Page 70 of The Shape of Silence

She nodded slowly and decided that while she hadn’t specifically thought about his age, she might have guessed him a few years older.

“When you fight,” she asked next, “is it always like this?”

He regarded her, faintly puzzled. “Like what?”

“Riding out every morning. Fighting. Coming back at night.” She gestured vaguely, searching for words that would not betray too much. “No larger battles? No... other kinds of weapons?”

His brow furrowed slightly. “Other weapons?”

She pressed on carefully, purposefully. “You said once you didn't know what planes or tanks or guns were.”

He gave a short, quiet huff of amusement. “Aye. Because I dinna. Ye have those where ye are from?”

Avery nodded. “We did—I mean, I suppose they still do. But you've never seen anything like them?” she asked, watching him closely.

“Nae.” He shook his head, his gray gaze intent upon her. “What would such things be?”

She swallowed, and hesitated again, afraid now to pursue this further. “I—” She forced a small, dismissive shrug. “Nothing. Just things I've heard of. Stories, maybe.”

“Strange stories,” he said, with more curiosity than suspicion.

She held his gaze for a moment longer, searching for any hint that he might be humoring her, that he understood more than he let on, but there was none.

She folded her arms loosely across her chest, her pulse quickening despite her effort to remain composed. “I, um, heard someone mention the name William Wallace the other day.”

This drew another frown from him, but again she thought she saw only curiosity.

“Like as nae, his name has been said many times since the armies have come,” he said. “Had ye heard of him before now?”

Avery didn’t know how to answer that. “I think so, but... not in years.”

“Aye, he’d been away for some time, seeking diplomatic alliances. ʼTwas said he even sought the pope.”

Sought the pope, to her, sounded unusual—or maybe just plain wrong. Truth was, she wasn’t sure she was a good judge of what would be considered normal and what would not, but she felt pretty confident that people could not so easily gain an audience with the pope.

She ventured a little more. “Do you know him?”

“Aye,” Morggán answered, still watching her with thoughtful attention. “ʼTwas Wallace himself who made me a knight.”

“You are a knight?”

“I am,” he replied simply, with neither pride nor false modesty, as though it were no more remarkable than saying he could ride a horse.

But a knight was not a... modern thing... was it?

“And... what about the king?” she asked, her voice carefully measured.

“The king?”

“Richard Bruce... right? No, I mean Robert Bruce,” she correctly, the name somehow returning to her.

His brows drew together, not sharply, but enough that he was definitely studying her more closely than before, apparently surprised—or confused—by her questions.

“The Earl of Carrick?” he asked at length. “The Bruce isnae king.”

Avery's stomach flipped inside her. He hadn’t asked who Robert Bruce was. What were the chances that he knew two men, men named William Wallace and Robert Bruce, and that all of them lived in the same century that Avery was born in?

“Some would gladly see it so, mayhap,” Morggán continued after a moment. “There are men who would follow him. But he's nae our king, lass.”