Page 26 of The Shape of Silence

“Do they come near your clearing?” he asked.

“Not close, not often.”

He nodded once, but his gaze remained on the print.

Wolves were cautious by nature, testing weakness before committing. They would be troublesome to a grown man armed and steady, but a solitary dwelling at the edge of their range, one woman and a dog? If a winter grew hard or meat scarce, boldness could follow.

“Ye bury your scraps and bones?” he asked.

She nodded as she rose to stand. “Always,” she said, “and not close to the house.”

Morggán nodded now, satisfied that she practiced caution, and they moved on. However, the satisfaction thinned as an unexpected scent reached him—woodsmoke. He paused and drew a fuller breath, careful not to expand his ribs too quickly. The air carried damp earth and green leaf, but beneath it lay the scent of smoke, which did not belong to the forest. He glanced around and upward, knowing he was too immersed inside the forest to find smoke rising above it.

“I need high ground,” he asserted.

Avery stopped and turned, her brow wrinkled.

“I need to see the forest,” he explained.

Without taking her perplexed gaze from him, she pointed toward her left.

“Lead the way,” he said, already closing the distance between them with his awkward gait. “Keep the hound close.”

She asked no questions, but pivoted once more and made her way through a band of fir trees, going as straight as possible, as the terrain would allow. Morggán struggled now to keep up, being both winded and in pain for this greater exertion.

The ground eventually rose gently through a copse of thinner trees, and almost immediately the gradual climb taxed him further. He weighed that against the need to see, to find the source of the smoke.

Avery reached the crest well before he did. She glanced back several times to watch his slower progress. When he finally arrived at the ridge beside her, wearing a grimace, she pointed to the east, over the top of the trees.

Three columns of smoke rose beyond the eastern tree line. They were evenly spaced, fifty yards apart, thereabouts, steady, not hidden. Three fires meant a company large enough to post watches. These fires did not belong to hunters or shepherds. No small band would announce itself so plainly. His own men would never dare an open fire in the daytime, so close to the enemy only days ago.

English, his guess, most likely riding the outer edge of the forest where the land lay flatter and more open. In all probability, they would not force horses through heavy growth unless compelled. They would skirt the forest, only press along its margins. He traced the line from that smoke back to the clearing where Avery’s hut stood, nearly a mile behind them through dense undergrowth, fallen timber, and uneven ground, poor terrain for cavalry.

For now, the forest shielded her, mayhap always had and always would—that is, until the day it didn’t.

Morggán shifted his weight carefully, easing pressure off the thigh before starting down the slope. Avery followed him now, though not until a full ten seconds had passed.

Having yet to figure out who and what she was, where she came from, he truly had no idea to whom her allegiance belonged—her aid to him notwithstanding. Still, a bonny lass such as she, alone and vulnerable—it made no difference whether they were English or Scots camping beyond the forest. An encounter with any marching army or any group of men would not end well for her. Not every man was governed by honorable instincts.

“Let’s get back,” he suggested.

***

The next day began as hundreds before it had. Avery woke and gathered water. She coaxed the embers to life and drew yesterday’s pottage nearer the coals. She washed her face and hands, then ate standing by the window, though she did not lift the oiled cloth to look out—even though the man, Morggán, was nowhere to be seen.

She’d been surprised to wake alone. Only she and Charlie occupied the house, and she hadn’t seen the man when she went to the stream with the buckets.

She wasn’t particularly alarmed. If he had gone, then he’d gone. She wasn’t greatly disappointed either. His presence had altered the schedule of her days in ways she hadn’t asked for, there being a new edge of awareness that had nothing to do with weather or wolves. Better, perhaps, that he’d left. She would no longer need to measure her movements against another’s stride, no longer divide food that had always been calculated for one, no longer walk farther than usual from her own door to see to personal needs simply because a man occupied the space within it.

He had brought her no true advantage, she’d already decided, hadn’t brought her much but unease and an awareness of him that she didn’t like so much.

She was troubled less with his leaving than she was with the fact that she had not heard him rise. She had long taken quiet pride in her attunement to sound, to the distinction between wind in branches and something heavier passing through them. To have slept through his leaving worried her more than the leaving itself. It suggested a lapse, or a lack of skill she’d thought honed. Or worse, it hinted at a dangerous complacency.

Only briefly did she consider him impolite for not bothering to announce his departure, for not speaking a word in parting, but to slip away while she slept. The thought passed as quickly as it formed, though, since he owed her nothing.

She set the bowl aside and straightened. Yes, she was glad he was gone. She could have her life back.

As it was laundry day, she gathered the garments that required washing, sliced a sliver of soap from her meager supply and stepped outside, securing the door behind her more from habit than necessity. The morning air lay cool against her skin as she made her way toward the loch, Charlie trotting ahead, nose low to the ground.