Free Columbine by MIRANDA JARRETT

replaced by neat farms, barns and houses centered in snow-dappled fields. Then had come the wild meadows, where big trees had long ago been cut for timber and firewood and where new saplings grew brave and leggy among the stumps, But now, as the sun dropped low, there seem el nothing but old snow and rocks and trees, endless trees, their dark boughs hanging over the river and brushing against the sloop’s mast.
    “Here, girl, you’d best eat.” Startled, Dianna
     
    looked up as Asa squatted beside her and handed her a chunk of the coarse bread he was eating. He wore soft-soled shoes, sewn of leather, that had made his footsteps silent, and the ease with which he could appear without warning unsettled her.
    Chewing, he flipped up one corner of her cloak and fingered the fur lining.
    “What dye Londoners pay for a cloak like this?”
    “I don’t recall exactly,” said Dianna.
    “Seven, perhaps eight guineas. My father bought it for me.”
    Asa grunted with disbelief.
    “Mighty dear for rabbit.”
    “Nay, it’s beaver. Madame du Paigne would not have sold rabbit in her shop.”
    “Nay, girl, ‘tis rabbit,” he countered amiably, unimpressed by Madame du Paigne or her shop.
    “Oh, it’s been dyed an’ clipped to look fair, but them pelts grew up by hoppin’, not swimmin’.”
    He uncorked a small earthenware jug and tipped it back. When he was finished drinJdng, he sighed contentedly, wiped the jug’s neck with his thumb and offered the jug to Dianna. She shook her head, but decided instead to take advantage of his good humor.
    He must, she thought, have been the winner in the game below.
    “Where are we bound?” she asked.
    “Wickhamton.”
    He might have said the moon for all that meant to her.
    “Is that where you live?”
    “Near enough. Though the house be Mercy’s now.”
    “Is Mercy your wife?”
    “Nay. That needle-tongued article left so long past I disremember her face. But I miss our lad,” he said sadly.
    “Aye, Torn I miss.”
    He’re corked the jug and pointed ahead to where the river curved. High on the spit of land stood a square log building.
    “We’ll sleep at Brockton’s ordinary this night.”
    There was no dock, and Dianna wondered if she’d be expected to wade ashore through the icy water, or worse yet, be carried. As the sloop hove too close to the bank, one of the crewmen swung a long, thin board from the sloop’s side to the riverbank to serve as a gangplank. Asa went first, and quickly Dianna followed—too quickly. To her surprise, the plank still bounced up and down from the weight of his footsteps, tossing her upward. Instinctively she outstretched her arms for balance like a rope walker and kept her eyes straight ahead. When she reached the shore, the sailors laughed raucously behind her, and she knew then they’d expected her to tumble off. So much for their fun, she thought crossly, and trotted after Asa.
    She had not realized how cold she’d become until she stepped inside the ordinary and felt the welcoming warmth from the hearth. There was only the one room, the walls unpeeled logs and the floor packed earth. Five men, dressed piecemeal much like Asa, sprawled on benches around a trestle table, eating and drinking with their hats still on. Before the hearth, a haughty black woman with notched earlobes stirred her kettles, and a man leaned against the wall, smoking a Dutch clay pipe. Every last one of them turned to stare at Dianna.
    “Ye be a mite old to start up with a trollop, Wing,” said the man with the pipe, speaking what the others were all thinking.
    “How’d you coax her t’come with yer sorry old carcass?”
    Asa rested his hand on Dianna’s shoulder.
    “Keep yet foul thoughts to yerself, Brockton. This be a lady, not a trollop, and she’s come to help me wit’ Mercy.
    Stay close to me, Annie,” he said stoutly, “and these rogues will show ye no mischief.”
    It was the first time anyone had shortened Dianna’s name to Annie and the