The days that followed Rob's return were good.
That made Bruce suspicious. Good things, in Bruce's experience, usually arrived carrying a hidden bill. The police captain had done that sometimes, calling with a warm voice to ask how Bruce was feeling, only to slide neatly into asking when he would be fit for work again. Amber had done it too. She had praised Bruce's bed the first time she came to his apartment, then somehow he had ended up sleeping on the couch while she claimed the mattress as if it were ancestral land.
Criminals were worse. Criminals smiled, offered drinks, spoke kindly, and waited for your guard to fall.
So yes, Bruce trusted good things about as much as he trusted quiet vans with tinted windows.
Rob, however, seemed determined to be useful before anyone could accuse him of anything.
The morning after he arrived, Bruce woke to the smell of smoke, fish, and something frying in the iron pot. Lili was still asleep under the blankets near the hearth, one hand curled protectively around Bruce. Rob was already awake. He crouched by the fire in his shirt sleeves, blond hair messy, beard rough, moving quietly so as not to wake them.
That made Bruce suspicious at once. Why was he awake before everyone else? Had he stolen something?
Bruce considered this carefully, then remembered they owned almost nothing worth stealing. Unless Rob had taken a clay bowl, some string, or the rooster's dignity, there was not much loot available.
Still, why was he making breakfast? Was it poisoned?
By the time Lili stirred, the fire was bright, the water was hot, food was ready, and the chickens had already received crumbs. This made the hens regard Rob with the solemn approval usually reserved for divine beings, dropped grain, and anyone holding bread.
The food, suspiciously, was not poisoned.
Bruce tested this by reaching one cautious finger toward it, though the fish was hot and nearly burned her. Rob noticed, laughed softly, and moved the bowl farther away.
Suspicious.
Then, before Lili could even properly object to a guest feeding them in their own house, Rob went to work.
First came the door.
The poor thing had never truly worked. It opened when it wished, closed when persuaded, and stayed shut only when the weather felt generous. Rob took one look at it, made a sound of disgust, and fetched his knife, cord, and a piece of hard wood.
By noon, the door opened without screaming, closed without needing to be kicked, and could be tied shut from the inside with a loop of rope and a wooden peg. It was not a proper lock, not really, but it was the closest thing the cabin had ever known to security.
Bruce watched from the floor with great seriousness. Rob had been useful. Door improved. House defense increased by maybe seven percent. That was undeniably good.
After the door, the next day came the roof.
This was more dramatic. Rob gathered reeds and straw from near the lake, tied them into thick bundles, and somehow carried them up onto the roof as if hauling half a wet field over his shoulder was a perfectly normal hobby.
Lili stood below, pale with terror, gripping a rope and shouting warnings in Norse every time he stepped too close to the edge.
Rob only laughed down at her. So Lili shouted louder.
Bruce meanwhile sat with the chickens and decided this was suspicious too. What was Rob trying to do? Was he planning to make the cabin his own home? Would he fix the roof, improve the door, patch the walls, and then suddenly announce that everything belonged to him now because he had done renovations?
That sounded possible. Probably illegal. Though this was a medieval world, so maybe renovations were a form of conquest.
Whatever Rob's secret plan was, the roof undeniably improved. He stripped away the worst of the rotten thatch, tied fresh bundles into place, packed the gaps with reed and moss, and showed Lili how to bind everything so rain would slide off instead of entering the cabin like an invited guest. He worked for hours, sweat darkening his tunic while his arms and shoulders moved with steady, irritating strength.
Lili watched him with something close to stars in her eyes, as if she were witnessing a very exciting performance called Man Repairs Medieval Straw Roof.
Bruce watched too, but with different feelings. No matter what Rob wanted, the truth was undeniable. He was useful, properly useful.
That was exactly the kind of person Bruce had always wanted to be.
Not good-intentions useful. Not I-tried-my-best-and-accidentally-broke-a-chair useful. Truly useful. Rob saw a problem, understood it, and fixed it. Door broken? Fixed. Roof leaking? Fixed. Fire low? Fed. Food gone? Hunted. Lili tired? Made her sit. Baby stinky? Washed.
It was infuriating. It was also, unfortunately, inspiring.
Over the next days, Rob made himself necessary in every corner of their little world. He patched the walls from inside with mud, moss, and woven sticks. He carved pegs. He cut poles. He built a better rack for drying herbs and meat. He moved the woodpile to a drier place and raised it off the ground so the logs would not rot. He set snares near rabbit paths and fish traps in the shallows. He showed Lili where to step, where not to step, how to read tracks in mud, and which mushrooms could be trusted only after enough preparation to make Bruce suspicious of all mushrooms on principle.
