She opened her eyes and their gazes met and, for the first time, she thought she could see some softness in the way he looked at her.
He sighed. “No, perhaps it is not. Go to sleep, Gemma. We will sort this tomorrow when we go back to Kirkjaster.”
“I am not going back.”
“We will see.”
Chapter Nine
Arne woke to virtualdarkness. There was only a small red glow from the fire. He should rouse himself and put more wood on it so the shieling didn’t grow any colder. He was glad of the warmth from the blankets, but he ached all over from lying on the hard-packed dirt floor and moving was becoming a necessity.
A child’s snore from the bed reminded him of the promise he had made last night. It was one he would happily keep. The boy was only a child, innocent as yet of the sins of his parents or his people. Nor did Arne regret promising to keep Gemma safe. Any mother should have the chance to watch her child grow up, but life did not always provide those chances. If he could ensure it, then he would. Although he still hadn’t got over his anger with her.
She might have died yesterday. If she was being truthful and she had left Kirkjaster with no plan of where to stay, then she had deliberately put her son at risk by leaving so suddenly. But why had she gone north? Kirkjaster lay on a peninsula and, without a boat, north was the only way to leave it, but she had continued north well past the point where she could have headed east towards Car Cadell where Aoife’s cousin Lord Cenydd would have surely taken her in, and further east of Car Cadell lay her brother’s royal residence.
Where had she thought she was going? She already had a home; two, in fact. Caelin’s own lands south of the river, and the king’sresidence in Perthawc. She had chosen neither. Yes, returning to her brother might be dangerous, but dying here with nothing was as much of a possibility.
After the way she had talked to him last night, he had started to believe she was telling the truth. She had sounded so desperate. She must be to feel she needed to beg one of her enemies for help. He let out a breath, knowing his anger should be aimed at himself as much as her. If what she said was true, she’d left to try and protect Kirkjaster. And it had been him that had made her feel like she was endangering it —even if Rhiannon’s comments had clearly been the final straw.
He had seen no sign of her mixing with anyone in the village except for Aoife and Rhiannon. She had set her sights on no man in the four months she had lived there, despite continuing to live a life not so different from her privileged one before. The only thing he had ever seen her do was sewing.
She saw he was treating her as if she were Ingrid, but realised she didn’t understand why he saw similarities between them—and there was his biggest problem. No one would understand that. No one else knew what he did about Ingrid. And no one must ever find out.
He pushed himself up from the floor, shivering when the blankets fell around his waist. His shirt was not enough to keep him warm in the cold before dawn. He stood and reached for his kirtle and leathers, then pulled them on.
After he had put more wood on the fire and persuaded it back to life, he opened the door.
The world around the shieling was white and silent—the silence only found in a world of freshly fallen snow. Even now, before dawn, the landscape glowed with its own inner light as the snow continued to fall. It was almost knee-deep already. They would not be going anywhere today, and he would need to add to Gemma’s meagre supplies by hunting. Before he washed in preparationfor the day ahead, he would ensure they had food and wood to last them.
Dusk and dawn were the best times to find deer, so the sooner he went out, the better. He put on his boots and leathers, and stepped outside, smiling at the sound of his feet crunching in the crisp snow. He closed the door and debated whether to bar it or not. It would be safer, he decided.
Gemma and Caelin couldn’t come hunting with him. Neither would he leave them unprotected, so he opened the door and stuck his largest knife into the dirt floor near the door where she would see it when she woke. He banked the fire and closed the door behind him, then slid the wooden bar into place so the shieling would appear uninhabited. Nor would she be able to let anyone else inside while he was gone. Then he assessed the surrounding area for hunting.
Around the edge of the woodlands would give him the best balance of visibility in the pre-dawn light and a clear line of sight for throwing his axe. When he had left yesterday, he had not thought he would be required to hunt for food, and so he had not brought a bow with him. Axes were messy ways to hunt for deer, but he didn’t have a choice.
He found a vantage point behind some boulders and settled down to wait. It was not long before he heard the sounds of a herd drawing closer. He waited until he had his eye on one particular creature, an older male trailing a little behind. Then he threw. His axe hit its target, and the deer fell while the rest of the herd scattered into the woods. He pushed himself to his feet and hurried over. The deer was already dead, so he lifted it and hung it from a tree branch. Then he set about draining the blood and preparing it enough so he could carry it to the shieling to butcher. When it was ready, he slung it over his shoulders and carried it back to the shieling. His leathers would definitely need a good wash after this.
As he approached the shieling, the door rattled, and someone pounded on it from the inside. He knocked sharply as he lifted the bar, but didn’t open the door yet. He didn’t want Gemma attacking him with his own knife.
“Gemma, stop. It’s me.”
The pounding stopped, but there was no other response. He let the carcass slide from his shoulders to the ground and placed it beside the door. When he opened it he thought at first they weren’t there. It took a moment to pick her out in the dim light of the fire, huddling in the farthest corner, her arms around her son. She was breathing heavily, and her hands were streaked with blood.
“What is it? What happened?”
She shrank back and didn’t answer, burying her face in her son’s hair. Caelin put a hand on his mother’s shoulder and patted her a little awkwardly. The gesture was heart-wrenching.
“We were trying to get out,” Caelin said. “In case someone came who wanted to hurt us.”
“I barred the door to keep you safe.”
Gemma gave a choked sob. He wanted to reach for her, to reassure her, but he didn’t. He had no right to, especially when his actions had caused her distress.
“Mama said bad things happen to prisoners,” Caelin said, his fingers clenching. He didn’t look at Arne as he spoke.
Arne frowned. “You are not my prisoners.” He pulled the knife from where he had left it in the dirt near the door. “Would I have left you my knife if you were my prisoners?”
Gemma lifted her head. Her face was streaked with tears and she was visibly trembling. Her arms were tight around Caelin, and now there was anger was growing in her expression. “I thought it was a threat.”
