by Alisa Adams
In the place of the arms that she had come to trust, there was a dull heaviness over the length of her body. The edge of something a little rough rubbed against her cheeks. Beneath her, there was a harsher, scratchier sort of feeling that poked and prodded her at different angles. She had no clue how she had remained asleep against such discomfort. But perhaps the tension of the evening had been enough to render her exhaustion more powerful than her delicate sensibilities.
There was no sound around her, nothing to suggest where she—
There was a pop; the soft pop of a piece of burning firewood.
The noise had warmed her with the feeling of nostalgic security. Such a sound was not the roar of a violent, destructive blaze, but the sweet little crackle of flames designed to warm and protect.
When she heard the huffing breath of a horse, Merith was brave enough to open her eyes. Her lashes were sticky, clinging to each other and the roughness of sleep. Her eyes were slow to focus.
How long have I been asleep?
Reaching up, Merith rubbed at her eyes, blinking as strands and sticks of pale yellow came into view. With the light of the moon and nearby fire, the color had been all but leeched of the pieces, but Merith could tell their original tone. She knew that she was looking at straw.
Merith shifted and pushed herself upright. There was a soft flump as the heavy blanket that had been over her fell to her lap. The woolen weave was rough against her skin, the fabric of poor quality. It was that which she had felt upon her cheek.
The straw crumpled and crinkled beneath her body, drawing the notice of the horse that lay just a few feet away from her. She swallowed and reached out a hand. The animal's mane was soft and a little fluffy, its snout smooth, and its nose impossibly delicate. The horse's thick lips tried to smother over her fingertips in a sloppy sort of kiss, and Merith giggled quietly.
"You're awake."
Merith jumped. At least she recognized the voice to be someone trustworthy.
She shifted further forward, the straw scratching against her palm as she moved to look around the straw bale she had been given as a bed. As she looked out into the night, she realized that she was lying beneath a straw shelter in the middle of harvested farmland. It was a small, wooden structure, without a front face, and kept the straw and crop dry against the rain. The only reason she had not knocked her head against the roofing was her own diminished stature that was too short to do more than see the wayfare strands of her hair brush the lowest of the beams. It was late in the year, past harvest time, and before all the goods could be sold. They were lucky to have found such a place that could provide cover and care.
The voice had not made her jump because she was frightened. She knew the timbre of that tone and recognized it immediately as Finn's. She had only been surprised by its sudden appearance. As she leaned around the straw bales and piles of loose crop, she felt a warmth in her belly as her guardsman came into view.
He had constructed another fire, as he had at the encampment the previous night. It was set in a dip in the ground, carefully ringed in stone to prevent the embers from sparking and spreading. A large slat of wood had been lifted up and over the flames. It leaned towards the fire, too high to catch the light, its bottom edge buried in the ground and the other against a pair of sturdy tree branches. Frowning, Merith recognized that the large piece might have been the front door of the shelter in which she lay, broken from its hinges and set too against the fire so its light could not be seen in the distance.
Finn was sitting beside the flickering light. The gold of the flames brightened his eyes and turned his already honeyed skin to a heavy and warm tan. His clothes shifted from beige linen to tones of copper, and he looked as if he were wearing the silken tunic of a knight. He sat with one leg outstretched while his other knee was bent, his foot planted upon the earth. He leaned on the upturned knee, his eyes shifting briefly from the fire to her and then back again.
Merith felt her heart skip a beat and her skin break out with the heat of shame. The glance had been so fleeting it was as if he could not bear to look at her. As if he rued the day he had ever met her and regretted everything that had followed thus far.
If such a thing was the case, Merith could not judge him for his thoughts. She had brought him nothing but danger and threat, given him no benefits besides a little coin and a warm bed on that first night. She had forced him to abandon the occupation and life that he knew and claimed him for her own companion without permission or consideration for his independent will. And now they were sat in another's field, risking the punishment of trespass in order to rest after an angry mob had attempted to have their heads.
Merith was struggling with the harshness of her own thoughts regarding her idiocy and selfishness. She could not imagine the volume that Finn's would scale them to.
God, how he must hate her.
She was unsure how best to apologize for all that had happened. "I am sorry that I fell asleep on you. You must have..."
She was going to say that he must have found it difficult to ride with dead weight and see to her needs in her unconscious state. But it was clear from the bed of straw, the blanket, and the safety he had found for them both that there was little that was difficult for Finn. He was a man of many talents. She changed what it was that she wanted to say, fingering the blanket that lay about her legs.
"I thank you for your kindness to me whilst I was unable to appreciate it."
Her words appeared to make Finn uneasy. One of his hands rose to rub at the back of his neck, and his eyes never left the firelight. She wasn't sure if the heat in his face was from the flames or a blush he was trying to hide.
"It was nothing. It wasn't like leaving you in the woods was a viable choice."
The words were spoken lightly; an attempt at humor in the dark awkwardness of the night. But the word “choice” had Merith's need to beg forgiveness rise even faster to the surface of her heart.
"Please...I beg for absolution." Merith shifted onto her knees, drawing towards the man on all fours, her eyes wider and more fearful than she realized.
