The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #1)

“Then let the horse have it,” she said. “It labored the most to carry us this far.”


He gave her a disdainful look. “As you wish it then,” he said with a snort, tossing her one of the other ones and started down the hillock. She wiped the apple clean, as well as she could on her sleeve, and held it to her nose. The smell of the swamp overruled most of her senses, but there it was – the hint of its scent, still clinging to the skin. She took a bite. The moment the juice touched her tongue and the flesh crushed in her mouth, an even deeper sadness filled her and spread as she swallowed. She gazed at the deepening gloom, knowing soon it would be darker than any night of her life. The flavor was Muirwood. She pressed some of its unblemished skin against her nose again and inhaled, choking back sobs as she tried to eat it. Her throat was so parched, the juice only tantalized it. As tears dripped from her lashes again, she watched Colvin stroking the horse’s mane while it fed on the apple. Why could he not understand what was torturing her?

All her life she had been raised at Muirwood. She had never realized how much safety there was in its smells, its habits, even its mottled stone. She missed Pasqua and her fussing and scolding. She missed seeing the Aldermaston in his gray cassock, looking up from a tome when she would arrive with a tray bearing his supper. She missed the laundry nearby and having a spare dress so she could clean a soiled one. All that day she had slowly realized that she lived in the most beautiful and perfect place in all the world. The Bearden Muir was desolate, frightening, and overwhelming in its vastness. As a fugitive, she had to leave the abbey behind. Memories would be her only comfort, and they were not enough.

Colvin mounted the hillock again, his face pinched with fatigue. He looked grim in the blood-stained tunic, his face a mess of dirt, bruises and whiskers. The shirt she had cleaned for him days before was fit to be burned as was the blood-stained tunic from Maderos.

He sat by the saddle, a little away from her, holding the last apple.

“Are you still hungry?”

She shook her head slowly.

“What is the matter?”

Everything since you came into my life, she wanted to say, but remained quiet. She said nothing.

“I have been too harsh,” he said with a stern look. “To you. I am…I am sorry.”

“It must hurt you to apologize to someone like me, Colvin,” she said softly, then added spitefully, “I am glad of it.”

Her thrust riled him again. Anger flashed in his eyes. “I am a blunt-speaking person,” he said. “I speak the truth, no matter how hard it is to hear it. I do not seek apology that your questions were bothering me. They were. I spoke what I felt, just as you do. I had no intention of bringing a girl like you with me. I would not consider it now but for Maderos’ counsel. Where I go, there will be war. And I did not come all this way for nothing. Those thoughts have…preoccupied my mind today. You are the only one that can take me to my destination, no matter how I wish I could have left you behind in a safer place.”

“I have no doubt that you have been distracted today,” she said, tearing another bite from the apple. She chewed it viciously.

“What is vexing you?” he asked.

“Can you not imagine?”

“My rudeness? Or what you perceive as rudeness?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “From the moment you awoke in my kitchen, I have had little else but rudeness from you. But I still helped you.” She did not want to cry in front of him, but the thought of sobbing filled her with fury, and she clung to it desperately, choking the desire.

“Though I am skilled with the Medium,” he said, “I am not gifted with reading thoughts. If you would tell me, then tell me! How can I guess what you are thinking?”

She lowered the apple, still savoring its flavor, yet suffering as well. “I left my home today,” she whispered. “I will not be welcomed back. Believe me, your rudeness is great indeed, but not great enough to afflict me so much. I suffer because I miss Muirwood. I long to see it again. All my life, I wanted to be away from its walls. Now that I am, I can think of nothing but wanting to go back. Each footstep brings me farther from the place I love the best.” Her voice choked up and she could only whisper, “And nearer to the thing I fear the most.”

“And what is that?” he said seriously, his eyes finally showing a spark of sympathy at last.