echoing through the hills, crack, crack, crack, a pause and then crack, crack, ringing through the clear crisp days, A riderless horse ran down the path just beyond me. I kept my aim on the path, waiting for men to flee, but then long minutes passed and no one came.
Finally Magnus rode down the hill toward me.
“Thank God! I thought you were dead.”
“I canna be dead, m’gun outshoots them by a verra long distance. I came tae see tae ye.” He led me up the hill to where two horses stood idly in the snow. There were three bodies.
Magnus tied our horses to a tree and dragged the bodies over. He dug through their bags, searching for anything valuable. Their knives were crude, he tossed them away. He found a few coins and dropped them into his sporran. It was all rather unsettling, dead people weren’t really something I liked to see, but I had been seeing them quite a lot lately.
He shook his head. “I gave them the chance tae be thieves. I left these coins in our site. The chance tae take them with their lives, but they were determined tae be murderers as well.”
“Now they’re dead.”
I nuzzled and talked to Hurley and Cynric, and led them to an area where the snow was thin and there were shoots of grass.
Magnus finished searching the men and unsaddling their horses. He set their horses free and they ran off, high spiritedly, but then stopped and stood, seemingly confused about what to do next.
Magnus and I climbed on our horses. He leaned over and kissed me.
“For the first time we arna bein’ followed, dost ye feel better?”
“Absolutely.”
“We will ride tae the clearing, tae see if Lady Mairead has arrived, tae see if there is a sign.”
It took hours to get to the clearing. Coming from the south, we passed it at first because there was so much more snow, but found it on the second pass. The RF-transmitter was still there. No sign of anything else. No footprints. No messages. No nothing.
“What are we looking for?”
“I daena ken.” He lowered the transmitter, checked its settings and raised it back up into the tree.
We both sat quietly and appraised the situation.
Finally he said, “Tis unsettlin’ that she haena come.”
I exhaled. “Yet. Not yet.”
“Aye.” He turned his horse and I followed him away from the clearing.
Forty-seven - Kaitlyn
We had a few days of nice weather. Our camp was in a gorgeous protected valley southeast of Balloch. There was a riverbank. Magnus caught fish, and got us one of those hares he had been merciful to before. He taught me to ride, really ride. And we hunted together. We had chores: he took care of the horses, I kept our home straightened, but it was pretty boring most days, and life was a lot about making the very next meal happen. So I sat with him and we fished, and I helped him with the horses and he helped me with the cooking. We washed things together that needed washing, dipping our frozen hands into ice cold water that was running down from the mountain top.
We kept to ourselves, far away from villages.
We were only passing through. Waiting to leave.
We were out of rations, out of coffee, but Magnus was capable, he had meat for us every day.
And then came the day that I marked in my journal: No more milk.
My chin trembled. I wrote: I’m sorry Isla, I tried.
And I cried, wrapped around my knees, Magnus sitting nearby, but not really able to console me. I was a tragedy of the commonplace, a first world problem. A mother whose milk had dried, but her baby would survive. She would be fine. There was milk. Just not mine.
And so I was sad.
And because I couldn’t hold her I was very sorry about it all. And because it was feeling like I might never see her again, that I might never see Archie again, I was feeling desperately sad. I cried and cried.
Finally Magnus said, “Och,” and got up to his feet.
“Magnus?”
“I am goin’ for a walk, I will return in a few moments.”
And he left.
And I sat there feeling like I couldn’t even feel.
He returned a while later and sat down across from me. His face was grim. “I need ye tae stop crying.”
I startled. “Why on earth?”
“Because tis a recrimination of me, and I canna bear it, Kaitlyn.”
“It’s not a recrimination, it’s just a broken heart. None of this is your fault,