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answer her.
    â€œIs Carver what your own people call you?” she persisted. “Why do you travel with a foreigner? Why doesn’t he know your name?” The young man closed his eyes, and she wasn’t sure he was listening anymore. “Carver’s what we’ll call you if you can’t tell us something better. But don’t you want us to call you by your name?”
    â€œNo,” he whispered. “I don’t have a name anymore.” And he pretended to sleep until she gave up asking questions and walked away.
    That night, Maddie dreamed that the young wood-carver was walking through her town. His face was very white, but the shadow at his feet was sooty black, as black as a hole in the ground. He stopped, but the shadow didn’t want to stand still with him. It flickered like a dark flame, as if it longed to tear itself free, and all the green grass that fell under it turned dry and brittle. She stepped closer, leaning down to look at it, and the black form on the ground gave a long, shuddering hiss.
    Maddie woke and sat up in the darkness with the hiss still in her ears, remembering the enemy standing at her door. But this time it wasn’t a hiss she heard. The sick wood-carver was talking in his sleep. She dozed off again, listening to the soft whispers repeating over and over, like a song without a tune.

5
    The next morning, as Maddie hunted for eggs, she heard a gruff voice hailing her. The Traveler was limping along by Angus. “Hey!” he called. “How’s the lad?” Maddie reluctantly came over.
    â€œCarver’s getting better,” she reported coldly. “The fever is gone, but he’s too weak to be up yet. He was badly wounded.”
    The old man gave a noncommittal grunt. “Wounded how?” he asked. “The farmhands was talking nonsense over some big bogey from the loch.”
    â€œIt was an animal with claws. It slashed him across the chest, so—and so—and so, like that,” she explained, mimicking the long strokes over her own front.
    Ned chuckled. “Yeah, like that,” he agreed with a grin. Maddie frowned. “The lad talking yet?” he continued, and that put her in mind of all those beatings he must have given out. She glared wholeheartedly at him. The blackguard had no feelings at all.
    â€œYou told me yourself that he never speaks,” she snapped.
    â€œBless me if you ain’t keeping secrets for him already! Do Ned a favor,” he proposed, fishing out a grimy coin. “Run and bring a mouthful of that water of life. Ah, come on,” he coaxed as she looked disgusted. “The boy would want you to. Fetch old Ned a bit to live on while I’m dragged around.”
    Maddie marched over to Little Ian’s house and found his wife at home. “Here,” she said shortly, holding out the penny, “the old felon in chains wants a drop.”
    The woman was just stirring the morning porridge. She took the penny. “If Black Ewan keeps him through the harvest like he plans,” she remarked, “this may be the first year that we pay our rent in coins.”

    Carver slept most of the next several days, the fever, wounds, and blood loss having left him in a state of apathetic weakness. He rarely spoke, and his hands shook so much that he could hardly feed himself.
    â€œMadeleine,” he called one morning as she walked by. “Where are my carving tools?”
    â€œGoodness,” answered Maddie, “I don’t know. I suppose they’re wherever you left them.”
    â€œIn the castle,” he whispered, stirring restlessly under the blankets. “That was days ago. They might be stolen.”
    â€œNo one steals around here,” said Maddie with a smile. “Everyone would know about it.” But the young man still looked worried.
    â€œCould you bring them to me?” he asked. “They’re on a shelf in the back corner, rolled up in a