Page 14 of So Close To Heaven (Far From Home #11)

The married father of one—Ivy still couldn’t wrap her brain around that; he looked like in her time he might be sitting in an English class, his nose buried in his phone rather than his textbook—Kendrick jerked his chin toward the firepit where a blackened kettle hung over the flames.

“Go on, get ye some pottage first. There’ll be oatcakes beside the pot.

Take what ye can, for it’ll be long till the next. ”

Ivy followed his gaze, her stomach tightening, not just with hunger, but with nerves.

Half a dozen men were gathered there, eating from bowls, talking low between mouthfuls.

Every one of them wore the same rough plaid, the same scars and wary expressions.

She imagined walking straight into their midst, fumbling with the pot, drawing every stare. Her throat went dry.

“Would you maybe... come with me?” she asked softly, hating how small her voice sounded.

Kendrick’s brows lifted, and for a moment she thought he might laugh. But he only huffed a breath that was half amusement, half exasperation. “Best ye learn to walk among them, lass.”

Before she could protest, he swung the axe into the stump one last time, leaving it quivering there, and gestured for her to follow.

Ivy’s heart pounded as she trailed him across the muddy yard, past the plaid tartans strewn in neat rows, and into the midst of men who had fought and bled only yesterday.

She could feel their eyes, curious, suspicious, measuring.

“Here now,” Kendrick said casually as they reached the fire. “This is Ivy. She’s to bide wi’ us for a time.”

The men glanced up. One was young, his freckles stark against pale skin, maybe not much older than David’s younger brother, a kid she’d met a handful of times.

Another was broad-shouldered and grizzled, his beard streaked with gray.

A third was missing two fingers, the stump wrapped in fresh linen.

None of them responded to Kendrick’s brisk introduction, but their stares pricked her skin.

Unfazed, Kendrick crouched by the kettle. He ladled steaming pottage —whatever that was—into a wooden bowl, then reached for a pair of what she guessed were the oatcakes. “Eat this,” he instructed, pressing both into her hands.

“Thanks,” Ivy murmured, acutely aware of eyes upon her. She glanced around uncertainly. “Um... spoon?”

Kendrick straightened, one brow arched, and without a word mimed lifting the bowl to his mouth. “Or use yer hands.”

Her eyes widened. “My... hands?” To eat what looked like a gray, lumpy oatmeal?

“Aye,” Kendrick said, utterly unbothered. “Or drink it straight, as a man does. Ye’ll get used to it.”

The freckled boy smirked, clearly entertained by her horror.

The grizzled one grunted and went back to his own bowl.

Ivy’s face flamed as she lifted the bowl to her lips.

The broth was hot and gritty, the oats lumpy, but it filled her empty stomach.

She nibbled an oatcake with her free hand, its dry, dusty texture sticking to her teeth.

“Guid lass,” Kendrick said, as if she’d passed some unspoken test.

Ivy swallowed and tried to smile, as several watchful expectant gazes were trained on her.

Generally, she tried not to rush her meals, but the minute Kendrick nodded at her, as if to say his work was done, and returned to the axe and the chopping block, Ivy wolfed down the rest of her breakfast and smiled politely at those around her before scurrying back to the priory.

The room she’d tried to ignore completely as she’d passed through it earlier was inescapable now, while she waited for the man she believed to be Tàmhas, a medieval army doctor, by her understanding, to finish with a patient.

He was crouched beside a soldier, his thick hands moving with brusque efficiency as he tightened a linen wrap around the man’s thigh. His hair was streaked with gray, his jaw shadowed with days of growth, and the deep set of his eyes gave him the look of someone who slept little, if at all.

Ivy hesitated, then forced herself to speak when he rose off his knees. “Um—hi,” she said, bounding forward a bit, drawing his attention. “Kendrick said I could help, or, um, be helpful here. He thought maybe I could... launder the used bandages?”

Tàmhas’s gaze was sharp, his eyes raking over her in one swift, assessing sweep. “And who are ye?” he asked, the words blunt as a blow.

Heat rushed to her face. “I—my name’s Ivy. I’m... with Alaric. He said I could stay here.” She instantly regretted the phrasing—‘with Alaric’ sounded far too personal—and added quickly, “I mean, only for safety. I’m just... here.”

