“No one knows why?” “No one will talk about it. The older ones give each other looks if the subject comes up—which it almost never does. I heard a rumor there was a geas against speaking of what happened.” My eyebrows shot up.

She'd been an Army noncombatant, but roadside IEDs didn't distinguish between armed troops and support services.

In black taffeta she gazes rigidly at the camera with a rookish head-tilt.

[…] shewing that all the lordes had bene with her grace in counsaill, and that she perceiued thay were well content with our commyng, but that we shulde not contynue.