Finn watched her with an expression of terror, as if she were a snake that had sprouted legs and risen to walk and talk. He looked shocked and entirely confused.
"I brought this upon you, Sir Finn," she told him. "I forced you to come with me and guard me on my journey, I was the one who—"
"My lady..." The words were accompanied by a raised hand. Finn was trying to quiet her but Merith would not listen.
"—demanded that you come with me to the north. And it has given you nothing but—"
"My lady, you do not—"
"It was me, Finn. I am the responsible party for what happened. I am the reason you are not now away with your militia but camping in the middle of the Highlands with a woman that can do nothing of valu—"
"Merith!"
The single word snapped between them, shouted in an angry spark of command.
Merith's lips snapped shut and her eyes felt damp as they began to fill with tears.
"Aw, hell," Finn cussed. He got up to move to join her, pushing himself on his arms to move around the fire. "It's not you that—ow!"
His weight had shifted onto one of his arms, and it had crumpled for a moment under the strain. He shook it out and tried to continue but Merith was too far gone with the distraction.
“It is not y—”
"You are injured?" she asked, scooting forward on her knees. Now free of the shelter, she did not care for a moment when the silks of her dress moved from wooden slats to the freshly plowed earth.
"It is nothing." Finn batted the air between them, intent on returning to their conversation.
"It is not nothing! Permit me to see!"
With a hard stare and a determination that was new for her, Merith resisted any attempts at subterfuge. She shuffled until she was directly beside the man to whom she owed her life, and reached to touch his arm. She was careful to be entirely gentle, not knowing how
he had been injured or what had occurred. She had thought him fine when they had ridden from the castle, yet she had also been out of her mind and near-blind with terror.
Finn might have suffered some terrible wound and she may not have noticed.
Swallowing back her guilt, Merith tugged on the sleeve of his shirt and, even in the dark, was quick to notice the damage. Her heart squeezed in her chest, and her belly tightened in sorrow. Finn had taken an arrow to the arm. Though the shaft was not long—broken in the fight, or perhaps by Finn himself—several inches protruded through the arm of his shirt. Around the hole in the linen, an ugly pattern had bloomed across the cream. It looked black in the twilight but Merith knew it had once been scarlet.
"Oh..." she moaned, her sympathy unable to resist the escape from her lips. She winced as her fingers hovered around the arrow, but did not know what to do or if it would hurt him to touch it. Her instinct was to see it pulled free from where it had buried in the large muscle on the back of Finn's upper arm. But she also knew that such an act would surely be agony.
"Do you want me to take it out?" she asked him, nudging him around so the firelight would allow her to see better.
Finn shook his head.
"No. There is a vulnerable part of the arm back there. I have seen it before. Men have yanked free daggers or arrows only to be unable to stop the bleeding. I would need to pull the arrow back in a straight line. I cannot do it from this angle with only the one hand. I have tried."
"But that is why I offer myself," Merith exclaimed without thought.
Only when the words left her mouth did she understand their dual meaning, and her cheeks and forehead immediately blushed bright with color. Finn had grown still and her words now danced in the air between them. Such words were so obvious in their awkward declaration that they might as well have shone in sparkles of bright pink and lime green, lingering vibrantly in the firelight.
"I meant...it is why I offer my hands. You might tell me how to see your injury eased and I would do it." She glanced at the arrow again. "I have a steady hand and am quite dexterous. You would need to guide me but I could offer you my services to see you able-bodied once more."
There was a moment of quiet between them. The flames crackled around their wood and bracken kindling, and Finn turned to slowly look at her. He opened his mouth but it took a moment for words to form.
"I do not wish to impose upon you," he explained, apparently struggling with how to phrase his worries.
Merith's mouth dropped open.
"You have taken an arrow in your pursuit of protecting me and you do not wish for me to be imposed upon? It is not an imposition, and even if it was, the scales of fairness are not precisely even, do you not think?"
Slowly, a smile curled over Finn's lips.
Merith watched, her breath catching as she saw just how handsome the man might be if he was cleaner, more carefully groomed, and dressed in the finery of a lord. His features were bold. His brows darkened to his eyes but the eyes themselves shone with too much light and life to be diminished. His jaw was wide and his expressions big. His smile held a slippery sort of quality—a thickness, like honey. Tempting and sweet. Unwilling to be shifted from his expression without a fight.
"You seem different," he said, yet his expression suggested that different was far from bad. "You were quieter yesterday. More..."
More refined.
Merith finished the thought in her head. She could not blame the man for being surprised at her difference in behavior. Here she was, on hands and knees in the dirt, seeing to a bloody injury, with her hair all over the place and no hint of regality about her. She reached to push back the fluffy fuzz of her toppled hair. Pieces of straw were shaken free and fell to the ground.
"I suppose when all you have is taken and you are left with only the gown on your back, the finer principles of manners are lost a little..." Merith determined. Her cheeks warmed with a color she was sure was obvious even in the darkness, and her tentative nature rose once more to the surface.
"And...I feel perhaps that you would not judge me for loss of etiquette," she surmised, glancing back up at him from beneath her lashes. "You have been so generous with me, given me loyalty beyond our short acquaintance, and I suppose there is much of my life that is defined by fear of chastisement."
