Pell went down to the back step before the first bell, because the bread would not make itself and the siege had been lifted in the night, and somebody had to be sitting on the cold stone when the girl came out of the loft.
Kessa was there already, sitting with her knees drawn up and her black-stained hands wrapped in a clean rag. The silver bell lay in her lap on its grey cord, catching the first thin gleam of the sky.
She did not raise her head when Pell came out of the Kitchen door. She only tightened her hands in the rag.
“Get up, girl,” said Pell.
Kessa got up.
“Come in. The proof is set and the oven is hot and the bread is not going to shape itself, not on a day like this.” Pell put her hands on her hips and looked at the girl, very hard, the way she looked at a loaf that had come out of the tin too pale. “You are coming back into my Kitchen, and you are going to knead.”
Kessa’s mouth opened. Then it shut again, and her chin went down toward her chest.
“I cannot,” she said. “Pell, the fire—”
