Chapter 13
She took the reins after their first break.
Though her back and thighs ached, she was starting to grow comfortable with the sway of the horse.
The captain rode beside her, showing her how to hold the reins and how to move them to guide the horse.
He critiqued her seat and posture and the way she shifted her weight.
Generally, he seemed to view her as one of his recruits in dire need of extra training.
He was used to ordering people about. That was clear. But he wasn’t an ass about it, so she didn’t put up much of a fight.
She wanted to learn, and he was a good teacher. Besides, it was easier to focus on guiding Copper with a flex of her thighs and a turn of her wrists than to think about where they were and who she was with. If the captain was frustrated at their slow pace, he didn’t comment on it.
The woods were quiet, but it wasn’t the breathless silence from the day she’d found him. Instead, it was the peaceful quiet of when they’d first moved to Toam and she and Toby had run free through the woods.
She automatically noted the familiar spots, the wide-branched tree where they’d built a treehouse out of scraps taken from the abandoned shed at the edge of town.
There was still a board up there, though they’d had to haul the rest back to Toam when Toby’s father had found out what they’d done.
He’d been most upset over the wasted nails.
There was the stand of trees where they used to stage battles using fallen pinecones as weapons.
The pool where she’d learned to swim until her mother found out she’d been stripping to her shift in front of a boy.
She wondered what the witch hunter would have to say about that.
Toby and his family moved away when she was sixteen.
He’d been the only other person her age in Toam.
It was funny. You’d think the brand would have launched her into adulthood, their poverty, her mother’s blindness.
That had been awful, but she’d actually liked living in Toam more than she’d ever liked Jarn.
The neighbors hadn’t been as judgmental.
Her mother had stopped pestering her about training for the Academy.
And she’d had more freedom than she knew what to do with.
Some of that freedom led her into trouble, like the time Toby fell on his head when they were climbing the cliffs above the river.
She’d thought he was dead for nearly an hour before he came round.
They’d been so far out she’d been afraid to leave him.
Or the time she’d gone out to feed the chickens and there was a strange man crawling out of the coop looking like he’d slept with the hens.
She’d had to drive him off with a rake. Or the time the priest came to town to deliver charity baskets but wouldn’t give one to her because she refused to drop to her knees.
Or when Toby stole a bottle of cheap wine and they’d both gotten violently sick with it.
And then Toby was gone.
There hadn’t been anyone else to talk to or go on adventures with. Being alone. That was what finally made her grow up.
The witch hunter drew his horse up beside hers. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look troubled.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m in the Black Woods hunting a witch. It’s troubling.”
“That’s why your expression fell?”
She didn’t know if she was more disturbed by the fact that he was watching her close enough to notice or that he seemed genuinely interested in her response.
Either way, best to shut it down now. She needed him disinterested.
“Is this how you spend your time on patrol with your men? Talking about your feelings in between all the killing and branding?”
“We talk,” he said. “It’s important for me to keep track of how my men are doing. I’d as soon ride into battle with a lame horse as a distracted soldier.”
She raised her brows. “I’m the lame horse?”
“You’re a woman who’s never been in this situation. I care what you’re thinking. A lack of focus could put you in danger. I understand you don’t like me, but we have to work together. It would help if we could have a simple conversation without you snarling at me.”
“I don’t snarl,” she said, mildly offended. “Despite what you think, I have excellent manners.”
“Might I ask where you keep them?”
Ha. “Maybe I save them for better company.”
“Like George?”
“George never branded my mother.”
His expression didn’t change so much as harden. She’d noticed that about him. It was like he didn’t show emotions on his face. He hid them. She’d landed a hit. It should make her feel better. So why did she feel like apologizing?
“If I told you everything that was on my mind, Captain, you wouldn’t like it.”
He huffed. “You’re like a thistle or a nettle. All pricking thorns. No wonder you’re—”
A flush crept up the side of his neck.
“No wonder I’m what?”
She honestly wanted to know what he’d been about to say.
“Nothing. You’re right. We don’t have to talk about anything but the job. You’re a hired guide. We’ll focus on that.”
