Time passed alternating dreamless sleep and short periods of consciousness. Sandreena knew she had spoken to the man at least once, perhaps more often, but couldn’t remember anything that might have been said. She finally awoke with a clear head, though it still throbbed as she tried to sit up. She was under a pile of skins, seal or otter pelts, lying on a pile of filthy rags. Her bloodstained tabard had been rolled up and used as her pillow. She realized she was nude, save for the mass of rags that served as bandages. She wasn’t worried about modesty, the bandages covered most of her body. She ached terribly and did a quick inventory. She had at least a dozen cuts, several of them deep. She lifted one bandage on her leg, and beneath it saw a puckered purple wound sewn roughly together. From the pain in her back she knew she had a deep cut there, and when she coughed, the pain almost caused her to pass out again.
She took a deep breath and it hurt. But rather than the raw stabbing pain of a fresh wound, the pain was the dull, constant ache of healing. She wished, not for the first time, that she had the gift for the majestic healing spells. She could have hurried her healing along if the wounds weren’t too bad, but she needed focus and strength, the two commodities she lacked at the moment.
She was alone. She struggled to sit up even more and put a fur behind her back to cushion it against the cave wall. The task was exhausting, but she managed. She was tired of lying down. And she wanted some questions answered.
She dozed off, and when she opened her eyes again, the old man was sitting beside the fire boiling water. He glanced over and grinned. ‘Crab!’ he said with enthusiasm. ‘I thought you might be ready for something besides broth.’
He had fashioned an interesting cooking pot, hard-tanned hides had been stretched over a wooden frame, making a large, shallow bowl. She had never before seen its like, and was surprised it didn’t go up in flame when put over the fire, but she could see that as long as there was enough water in the bowl, and the fire didn’t reach the wood, the water would steam and eventually boil; the hides would only scorch, not burn.
Weakly she asked, ‘Where did you get crab?’
He pointed out the cave mouth. ‘There’s a pool at the base of the rocks; when the tide is high, in they swim. Some good fish too, when the tide is out, but I have to catch them by hand, so it’s harder. With the crabs,’ he made a dipping motion with his hand ‘you just scoop them up from behind, and they can’t pinch you.’ He reached into a sack, plucked out a large one and dropped it into the boiling water. With a shrug, he said, ‘No butter,’ then he started laughing as if it was a very funny joke. As thankful as Sandreena was for her life, it was obvious that her saviour was a little mad.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked, her voice raspy.
Hearing her tone he stopped cooking, scuttled to her side and took up a water skin. ‘I left this here for you, but you didn’t find it.’ He held it up and she drank eagerly. The water was bitter with minerals and badly tanned leather flavours, but it quenched her thirst.
He sat back, looking at his makeshift boiling pot for a moment, then said, ‘I was looking for crabs and found you on the rocks. Almost dead. I carried you back here.’
She narrowed her eyes slightly. He didn’t look strong enough to carry her, but she had learned early in life that appearances could be misleading. ‘The last thing I remember was killing an assassin, maybe two, and then someone came up behind me.’ She fell silent for a moment, then said, ‘I was overconfident.’
The old man laughed, a harsh barking sound. ‘I have no confidence at all! I’m a mouse! I hide in cracks and crevices, behind the walls, under the floor!’
‘You’ve survived,’ observed Sandreena as the old man used sticks to pull the crabs out of the boiling water. He put one on another poorly tanned skin, picked up a rock and smashed the crab’s shell repeatedly, until the steaming meat inside was exposed. I le carried the makeshift platter to her, and put it on her lap.
‘Yes, I’ve survived,’ he said with a note of bitterness in his voice. ‘I’ve survived,’ he repeated.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘Who am I?’ he responded. He sat back as if considering a difficult question. ‘Those in the village call me the hermit, when they admit I’m around.’ He looked around as if she could see through the cave’s walls. ‘I came from over the mountains, a long time ago.’
‘How long?’
‘A long time,’ he said as if that was ample explanation. ‘Do you have a name?’
Again he looked like he had to think about this. Finally he said, ‘I did, but it’s been so long since anyone’s used it, I can’t rightly remember what it might be.’
She shifted her weight and felt the pain in her side. ‘Ribs?’
‘I think they kicked you for a while. Ruthia must have been watching over you,’ he said, invoking the name of the Goddess of Luck.
She laughed and instantly regretted it. It hurt everywhere.
‘No, you should be dead,’ insisted the old man, nodding vigorously. ‘Six deep wounds, any of which should have killed you, and none did. Lots of other cuts that together could have bled you to death. I think they knocked you out, stripped you naked, then cut you up a bit. I think they were upset with you.’
‘Well, I killed one of them, probably another as well.’
‘Yes,’ he said nodding as if in agreement. ‘That would make them upset. After they took your clothing and your weapons, they threw you over the cliff; they must have thought you already dead.