It was not anger.

I had been braced for anger.

This was something else entirely, something much older and much deeper.

It was terror.

Pure, undiluted terror, the terror of a small animal, on the face of a proud old woman, over nothing but a hand near her back.

“Not my back,” she whispered, shaking.

“Never.” I never tried again.

I understood, in that moment, that whatever this was, it was not stubbornness, and it was not for me to force.