“A threat? Should I have left you with nothing in an open shieling, so any passing stranger could have come in and attacked you?”
“We couldn’t get out. If someone had come, we couldn’t have escaped but they could have got in.” Her sobs had stopped, replaced by tension and anger.
“By the time they were opening the door, you wouldn’t have been able to escape, anyway.”
“We would at least have had a chance.”
“You didn’t even know it was me coming back to the door just now. What warning would you have got? Should I have left the door open?”
“You should have woken me. Told me.”
Her words were true. He couldn’t deny that, but he hadn’t done so.
“I should have,” he finally said.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked, although the misery on her face implied that she already thought she knew the answer—that he didn’t trust her not to run away or to let someone else in. He didn’t know how to tell her that wasn’t what had been foremost in his thoughts, but he had already apologised. He wasn’t doing anything more.
Caelin pushed away from her, despite or oblivious to the tension. “I am hungry. Did you catch something?”
“A deer. Once I butcher it, I would be grateful if you would cook it, Gemma. Everything will seem better when we are no longer hungry.”
Gemma nodded but stayed silent and he decided his presence inside was only making the situation worse.
Outside, as he gutted and butchered the deer, he began to calm down. For a while he heard nothing, then gradually he heard Caelin’s soft voice and finally Gemma’s.
Why did he feel guilty about imprisoning them? It hadn’t been his intention. Hadn’t he only been trying to help, trying to keep them safe?
The body heat leached slowly from the deer and he shivered despite having been working. He looked up at the sky and sighed. The sun had risen although it remained obscured by thick white clouds. There was more snow on the way. A lot more, if his judgment was correct. Not only would they be staying here tonight, but they might not even get to leave the following morning. In a country where it rained so often, why had it chosen today to snow? At least they had shelter here, and now fresh meat, which would last them a while.
The butchering finished, he stood up and stretched. He separated out the meat into a smaller portion for cooking that day, and the rest he would wrap in cloths from the shieling and place in the snow nearby to freeze.
He opened the door and stuck his head inside, trying to avoid getting blood in the shieling.
“Gemma, pass me a bowl for the raw meat and some waxed cloths to wrap the rest to store it.”
As he waited for her to bring the items, a few flakes of snow began to fall.
“Here,” she said, handing them out to him.
“Thank you. Here.” He handed her the bowl and was pleased to see her smile when she saw it.
“Thank you. And you said there is some for storing?”
He grinned at her, realising she probably had no idea how much meat even a single deer produced. “Enough for many days,” he assured her. “I will wrap this and bury it in the snow, then go and wash up.”
It didn’t take long to wrap the rest of the butchered meat and offal. Then he disposed of the rest of the remains a safe distance from the shieling. It was a shame to waste it, but here, in these circumstances, it was too difficult to make use of it. He headed towards the stream at the edge of the woods to wash.
At the stream, he knelt down and scooped water up with his gloved hands, then rinsed his leathers with the cold water.
The sound of distant laughter made him lift his head from his work. He nearly stopped breathing. Ahead of him, further north, was a group of men. Hunters, most likely. And they had seen him.
He watched as they approached, although he stayed kneeling and continued to wash the blood from his leathers. He was torn between running back to the shieling to warn Gemma and not wanting to draw the hunters’ attention to the place. He prayed she would remain indoors.
From their dress, most of them looked Norse. Once they were close enough, he recognised one of them. Njal, a man he had raided with several times. A good fighter, reliable, neither an enemy nor a friend. Another was dressed more like a Gael than a Norseman.
“Arne Olafsson. I had heard you were living on the shores of the Clut,” Njal greeted him.
“I am. I was out hunting, and when the snow started last night, decided to take shelter here,” said Arne.
