molly had given the enormous basket of sewing a dispirited look and seized her ax and a whetstone. Ashley shot her an amused look over the haft of his own ax.
“See?” said Father Kirk to Ava. “Look around you. In God’s grace is your deliverance.” Ava’s eyes were fastened on his face; her sewing lay forgotten on her lap.
Dennis wondered at his wife. She had never seemed so much at ease, though this was the bitterest winter in memory.
“I think not,” said Dennis, in answer to his son’s question. He was inspecting his boots; in winter, holes could cost a man a foot. He put one down near the fire and picked up the other. “They are bigger than boarhounds, the wolves from the high north; it has been twenty years since they came so near.” Dennis reached down and caressed Pyos’s gaunt head; the d
