Outside, the first horns sounded from the tree line—not the urgent blare of a charge, but the long, organized notes of an army that intended to be seen arriving. Edric went to the mill door and looked. The wheat parted in dark avenues where cavalry rode. Foot soldiers came behind in blocks. The crimson banners did not flutter so much as insist.
"Do we run?" Pip whispered. He was eight and had flour always in his hair from hanging around Corin's stones.
"Where?" Nessa, his sister by two years and by temperament, had already arranged their shared blanket into a nest. "The forest belongs to the ruins. The south road is watched. Running is how you meet the part of an army that likes chasing."
Sibley rested a hand on the mill's worn counter. "We do not run. We meet them at the wall with open hands and closed ledgers. Osric wants grain. Grain can be counted. Counting is a kind of shield if you hold it steady."
"And if he wants more than grain?" Edric asked.
Sibley's eyes went to the ruined castle on its hill, a shape every child of Stonewell learned to ignore and never quite managed to. "Then we will discover what kind of man the years have made of the boy who burned his own home to keep it from strangers."
Miren glanced down. Vetch had gone still, resin eyes fixed on the same distant ruin. One wing twitched—an old pain, or an old memory. When Miren offered a palm of water from the mill dipper, Vetch drank, then pressed the damp snout briefly to her wrist, not in affection so much as in acknowledgment of a bargain not yet spoken.
"You came through our well," she murmured. "You could have gone to the creek. You wanted witnesses."
Vetch made the gate-hinge sound again, softer.
Tobin wiped his face. "His captains will ask who sounded the bell. They'll ask who rides messenger. I'll say I came for my sister's sake and saw banners. Truth enough to stand on."
"And the wellscale?" Corin nodded at Vetch. "If they see it with the King's cloth—"
"They won't," Miren said. She was already wrapping Vetch loosely in her apron, a soft darkness against teal and beige. Vetch permitted the cover with the dignity of someone choosing temporary inconvenience. "There's a dry cistern under the shrine. Sibley, the old hatch—"
"Still opens," Sibley said. "For those who remember to oil it."