gamferth

Hild was thinking hard.

It was not as if she didn’t have enough to do with trying to make her supplies last out. Or with talking to folk in the village about dropping in for a drink and some of her ‘special’ onion and bean pottage. It was never as popular as her mutton stew for some reason, but she had to make the meat last.

There was an ominous aura of melancholy on the streets of Bancross in the days after the battle. The worried faces and itching sword-arms had been quietly replaced by tear-filled eyes, hunched backs and feet dragging on the ground behind them. While our dead could be counted in a handful, the pained and wounded were more plentiful; some with missing limbs, while others got away with only deep cuts and bruises. The east-borne enemy had not fared as well.

We said farewell to our kinsmen last night with the lighting of pyres in the center of the village near the mead-hall. I knew some of the fallen by name and face, but not intimately. I feel selfish for being thankful for this. Others are heartbroken. And while I have had my share of being broken with grief, I still can't muster a good reason why I should not suffer as they do.

Foolish thoughts, I know.