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8

Afew days passed. Traveling through the Highlands was hard, and some of the terrain was extremely difficult to traverse. Maxwell’s men came and went, offering brief updates before disappearing into the forest again, searching for any trace of the band of raiders that were hiding somewhere in the Highlands. They stopped at a babbling brook so the horses could slake their thirst, and the riders could give their aching thighs a rest. As she alighted from her horse, Hilda massaged her thighs and stretched her lithe body, feeling a sweet, pleasant ache surging through her. Maxwell walked to the stream and bent down, cupping his hands like a bowl and bringing a huge amount of water to his face. Droplets trickled along his beard as he refreshed himself. Angus was a few paces downstream, and from the back, he looked like a child compared to Maxwell.

A few men had gone into the forest to forage for some food to eat. When Hilda saw the types of berries they had gathered, she ran up to them and smacked them out of their hands. The berries dropped to the floor, and the men looked shocked.

“What are ye daeing with them?” she asked.

“We were gaeing tae eat them.”

“Dae ye nae know what kind of berries those are?” Hilda rolled her eyes. “These would hae killed ye. Ye hae tae be more careful.” As it happened, none of these men had ever learned which berries were safe to eat and which weren’t. They had only ever been given the berries by the women, and Hilda was struck by how prescient her mother’s words had been.

“I’ll gae and get some food for us tae eat. Is there anyone else who knows which berries are safe tae eat?” she asked, her voice rising high and clear through the glade. Only Maxwell raised his hand and came to join her. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll gae and gather some berries.”

She marched away with Maxwell in tow, and she did not see the dark look that Angus gave her.

Maxwell and Hilda were away from the small camp. She muttered under her breath about how useless the men were as she saw the prickly plant they had plucked the berries from. She searched for safer food and found them on a thorny bush. Maxwell joined her, and she watched as he deftly plucked the berries from the stems, just as her mother had taught her.

“I’m impressed with yer technique,” she said.

“Aye, well, when ye spend as much time as I hae in the forest, ye quickly learn what’s safe tae eat and what’s nae safe.”

“My ma taught me about all of this,” Hilda confessed in a soft voice. “I was nae grateful at the time. All I wanted tae dae was fight and train with a sword. She said this type of thing would come in handy, but I didnae listen. Did yer ma teach ye? Did ye even hae a ma? I heard some of the children say that ye are made of stone and walked out of the mountains. Maybe that’s why ye dinnae want us tae gae up there,” she teased, laughing slightly.

Maxwell smirked. “Children always hae wonderful imaginations. Aye, I haed a ma. I even haed a home, if ye can believe that.” He flashed a self-deprecating smile in her direction. “She was a sweet woman...well, sae I’m told.”

“Ye didnae know her?”

His face became ashen. “Giving birth tae a man like me was tae much for her tae bear,” he said.

Hilda wasn’t sure what to say in response to that. She certainly hadn’t been expecting the conversation to take such a serious turn, nor had she assumed that Maxwell would be forthcoming about his past when, so far, he had not solicited anything regarding his personal history.

“I wanted tae thank ye for what ye said the other day,” Maxwell continued, speaking about the moment when she had stood up for him against Angus. “It would hae been easy for ye tae side with Angus, but he was wrong. There’s no way they’re in the mountains.”

“Aye, well, I’m nae here tae care for anyone’s pride. All I want is tae find these men and punish them for what they did. Following yer instincts is gaeing tae give us the best chance for that, and I would be a fool tae ignore it. Besides, my da didnae pay ye sae much tae ignore yer advice.”

Maxwell smirked. “Aye, that he didnae.”

They continued picking berries in peace and returned to the camp, doling out the berries to anyone who wanted some sweet refreshment before the hunters brought back something proper for dinner. Hilda had glimpsed a different side of Maxwell, and she wondered what other mysteries he held within his soul. They had both suffered the pain of losing a mother but in quite different circumstances. It made her wonder what his childhood had been like, although she doubted she would get the answers she sought. As soon as this was over, Maxwell would be off again, roaming the Highlands in search of more coin. As for her, well, she wasn’t quite sure where her future lay yet, or if she would even be welcome back in the clan when this was all done. It wouldn’t change the fact that Fiona was dead or that her father could barely bring himself to look at her.

The following morning, one of Maxwell’s men returned. He panted heavily as he ran to Maxwell. The words dropped out of his mouth in between his heavy breaths. It was clear that he had returned as quickly as possible. The horse went straight to the stream, where he drank deeply.

“I’ve found a village that haes just been attacked. The method was the same, a swift attack. They were nae as lucky as yer clan, though.” He turned to Hilda as he said this. “They hae piled their dead on a pyre, and the buildings are scorched. It’s a terrible sight,” he said.

Maxwell’s face was set in stone, and he nodded. Hilda felt her heart skip a beat. There was a part of her that had believed she wasn’t going to actually find the men who had done this, that they were simply going to disappear into the ether and never be seen again. But this was a tangible clue, and while it was awful to think of another village having been attacked, she was glad that it might lead them to the perpetrators.

They gathered their supplies and mounted their horses, and soon they were away again. Hilda wondered if Maxwell was ever worried about the other men he sent to roam about the forest in search of any leads. It took a lot of trust to know that someone was out there roaming freely. For all Hilda knew, they might have been enjoying the luxuries of a tavern somewhere rather than striving to find the truth. Maxwell must have picked his men carefully.

They were away swiftly and soon found themselves approaching the village. The people who greeted them had glum looks on their faces, and many of them were defensive, worried that this was another band of raiders come to scavenge what little was left of their home. A pyre burned in the distance, and a terrible odor filled the air. Hilda shielded her eyes, for she did not wish to look at the blackened and charred bodies resting upon the pyre. The buildings were hardly any better, though. Some had had their roofs burned away, while others had been deeply scorched. Wagons had been broken, and the stables were emptier than perhaps they should have been.

The leader of the clan was a young man who trembled as he spoke. He wrung his hands, and he must have been even younger than Hilda herself.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“I’m…I’m Gareth,” he said softly, his eyes darting about furtively.

“I’m Hilda Aland Callan, of the Callan clan. We suffered a similar attack tae ye. We’re looking for the men who did this.”

“Aye, well, good luck. They came out of nowhere. They crashed through our defenses and ran around the village, taking whatever they could. It was like a storm. Da and the other men…they tried tae protect us, but these people were savage. They just…they broke apart all we hae.” He was on the verge of tears. Hilda felt sympathy for his sorrow.