There was a small hearth and someone had been gracious enough to leave her material to start a fire which she set about right away with the girl plastered to her side.
Once the light entered the hut she stared at the broken floor boards and sniffed at the musty smell that seeped from the dirt floor. She sighed and brought her attention to the child.
She herself couldn't speak and the girl wasn't speaking. She wrapped her arms around the child and remembered her sisters, had anyone survived? She didn't know, if they had then why were they alone? She knew within her soul that they were all gone.
Her parents, siblings, servants, and husband were all dead. She shook her head in disbelief. Surely someone had been able to escape. Why was she still alive? Why?
Later on towards the evening the group of men came back to notify her of the body count, they were all accounted for as she remembered how many servants had been accompanying them. She glanced at the little girl, her entire family had been with them. They were the same now.
Lady Mayumi nodded her head in understanding. There were no belongings found with any of the bodies or in any of the travel bags. The horses and weapons were pilfered. One of the men handed her a cloth with an insignia on it.
She trembled and blinked away her tears. It was from a family that she knew, a family who had been opposed to her marriage to Lord Ichibashi out of fear of how strong their families would become joined together.
It wasn't a random attack, it was an ambush. They had killed everyone and now were probably razing their lands and seizing the power they had come into. She couldn't go back, there was nothing to return too.
She walked into the hut and tossed the cloth into the fire watching it catch and burn, she had no use for it.