Ambush
"You forget we were born farm girls.
"Even in fertile land, with good weather, enough sun and enough rain, and at the right times, it takes so little to destroy crops -- leaving too little to cover food, livestock feed, and seed for the next season. Eat the seed, and you'll surely starve next year; eat the stock instead of feeding them and you'll starve as well -- but don't eat and you starve anyway. All while the sun shines and the rain falls as it should. Stock that can graze helps, but just removes one set of mouths.
"If these folk suffered a blight, they might be trying to get by on roots and berries until the harvest -- or they might have eaten their seed and chickens last winter and had nothing to plant this spring, and already eaten what their wool could buy.
"I'm not saying we should trust them with our lives without knowing more -- I'm saying we shouldn't murder folk without knowing more. If they ambush us again, Holy Sister and I will help kill them, as we've done before."