Frida touched his shoulder, gently. “You will be up and about in a day or so, I’ll wager.”
Arlo made a noise which she couldn’t properly decipher. His face was pressed into a cushion, so it was hardly surprising she couldn’t decipher his speech. But his next words were clear enough.
“Thank ye.”
“You are most welcome.”
She once again packed his shoulder with honey, covered the wound with a linen pad and wound fresh bandages across his body. The position of the cut meant she must wrap her bandages all around his ribs, going over and under alternate shoulders to keep the dressing in place. Arlo sat up so that she might accomplish this. Usually Andrew was here to help him into a sitting position, but today he managed well enough on his own.
“Very good,” she smiled, encouragingly. “Perchance on the morrow you might try to stand?”
His eyes met hers. “Aye, milady,” he whispered.
She wished he might converse more easily, so she could get to know this young man who had been so grievously injured on her property. A youth who Callum clearly held in great affection.
Sighing, Frida helped him back down, positioning him again so that he was on his side, facing the door.
“Will your friend be back soon?” she asked. “Andrew, isn’t it?”
Arlo opened his mouth as if to reply, but then closed it again. He nodded vigorously, an elaborate pantomime that saw his pallet shift and Frida’s jar of honey, which had been precariously balanced on the corner fall to the floor. She tutted as it rolled across the wooden floor and disappeared beneath Callum’s pallet.
“’Tis no matter,” she said reassuringly, for Arlo’s eyebrows shot up his face at her concerned expression. “I can reach it.”
But that was easier said than done. Frida had to lower herself into the narrow gap between the two pallets, relieved that Arlo was facing away from her and would not bear witness to her undignified wriggling. Once in position, she blinked until her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom and squinted to make out the glint of the glass jar.
The gleaming blade of a dagger glinted back at her.
Frida quickly stifled her sharp intake of breath, realising that not one, but several blades lay concealed on the dusty floor beneath the pallet. This was no less than a stash of weapons.
A stash that Callum must know about.Nay,must be responsible for.
Her fingers trembled as she reached out for the jar of honey, which had settled near the carved wooden handle of a lethal looking dagger.
Did Arlo know about this, she wondered. Either way, she must move quickly else she would risk rousing his suspicion.
“I have it,” she declared, somewhat breathlessly.
Arlo grunted in response.
Frida pushed herself to her feet, dishevelled and dusty from the floor. She placed the honey back in the box and snapped the lid shut.
“That will be all for today,” she trilled.
Arlo nodded again and smiled. Footsteps outside had her starting with something like fear.
Misplaced fear?
Frida no longer knew. But she held herself steady and composed, half hoping and half dreading that Callum would appear through the wooden door.
But ’twas not Callum, ’twas Andrew. And Frida had never been so aware of his height and strength.
He smiled slightly and nodded his auburn head in greeting. Over the past two days, Frida had grown accustomed to the silence of these men, but now it struck her as menacing.
What if they were not simple, as she had previously thought? What if they were in league against her?
Did that mean that Callum was also in league against her? Frida’s heart pounded at the possibility. Surely that could not be?
In the moment, all that mattered was that she got out of the loft and into the fresh air, where she might breathe freely and unravel her tangled thoughts.
