“It’s something I ought to have expected,” Shrike admitted.
“Temporary?” Wren pressed.
“I believe so.”
Wren didn’t appear in the least bit appeased. “You look as bad as Felix after his adventure with the huldra. Though,” he added, “I’d have much preferred to host you in my garret.”
“I’m all right,” Shrike insisted. “Just tired.”
“Go back to sleep, then.”
Shrike shook his head, wincing as the pain throbbed through his brow. “Can’t. Too much to tend to.”
“What needs doing?” Wren asked with the attitude of one who intended to do it all himself.
Shrike hesitated. “Nothing I can’t manage on my own.”
Wren crossed his arms and raised his brows.
“Tending the hens,” Shrike relented. “And the goats.”
“And?” Wren prompted when Shrike fell silent.
Shrike gestured to his antlers. “That’s all that can’t wait for these to finish growing in.”
Wren cracked a wry smile that did much to lift Shrike’s spirits. “Fair enough.”
While Shrike wasn’t feeling up to performing his own labours, he did succeed in following Wren out-of-doors and leaned against the cottage wall to watch Wren tend to flock and herd. The hens happily scattered when Wren opened their coop, and whilst none would approach him with grain cupped in his palm, they snatched it up once he tossed it down to them. Thus occupied, they ignored his retrieval of their eggs. The goats wouldn’t stand to be milked until Shrike beckoned them over and scratched behind their ears, which distracted them long enough for Wren to fill the copper pail. Though not accustomed to such labour, Wren took to it readily. Shrike found more satisfaction than he’d anticipated in seeing Wren shrug off his frock coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves to bare his freckled forearms. This, combined with the warmth of said frock coat folded over Shrike’s elbow as Wren worked, left Shrike feeling quite content. Though, as the minutes passed, his head seemed to grow heavier, and the throbbing ache returned until he found he could no longer bear the sunlight filtering down through the forest canopy and striking his eyes. But by then Wren had finished the morning’s chores and, linking his arm through Shrike’s, led him back indoors.
Shrike sat down hard on his bed and gingerly kneaded his brow with his fingertips while Wren fixed him a second cup of lavender laudanum—this time with goat’s milk. Then, whilst Shrike sipped at his medicine, Wren threw milk and eggs together in a pan over the hearth. Pain had distracted Shrike from hunger since he’d awoken. Now, with the savoury scent filling the cottage, he found himself ravenous.
Wren scraped the eggs out of the pan with a knife and divided them into two clay bowls, one considerably more full than the other. Then, glancing ‘round, he asked, “Do you have any forks?”
Shrike blinked up at him in confusion. Surely Wren had seen for himself that Shrike had no hay-fields and thus no need for a pitchfork. “Nay.”
Wren frowned down at the eggs. “I suppose a spoon will do.”
Shrike agreed and took the fuller bowl Wren proffered with murmured thanks. He wolfed down the eggs. Wren watched with undisguised amazement.
“I can make more if you’re still hungry,” said Wren, who was but half-done with his own portion. When Shrike hesitated to answer, he added, “You look like you haven’t eaten in weeks.”
“Aye,” Shrike replied, for he felt much the same. Though loath to admit weakness, he thought there was little use in denying his hunger and little harm in divulging it to Wren in particular. Despite the substantial fare Wren had cooked up, the hollow sensation continued gnawing at him from within. The ache that had begun in his brow now seeped into his very bones, as though he’d jolted them to splinters with a fortnight’s riding on a wild steed. It seemed his body would consume itself to nourish his growing antlers unless he offered it something more.
Wren took the empty bowl with a wry half-smile and returned to the hearth. He hadn’t yet put his frock coat on—it lay beside Shrike on the bed—and once again Shrike’s gaze fell to the rolled-up shirtsleeves and how thin the white fabric seemed over the muscles of his arm and shoulder.
“D’you have anything else to hand?” Wren asked.
Shrike thought a moment and rose from his bed. A grunt of pain escaped his clenched jaw. Wren cast a concerned look over his shoulder, but Shrike waved him off and continued on to the hatch in the floor on the north-west side of the cottage. His joints protested climbing down the ladder into the larder, but it was worth it to sate his hunger. That, and for the astonished look on Wren’s face when Shrike re-emerged with a venison flank slung over one shoulder.
“That’ll do,” said Wren, his dark eyes very round.
Shrike grinned.
The sweet and savoury scent of the maple-cured meat filled the cottage as Shrike sliced off portions of the flank and added it to Wren’s pan of eggs. The gnawing hunger within him grew to an all-consuming roar. Though Wren had declared himself full after the first serving, Shrike persuaded him to try a bite or two of the venison. The flavour seemed to surprise him.
“Maple sap,” Shrike explained. “Boiled down to sugar.”
“Good stuff.” Wren took a third bite. “D’you do it all yourself?”
