Escape from the Witch Hunters ✓

Chapter 3

"I'm going hunting." Gillian slung his bow and quiver over his shoulder. "I should be back before sundown."

"Alright." Ryia nodded.

He opened the door and walked out, latching it behind himself.

Ryia let an exasperated sighed. Then she tried stamping her foot, which only resulted in a painful zing going up her leg. She grabbed her head and was tempted to pull her hairs out. She was so frustrated at herself. Here she was, in a stranger's bed, a stranger's house, eating at a stranger's table. And she couldn't do a thing about it. She was stuck. She was bedridden. She wanted to scream, but that wouldn't help her situation.

Think sensibly, Ryia. Think. Ryia looked at her surroundings. There wasn't really anything she could do.

"Where did my dress go?" Ryia frowned. He hadn't thrown it away had he? "Didn't I have anything else with me?"

She flopped back down on the bed. Then she turned her head upside down and looked under the bed, finding some dirty shirts that had been shoved down there, a pair of trousers, and a few blankets folded up.

He probably doesn't ever wash his clothes. Ryia frowned. If only she could walk! She looked around again, hoping something would appear. Maybe something she could mend, or maybe a sock she could darn, or something.

But there was nothing. Nothing that she could do. She gave up in defeat. But as soon as her leg was feeling the slightest bit better, she was going to stop being a bother to Gillian, and help him until she was well enough to work and live on her own.

~~~

Gillian aimed at the deer and then let the arrow go flying across the glen and right into the deer's throat. Not bad.

He had been shooting his bow and arrow since his father gave him one when he was a child. He started off by shooting a tree until he could he the mark every time. Then he started shooting moving things, like rabbits and squirrels. And now he could shoot a small targets from far away.

The deer collapsed and Gillian made his way over to where it lay, pulled his arrow out of it, and swung the deer across his shoulders.

As he made his way home, he found himself thinking about Ryia. His mother would roll over in her grave if she knew he was housing a woman who wasn't related and wasn't his wife. His mother had given him strict instructions that he was never to ever live with a woman unless they were related by blood, or married. And Ryia was most definitely not married to him.

He liked to think that she was a girl. And therefore "housing a woman" would not apply. Only she was a woman. She was old enough by village standards to be married and have a family.

Yes, his mother would definitely not approve.

But he knew that sending her out to fend for herself would have been worse, and heartless. Even by his mother's standards.

He couldn't complain that her company was horrid. In fact, it was refreshing to have another human being in his house that just a week ago had been so dreary, he dreaded going home.

Now he found that he was spending more time at his house and less time outdoors. He frowned. It's just because she requires attention. That's all. he mentally slapped himself for thinking she was special.

She was different, he was sure of that. She wasn't like most girls, the girls who wouldn't be caught dead in trousers and a shirt, or ones who would never get their hands dirtied with food preparation, and yet Ryia so willingly offered to help him skin the animals, peel the potatoes, dice the onions, and chop the meat. Although he never let her.