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. Not a house remained
standing. Stock had been slaughtered, granaries raided and
burned, wells poisoned. At least most had escaped with
their lives, if little else.
Michael gazed at the destruction and said firmly, "My
lady, Sir Thomas's manor is a fortnight's journey. Let me
take you there. We can travel by night. ..."
Nikol didn't hear him, walked away from him in mid-
speech. Stripping off her armor, she stacked it neatly in a
comer of a blackened wall. Beneath the armor she wore the
cast-off clothes of her brother that she had worn when the
two of them practiced their sword work together. Binding a
strip of torn linen, found hanging from a tree limb, around
her nose and mouth, she entered the castle and began the
thankless task of cleaning.
She was vaguely aware, after a time, that Michael was
at her side, attempting, when he could, to take the more
onerous tasks upon himself. She straightened from her
work, brushed a lock of her ragged-cut hair from her face,
and stared at him. "You don't have to stay here. I can
manage. Sir Thomas would be glad to have you."
Michael regarded her with an air of exasperation and
concern. "Nikol, don't you understand by now? I could no
more leave you than I could fly off into the sky. I want to
stay. I love you."
He might have been speaking the Elvish tongue, for all
she understood him. His words made no sense to her. She
was too numb, couldn't fed them.
"I'm so tired," she said. "I can't sleep. It's all hopeless,
isn't it? But, at least we'll have a place to die
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