“Go where?”
“We’re clearing out the camp,” he said. “You’ll be marching east, where we can find homes for you orphans. Now go on, get your things or leave them behind.”
“But my brother—”
This time when he jabbed her with the butt of his spear, his touch wasn’t as gentle. “Take what you need, but only what you can carry. It’s going to be a long march.”
“Where—?”
“Move!” His companion walked on, poking a spear through hovels and the other pathetic shelters the refugees from Gent had put up beyond the tannery, but they were already empty. Indeed, the camp itself was far more quiet than usual, but now that she listened, she heard the nervous buzz of voices from down by the southeast road.
Though she had five knives tucked here and there inside her clothes, she knew it was pointless to resist. She scrambled back inside the canvas shelter, grabbed the pot and bowl, nesting the one inside the other, rolled up their blankets and tied them with a leather cord, and bound up her shawl to make a carry pack. She began to take down the canvas shelter.
“Here, now, leave that!”
“How can I leave that?” she demanded, turning on him. “What if it rains? We’ll need to shelter under something!”
He considered this, hesitating. “We’re to shelter at church estates, but there are so many of you … perhaps it’s wisest to have some shelter of your own. If the weather turns colder, or there’s snow …” He shrugged.
“Is everyone leaving?”
But he wouldn’t answer more of her questions, and she sensed that time was short. The rolled-up canvas was an unwieldy burden, and together with buckets, blankets, and pot she could barely stagger along under the weight.
The sight of the refugees made her sick with terror. Herded into a ragged line along the road, she realized suddenly how very young they all were. For every twenty children there was, perhaps, a single adult—even counting the soldiers, all of them grim as they held spears to prevent any child from slipping out of line. The sheer amount of bawling and wailing was like an assault, a wave of fear spilling out from the children who had escaped Gent and now were being driven away even from the meager shelter they had made here at Steleshame.
Anna spotted Helvidius. He leaned heavily on his stick and little Helen, beside him, sat on the stool with the precious bag of food draped over her lap. She cried without sound, and yellow-green snot ran from her nose. The old poet’s face brightened when he saw Anna.
“Where’s Matthias?” she asked as she came up beside him.
“I don’t know,” said the old man. “I tried to tell them I’m a great poet, that the young lord will be angry at them for sending me away, but they drove me out and didn’t listen! I think they mean to march these four hundred children to the marchlands. I suppose there’s always a need for a pair of growing hands in the wilderness.”
“But this isn’t everyone.”
“Nay, just those deemed useless and a burden. When we first got here from Gent last spring, some third of the children were taken away by farming folk who live west of here, for a strong child is always welcome as a help to work the land. And those who work now for Mistress Gisela, like the blacksmiths—they’ll stay. And a few families who hope to go back to Gent in time, but only those which have an adult to care for the children. Nay, child, all the rest of us will be marched east to Osterburg and farther yet, past the Oder River and into the marchlands—”
“But how far is it?” Helen began to cry out loud, and Anna set down the pot and hoisted the little girl up onto her hip.
“A month or more, two months, three more like. Lady Above, how do they expect these children to walk so far, and how do they intend to feed them along the way?”
Three months. Anna could not really conceive of three months’ time, especially not with winter coming on. “But I don’t want to go,” she said, beginning to cry, beginning to panic. “It’s better to stay here, isn’t it?”
Someone had managed to get a flock of goats together, and in truth the goats milled no more aimlessly than did the frightened children. Pinch-faced toddlers whined and wriggled in the arms of children no older than eight or twelve. An adolescent girl with a swelling belly and her worldly goods tied to her back held tightly onto two young siblings who could not have been more than five or six; they, too, carried bedrolls tied to their thin shoulders. Two boys of about Anna’s age clung together. A girl tied cloth around the feet of a small child to protect it against frost and mud. A little red-haired boy sat alone on the cold ground and sobbed.