Page 2 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
How sweet the winds do blow.”
He closed his eyes and breathed deep of the woodland air. The rising fogs played merry hell with his senses. They swirled sounds around; the vapors gathering in close and dampening the forest noises down before clearing again, so that he could hear the distant sound of squirrels skittering through the branches.
Edward bent to check one of the many snares that he had set throughout this belt of woodland. This particular trap had been set off by some small creature, but it had not managed to capture the little beast. Edward replaced the leaves and light brush that he had used to disguise the snare and then moved on.
He sang the next verse of the ribald old song under his breath and allowed the dying sunlight to flicker over his closed eyelids.
“He looked high, he looked low,
He cast an under look;
And there he saw a fair pretty maid
Beside the watery brook.”
Suddenly, the background noises of the wood ceased abruptly. The birdsong died, the snap and crack of twigs breaking and the rustle of leaves––as unseen denizens of the beech wood moved through the undergrowth––ceased. For one who had spent much of his youth running around woods much like this one, the sudden cessation of noise was like the sounding of an alarm bell.
“What the––” Edward said, falling automatically into a crouch.
Then he heard it. A voice.
A woman’s voice.
It was the last thing that Edward had expected to hear out amongst the misty beeches at eventide. He had made sure that his camp was deep within the forest, well away from the English camp––in which he suspected Captain Bolton to be lurking––that he had been spying on for the past few days. He had made sure to leave no trails, and not even the keenest English soldier would venture this far for firewood.
Am I imagining it, then? All this dwelling on me poor mither has got me hearin’ fair voices that are nae there, perhaps?
He held his breath. Then, without a doubt, he heard the voice again. The mist would not allow him to hear the words, nor even what tongue or accent they were spoken in, but he could tell that it was a woman’s voice and it seemed to be addressing something or someone.
He thought that he might have heard the words, “Come now, what is the matter with you?” but he could not be sure.
Suddenly, the eerie, breathless silence was split by a shriek of pain that rent the air like breaking glass.
It was a cry that Edward had heard often in his time watching the English troops, as they moved their way through the countryside, occasionally crossing the border to harass and pillage a Scottish settlement.
Pain.
Unable to curb his instinct to help someone that might potentially be in trouble, Edward took off through the trees. He moved with caution and stealth, nonetheless, and, clad as he was in the garb of a hunter, he quickly disappeared from all but the most wood-crafty eyes and moved off towards the direction of the cries.
* * *
Charlotte moved unhurriedly through the gathering gloaming, the slanting fingers of golden sunlight reaching through the dark trees to run their ethereal fingers across the dark blue hood and cloak that she wore. She carried a large, wicker foraging basket under one arm and hummed quietly to herself as her pale blue eyes darted about the forest floor.
“Where are you? Where are you?” she muttered to herself in between her humming.
She was looking for plants and herbs that she might be able to use in the production of poultices and medicines. Her inquisitive eyes, as pale blue as the finest aquamarine stones, darted eagerly around the forest floor, ran up the trunks of the beech trees and flicked from overhanging branch to overhanging branch.
“Ah!” she suddenly exclaimed, her eyes fixing on a point some twelve feet above her. “I see you, mistletoe!”
There, hanging above her from the branch of one of the younger-looking beech trees, was a great tangled ball of green ivy-like leaves and stems. Interspersed among these leaves were berries of gleaming, translucent white.
“I could certainly use you,” Charlotte said, in her clear English accent. She had a warm, almost melodic voice. It was a voice that hinted at a kind heart, and had more than a little mischief running through the center of it.
The young Englishwoman was a voracious reader and, to go with this appetite for literature, she was also possessed of an extremely curious nature. Recently, she had been reading an interesting volume that she had picked up in a nearby border township. It was a slim, handwritten book that was focused on the local Highland flora and its many uses in the art of healing.
“Druidh-lus,” she said, recalling the Gaelic word that had been scrawled in the little book. “Druid’s herb: a fine and excellent herb for the combating of afflictions of the nerves,” she continued, reciting the part of the passage that she could remember.
Above her, the bright white berries shone in the midst of the dull green leaves. Charlotte smiled as she recalled another part of the passage.