Shouldn’t feel like a rejection, should it?
“How much longer until we reach where you found me?”
She pointed to the great black rock thrusting up from the forest floor ahead of them. The one that looked like a bear. “We turn there at the rock. If we line up from the rock to the highest peak in the mountains to the west, that’s the direction we need to take. It will be another hour or two.”
“You must have wanted that doe very badly.”
“Spoken like a man who’s never had to worry about his next meal.”
“You’d be wrong about that.”
“I doubt it.” It was clear he was well fed, and he’d been captain of a patrol for at least six years. Had he been forced to skip dinner once?
His gaze rested on her for a moment, but she kept her eyes fixed forward. In the end, he only asked, “This is the path to the fort?”
“It’s the way Toby and I came. Straight past where I found you and through the swamp. We follow the river for two days. The swamp will be the tricky part. The paths change constantly.”
“We interviewed at least a dozen men from the surrounding towns and farms before we entered the woods and none of them mentioned a swamp.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s technically a swamp, but that’s what we always called it, Toby and I.
It’s a wide stretch of boggy ground at a curve in the river that floods every year.
The rains this spring were particularly bad.
We’ll have to cut through part of it, but the more we avoid, the better. ”
“When will we reach the swamp?”
“The day after next.”
He guided Kenzi around a fallen tree. The trail narrowed and the witch hunter drew ahead of her. Giving her space, she supposed. So she’d stop snarling at him. Like she was a wild dog.
Or a nettle.
Or a lame horse.
And she was the one with no manners.
While his back was turned, she fished one of Tilly’s charms out of her pocket. Best to test it on familiar ground. It warmed in her palm, tugging her in the right direction.
“Is there a problem?”
She looked up. The witch hunter had stopped and was looking back at her.
“No problem,” she said, pocketing the charm. “Just getting my bearings.”
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What was that in your hand?”
She nudged Copper forward. “It’s just a charm to keep us from getting lost. It’s easy to get turned around in here. Sometimes you get a dud. This one works.”
“Let me see it.”
She kept moving, and he fell in beside her.
“Rowan.” His voice sharpened.
She’d known he was going to be difficult about this. That’s why she’d checked it when he wasn’t looking.
“It’s just a charm. Everyone uses them.”
“I don’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “You might possibly be the only person in the kingdom who doesn’t. I suppose, being a witch hunter, it would be awkward to brand women for selling charms if your pockets were full of them.”
“We don’t brand women for selling charms. We confiscate them when we find them in the market and fine the sellers. Potions, too. If a charm or potion is used to curse or injure someone, that’s when it becomes a matter for investigation.”
“Investigation.”
“Not every investigation leads to a trial.”
“It does if there’s fae blood involved,” she said. “If it’s someone with fae blood, they’re half-guilty already, aren’t they?”
“There’s only a trial if someone has been credibly accused by a person of good standing in their community. We don’t go rounding up people in the markets.”
“You’re lying about not using charms.”
His expression hardened. “I don’t lie.”
“I remember the charm you used on me in Jarn,” she said. “The one that glows when you’re near someone with fae blood.”
“The witchstone is a Church relic. Not a charm.”
“I know a charm when I see one.”
He made a low sound in his throat that sounded like a growl. “Stop trying to distract me and show me what you have in your pocket.”
It’d be better if he accepted the charms. There would be fewer questions if he thought that was all she was using to guide them through the woods.
Safer that way. Also, she wanted to see how rigid he was in his beliefs.
Her mother didn’t like the charms, but she didn’t forbid their use.
They needed them to clean the water and keep the firewood dry.
To keep the chicken coop free of foxes and prevent the roof from leaking.
The Church didn’t like the use of charms either, but even Copper’s saddle had a few charms burned into the leather and it had belonged to a priest. Most people looked the other way.
Time to find out if the captain was like most people.
“It’s nothing, really,” she said. “You can just pretend you didn’t see it. I told you I’d get you to the fort and that’s what I’m doing. Do you really need to worry about how I do it?”