Page 66 of The Shape of Silence

Yet something about it all felt suddenly... different—or perhaps not different at all, just... older?

The realization came so unexpectedly that she frowned.

She had lived amongst such things for nearly ten years. She had drawn water in wooden buckets every morning, cooked over an open fire, watched first the man and now Morggán's men oil their knives and swords and mend leather straps, and she hadn’t thought much of it beyond simple necessity. None of it had ever struck her as remarkable. It was merely the life she knew.

So why did it suddenly seem as though she should have questioned these things earlier?

Her eyes settled upon one of the wagons, piled with shields and axes and other equipment. Nearby, a young man barely older than she was carried an armful of spears while two older men walked in the opposite direction, carrying saddles that suddenly struck her as unexpected, though she couldn’t say why. Beyond them, a man emerged from one of hundreds of tents, all made of oil-slicked canvas rather than any synthetic material.

William Wallace. The name echoed again through her thoughts, and she was certain she had heard it before, though not here but elsewhere, long ago, shortly before she’d disappeared from that other life. A chill crept slowly through her until she shook herself free of her fantastic imaginings, and she told herself firmly that it was absurd.

There had been thousands of men throughout history, and history had a habit of repeating itself in curious ways. Surely there had been more than one William Wallace.

***

The party—all mac Ruaidhrí and Thain men less a dozen who would remain to keep watch over supplies, and spare horses and mules, and at Morggán’s direction, over Avery as well—departed less than an hour later beneath a sky still heavy with morning cloud, though pale light had begun filtering weakly through the eastern hills by then. Morggán rode near the front beside Lucas while the others stretched behind them in loose formation amongst the trees, more than one hundred and fifty mounted men moving quickly across the hills and glens. They would tighten formation and decrease their speed as they neared their target.

They flew no banners, nor did any armor gleam proudly in the morning light. This was not a formal march into a known battle but guerrilla warfare as William Wallace had utilized, and just as Tormod had described—strike fast and hard and then disappear.

Morggán glanced back only once, but to little avail. How quickly the forest swallowed everything.

About a mile gone, Lucas asked suddenly, “Ye ever hear of that place she’s from, America?”

That brought Morggán’s attention sideways at once.

Lucas rode with the same heavy stillness he seemed to bring to every task, broad shoulders set straight, his expression revealing nothing particularly beyond idle observation, yet Morggán distrusted the casualness of the question immediately. Lucas rarely asked anything idly.

The unfamiliar word—America—sounded oddly natural in Lucas’s mouth, which sharpened Morggán’s wariness further.

“Nae.” When Lucas said nothing more, Morggán asked, “Do ye ken it?”

“I’ve only heard mention of it.”

Lucas was about as subtle as a battering ram, and thus his seemingly casual interest piqued Morggán’s interest and gave rise to his protectiveness.

“I ken there are many places beyond Scotland I’ve nae ever heard of.”

Lucas snorted a short, unamused laugh. “Ye have nae idea.”

“And ye do?” Morggán challenged, his expression darkening.

“Some.”

“Have ye some issue ye wish to raise with the lass, having met her so briefly?” Morggán pressed. Avery spoke occasionally of places and things unknown to him, yet he’d long ago ceased trying to decide whether her strange references came from distance, eccentricity, or a simple misunderstanding of language. She was simply Avery.

“I have nae issue with the lass,” Lucas assured him quickly enough. “In some way, she reminds me of my wife.” The conversation might have ended there had Lucas not continued several moments later. “She speaks somewhat like her.”

Morggán’s horse shifted beneath him as the path narrowed briefly between two great pines. He guided the gelding carefully through before answering. “Aye?”

“The cadence,” Lucas clarified. “Certain words. The directness of it.”

Morggán said nothing to that.

Something about the entire exchange rattled him increasingly the longer it continued. Not because Lucas seemed hostile toward Avery—quite the opposite, perhaps, he now imagined, since it was no secret that Lucas Thain adored his wife, Cora, and he’d just said that Avery reminded him of her—but because his interest carried an odd certainty beneath it, as though he recognized something Morggán himself did not.

“She’s lived alone—that bleak, isolated existence—for years,” Morggán said after a moment, his tone cooling slightly. “If ye imagine a strangeness in her...”

Lucas looked ahead again, accepting the warning beneath the words easily enough. “I imagine only what ye must have—the lass is nae strange but lost,” he said calmly.