He nodded when Dermid finished and went to his wife. “You free Stuart from the stocks and now visit him in the dungeon and see him provided with extra food, a sleeping pallet, and extra blankets. Why do I bother to keep him in the dungeon?”
Dawn shook her head and shrugged as if thinking the same.
Cree stood opposite from his wife at the table. He leaned his powerful hands down on the top of the table in front of her and brought his face close to hers. Before he could say a word, she kissed him, then mouthed, missed you.
He kissed her back. “I missed you as well, but that will not save you from explaining what you were doing in the dungeon easing Stuart’s punishment.”
Dawn turned her head to the side, a troubling look in her eyes.
Cree walked around the table to sit beside his wife. He turned her to face him and got upset with the sorrow he saw in her eyes. “What is it, Dawn?”
She tapped the side of her head and stretched her arm out to the side with a wave.
She was designating time to him, and he understood that memories had returned to haunt her, and he realized what had prompted her concern for Stuart… memories of his capture and confinement in a cell. If it had not been for his wife’s bravery, he was not sure how it would have ended. There was a difference, though, Cree had been guilty of nothing.
“You may not like that Stuart is locked away, missing his wife, but he deserves to be punished. I will have him released when we depart.” Cree raised his hand when his wife went to argue with him. “I am being generous. Let it be, and do not go down in the dungeon again.”
Dawn knew when to nudge her husband and when to let it be and now was not the time to nudge. She kissed him again and smiled, letting him know she would do as he said… for the most part.
Cree filled a tankard for himself while keeping Dawn tucked in the crook of his arm. “Dermid told me that Stuart had much to say about Hume.”
Dawn nodded.
Cree placed the tankard on the table after taking a swig. “Dermid told me that Stuart said nothing of importance, but I believe he might be mistaken.”
Dawn grinned at her husband and patted his chest, then hers.
“Aye, I do know you well. So, tell me what you learned or surmised from your talk with Stuart,” he urged.
Dawn loved that her husband spoke to her as if she had an actual voice. He did not treat her differently because she was unable to speak and that made their communication that much easier. She began to gesture to him, slowly so that he could make sense of what she was telling him.
Cree tilted his head and scrunched his face. “Are you telling me that you think Hume left on his own, that no one abducted him?”
Dawn nodded repeatedly. She patted her chest several times and hugged herself, her smile bright.
Cree laughed. “Are you telling me Hume left because he was in love?”
She nodded again.
It struck Cree then. “Hume was in love with one of the two young lasses that went missing.”
Dawn grinned and nodded once again.
“Hertha or Bronwyn?” Cree asked and when Dawn confirmed the names, he took a guess. “Hertha?”
Dawn nodded.
“You think he went off in search of her?” he asked and took another swing of ale.
Dawn nodded slowly.
“From what everyone says about Hume, he’s a kind soul and meek. He does not strike me as a man who would have the courage to do such a thing.”
Dawn rested her hand against his chest and shrugged.
“Aye, you are right. Love makes men brave… and foolish,” Cree said with a chuckle and reached for a piece of the honey bread on the table. He held it out to Dawn, and she tore a piece off to pop in his mouth, then took a piece for herself. “It is still odd that he would go off on his own. Something is not right about this whole thing.”
Dawn nodded in agreement.
“There are pieces missing to this puzzle,” Cree said, and Dawn agreed once again.
Dawn tapped her husband’s lips, then tapped at the corner of his eye.
Cree understood that she wanted him to share what he had seen. “Henry found a campsite and buried in a mound of snow was a heart, I assume from the dead man we had found. It had been cut in half and quite precisely. Naturally, Newlin thought it the work of the demon, but when I pointed out that a demon would gobble such a meal down, he gave the possibility thought that it was no more than a man—crazed one at that—who had done it, though why, I still wonder. The snow is falling too heavily to follow any tracks, but once it stops the search will be expanded to that area.”