10
She had heard him before he spoke—the quiet tread of boots on stone, the slight catch in his step. Different, now. Measured. But still familiar in a way that struck too deep to name.
She turned as he drew near, letting the silence stretch a moment longer before her eyes met his.
The face was changed. Scarred, but unmistakably his. The eyes, even older now—or simply tired—held a quiet she had not known in him before. And when he spoke, the voice was his, but smaller—unsure, as if searching for footing in a place that did not offer it.
“Forgive me,” he said, turning his face slightly aside. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
He had always done that—looked away when uncertain.
She folded her hands before her, her voice quiet, even.
“You must be the one they brought down from the north. I heard you were mending well. I didn’t expect you’d be walking this far yet.”
He answered with a pause—just long enough to show the uncertainty hadn’t passed.
“They’ve treated me kindly,” he said. Nothing more.
She let the words settle. There was no recognition in his voice. None in his eyes. She had known there wouldn’t be, but the absence still caught against something in her, quiet and familiar.
She remembered everything.
The river, the meadow, the gentle days together.
The man who saw her as she was.
It would be so easy to reach out, to let familiarity guide her hand. But she knew some choices were not hers to make.
Her gaze dropped, briefly, to the brace of his stance—the slow shift of weight between feet, the stiffness in the leg. She nodded once, thoughtful.
“If your steps are growing long,” she smiled, “you’re welcome to rest a while. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
Justin hesitated.
It was not the sort of offer he usually accepted. He did not linger where he was not expected, nor speak where silence would serve. The slope behind him was gentle. The path could still be taken. He could have turned back, and likely should have.
But her voice held no expectation. Her manner was easy, her stillness unforced. And there was something in the way she looked at him that settled strangely in his chest. A warmth without source. A calm without reason. He could not name it. But it felt… known.
He did not understand the feeling. But some part of him trusted it, without knowing why.
Her smile lingered faintly at the edge of her mouth. Not meant to charm. Not meant to disarm. But something in it caught at him all the same.
He inclined his head, the motion quiet.
“If it is no trouble, my lady,” he said, and paused, faintly surprised to hear the words in his own voice. “I will rest a while.”
The slope broke gently into scattered stone and low brush. She lowered herself first, hands resting loosely in her lap.
He followed after a moment. As he lowered himself, the motion tipped—too far, too fast—unbalanced without the arm that might have steadied him. She reached out, a hand to his elbow, and caught him before he could slip.
It was a simple gesture, and she said nothing. But it was the quietness of his own response that unsettled him—how easily he allowed it, how natural it had felt to lean into her hand.
She didn’t speak at first. Only looked out over the valley below, as if watching the wind shift through the branches. Then she glanced his way and asked, simply, how he was finding life in the village.
He answered with a few words, little more than a nod. Something about the lower gardens, or the walk up from the southern path—he wasn’t sure which he mentioned first. But she listened, and he found himself saying another word, and then another.
He told her Tomas had taken to the village quickly. That he spoke with nearly everyone now. That he carved a whistle last week for one of the youngest, and the child had not stopped playing it since. That he was terrible with the goats, but good with bread.
He did not know why he said these things. She had not asked them. Not truly. But her silence was easy. Not expectant. Just present.
He caught himself mid-sentence and fell quiet. She said nothing. Only waited, still watching the trees.
He looked away.
He never spoke this much. Not to strangers, not to the villagers, not even to Tomas. But her presence did not feel like a stranger’s.
And he could not say why.
The light had begun to thin. The trees cast longer shadows now, stretching eastward across the ridge. The wind had turned, just slightly, brushing cooler over the grass. Below, the valley dimmed by slow degrees.
He didn’t notice how long they’d been sitting.
She shifted, not to stand, but in the way of someone preparing to. He followed her glance to the fading sky, then spoke before he’d thought to stop himself.
“If you’re returning downhill,” he said, steady and without pause, “I can see you there.”