"And I remove that fear?" Finn asked. His brow had furrowed as if he struggled to understand the world she described.
Merith's lips curled into a sweet smile, all the more tempting for the way it was forbidden, half held by the teeth that pressed into her bottom lip.
"Something like that. Now, let me see that arm…”
11
A few minutes later, Merith was beginning to wonder if her newfound confidence had been folly twice-over. Firstly, in the fact that it was short-lived; secondly, in that such assertiveness had gotten her into a situation beyond her skill.
Not a week ago, Merith had been trying on dresses with her sister. Kathleen had been unable to decide if pink or blue had looked better with Merith's skin tone, throwing layers of silk and pretty, fine linen across her shoulders and holding them to her pinched cheeks. Several months of separation had caused the two of them to regress, to become children again. Kathleen had brushed and styled Merith's hair, they had talked for hours into the night and the two of them had only to crook their fingers to see anything they desired brought to their side. Kathleen had rung a silver bell when she was thirsty, eager for a cup of mulled wine. Merith had been hungry and been tempted by small baked treats that the MacDonald's cook was particularly famous for. Everything had been a means of luxury, refinement, and the seeing to each singular, unimportant desire being fulfilled.
Now, her world had become very different.
Possessing only a single dress, torn and mud-stained, Merith was crouched in the dirt, no longer concerned for further damage to the fabric. With smears already caked into the weave and the skirt no longer hanging properly on her frame, what did it matter if the fresh soil beneath her knees marked the peachy tones to dull grunge? While her dress was not fit to be seen in a scullery, her hair was even worse. Merith did not need something reflective to know that the locks of her hair were more out than they were in, only a few tendrils still holding in place where they had been tied. Any sudden movements had pieces of straw falling from the strands and, at one point, the horse had sniffed at her wondering if she were coated in hay. Having worn the same clothes for over two days and being unable to bathe, Merith was sweaty in certain areas and her skin was dry and ashy in others. Her hands felt horrid, her face tired, and her shoulders stiff and painful.
And yet, all of this paled in comparison to the insanity of what she was doing.
Merith took long and slow breaths as she held a weapon for the first time in her life. The hunting knife, taken from the sheath at Finn's hip, was silver in the blade but now started to show the shine of reddish hues. She had been told to see it glow scarlet in the heat and she was concentrating carefully, holding the piece in the flames of their fire as directed. She felt the fine hairs on her wrists seem to singe from the heat and her palms slick against the hilt of the knife, but she kept herself focused.
After all that he had done for her, it was finally time for Merith to do something that could help Finn.
Feeling the nausea try to claim her stomach once more, Merith pushed aside her guilt and was left with just the confused wonder that someone could be as selfless as the man that sat huddled beside her. Glancing in Finn's direction at the thought, Merith spun back to the knife immediately.
Finn had removed his shirt.
Not only had Merith never seen Finn's naked skin before, but she had failed to see any man's naked torso. It was bizarre perhaps for a young woman to reach the age of seventeen without ever laying eyes on a hot laborer or farmhand that had stripped their shirts from their person, but circumstances had colluded to see Merith more innocent than a newborn. She hadn't even seen her father without his full and f
ormal garb in place. So, glancing back at the man crouched just behind her had been a shock in more ways than one.
As he had turned away from her, Merith had only seen the briefest glimpse of his back, but it had provided more than enough spectacle. Besides the puncture wound in the back of his arm, the little wooden shaft still sticking out of the muscle, Finn suffered an ugly bruise and scraping on the small of his back. Then there was a little star-like scar on one of his shoulder blades, and a small thin line across his side, darting around to his front. Though the harsh marks of violence were the first thing to draw so delicate a woman's eye, Merith had seen more than just souvenirs of battle. The scars and blemishes could not hide the long and tan back upon which they lay. A lean man, Finn’s spine had been clear, a darkened dip from neck to rear, and each layer of muscle had been clearly defined, even in the firelight.
Unable to resist, Merith took a second glance behind her.
As he untangled his shirt from his arms, careful to tease the material away from his wound, Merith was transfixed by the way those muscles shifted in his back. The different layers, the fluid way that they moved under golden skin was mesmerising.
The longer Merith watched, the hotter she felt, and the more her fingers itched to reach out and touch. Frightened of her own strange reaction, she quickly turned back to the knife, remembering Finn's instructions. He had told her to heat it until the flat of the blade burnt red hot. He hadn't told her what he was going to do with the knife once it was heated, but she assumed that he needed it bright or for light of some kind. Though, it wasn't glowing too strongly just yet.
Feeling a presence beside her, Merith kept her eyes focused on the knife, not daring to look at the man hunkering down next to her. He curled his legs beneath himself, sitting with them crossed and shifted so she was in line with the scar on his side. Now, with the back of his arm so close to both her and the fire, Merith felt her heart bleed and was worried she might cry once more. The arrow was buried in his flesh, the snarled muscle and matted skin all mangled around the wood. The whole of his arm was red and crusty, and she could see a few of his veins standing out against the flesh.