Food began appearing with suspicious regularity during the two weeks Rob stayed.
First came fish. Then rabbits. Then birds. Once, even a squirrel. There was also a rat, though Rob ate that one himself, which Bruce found acceptable. The rat had been stealing food, leaving droppings across the floor, and generally behaving like a criminal, so its fate seemed fair.
The squirrel was different.
Bruce felt bad about the squirrel. And the rabbits. And, if she was being honest, a little about the fish too.
It was strange seeing food become food. In Bruce's old life, meat came wrapped in plastic, cleaned, cut, priced, and made anonymous beneath bright store lights. Here, it arrived with fur, feathers, scales, blood, and eyes. Rob caught it, killed it, skinned it, cleaned it, and used nearly everything that could be used.
Then he cooked it.
And worse, it smelled good.
That was the confusing part. Bruce would sit there feeling sad and morally troubled, then taste a tiny piece from Lili's fingers and immediately understand why everyone kept doing this.
The world, Bruce decided, was much easier when food came from supermarkets.
Then came the snake.
Bruce was strongly against eating snake. Snakes were basically ropes with bad intentions. But Rob caught it, killed it, cleaned it, roasted it, and somehow made it edible. Lili ate without complaint. Bruce tasted a tiny piece from Lili's fingers and was forced to admit that snake was not as evil as expected.
That troubled him.
The world was becoming complicated. Rob hunted. Lili cooked. Rob lifted heavy things. Lili mended careful things. Rob cut wood. Lili dried herbs. Rob caught fish. Lili cleaned them. Rob repaired the cabin. Lili made it livable, even if that sometimes meant cleaning Rob's muddy boots after rain while scolding him in Norse.
And Bruce?
Bruce sat in the dirt and fed worms to chickens. Sometimes she made the adults laugh by saying a new word, making a serious face, or falling over with dignity.
That was not enough.
She was grateful, yes. She liked being warm. She liked that Lili slept better. She liked that the roof no longer dripped on her head.
But she hated feeling useless.
One afternoon, while Rob and Lili sat near the lake speaking in low voices about feelings or weather or whatever embarrassing adult things made Mother smile, Bruce looked at the garden and realized something important.
The adults were ignoring it.
Not completely. Lili planted things. Rob respected food when it appeared. But neither of them truly understood a garden. Rob was a hunter and part-time guard from Einsway. Lili was a northern reindeer herder from a people who followed animals, weather, and seasons. Neither of them had grown up with neat rows, planned beds, crop rotation, or the grim mathematics of feeding a household from dirt.
Bruce, however, had once lived in a city apartment and grown plants on a balcony. He had also watched internet videos. And played farming games.
This did not make him a farmer, but compared to these two, he was basically a university professor of vegetables.
So Bruce decided that through the sacred power of spite and agriculture, she would finally make herself useful.
First, she crawled to the edge of the garden and pushed a stick into the dirt. Then another, and another.
The chickens watched.
Mister Terminator pecked one stick, found it boring, and walked away. Two hens, however, became interested. When Bruce dragged another twig into place, one of the hens followed and dropped a bit of reed beside it.
Bruce stared. The hen stared back. Was this teamwork?
Bruce pointed at another twig. The hen ignored her. Still, the idea had begun.
Soon Bruce had three hens waddling around her while she pushed sticks into the earth, marking a crooked line around the garden. The fence in her head was grand. It would run from the cabin door toward the tree line, then curve around to the lake path, enclosing enough space, eventually, to feed three people if managed properly. Maybe more one day. Bruce did not think too deeply about that.
Rob noticed first.
He stopped whatever ridiculous thing he had been saying to make Lili laugh and stared at the crooked sticks. His brows lowered. Then, slowly, understanding came over his face.
"A fence," he said.
Bruce slapped one muddy hand against the dirt, as if to say, "Yes, obviously."
Rob crouched beside her, studying the layout with exaggerated seriousness. "A garden fence. A proper one."
Bruce nodded so hard she nearly fell forward.
Rob looked at Lili. "Thy child plots like an old reeve counting fields."
Lili, who had no idea what Bruce was doing until that moment, looked down at the sticks, then at Bruce, then back at the sticks. Her eyes widened with pride.
"My clever girl," she whispered.
That was all it took for the garden to suddenly become a family project.
