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Page 181
coming down the wooden steps. "Please ladle the porridge, Mariah," René directed. "We have guests to serve,"

Mariah took up the long-handled ladle and spooned white porridge, the consistency of paste, into a long wooden trencher.
The stuff had hardly any aroma and was as insipid as it smelled. Nevertheless, despite not being a breakfast person, she'd begun eating porridge in the morning, since it was available. The days here were long and arduous, and she couldn't start out without eating something. The travelers would probably feel the same way. Or maybe they liked the goop.
But they did not immediately sit at the tables. Instead, they congregated in the kitchen. Francis's young sister Ann, in a brown-checked gown and with a bonnet in her hand, approached Mariah. Her wide-set gray eyes were troubled. "Miss Walker, Francis said you believe soldiers will follow us closely, perhaps even stop us before we find a place to settle."
Mariah took a deep breath, trying to find a way to explain her concern without sounding nuts. She looked into the trencher of porridge as though it held an answer.
Before she spoke, Thorn broke in. He stood near the hearth beside her, clad in a fringed leather shirt. "All the soldiers have done thus far is to tear down settlements that did not belong. They have not harmed settlers, and to think they will"
"Is prudent," interrupted Mariah. She again looked at the young woman and the others hovering uneasily in the doorway. "I hope I'm wrong, but just in case, it wouldn't hurt to wait here for a few days." But would that be a solution, or would the soldiers go after them whenever they left? Damn that screenplay for giving hints without detailsor reliability!
And damn Pierce all the more for putting her in this untenable position.
She heard a noise at her side and turned to find Thorn with his jaw clenched. "If you wish their company so badly, Miss

 
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