The man was ancient. Long hair hung loose over a round, wrinkled face, down to bony shoulders, the white strands thick but dry. The skin of his arms and chest was wrinkled with age and sun, patched with scars and burns. Well-worn moccasins rose to mid-calf, blue and yellow quills stitched into the hide. Gabriel did not recognize the pattern nor the paint design that ran up the man’s bare leg, a pale red arrowstick marked with irregular black slashes.
The elk had been a guardian, but it might also have been a warning. There were haints in these hills. Old ones, ancient ones, bound by equally ancient wards. Harmless in the day, to those alert, but under moonlight, while mortals slept . . .
Gabriel eased his breathing, opening his hands in a welcoming gesture. “Old father, welcome to our fire,” he said, first in French and then English, not wanting to risk using the wrong tribal language and possibly offending their visitor if he spoke in an enemy’s tongue. “We have not yet made coffee, but we will pour you some when it is ready, if you wish it.”
“Ha,” the old man said, which reassured Gabriel that he was in fact alive, and not a haint come to pester. “Coffee, oui. Ces vieux os aimeraient ?a.”
French, then. Gabriel flicked a glance at Isobel, who had stepped back from the fire, not in retreat, he thought, but to better study the newcomer. Her hair was unbraided, falling down over her shoulder in locks almost as long as the old man’s, and Gabriel had a moment to think that she could be the man’s granddaughter, with her sun-dark skin and her wide-boned face.
The thought knocked against his earlier ones, and he pushed them all aside; he needed to navigate this carefully and not be distracted. Was this man another guardian? An ally? Or an enemy?
“I am known as Two Voices,” he said. He waited to see if the old man would acknowledge it or look at Isobel expecting a name for her as well. He did not.
Gabriel repeated his words in French, and the old man nodded acknowledgment then but still did not look toward Isobel, nor indicate any awareness that she stood there, barely a length from his knee.
It was that way, then. Gabriel caught Isobel’s attention, then tilted his head toward the horses. She scowled at him but turned and walked off in that direction, leaving them to each other.
Once she was gone, Gabriel sat down cross-legged next to the fire, the ground uncomfortably damp under his seat, placed his hands on his knees, and waited.
Isobel felt rage quiver in her bones, anger born out of hurt and insult. To be sent away like a child, when she was the one who had brought them here, she was the one who could fix what was wrong? She bit the inside of her lower lip and stalked toward the horses, motionless shadows, their heads down as they dozed. Gabriel hadn’t even introduced her, hadn’t even acknowledged that she was there, and the old man . . .
Putting her hands on Steady’s neck, the gelding lifted its head and whickered at her, hairy nostrils flaring wide as though to make sure she was who she smelled like.
“Stop that,” she said, pushing the blunt head away, running her hand along his flank to move him to the side so she could get to their supplies. The gelding let her pass, only to have the mule come up and lip her hair, pulling hard enough for her to notice.
“Stop it,” she told him, then glared at Uvnee, as though daring the mare to try something too. The mare waited placidly, brown eyes watching, waiting for Isobel to get over her temper and offer a treat.
“All right,” Isobel grumbled, digging one of the last mushy apples out of a pack and cutting it in three. They moved toward it like children offered sugar candy, and Isobel felt some of her anger and frustration fade as she watched them, their tails switching peacefully, the soft sounds of teeth crunching louder than the voices of the men by the fire behind them.
She yawned and stretched, feeling her back crack, rolling her shoulders. She’d slipped into her skirt and boots the moment she realized they had a visitor, but the boots were unlaced, and the strings of her chemise were untied, too tempting a target for the mule; she laced them quickly, then bent to deal with her boots. The sky brightened even as her fingers worked, and when she looked up again, the stars were already fading, the moon gone before the sun.
“It’s not like I could have understood what they were saying, anyway,” she told herself, pushing the mule so she could check the scars on its side. It had only been three days, but the claw marks had closed neatly with no sign of infection, and he merely twitched once under her touch and twisted his neck to nose at her hands, searching for more apple, while the horses moved back to their casual grazing.
“That’s it, mule; no more.” She cast a look over her own shoulder to where the men sat around the fire—one grey head and one dark bent toward each other, Gabriel’s arms moving in sign language—and sighed. Gabriel had sent her away for a reason. She might not like it, but she had to trust him.