“I dinnae ken who I am,” he repeated, as if he wanted to ensure she understood he was telling the truth.
She nodded. “I ken that.”
“Dae… dae ye ken anything about me?”
She doubted a man of his large stature had ever had the need to sound so small in his life, so lost. She leaned forward to help him drink his tea, and took another moment to help prop him up on the bed with more folded blankets and pillows so that she could at least look him in the eye as they spoke.
While he was obviously in pain, she was having trouble tearing her eyes from him, and how much broader he appeared upright than he had before. More than twice her size. No wonder he was so damned heavy.
“Well, when they fished ye out of the ocean, all ye had on were some ripped trousers and a shirt.” She answered, her mind instantly flashing back to that moment. She hadn’t ever seen anybody look more like a corpse than that. “I dinnae ken how ye even survived. Ye must have a very stubborn soul in there.”
“I wish I knew.” He tried to laugh but coughed instead.
Freya couldn’t help but return the expression. She placed his tea in his hand, just in case he wanted to try lifting it, and she put her own down on the table before moving to the drawer where she had hidden his personal effects that he had had on him. Curling the ring into her palm, she grabbed the ruined bundle of clothing she hadn’t gotten around to disposing of and brought them back for his inspection.
He was moving the teacup now that he was more upright. That was a good sign, he was getting some of his strength back She smiled kindly and placed the cloth on his lap before carefully putting the ring and bundle on top of it.
He picked up each item in turn, and if he recognized any of it, he certainly made no note of it on his face. It all looked the same to her. He unfolded the shirt, pausing at an embroidered letter on the right-hand seam. His gaze narrowed. “A ‘J’? What dae ye think that might be fer?”
So, he could read, that said a good deal about his upbringing if nothing else. “I suppose that whoever must have made those garments fer ye must have put it there. Perhaps ye’re the forgetful sort.”
She barely could contain her laughter. Nathan cut a sharp glance up at her. “Very funny.”
Freya lifted one shoulder into a shrug. It hadn’t even been an intentional pun but she wasn’t going to deny that she had enjoyed it all the same.
“If only there werenae so many names that start with the letter ‘J’.” She grinned, waiting for him to look at the rest of it. “It’s either yer initial or that of yer clan? I dinnae ken all the various clans and who gets along with whom. Out here, the village is so small and isolated that we dinnae have tae worry about such things very often.”
The man nodded in understanding before picking up the ring. He tested it against his hand to ensure that it actually belonged to him, but he made no other comment. He didn’t even seem to know what finger it was that she had found it on at first. He dropped it carelessly back down to the pile of cloth. It was gold. Didn’t that mean anything to him? He was growing more interesting with every passing moment.
“I wish I could remember what I was doing, where I was going…”
If ye left somebody behind.
“It’s the strangest thing, ye ken? Some things are right here,” he motioned vaguely to his head. “And then everything else is just out of reach.”
“Perhaps I havenae been clear with ye about the extent of yer injuries.” It was the only explanation that she had. “By all rights, ye shouldnae be alive.”
“Then I clearly owe ye a life debt fer yer incredible healing services, Freya.”
Her heart skipped when he said her name.
“Never ye mind a thing about that. It is just me calling, nay gratitude necessary,” she said far too quickly as she turned away from him, back to attending to her nearly forgotten stew because she didn’t wish to have him see her blush intensely.
“Freya?” Nathan called to her, his voice heavy and his eyes starting to droop. “Ye have me gratitude all the same. I dinnae… I dinnae feel like a man who was ready tae die.”
She watched as he fell asleep practically upright. She took the empty cup from his hands and didn’t even try to lay him back down again. She would just wake him when the stew was finished.
Until then, she would curse herself for how much she enjoyed having him awake.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Freya had never had this much difficulty leaving her house before.
She was a very social, friendly woman and she liked interacting with the other villagers. But now, her heart was pounding over the fear that something would happen to Nathan while she was away. If Tristan was still spying on her despite her firm warnings, would he attempt to break into her home and do something terrible? She didn’t even want to think the man who had once been her friend would be capable of something like that, but now she just wasn’t so sure.
Every few moments, Freya’s hand dipped into her pocket to reassure herself her key was still there, for she had locked the door behind her. It had only been a few days since the incident with the council and while she had waited as long as she could, her hut was empty of supplies. She needed proper food to feed the recovering man now that he was sleeping on a more consistent pattern. He needed his energy restored and that was no simple thing.
She said nothing to those she passed. It wasn’t as if she would have had kind words to say to them in the first place. She moved through the village market, glancing over the wares at the stalls and picking up things here and there. She placed an order for meat to be brought to her hut, as she wasn’t going to even try to carry such an amount on her own. More things that she would never allow Tristan to do for her again.
