That seemed to be a plausible explanation, at least in her head.
The man lowered the lantern a little, and she got a glimpse of untidy dark curls and narrowed, suspicious eyes.
“Give me yer hand,” he demanded, striding forward.
Before she could reply, he snatched it up himself, and Freya’s heart stopped. He just… held her hand in his, thumb swiping over her knuckles. She could hardly breathe. His hand was large, warm, and strong and callused from hard work, and she had no idea why her heart was thumping. She half expected him to do something terrible, like shove her backwards or crush his hand in hers.
Instead, he only dropped her hand with a grunt, and stepped back.
“Ye are a liar. Ye aren’t a maid, not with hands like that. Ye are not even an ordinary housewife. I’d reckon ye have never done laundry in yer life.”
Her face burned. “Well, I… Well, ye are a stranger to me. A strangeman, nonetheless! Why should I tell ye the truth? Ye have no right to hear it.”
He gave a short laugh. “Ye are inmybarn, lassie.”
Her cheeks burned.
This is it, then. He’s going to throw me out into the rain, and to be fair, I deserve it. I won’t tell him, though. It might make the difference between my freedom and getting caught.
Then the dog came padding forward, sniffing cautiously. It came right up to Freya, sniffing at her skirts. Almost without thinking, Freya put her hand down to touch the dog’s rough, warm head. It blinked up at her, then glanced at the man, and plonked itself down beside Freya.
The man stared, the lantern lowering further. Freya had a sense that something important had happened, although she couldn’t quite work out what.
“Very well,” he muttered, after a long pause. “Ye can stay here for a few hours, that’s all. I want ye gone by dawn, got it? And if ye steal so much as a handful of straw from me…”
“I won’t, I won’t!” Freya assured him, knees nearly buckling with relief.
He grunted. “Argentum, come.”
The dog left her side at once and loped after the man. Still muttering to himself, the man went stamping out of the barn, the dog at his side. He took the lantern with him, and slammed the door behind him. Freya was plunged into darkness.
Still shaking, she climbed up the ladder to the hayloft by feel. She was asleep almost before she plunged into the straw.
“Hey! Get up!”
Freya jerked awake, panic flooding through her.
They found me. They found me. I’ll have to marry him, marry him or die…
She paused, blinking around herself. The memories trickled back—she was in a hayloft owned by a very unfriendly man. The straw which had seemed so comfortable the night before had thinned out during the night so that she woke up sleeping on bare floorboards with mountains of straw hovering around her. It felt as though hundreds of sharp straw pieces had worked their way through her clothes to prick her skin. She hardly dared imagine what her hair looked like.
She crawled to the edge of the loft and looked down.
The man was standing down there, a tray in his hands. Porridge, milk, and a hunk of bread, by the looks of it. Her stomach growled. The dog—Argentum—sat beside him, and idly thumped his tail on the ground at the sight of her. The man was wearing a loose white shirt, strained over his chest, the sleeves rolled up around his forearms.
“I thought I said ye should leave by dawn,” the man remarked, although there was no real bite in his voice. “The morning’s half gone.”
“I’ll be down in a moment,” she responded, and ducked back out of sight.
I wish I had a mirror.
Freya did not consider herself vain, or overly concerned with her looks, but still. She combed out her hair as best she could, winding it back into a braid. She patted her cheeks to bring somecolor into her pale skin, and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Then there was nothing else to do but climb down.
The man looked a little more impatient than before, sighing and tapping his booted foot on the ground as she climbed down.
“Take yer time, lass, it’s not as if I have anything better to do than bring ye yer breakfast,” he muttered once.
Freya thought it best not to respond. She reached the bottom of the ladder, and he thrust the tray at her, then stood back, brawny arms folded, while she ate.