He heard himself say it. Heard how strange it sounded in his own voice—not forced, but unexpected. The kind of thing he no longer could offer. Not as he was now.
He looked down, ashamed of the impulse.
“Not,” he added, quieter now, “that I’d be much use.”
She turned toward him fully this time. Her expression was unreadable for a breath.
Then she smiled—not out of pity, not to soften the truth. Only warm.
“Strength doesn’t solve everything,” she said. “I don’t think it ever did.”
Tomas had started to notice small things.
Nothing obvious. Nothing most would mark. But they were there, plain enough to anyone who watched closely—and he had always watched closely.
His lord still woke early, still took his meals in quiet, still walked the path from the door to the tree line and back like clockwork. But now and then, when Tomas shared a story from the village—usually something foolish, often involving goats—he would listen longer. Sometimes he even asked a question. Once or twice, he made a sound that might have been a laugh, or the memory of one. And once—just once—Tomas had seen him smile.
Not a full one, and not for long. But it had been real.
The cloth mask still came with him into the village, and the limp on his right leg had never left. The empty sleeve hung at his side, loose and silent—and no one spoke of it. But he moved a little more freely now.
And lately, he had taken to walking well beyond the tree line—out past the old trails, toward the ridge above the valley. No errands, no message in hand—only a path he followed almost daily. But now and then, he stayed longer, and returned quieter, softened in some way Tomas couldn’t name.
Tomas said nothing of it. Just made sure warm food was waiting when he returned.
He also said nothing about the book.
The old journal—worn at the edges, plain as any other—was kept carefully beneath the folded blanket near his cot. He thought Tomas hadn’t noticed. But Tomas had seen it open once, left face-down beside a cup of cold tea. Another evening, he’d passed the door and caught a glimpse of him reading by the last of the firelight, thumb resting at the page’s edge like he meant to turn it—and didn’t.
His lord had told him more than once not to use titles. Said that Sir Justin de Laurant was dead—that he had taken back the name he was born to.
Just Justin, he said—as if the weight of it could be set down that easily.
Tomas never argued. But he kept my lord close, just the same. And sometimes, when he remembered, Master Ashford.
They had fallen into a kind of rhythm. She did not come every day, but often enough. Sometimes she brought something with her—a bundle of dried herbs, a question she did not need answered, a reason to linger. Other times she came with nothing, save the quiet.
He had offered once, haltingly, to listen—said it was all he had to give, if ever she wished it. She had nodded, without hesitation, and accepted.
Since then, she had spoken more. Not freely, not often. But with a certain ease, as though something unspoken between them had settled and held.
Today, they sat as they often did, just off the ridge where the slope gave way to low stone and scattered shade. She spoke of what it meant to be seen—not as herself, but as something decided in advance. A name. A symbol. A shape too large to live in.
“I wonder,” she said, her gaze distant, “if anyone sees me at all—or only what I stand for.”
He did not answer at once. Her words hung between them, not demanding reply. He watched the wind catch in the branches below, watched the trees bend but never break.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said after a moment. “I’ve never been told what you stand for.”
The words settled, and too late, he realized how they might sound.
“I didn’t mean—” He looked away hastily. “Only that… I wouldn’t know. I—”
She laughed. Sudden, bright, unguarded—and it startled him more than anything she might have said.
His ears flushed hot. He did not turn, not fully, but he stole a glance at her from the corner of his eye. She was still smiling, and the sound of it—that laugh—struck something in him he could not name. It felt known, as everything about her did.
And before he realized, before he could stop it, he laughed too.
Rough at first, unpracticed—but full. Drawn from somewhere quiet, where nothing had stirred in a long time, and carried them both into laughter that did not need a reason.
Tomas had started carving again.
Not for trade, and not for coin. Just small things—figures no longer than a thumb, shaped from pale wood with a blade he’d kept sharp since spring. A curled fox. A tangle of vines. A riverstone flattened in miniature.
