Dark Tides (The Fairmile, #2)

by Philippa Gregory

“You watch for accidents as if they were enemies?” Ned asked. “As if they were companions. They come with me everywhere I go, everything can always go wrong. I walk in a world where I am safe at this moment but who knows what happens next? I watch to see that accidents don’t surprise me—but I know they are always there. I make sure they do not creep up on me while I am dreaming of something else.” He looked into Ned’s face. “You be the same. Don’t be in a hurry, like Coatmen always are. Pause, watch, listen, smell, taste, hear, and use that other sense, wolf sense that tells you that something strange is happening even hundreds of miles away, bird sense that guides hundreds of them to move as one, turning at an invisible moment. You have to be dead to your wandering thoughts, never thinking of what has gone or what is coming next year, you have to forget the last step or the next, you have to be locked into here, now.”