Page 65 of The Shape of Silence

“Good day,” she murmured at last.

Then, with Charlie finally trotting obediently at her side again, she continued toward the stream feeling Lucas Thain’s strange attention lingering upon her.

Moisture clung to the grass and low pine branches, soaking the soft leather of her old boots as she walked, while beneath the sharper scents of horses and lingering woodsmoke she could still detect the familiar smells that had belonged to this place long before armies arrived: cold stream water, damp moss, crushed fern.

And yet, the path no longer belonged solely to her. Fresh tracks crossed everywhere now: deep boot prints pressed into softened ground, churned places where horses had passed, snapped fern stems and bent grasses marking where armed men had moved through the woods during the night. Even the streambank itself showed signs of heavy use already. Mud had been trampled into the shallows, and one entire section of reeds near the bend had been flattened completely.

Then, to her horror, she saw that two young ash trees had been felled on the far side of the burn, their trunks stripped of bark and limbs. Avery frowned. She knew every fallen tree within easy walking distance of the house, every wind-thrown trunk that had long since dried enough for firewood. There was no need to cut down living trees. She found herself absurdly annoyed by it.

Every time she made eye contact with someone inside the trees, she felt their regard upon her was heavy; every time she looked quickly away, another set of eyes found her and lingered, waiting for her to meet their gaze or acknowledge their interest. She felt less like a person than like an object of curiosity. If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear the ripple of her passing moving through the crowd, one man nudging the next with a muttered aside, a laugh, a pointed finger—look there, who’s that? She wasn’t afraid, but she wasn’t comfortable either.

By the time she climbed back toward the clearing with the handles of the heavy buckets biting into her fingers, she was more than only a little upset. Voices carried more clearly from the men gathered near the remains of the supper fire. She slowed instinctively while still inside the trees, taking a moment to unclench her teeth and relax her expression.

“...wasteful to force a direct engagement whilst they outnumber us three to one or more,” Lucas Thain was saying. “Better we bleed them a little each day.”

“Aye,” Tormod agreed. “Strike hard and fast and disappear. Night raids. A wee bit of harrying to reduce them.”

“And keep them guessing,” Morggán added. “They’ll ken we’re nae too large a troop—or we’d have come heavy and hard at them, all at once.”

Lucas crouched again beside the rough map scratched into the dirt. “We can stage the entire operation from here,” he said decisively. “Ride light. Small numbers. Fast strikes.”

Avery stood very still, listening.

Relief came first, swift and undeniable enough that she almost hated herself for it.

We can stage the entire operation from here.

Morggán would not have to leave. He would still be here tonight. Tomorrow as well, perhaps many tomorrows.

Yet disappointment tangled almost immediately through the relief.

Only moments earlier she had stood beside the stream staring at the damage already done to the forest. wondering whether this place—or she herself—would ever return fully to the quiet obscurity it had known before Morggán stumbled into her life. Another week of soldiers and horses moving through the woods would change it further. More paths trampled flat. More trees stripped for shelter and God only knew what else. More strangers learning every hidden corner she once believed belonged to her alone.

And still, despite all of that, her heart had lifted at the thought of Morggán remaining. She didn’t bother trying to sort that out—it simply was what it was.

“The English have scattered too many men already,” Tormod was saying presently, drawing her attention back to the conversation. “Still huntin' Wallace in every corner of Scotland.”

“Longshanks has offered enough gold to tempt even honest folk,” Lucas muttered.

“And yet William Wallace remains free,” Tormod said, “and may it always be so.”

“Aye,” Morggán agreed quietly. “He’s nae close—Wallace—so this force here we’re about to harass is nae looking for him.”

Lucas Thain said then, “Mayhap we’ll keep them busy enough they’ll have nae chance to join that hunt.”

Avery stood very still, her mind whirring, her mouth hanging open.

William Wallace.

Something stirred vaguely, in bits and pieces, in the back of her mind—a movie poster, the new green dress she’d worn, crowds outside a theater, her father laughing with his excitement over the success of the film.

The film about William Wallace.

Often enough, she’d begrudged the fact that she sometimes remembered that movie better than she recalled moments with her parents.

No. Obviously, it couldn’t be. William Wallace, the man portrayed in that film, had lived hundreds of years ago. She couldn’t be sure, of course, but she might suppose that Wallace was not a very uncommon name.

Still hidden behind the trees, she turned and swept her gaze over the forest—this army camp—with an odd, growing unease, though nothing had changed. The same horses stood tethered between the trees. The same wagons remained drawn into a loose circle beyond them. Men moved about, some with more wakefulness than others.