The wind gusted, buffeting him on the hilltop path, turning his sodden clothes to ice. One of the villagers raised his head toward the hill, and then his arm to point at Thomas. The others paused in their work, turned, and stood, staring. Thomas couldn’t see their faces from so far away, but he was well familiar withtheir postures.
Foreigner.
Intruder.
English.
His only choices were to return to the sea and throw himself in or venture into what was perhaps a hostile settlement. The sky grew thicker, then; lower, like layers of icy batting being rolled out and pushed down over Thomas’s head—so low that he fancied he could feel them brushing the top, aching and wetfrom the cold.
He shivered his way down the steep, narrow path toward the figures who stared openly at him. The first few stinging drops of rain cut through his slicked-back hair to his scalp, stung his face. The wind burned his sea-seared lungs; his empty stomach squirmed against his backbone. Each jarring footstep brought him closer and closer to the people who watched him, slack-faced, as if they’d never seen another man before, and Thomas grew even more uneasy.
Would the people of Caedmaray give him shelter and sustenance through the long winter to come, until the supply boat returned from Thurso? Would he be safe on Caedmaray?
Was hesafe anywhere?
He came to a halt at the corner of the nearest buried house, and still the villagers stared at him as if he were a strange, dangerous creature. Thomas thought of all the times he had been initially welcomed at a table or hearth only to have the kindling kindness dashed by the accent that rolled from his tongue, and he hesitated to speak. But no one hailed him, no one questioned him. They only stared.
“I’m from the ship,” he muttered quickly, his teeth clacking together. No one blinked, and so he gestured with an arm back the way he had come, flicked his head inanely, as if the people of the island had so soon forgotten the vessel that had brought the cargo some still held in their arms; as if they didn’t know the way to their own rocky bay. “I lost the tether line.”
“Dè a tha thu ag iarraidh bhuainn?”an old, bonneted man barked.
Thomas blinked at the foreign words, swallowed down the razors in his throat. “I’mfrom the ship—”
“He heard ye,” a woman’s voice called out, and then a figure emerged from a hidden doorway behind the man. Her skirts were long and gray, almost identical in shade to the leaden clouds above the island. The long rope of hair that emerged over her shoulder from the faded kerchief wrapped across her forehead was the color of dark honey. She was young, but she did not smile at him. “My father has only the old tongue.”
She touched the man’s shoulder.“Chaill e am bàta, athair.”What she said Thomas could only guess, for the man’s stern countenance didn’t change. Then she looked to Thomas. “Havethey left ye?”
“Aye.”
She looked him up and down.“Yer English.”
Thomas noddedcurtly. “Aye.”
“He canna stay here,” a sneering voice cut through the tense silence, the drizzle around them suddenly sounding like the crackle of flames. A boulder of a man rolled through the villagers to stand next to the young woman. “He’s an outsider.”
“Where else is heto go, Dragan?”
“They likely left him a-purpose. Likely for a thief,” Dragan argued, staring with unabashed hatred at Thomas. They looked at one another uneasily; obviously there were others in the village whospoke English.
“I’m no thief,” Thomas spoke up. His shivering had increased, although now his skin felt fevered, as if he had been standing near a roaring fire. “I only lost the tether line.”
“They didnae think ye worth turnin’ back for, now did they?” Dragan jeered and took a step forward. “Likely happy to be rid of ye. Thief, I say.” He had a hungry look in his eyes then, like a starved wolf who can’t believe his luck at a lamb wandering intohis territory.
The woman stepped in front of Dragan. “Ye know the ship would have been dashed to pieces in the swell had it turned back. I saw him workin’ the line, just the same as ye.”
The old man suddenly barked another stream of unintelligible words, causing Dragan’s scowl to deepen.
She looked to Thomas once more and gestured toward the doorway from which she’d emerged. “My father bids ye welcome. Ye will stay with us,in his house.”
Thomas could barely force his throat to swallow as he at once reached down to the pouch that was still tied tightly around his middle, beneath his soaked vest. In it was all the coin he had managed to save from his meager earnings working the ship. He had hoped to use it one day to make his way back south and, somehow, some way, redeem himself. But if he was to survive the long winter on this remote island with already one enemy made, perhaps it would be better used to repay the old man’s generosity.
He undid the ties carefully, feeling the eyes of all those strangers gathered on the path on him, watching his every movement. The leather pouch felt heavier in his shaking hands then, heavy with seawater and wetcoin and fear.
“I know my presence will be an added burden to your village,” he said quietly and paused, glancing up at the woman, and then looking to her father pointedly.
She translated his words into the guttural Gaelic.
He withdrew a handful of the coins, looked at them in his palm, and then looked at the woman’s father, presumably the patriarch of the tiny community. “Perhaps this will help offset the cost of my lodgings.” Thomas held out the silver to the old man. “I will, of course, share in the work.”
