So small, this new girl-child of his. Her downy hair was crisp with drying blood. He held her cradled in the crook of his arm and combed carefully through stiffening strands, thinking of the girl who’d gone to Othrod’s boy, long ago.

Her mother looked on with glazed eyes. She was in a fever already. He saw another parting coming, the hardest of all.

One more, he’d said. One more, when Othrod’s gang went to the wolves. One more might cost him both of them. A babe needed a mother’s milk.

Curly tugged at his elbow. “Da, what’s she called?”