It had taken me most of a day to bring that damned letter to Muldon’s widow and to return to camp, a task that should have taken far less time. A task I could easily have given to any old sutler. I worried about being missed, but, in the end, there was a coney roast in full swing and no one had noticed me missing. My compatriots had been out hunting.
Bellair held out a plate of meat and bread to me. “Hungry?”
“Thanks,” I said. I was famished.
My own weakness cranked up and down my skin. I ate the rabbit meat too fast. My dastardly innards felt like ungreased cast-iron fittings. I slowed down with the bread, watching the other men, their weird fluid movements and joking ways. I did like Bellair, my new friend, the way he wore his cap like an amulet crammed down upon his scalp even as
