“Your injured throat needs healing, you should not speak. I will have you to safety shortly and when you heal, we can talk.”
He walked away, gathering dried brush that lay scattered over the floor and piling it in a shadowed, secluded corner. He then left the structure.
A quick glance confirmed her suspicion that this place was no cottage; it lacked a fireplace for warmth, which meant it was a storage shed at one time. She wished to explore the small space if only to see if she was strong enough to walk, but her instincts warned her against it.
He returned with an armful of fresh brush and laid it on top of the dry brush. He then walked over and reached out to lift her in his arms.
She held her hand up and shook her head, instead placing her hand on his arm for support to let him know she wished to walk with his assistance.
He obliged her, though after taking two steps he slipped his arm around her waist for further support.
He lowered her gently, then joined her on the pallet and slowly moved closer.
She tensed.
“We will need each other’s warmth for the night will grow more chilled.”
He was right. Her meager tunic and shift were not sufficient garments against the cool spring air. She shifted her body nearer so that their sides would touch. That was all she could bring herself to do, for lying more intimately with a stranger would not be appropriate.
She was curious about this shadow of a man she was about to sleep with, and she gently tapped his arm. He turned his head.
She stared at the black void and realized that his face shroud was of different material than his robe and made visibility possible for him, though she could only make out a faint outline of a face, nothing more.
She patted her chest, then turned her hand over and with her finger slowly wrote the letters of her name on her palm.
“Aye,” he said. “I know your name is Mary.”
She was elated by the fact that he could read, at least then she could communicate while her throat healed. She tapped his arm with her finger.
He understood her question. “My name is unimportant.”
She shook her head and patted her chest to make him understand that his name was important to her. A name gave someone an identity and she needed him to have an identity.
He seemed to understand and paused as if in search of a name. “Michael, call me Michael.”
She nodded and once again wrote on her palm—Magnus. She then pointed at him and back at her palm.
“You wish to know how Magnus and I know each other?”
She nodded eagerly. She had to be certain Magnus had sent him.
“Our paths have crossed on occasion and we have become friends.”
She continued to stare, waiting to hear more.
“Do not look for answers I cannot give you. It is safer for you to remain ignorant of me. Know that Magnus sent me to see you to safety and that is what I will do.”
She shook her head to let him know his answer would not do. She wanted something more to prove Magnus had sent him.
“I spoke the words Magnus told me to speak to you so that you would know he sent me. Trust that it is so and know that he would have come himself if his bride-to-be Reena was not in danger.”
Excitement and worry gripped her all at once. She was happy that Magnus would marry but was concerned for his future wife. She squeezed Michael’s arm wanting so badly to ask him dozens of questions.
“I understand your concern. Reena, though pint-sized, is courageous; Magnus will allow no harm to befall her.”
Suddenly a hard shiver racked her body. He moved closer and draped his arm over her. She did not tense this time; his warmth was much too welcome and warded off the intense chill.
“I can give you but one day to rest, no more. Decimus searches for all escaped prisoners with a vengeance. He puts the fear of God in his men so that they will obey him without question, which means he will order them to find you no matter how long it takes. I must get you to a temporary place of safety as quickly as possible.”
She shivered with the reminder of Decimus’s relentless thirst for revenge. Stories abounded of his cruelty, some so absurd that Mary could think them nothing more than tall tales. She would, however, only need to see a vision of her parents’ horrible fate to know that Decimus was capable of the unspeakable.
Would there ever be a place of safety for her? She had been lulled into a false sense of security in the last couple of years. She had thought herself safe from the evil that hunted her, and she had begun to think of life without fear of capture. She had wrongly assumed Decimus searched for her no more, or perhaps she had hoped that he had lost interest in her. She had been barely eleven when her parents died. What harm could she have done him? Or had her escape been a wound to his reputation that had festered and putrefied with the years?