Chapter 104

It was a cool, windy day sometime in the spring, and a bright chorus of birds chirped in the throng of trees outside the small wooden-slatted hut. Inside it was warm thanks to the fire in the fireplace, burning strong even though it was perhaps three in the afternoon. A small spit of meat was hooked over it, stripped from a few of the meatier birds that had lived outside the hut until that morning, and the juicy smell hung in the air, scenting the place with a rich and homely aroma. A plain, flat wooden table sat near the fireplace, and across from it, a simple pot and grill of sapling twigs and were arranged ready to be used over a second fireplace. There was a plain straw bed-down in the far side, nestled between two slatted windows that were at the moment wide open, and two doors in opposing walls. One, the frontmost door, hung ajar, an abandoned woodcutting axe propped beside it. A commotion of voices and footsteps could be heard from inside.

'I will not bed with you,' sa