Sabina woke with a start. Something lay on top of her and she struggled to throw it off. Knees clutched to her chest, she huddled in the center of a great soft bed while her eyes adjusted to the dim light. On the floor beside the bed lay the blanket she had just tossed off. Carefully, she slid off the bed and padded towards the door. She pulled the handle. Locked. She looked back over the room. A bed, a night stand with an unlit oil lamp and a wash stand and pitcher. One small shuttered window. She tried prying the window open, but the latch, jammed tight, only made her fingers bleed from the effort. She let out a growl of frustration and pounded her fist into the wooden frame. Her eyes fell again on the pitcher and she smiled to herself.

***

When Agran entered the room, he did so cautiously. He carried with him a tray of hot food. The room was still dark, and the girl lay asleep under the folds of the blanket. He placed the tray on the night stand and tip toed toward the bed. Something crunched beneath his booted foot. The pitcher lay broken on the floor. It was all the warning he had as the girl flung herself off the bed wielding a broken shard of glazed pottery. He caught her by the waist and spun her around. She stabbed backwards, and the fragment gouged his thigh. With a grunt, he struggled to keep one hand wrapped firmly around her while he tried to fend her off with his other hand. She kicked, but he stepped forward to lock both her legs against the bed. With great cost to the skin on his palm, he wrested the piece of pottery out of her hands, and tossed it into the far corner of the room. He snaked his free hand across her arms and held her still, both of them breathing hard. He could feel her trembling in his grasp. With a muttered curse, he hastily released her and took a step back.

***

When she felt his arms let go, she dove into the center of the bed and pulled the blanket up over herself. He would not have her. She would not let him. She would bite him. Claw his eyes out first. She fisted her hands in the sheets. Her palms bloody from the pitcher shard. She felt the bed sag under the weight of the knight. She sat still. After a moment he spoke.

"I won't hurt you." He said. "I promise. I only want to help."

She said nothing.

"I brought food." He tried again.

Her stomach reminded her how hungry she was. She ignored it.

She felt the weight on the bed lift as he stood.

"I'll send someone to clean this." He said. "I ask that you please don't attack them."

When she heard the door close behind him, she pulled the blanket back down. Her eyes fell on the tray. She slipped back out of bed and approached it. Hard cheese, soft bread and stew. The smell made her mouth water. Deliberately, she picked it up and threw it at the door. Stew trickled down the wood paneling to drip onto the floor. Without another glance, Sabina crawled back into bed.

***

When the old woman entered the room, she paused only long enough to wag a thick finger in Sabina's direction.

"You try any of that nonsense with me, girl, and you won't sit for a week. You get me?" She said.

Sabina clutched the bed and watched the woman through narrowed eyes.

As the old woman shut the door, her eyes fell on the stew congealing on the floor.

"Hmph." She said. " The size of you, you'd think you'd be done starving if you could."

Sabina said nothing.

"No? Well, I suppose you'll go hungry a little while more then. I make three meals a day and that's it. You want to throw them at the walls, you go right ahead and throw them at the walls, but I won't be making any extra when the hunger makes you sorry for it. You'll just go right ahead and wait for the next meal."

She set her broom against the wall and knelt to wipe the remains of dinner from the floor. She clucked her tongue in annoyance.

"Such waste." She muttered. "I know Master Agran likes his strays, but I think he's bit off more than he can swallow with this one."

Huffing, she got to her feet and strode to the window. Throwing her shoulder into the frame, she wrenched the latch up with one hand and pushed the shutters back. She flapped the rag out the window with enough vigor to make it snap. Late afternoon sunlight streamed into the room.

"I've told him to fix that latch, I have." She said. "Going to be the death of me that man. Never listens to my good solid advice. 'Hire a man.' I says. " 'No, Nana,' he says 'we can't trouble no man with a little thing like that.' Fix it himself, he says. Like he's ever fixed a thing in his life."
She stuffed the rag back in her apron and eyed Sabina sharply.

"Well, no latches anyhow." She amended. "Fixed plenty of people, he has."

She took up her broom and swept up the shards of pitcher.

"Not you though, girl." She continued. "You got too much of that wild in you."

The broken pottery followed the dinner leftovers out the window.

Sabina scuttled backwards in the bed when the old woman approached, but it did no good. With a quick motion, Nana seized both of Sabina's wrists in her firm grip.

"Hush now, girl." She said, ignoring Sabina's protest. "You're bleeding all over my sheets and if there's anything I hate more than cleaning blood out of linen I haven't found it yet. Let me see your hands."

She tsked as she pried open Sabina's hands and examined the palms. Out came a bottle of ointment and some balm, both of which Nana applied liberally. When she finished, Nana tucked the jars back into her pockets and wrapped the wounds with bandages.

"You keep those on now, you hear." She said, straightening. "I won't have you ruining my hard work."

She folded her arms and gave a Sabina a hard stare.

"You want my advice," she said. "You mind yourself and play nice. I think even you know how to make pretend when you have to. Get yourself a few good meals in you. You won't make it through a winter with all that skin and bones. A person needs a little meat to keep off the cold. Wherever it was you came from, I'm thinking it'll still be there when you're good and fed up again."

Then she leaned forward and thrust her finger at Sabina.

"You do what you did to master Agran again, though, and I will toss you out in the street with the refuse. You hear me, girl? I will have no more of that."

Sabina watched the woman's finger warily.

Nana took her silence for consent.

"Good." She said, brushing her hands on her skirt.

She gathered her broom and the silver-plated dinner tray and swept out of the room, locking the door behind her.