Page 40 of The Shape of Silence

When she didn’t move, Morggán shifted and began walking toward her, as if he meant only to retrieve some awkward, too-shy child. Straightening her shoulders and drawing breath through her nose, Avery stepped out from behind the tree. The tall grass whispered softly around her legs as she walked to Morggán.

She felt every eye upon her as she crossed the clearing and found it easier, somehow, to keep her attention fixed upon Morggán alone rather than look individually at the gathered riders. His gray eyes remained steadily upon her, and though there was something gentler in his expression than usual, she was too conscious of the mass of strangers surrounding him to dwell upon it.

When she reached him, Morggán extended his hand toward her in quiet invitation, drawing her nearer to the gathered men, and Avery found herself unexpectedly relieved by his closeness amid so many unfamiliar faces.

“This is Tormod,” he said, indicating the older warrior. “Captain of my army.”

The words rearranged her understanding of things at once. Tormod was not the commander, but served Morggán.

Tormod inclined his head toward her, his expression grave but not unkind. Up close his face carried the weathered hardness of a man long accustomed to difficult decisions and harder living besides, and yet she believed he was actually younger than she originally guessed, maybe only in his forties.

“How do you do?” she said, startling herself with her words, at some long-buried scrap of childhood politeness that had surfaced.

Tormod frowned slightly at her words—not hostile, merely puzzled—and Avery became painfully aware once again of how strangely she spoke compared to others, to the old man, to Morggán, to these men. Even after all these years, her voice still sounded wrong beside theirs.

“We are in your debt, lass,” said Tormod.

“If he’s given you even a fraction of the trouble he gives the rest of us, you’ve earned a place beside the saints already,” said the man who’d called Morggán an ugly bastard, who hadn’t yet said anything serious. “Och, but better the laird than Finlay—he’d have made it so the good Lord owed you favors.”

Morggán shot the man a look lacking any real severity before introducing him. “Alasdair,” he said before turning to the man beside him.

“Finlay.”

The man, broader than Alasdair, gave Avery a respectful nod.

“Eòin,” Morggán continued.

The younger soldier lifted one hand briefly, studying her with frank fascination he did not trouble himself to hide.

“And Donnchadh.”

The quietest of them merely inclined his head once, pale eyes watchful beneath dark brows.

“This is Avery,” Morggán announced then.

“Nice to meet you,” she said quietly to the group in general.

Tormod drew her attention by asking, “And how did it come to be, lass, that you gave aid to the mac Ruaidhrí?”

“I, um, found him one day,” she began and then had to pause, moving her hand in a bit of agitation, trying to recall the word for wounded in their language. When she could not, she looked to Morggán, silently asking for assistance, as she felt her cheeks flush with heat.

Morggán spared her another moment of struggling. “Our tongue is nae Avery’s native one,” he said, slipping easily into English.

Several brows lifted faintly at that, though no one questioned his statement.

Morggán took over the telling of the tale. “Sgàil was badly wounded in the retreat and broke wild from the fighting after I took the spear in my thigh,” he said. “I couldnae turn him. He carried me miles into the forest before he finally collapsed. I left him there,” Morggán continued plainly. “Had little choice by then. I thought to reach open ground again once I’d steadied myself, but I’d lost too much blood already. I managed no great distance before I went down myself.”

The man Finlay hissed a breath between his teeth.

“I lay there near a full day or more,” he went on, “before Avery found me. Dragged me here,” he went on, tipping his head toward her house, which sent many glances off into the trees, “with naught but her own two hands and a litter, and I still canna fathom how she managed it.”

A few of the men glanced toward Avery with renewed surprise at that.

Tormod regarded her in thoughtful silence for another moment before saying with quiet gravity, “House mac Ruaidhrí owes ye a debt it canna easily repay.”

Avery, who still had little sense for what ought to be spoken aloud and what perhaps should not, answered with simple honesty.

“No one owes me anything,” she said quietly. “I-I almost left him there.”