Rob cut stakes and drove them into the ground. Lili twisted rope from plant fiber and tied the smaller branches together. Bruce supervised from the dirt with the air of a tiny police captain. The chickens provided moral support, pest removal, and occasional sabotage.
The fence slowly began to take shape. An ugly shape, a very ugly shape.
It leaned in places. It sagged in others. Some sections had branches spaced so far apart that a determined rabbit could probably stroll through sideways, while other parts were tied so tightly that the rope looked as if it had lost a private war with itself, but it stood, that mattered. Maybe one day it would be grand.
Then came the rows.
Bruce used sticks, lines scratched in the dirt, and a great deal of serious pointing. Rob did not understand at first. Lili understood even less. But slowly, through trial, repeated baby sounds, and increasingly offended gestures, they realized what Bruce wanted.
The plants needed to be separated.
Herbs here. Beans there. Roots there. Berries protected near the edge. Paths between the rows so no one stepped on tomorrow's food.
Rob rubbed his beard and looked at Bruce for a long moment.
"Well," he said at last, "either she is blessed, or I am being ordered about by a baby."
Bruce pointed at the next row and said, very seriously in the language of Albion, "No rest when sun is up. Rest when sun down."
Rob sighed. "Aye, mistress."
Lili laughed until she had to sit down.
By the time Rob's two weeks ended, the cabin no longer looked abandoned.
The door held. The roof mostly kept out rain. The walls were patched. A real bed stood near the hearth now, crude but raised from the floor, made from small logs lashed together with rope. Thick straw lay across it, covered with hides and cloth. Lili had stuffed chicken feathers into old fabric to make something almost like pillows. There was a stool, a little table, a proper place for the pots, a hanging rack for herbs, and a chest Rob had repaired for clothes.
It was not beautiful. It was not comfortable by any civilized standard, but it was theirs.
Then came Rob's time to leave.
He kissed Lili at the door, long enough for Bruce to make a disgusted sound, but not long enough to start a war. He kissed Bruce's forehead too, which Bruce allowed only because he had fixed the roof.
"I will return," Rob promised.
Lili nodded, though her eyes were wet. Bruce waved one tiny hand. Rob smiled, then turned and vanished into the trees.
After that, something strange happened. The cabin became quiet, not peaceful quiet, empty quiet.
It was only Lili, Bruce, the chickens, and the repaired walls around them. Somehow the cabin felt smaller without Rob in it, and the forest beyond the door seemed darker than before. Rob had been loud, large, warm, and annoying, but when he was gone, the space he left behind felt far too big.
Lili cried that night.
Bruce did not want to cry too. She had dignity, some, a little. But she cried anyway, and for tactical reasons pretended it was only something in her eyes.
Mama did not believe her.
She only gathered Bruce close and whispered that it was all right, so they cried together while Mister Terminator watched from the corner with deep confusion, standing beside the chickens like a guard dog with feathers.
Eventually, after what felt like forever but was probably closer to a month, Rob returned.
And after that, the cycle continued.
Sometimes weeks passed. Sometimes months. But Rob always came back with food, tools, stories, and plans. Each visit left the cabin stronger than before. An axe appeared one day. Then better needles. Then a saw blade, old but usable. Then more pots. A better blanket. A small wooden chair. A second chest. A stronger latch. Even little tools for Lili, so she could patch clothes with less fighting and cursing.
Through spring and summer, the land around the cabin changed.
The garden gained proper rows, fences, and a wooden gate. The wild growth before the door was cleared away, making room for paths, beds, and neat patches of green. There were fewer bugs near the house now, fewer thorny places to trip over, and fewer weeds pretending they had legal rights. The tree line still stood forty meters away, but the space between it and the cabin had become theirs.
The garden expanded. The fence strengthened. The lake path widened under their feet. The chickens still ruled everything, but at least now their kingdom had borders.
Bruce kept training.
Her body grew quickly. Crawling became walking. Walking became waddling little runs. She could squat, fall, stand again, and carry small things with grave importance. She learned more words in Norse first, Albion speech second, and soon she began asking questions that made Lili look proud and worried at the same time.
She asked about the year first, nine hundred and four.
Lili had carved it into the cabin wall after Bruce's birth, and the number had bothered Bruce ever since. Then came questions about Albion itself, about the land around them, the people who ruled it, the coins Rob carried, and the roads that led away from this hidden cabin by the lake.
Rob explained badly.
Not because he was stupid, exactly. He simply knew the world the way practical men knew it: by roads, rivers, borders, taverns, taxes, hunting grounds, and places where a man was likely to get stabbed.
