Chapter Twenty #3
Her jaw tight, she tied back her hair, grabbed her own thin cloak, and stepped outside into the cool morning.
The camp, as it often was after the armies rode out, had been reduced to the handful of men left to guard the horses and supplies.
Donnchadh stood near the cookfire speaking with two young men she knew by sight but not by name and Eòin was nowhere in sight.
Avery waited quietly beneath the eaves to be sure that Donnchadh’s back would remain to her before she crossed along the edge of the clearing and disappeared into the trees undetected.
Keeping to the cover of the forest, Avery followed the familiar paths she had walked hundreds of times before.
She checked her snares, finding only a single rabbit.
She gathered fresh yarrow where it grew in a sunny clearing between the trees and plucked several stems of comfrey that would soon be ready to dry.
At the loch she knelt to fill her bucket, and then just stood there for a while, staring at the barely disturbed surface of the water, craving peace inside but finding none.
And all through the day, she found herself listening for the sound of returning horses, signifying Morggán’s return.
She hated herself for it, that somewhere deep inside, some small part of her half-expected Morggán to come back different than he had left.
As quickly as it came, she buried the thought.
She’d stopped allowing herself hope years ago, and she had no intention of resurrecting it now.
For years she had carried questions no one had been there to answer.
Only in recent days had those questions begun to arrange themselves into something that resembled the truth, impossible as it had seemed.
She’d thought that speaking it aloud to Morggán might somehow make it less frightening, but now she wished only that she’d held her tongue.
Watching his bewilderment harden into anger had nearly broken her heart.
She could still hear the sharpness in his voice.
What game is this?
She kept to the house most of the day, busying herself with chores that might have waited for a rainy day.
She swept a floor already clean, sorted dried herbs into fresh bundles, and mended a tear no larger than the width of her thumb in one of her shirts.
Quietly, she scrubbed the bloodstain from the linen mattress cover, but decided changing out the straw would have to wait.
Unaccustomed to so much time indoors when the weather was fine, Charlie spent a restless day, pacing and unable to settle for longer than ten or fifteen minutes at a time.
When the sun had begun its slow descent toward the west, the distant sounds of returning riders drifted through the forest, and the camp gradually came back to life.
Avery's hands stilled upon the length of linen she had been folding. She listened, waiting, her pulse beginning to race, before forcing herself to settle.
It was more than an hour later that a knock came at her door, three quiet raps upon the thick wood.
Even though she’d expected the knock, she was still startled.
Taking a quiet breath to steady herself, she rose from banking the fire and crossed to the door.
She lifted the latch and pulled it inward.
Rather than stepping back as she always had, knowing Morggán would simply follow her inside, she remained where she was, one hand resting upon the latch, quietly barring his way.
Her eyes found his. She searched them only for an instant, hoping—despite every promise she had made herself—that time and reflection might have gentled what had hardened him this morning.
That was clearly not the case.
His expression had changed little since he’d left her.
His jaw was still set, his brow faintly furrowed, and yet his gaze was unreadable just now.
Whatever fragile hope had managed to survive the day quietly folded in upon itself.
Avery held his gaze only a heartbeat before looking away, feeling her own resolve quietly settle into place.
“Have ye eaten?” He surprised her by asking.
Avery nodded, murmuring a quiet, “Yes.” She kept her gaze on the leather band that crossed his broad chest diagonally.
“Donnchadh said ye dinna get out much today.”
“I had some things to do inside.”
Silence settled between them, stretching awkwardly, leaving Avery with the sad certainty that they had somehow become strangers again.
At length he said quietly, “If ye have need of anything...”
“I don't,” she assured him quickly, her voice flat, moving the door closed slowly.
He inclined his head. “Verra well,” he said, as stiffly as she’d spoken.
He turned to leave.
“Morggán.”
He stopped immediately, one hand resting upon the hilt of his sword before slowly turning back toward her.
She kept her eyes upon his chest. “How much longer will the camp remain here?” When will you be gone?
She wasn’t looking at his face, but felt a sharpness drop over his expression all the same.
“I canna say for certain,” was his cool response. “Nae much longer.”
Avery nodded, dropping her gaze to the threshold at her feet, and closed the door.