Prologue

As soon as we heard the dogs barking, Father knew there would be trouble. He stopped mid-stitch, set down the boar bristle needle and the boot he was mending, and hobbled to the window on one booted and one bare foot. He lifted the wood bar and opened the shutter just enough to peek out.

"On [Welsh] God's beard!" he growled, "the fool's have come in the snow."

I knew who he meant. I was very young, a boy, maybe seven maybe eight. I had a sister, she was six, and we both knew who he meant. The men who came with the silver. There were sometimes three of them, sometimes a lot more. One day during the last summer, eight of them came, all heavily armed. They had brought a lot of silver, almost two weeks worth.

Father didn't like it when they came. It gave him work, and it paid him well, [hello] , but he didn't like them around. They camped across the clearing, at the edge of the wood, and spent all their time eating and gambling and drinking and ordering my sister around like a servant, while Father and I worked. We all hated it anddreaded their coming. Yet I didn't understand why Father was angry that they'd arrived during a snowstorm.

Father barred the shutter again and limped back to the table for his boot. "Feed the fire, girl," he said, pulling the boot on, and my sister turned from [what she was doing] to drop new kindling on the fire. He tucked the loop of gut down into the boot and jabbed the quill needle into the sheepskin lining.

"Cameron," he said to me, "bring in two rabbits, and leave the rest in the ground."

"How many are there?" I said, meaning how many men.

"Four," he said, "and they better've brought their own food this time, because two rabbits and bread are all they're getting." We took our sheepskin capes from the pegs by the door, wrapped them around us and went outside.

It had been snowing all night and the storm was tapering off. The wind that had gusted until midday was now as still as the snow, a light, dry snow about two hands deep. The four horsemen plodded across the clearing toward us. Our two dogs circled them, barking ominously, but neither men nor horses seemed to notice. They were numb from the cold.