Albion, he told them, was a large island, much of it still wild and poorly known. The kingdom of Albion sat in the south, though Rob insisted it was no great kingdom, not compared with the great empire across the sea. Albion was a frontier realm, half-tamed and half-hungry, owing loyalty to that distant empire whose towns, armies, heavy infantry, and armored cavalry Rob described with more confidence than understanding.
The kingdom itself was divided by power as much as by land.
In the west lay broad farmlands, rich and green, ruled by the ducal house of Westfield. Most of the kingdom's grain and livestock came from there, or so Rob believed.
At the center were the crown lands of the Pendragons, where the greatest towns, churches, lords, and royal courts stood. That was the heart of Albion, he said, political and holy both.
And in the east, where they were now, lay the lands of the Lionhearts. The east was rich in raw metal, charcoal, smiths, workshops, mines, and hard men with harder masters. The ducal family of the Lionheart's ruled there, and their wealth came not from wheat, but from iron, tools, weapons, and the labor needed to make them.
North across the River Rose lay the wildlands. Rob spoke of them more quietly. No proper roads crossed that country. Forests thickened there. Old ruins slept under moss. Men whispered of beasts, magic, raiders, and things best left unnamed.
To the northeast, across the northern sea, lay the cold lands Lili came from, though Rob admitted his knowledge of them was little more than rumor. He knew they were distant, hard to reach, and filled, according to southern stories, with fierce pale folk who sometimes came south to take things without politely asking permission.
Lili gave him a flat look at that.
Rob wisely moved on.
South, across Uther's Crossing, lay Francia: warmer, richer, and, according to Rob, full of "great drinkers of wine, proud tongues, and stubborn heads."
Coins came next.
Rob showed them one by the fire, proud as a boy with a trophy. It was silver, dull and worn at the edges, but precious. He had earned it catching a bandit who had apparently slept with another man's daughter without permission, stolen a horse, and then tried to gallop away from the consequences.
Rob had ridden him down, tackled him from the saddle, and dragged him back.
For that, he had been paid one silver coin. One whole silver. That, Rob explained, was worth a hundred copper coins, and one copper could buy a loaf of bread if the baker was generous and the bread was not too fine. So yes, by Rob's standards, one silver was mighty money.
Then the talk turned serious.
To get Lili and Bruce out of Albion, they would need much more than one silver coin. Rob guessed ten silver at least. Twenty, if they wanted to be safe. Passage across Uther's Crossing would not be cheap, especially if questions had to be avoided.
Rob had only the one silver left. He had spent most of what he earned bringing food, tools, cloth, and supplies to the cabin.
Bruce stared at him then, surprised despite herself.
Rob had not simply helped them with spare things. He had been spending his future on them.
His plan was simple, or at least simple in the way impossible things often sounded simple when Rob said them. He would hunt, sell hides, take guard work, save silver, and eventually buy passage south across Uther's Crossing. From Francia, perhaps they could find another ship, a caravan, a road, anything that might lead Lili toward the north again.
Lili wanted that.
She wanted home with an ache so deep Bruce could feel it whenever the northern lands were mentioned. But that evening, beside the fire, Lili made one thing clear. And it shocked both Rob and Bruce.
"If thou take me north," she said quietly, looking at Rob with steady violet eyes, "to my people, to my father… then I marry thee."
Rob went still.
Bruce looked from one adult to the other.
Lili's cheeks were red, but her voice did not shake. "I will be grateful forever. And my family, I think, will give blessing. If thou bring me home."
For a long moment, Rob said nothing. He looked at Lili, then at Bruce, then back at Lili again.
At last he laughed, low and disbelieving, and rubbed a hand over his beard. "By God, thou art a hard woman to win. A princess would have an easier bargain."
Lili lifted her chin. "Am I worth it?"
Rob's smile faded into something more serious.
"Aye," he said. "Thou art worth it."
Then he looked at Lilypad, small and watchful by the hearth. His voice softened. "Both of thee. I want you two as my family."
Bruce went quiet.
Rob had a family already. A father, a mother, younger brothers, people in Einsway who knew him and expected him back. Yet here he was, talking about leaving all of it behind for Lili and Bruce.
That mattered, and Bruce approved of it greatly, or wanted to.
A small, careful part of her still whispered that things would not be so easy. Money was hard. Roads were probably dangerous. People on ships would ask questions. The bad men might not truly have stopped searching.
Still, for the first time, the idea of escape had shape.
Rob did not argue further. He only reached for Lili's hand and promised again to gather the coin.
Time moved on. And soon, another winter came.