Page 42 of The Shape of Silence

Tormod paused and turned to Morggán, bringing him and Donnchadh, who remained as well, to a halt also.

“So, who is she? What is this circumstance?”

Morggán exhaled slowly through his nose. “A week I’ve been here,” he said, “and I still canna answer that properly.” He glanced once toward the shut door of the hut. “By my understanding she’s lived here alone for years. Claims she’s seen nae other soul before me.”

Tormod frowned deeply at that while Donnchadh’s expression altered very little.

“But she found ye, did she?” Tormod asked.

“Aye, about a mile in that direction,” he said, pointing beyond the hut.

“And carried ye here by herself?” Donnchadh questioned, his skepticism obvious.

Morggán found even now the memory remained difficult to reconcile fully with the slight young woman presently hidden inside that hut. He huffed the faintest humorless laugh. “Aye, as I said.” He squinted through the men toward the house, seeing that the travois was half-visible. “On that litter,” he explained. “And nae man alive was more surprised than I.”

Tormod’s dubious gaze drifted again toward the hut. “She had a man here once,” he guessed.

“Aye. In some regard. Nae husband nor father by my understanding.” Morggán shook his head slightly. “Truthfully, I still canna make sense of her.”

That, more than anything else he might have admitted, seemed to settle heavily with Tormod.

The older warrior studied Morggán a moment longer instead. “Aye, well, whatever mystery surrounds her, ye seem in nae worse shape for it.”

“I’m nae.”

“And so we owe her.”

Morggán nodded once firmly. “Aye.”

“Then we’ll see her provisioned well ere we leave.”

Something slammed inside Morggán’s chest. “I dinna mean to leave her here.”

Tormod’s brows rose. “Och and shite. Like that, is it?”

Morggán’s mouth flattened instantly. “Nae, it isnae.”

The denial came quickly enough to hover uncomfortably between them.

“However, we were forced out of bed—my pallet is on the floor,” he said purposefully before continuing, “three nights past. English moved through this forest after dark in numbers enough to choke the hills. Hundreds, mayhap five or six.” He pointed toward the southern hills. “Came from the same direction as ye did. Christ, she dinna even ken there was a war—I canna abandon her if this is to become a major thoroughfare for the English.”

The shift in Tormod’s face was immediate. “Shite.”

“Nae banners visible in the dark,” Morggán thought to add. “Couldnae say whether it was de Valence or de Segrave. But they marched north.”

“Shite,” Tormod repeated more grimly.

“That force passed within a quarter mile of this place. And now we’ve brought another army straight to her door besides.”

“She kens naught of the war?” Donnchadh asked quietly.

“Aye. And I believe she speaks truth, strange though it sounds.”

“Then she’s lived farther from the world than a nun in her cloister,” Alasdair remarked as he wandered back toward them.

A moment later, Finlay and Eòin had returned as well, and the conversation turned at last toward the matter demanding immediate attention, their plans for the morrow.

Morggán repeated what little he knew of the English force moving north through the forest, shocking the younger three. Some debate ensued over who it might have been, which English force.