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drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them with her good arm. She shook, obviously cold and terrified. Uldolf took a few steps toward her, but she flinched and tried to pull herself into more of a ball, burying her face in her knees.
    Uldolf stopped approaching and crouched so he wouldn’t loom over her. With their heads roughly on the same level, he said, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
    After a moment, she raised her head slightly. A pair of green eyes stared at him through strings of wet, blood-clotted hair.
    “My name’s Uldolf. I live on a farm near here.” He gestured toward the other fork in the creek.
    She peered at him over her knees, attempting to hug herself tighter, as if that was possible.
    “What’s your name?”
    She sucked in a deep breath, but didn’t say anything.
    “Do you understand anything I’m asking?” Uldolf wished hehad made more of an effort to learn German, or Polish, or any of the other languages that the Christians had imported into Prûsa. He tried one of the few German words that he knew, pointing at himself. “Friend.”
    She only stared at him. She still shook, but at least it now seemed to be more from cold than from fear.
    Dozens of possibilities were flying through his head. The most likely one was that she was the victim of vicious outlaws. A blow like that to the head, and someone with murder on his mind would most likely be satisfied to leave her to die. Even uninjured, throwing someone naked into the wilderness was a death sentence. She couldn’t have been here much longer than half an hour, or the cold or some wild animal would have killed her.
    Uldolf glanced up at the scarred skin of the oak tree and shuddered. What that animal could have done to human flesh did not bear thinking about.
    He took a step back and looked about. Fortunately, he saw no sign of man nor beast. Listening, he heard no additional breathing, no footsteps.
    He looked down at the woman. Her shivering was painful to watch.
    “We have to cover you up,” he said, reaching for her.
    She raised her head toward his hand and bit him. He yanked his hand away and shook it.
    “You can’t do that!”
    She stared at him.
    “Don’t you understand?
I only have the one!
” He waved his hand in front of her face, the meat between thumb and forefinger bright red. He balled it up into a fist. “Do you want me to leave you here? Is that what you want?”
    She cowered and started crying.
    Uldolf looked at his fist and suddenly felt wretched. It wasn’t her fault, but one of his greatest fears was having some injuryhappen to his remaining arm. He had had eight years to adjust to his loss. It was hard, but he managed as well as anyone. But if anything happened to the arm he had left …
    But she hadn’t even broken the skin.
    He crouched again, rubbing the inflamed part of his hand against his leg. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t yell at you. But that hurt.”
    Now that he was within arm’s reach of her, he could see the wound on her head better. The flesh was torn around it, and in the center he thought he could see bone glisten. “Still, you must hurt worse.”
    She sniffed, and turned her face to look at him again.
    “You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?”
    At least she had stopped crying.
    “I just startled you, didn’t I?” He sighed and took his leather satchel off his shoulder. “I’m going to do this slowly, and we’re going to have no more biting. Do you understand?”
    He took off his cloak. It was dark brown and had a sheepskin lining he had tailored himself. It was very warm, and it had comforted him through the worst of three winters so far. Very cautiously, he reached around and draped it over her. Still, the motion startled her, and she actually tried to duck out from under it before it settled across her shoulders.
    Uldolf backed away, stood, and let her watch him. He held up his arm. “See, I’m not trying to do anything.”
    She looked at him, then at the cloak