The man was spotted from a distance. Rain-soaked leaves blotted the details of his shape, turning him into a grey-black blur. He was hunched over the ground and his features were hidden by a cloak and hood.
Boots of softened leather crept near, making no sound against the pliant, damp earth. She breathed through her nostrils to minimize the puffs of white carried on the heat from her lungs. The low ring of a blade being drawn was muted by the whisper of the cold, spring rainfall.
Overhead, a crow cried out from a high bough.
The man turned and looked, as if the bird had beckoned directly to him.
She froze in place. But though a hawthorn bush stood between the two figures, it was yet naked from winter, and she could not hide. The man straightened up to his feet. His face was still obscured, but she could see that he was rather tall and lean, with plain clothes, patched at the knees.
“Morning,” he called out, holding up the limp carcass of a rabbit. “Just fetching my catch.”
“A smooth liar, you are,” said the woman, stepping out from behind the barren shrub. “I placed these traps just last night.”
Her bluntness took him by surprise, and he only stared back for a long moment, fingering the rabbit’s wet hide. “Did ya now?”
“You know well that you didn’t. I hunt this trail and you don’t. Else I’d have met you before today.” Her own features were shadowed under a faded, green hood, the cloth soaked with rain.
The man’s jaw twitched. One hand let go of the carcass to gesture at the knife that glinted in her right hand. “And what? You gonna stab me over a feckin’ rabbit?”
“It’s MY rabbit,” she murmured lowly. “I don’t take kindly to thieves.”
His head bowed penitently, or so it seemed to her. His fingers were long and thin as they brushed over the animal’s ticked pelt. “Right. Look, miss. My wife’s just had our third little ‘un. I haven’t been able to find work since the autumn, and…” His voice trailed off. “I’m not proud of this.” He hoisted the rabbit, its limp legs bouncing. “But we have to eat. My children have to eat.”
The woman rolled her unseen eyes and sighed bitterly. “Take it.” She could sense the man lifting his head. There would be surprise on his face, and then gratitude. She didn’t want to see any of it. “Go on! Before I change my mind!” A hand flapped irritably in his direction. “Don’t!...say anything. Just don’t do it again.”
“Uh…” the man started, unable to keep himself silent despite her demand. “Aye...th-thank you, miss…” he stammered, bowing awkwardly several times as he walked backwards.
She waited in place, looking off into the grey-curtained trees, until from the corner of her vision she could see him turn and retreat the way he had come.
Walking over to the empty noose, she sighed and nudged it with the toe of her shoe. The crow rasped its voice again, and she tilted her face sideways to squint through the rain at it. A black arrowhead against a sooty sky.
“Hmph.”
