The cook reached for the table leg just as Nessa put her boot on it. The stove still stood above the hole in Asti's kitchen. He wanted the leg for fuel, and without it the iron lip would drop across the opening.
"Choose something that isn't keeping your stove off our heads," Nessa told him. "I have only one hand for getting it back up."
"Then find me something I can burn before these children eat dry grain again," he said. "We lost the mill sacks and most of our split wood with them."
Asti turned from the window at the mention of children. The cook pointed his empty pan toward the rear roofs. She pressed the back of her cut hand against the sill. Nessa followed her gaze out to where Solla's kitchen and her children had disappeared, then bent to find a better prop for the stove.
