they needed to eat and even paying them enough to replace lost livestock. Some dreamed of freedom and saved enough to become freemen one day; perhaps many, she had never made a count. And these were all the dreams such people were capable of, certainly. All that they might require.
As she walked past pastures and small fields of crops she could not bring herself to imagine her own life coming to that. It was, after all, the same work, day after day, the same talk among the village huts each evening. A small existence with little sport or adventure. Though your taste for adventure is what got you into trouble in the first place, she reminded herself. That hunger was fading, but the idea still did excite her in a very real way. For the past two days, she had wondered how she would fare on the road, alone in the world, lost in the land. She did not see the situation as hopeless, having been well educated in spite of herself, and she still had her beauty—something a few men she'd known had valued more than gold. In the proper light, this could be seen as an opportunity for her to discover the world. Surely some wonderful things would happen, and just as surely, if trouble arrived, there would be a gentleman or two more than willing to come to her r