That's what you got for being a servant of no ambition: a shrunken life, hung up like a gibbet as a warning to others.
The crow flew closer, as if to hear its praises.
And tonight Mary could taste bitterness going down like a nut, settling in her stomach. It planted itself, put down roots, and began to grow, nourished on her dark blood.
For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.
The worn soles of Daffy's boots skidded on the icy stones. He'd been saving up for a new pair for Christmas, but then he'd come across an encyclopaedia in ten volumes, going cheap. Boots might last ten years, at best, but knowledge was eternal.
It came to Mary now that her mother had been right, after all; Mary had been born for this. In sixteen years she'd shot along the shortest route she could find between life and death, as the crow flew.
Sometimes words were like glass that broke in her mouth.
Daffy bent down suddenly, and picked a small startled white flower. "Anemone," he said, handing it over; he made her repeat the word until she had it right. "Find me a silk to match that.
For some people, she thought, trials were only temporary; they sailed towards happiness through the roughest weather.
I may have had moments of regret in my life, but you know, they wouldn't add up to an hour.
In the yard of the inn, Daffy Cadwaladyr introduced himself. "Short for Davyd," he said pleasantly. The Londoner looked as if she'd never heard a sillier name in her life.
