right then. Since one set was for the wash, having been worn in Gandry, there was only one of each item to collect and bundle up.

Sarah told her as they put the clothes on one of the two deep-seated wooden chairs outside. “We’ll do laundry tomorrow afternoon. I try and only do it every second day. When Gwen was little, I swear I spent more waking time in that bath house than I did in my own home.”

The chopped vegetables were being added to the stew, when Eleanor heard the mumble of male voices outside, one urgent, one calm. The door stayed closed, no one poked their tousled head in to see how she was, she pinched her lips together and focused on the large pottery bowl Sarah placed in front of her.

“Now we need to make the dough for tomorrow’s bread. I’ll measure up for you, bread making’s a hard-won art, so you’re staying with mixing and the kneading for now.”

As Eleanor mixed and added, then folded and pushed at the dough, guiltily aware of the amount of flour she was spreading across herself and the table, she wondered how this sort of life would ever work for her. Even if it was rather nice to imagine Sebastian’s face in the pasty white mound in front of her. She punched it. Hard.

Finally, it was set aside to meditate or contemplate or whatever it was bread dough did to grow itself, and Eleanor realised just how much she hurt. Her arms, her hands, her back were all aching in that way that said she would have considerable trouble moving any of them the next morning.

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