Page 14 of Wagered to the Orc
When the vegetables were sufficiently cleared and picked, we washed off in the stream and had a simple meal of oat cakes and some of the cheese I’d stored in wax in thelarder. We’d eaten in silence, but as she jumped up from the table to collect the plates, Effie grinned at me.
“What shall we work on this afternoon?”
I was taken aback. “I need to muck out the stable.”
Her wee nose wrinkled. “I have never held a shovel, but there is a first time for everything.”
Surprised, I led her around the back of the croft.
I didn’t ask her to actually wield the shovel, but I gave her small tasks…and watched her tackle each one with silent determination. ‘Twas as if shewantedto be useful.
And although I said naught, I was impressed by the way she spoke to the horses. Considering she had ridden so infrequently, it showed bravery.
“What are their names?” she asked me, petting the mare’s nose.
“Mags.” I nodded to the one she was pampering. “And Kelty. I dinnae call them such anymore, but ‘tis useful to give them names during the training process.”
“Mags,” she whispered, pressing her cheek to the mare’s neck, showing no fear of the large teeth or heavy hooves. “I shall have to find you some apples, pretty girl.”
I felt my lips twitch, so I bent over my shovel to hide it. “There’s an orchard an hour’s ride away. I barter with the crofter for fruit and dairy.”
From the corner of my eye, I watched her face light with excitement. “Did you hear that, Mags? Your master will have apples for you aplenty soon.”
Master.
As if the horse and Effie both viewed me the same.
The reminder soured my mood.
The next several days were the same. Hard work, simple meals, bad sleep. And Effie was at my side through it all. Well, except for the sleeping. I continued to bed down out-of-doors, while she slept in the big bed inside. I didn’t trust myKteer’sresponse to her—or what she’d made clear she was offering, otherwise.
But the rest?
She was at my side. Learning and occasionally laughing.
We cut thatch, we fixed the leaks, we reapplied mud to the cracks between the logs of the croft. We spent an hour with the horses each day so she could learn to ride as I did. We tended the garden and fished in the stream, and she even learned to butcher thebkarnI took down while hunting, although she turned a bit greenduring the attempt.
I couldn’t help but be proud of everything she was learning. Fromme.
But at the same time, I was frustrated.
Frustrated at my body’s response to her, aye, for certes…and frustrated at her insistence on acting as if she were somehow lesser than me.
But mainly frustrated by how fookingsurprisedshe was any time I helped her or was polite or tried to care for her.
The extra plaid I pulled out to rest around her shoulders when she was cold? She blubbered in confusion. The second servings I heaped on her plate? She insisted she didn’t need them, before tackling them with the wooden spoon I’d carved her.
‘Twas as if…she didn’t expect kindness and didn’t know what to do with it.
But it made me curious about her past.
She’d shared so little with me. What had her life been like in the Tarbert keep? Had it been pleasant, and she only reacted this way to me because she couldn’t believe an orc could show kindness? Or hadnomales shown her kindness?
In the first hour ye kenned her, one male tried to kill her, and another struck her for her fear. Obviously, she has reasons to fear males.
Aye, truth.
Still, I wanted to know.