One of his brows rose. His glance flicked toward her stomach, then back to her face, but he didn’t press. Instead, he jerked his chin toward a corner where a basket sat.

Ivy turned and nearly recoiled.

“There, then,” said the doctor. Looking at her again, assessing her it seemed—she might guess she failed whatever test he was silently giving her—he announced shortly, “Might be another basket round here somewhere, some lye as well, but I’ve nae the time to scrounge for it.”

Collecting herself, she smiled her thanks to the doctor and approached the pile, which might actually weigh more than she did.

A heap of soiled linen overflowed the wicker, the pile much larger than she’d expected.

Some strips were stiff with dried blood, others damp and clotted, tinged with ugly shades of brown and green. The sharp coppery reek stung her nose.

She swallowed hard. “Oh, God,” she moaned in earnest now.

I can do this , she told herself, though even her inner silent voice wavered with doubt.

Her stomach knotted with queasiness, and every modern instinct screamed disease, infection, cross-contamination .

But she straightened her shoulders anyway.

Ivy stared at the mound again. Her skin crawled, but she decided she’d simply scrub herself clean every fifteen minutes or so.

It took her the better part of the day. She’d poked around until she found a stash of lye in a cellar beneath the convent—a cellar that she’d literally stumbled upon with dumb luck—the short barrel of soap not too heavy for her.

She made trip after trip to the loch Kendrick had pointed out, hauling smaller loads than she’d first imagined possible.

The work was heavy and foul, and by noon—or what she guessed might be the noon hour—she’d stripped off her jacket and her arms were already burning with fatigue from all the scrubbing.

Her stomach roiled with each new heap of blood-soaked strips she dumped into the shallow water near the shore.

But little by little, the pile diminished.

By midafternoon, branches, bushes, and stones all around the loch were draped with drying lengths of linen, pale flags fluttering in the breeze.

Ivy knelt at the shore, the sleeves of her pink sweater damp, scrubbing through the last quarter of the rags, her back aching, her hands raw from the lye, nasty stuff that.

An hour ago, she’d discarded her boots and socks, though for obvious reasons left her leggings on.

She figured she would simply scrub them up last thing and hang them to dry in her cell later, overnight.

There’d simply been no way to prevent herself from getting wet, not if she were going to clean the linen thoroughly.

Late in the afternoon, she was sitting on her heels in six inches of water, her legs, leggings, and underwear soaked through. Honestly she didn’t mind—she had no other clothes, no other panties, and the ones she was wearing would get somewhat of a cleaning now. At least that’s how she looked at it.

Anyway, that’s how Alaric found her.

Footsteps in the grass made her look up.

Alaric emerged from the trees, his broad frame casting a long shadow, his dark hair unkempt, his plaid streaked with dust. He looked bone-tired, the kind of weariness that went deeper than muscle.

Without a word, acknowledging her only by way of a slow inclination of his head, he lowered himself to the bank beside her, though not too close.

He bent, tugged at the ties of his boots, and pulled them free, setting them aside.

He released a thin leather strip that might have served the purpose of a garter from just below his knee and rolled down his hose, baring a pair of long, strong feet, lean ankles, and muscled calves, all of which were unsurprisingly pale.

Without a word, he stood again and waded into the water.

Ivy blinked, surprised—she hadn’t thought of him as someone who ever allowed himself comfort.

He stopped when the water reached his calves, a few yards in front of Ivy, who watched, slightly in awe, the blood-soaked linen in her lap momentarily forgotten.

The laird bent and splashed water onto his face in handfuls, the droplets shining against his short, stubbly beard. Then, as she watched, he scooped a mouthful, gargled, and spat into the reeds.

Ivy stared, half fascinated, half amused.

She hadn’t realized she was staring until he turned his head, catching her in the act.

Their eyes met, and the brown of his reminded her instantly of a long-ago trip to the zoo, when she’d had a staring contest with a leopard from behind a glass wall.

She flushed now and looked quickly back to her work, commanding her hands to resume scrubbing, which they obligingly did.

He lingered in the loch water only another moment longer before stepping out, glistening drops sliding down his face and neck. He sat heavily on the bank, stretching his long legs, letting the summer air dry his feet.

She thought he might have simply left after refreshing himself, but something in the way he settled, fairly close to her, made her think he might not mind some conversation.

Ivy scoured her brain for topics, at a loss for anything they might have in common to discuss.