The boy said nothing of it at first, only worked in the shade when his chores were done. But after three evenings of carving, when Justin passed the table and paused, Tomas finally spoke—without looking up.
“They’re for the midsummer rites,” he said, brushing a thin curl of wood from the table. “Offerings for the little ones to carry. Most carve their own, but some like having something made.”
He turned the figure in his hands, squinting at the grain. “They’ll be placing them at dusk. Before the fire is lit.” He set the carving aside. “Will you attend, my lord?”
Justin didn’t answer.
“It doesn’t matter what you bring. Could be a branch, a stone, a string from your sleeve. Just has to mean something. And you place it with both hands.”
Justin’s mouth tugged faintly. Not quite a smile, but almost.
“Then I suppose I’m not welcome.”
They sat in their usual place, where the stone caught the sun and the wind smelled of dry pine. The village below moved slowly, distant and unhurried, a world apart from the hush that held the ridge.
She drew a slow breath, not heavy, but thoughtful. “The valley’s shifting early this year,” she said. “You can feel it in the trees. Even the ground’s gone soft.”
Justin said nothing. He followed the wind where it moved, eyes on the long grass.
“Midsummer’s not far,” she added. “There’s a gathering near the river—just before dusk, before the fire is lit.”
The pause was short enough to be casual, long enough to hold meaning.
“People bring what they’ve carried,” she said. “Leave it in the water before the fire is lit. It’s meant to honor what’s passed—and make room for what comes next.”
He didn’t turn. “You’ll be there?”
“I will,” she said. “If your steps carry you that far, it’s worth seeing.”
Justin gave a small nod, more acknowledgment than answer. His gaze stayed on the horizon, but something in his posture had eased—not open, not certain, but listening.
The day came warm, full with the weight of summer. The village moved slow, quieter than usual. No music. No decorations. Just baskets set out by doorsteps, and herbs hung in windows. Tomas had left sometime after midday, a cloth-wrapped bundle under one arm, heading toward the river.
Justin remained seated outside the house, watching the light shift through the trees. The sun had begun its slow descent, shadows stretching longer over the path.
He hadn’t planned to go.
There was nothing in his past he wished to honor.
But as the sky deepened—not yet dusk, but near enough to feel it—the light stretched low across the trees, the air touched with a warm, copper glow. It reminded him, distantly, of her hair when the sun caught it—that deep, unguarded red.
Something in him eased at the thought—a quiet warmth, unexpected.
Perhaps there was still room for what came next.
He rose. Crossed the yard. Passed beyond the tree line, past the last of the houses, and took the path that turned south, where the river waited.
The air shifted as he walked—not cold, but hushed. Cicadas had gone still. The sky was clear and high. On a patch of earth just shy of the bend, a single wildflower grew between stones. White, with a narrow stem, reaching for nothing.
He knelt and picked it, carefully, and kept walking.
The stones at the bank were already scattered with offerings—some humble, some odd. A child’s doll made of cloth. A coiled stalk of barley. A coin dulled to green. The river moved slow and clear, carrying the weight of each token without hurry. A few villagers lingered nearby, quiet in the way that marked reverence, not silence.
She was already there.
When she saw him approach, she turned—and smiled, like she’d been waiting all along.
He came to stand beside her.
“I’ve heard it’s custom to offer with both hands,” he said, his tone softer than he meant it to be. “Might I lend one, my lady?”
The words hung there—not bold, but not pulled back, either.
She met his gaze, the faintest smile catching at her mouth. Then, like an answer long held back—
“Of course.”
She opened her hand, and he laid the flower there, gently.
She stepped forward. He went with her. Together, hand in hand, they placed the flower at the edge of the water.
It floated a moment, caught by the current—then drifted still.
No words passed between them. But as they turned, her fingers brushed his—and this time, when his hand found hers, it stayed.
They walked back the way they came. And no one watched.
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The Squire