Free Web NovelChapter 41: Chapter 41 The beginning of cheating
_Author’s POV_
The forest was genuinely beautiful at this time of year.
The spring growth had reached the point where everything was fully present without yet being heavy, the undergrowth thick enough to be interesting without blocking sight lines, the canopy letting light through in shifting patterns, the whole place smelling of damp earth and pine resin and something faintly floral from a flowering shrub that grew in clusters along the stream bank.
Rowena moved through it the way she moved through everything, quietly, with the attention of someone who had been taught to notice. Her father had brought her here specifically to learn that. A forest tells you everything if you stop making noise long enough to listen.
Pierre moved beside her with the ease of a man whose wolf was close to the surface and comfortable there, which made him naturally quiet in terrain like this without effort.
They had been walking for twenty minutes when Rowena stopped and held up one hand.
Fifty meters ahead, at the edge of a small clearing, a roe deer was standing in profile, young, unaware, the light catching the reddish-brown of its coat.
She looked at Pierre.
He looked at the deer.
Then he looked at the stream bank to their left, where a cluster of wild garlic grew in dense white-flowered mounds, and at the ground beneath their feet where she could now see what he apparently had been noticing for the past ten minutes, wood sorrel, wild thyme, a sprawl of young nettles along the north side of a fallen log.
He raised his eyebrows at her.
She understood immediately. She had grown up with Kasper too, after all.
The deer wandered off unmolested.
They spent the next hour foraging with the focused efficiency of two people who had decided to win by redefining the terms of the competition. Pierre knew the forest the way an Alpha knew territory — comprehensively, personally, with the kind of knowledge that came from years of moving through land and paying attention.
He collected, in systematic order: three varieties of wild mushroom — penny bun, chanterelle, and a cluster of oyster mushrooms growing from a birch stump that he spotted from fifteen meters away. Wild watercress from the stream edge. A generous quantity of wild garlic — both the leaves and the small white bulbs, which were better than the cultivated variety in a way that anyone who had eaten both would recognize immediately. Wood sorrel for the children, who would like the sharpness of it. Ramps from the shadowed section under the old oaks. Hawthorn blossom tips, which could go into tea. Two handfuls of young elderflower clusters just beginning to open, fragrant and perfect.
Rowena found a blackthorn thicket along the stream’s upper bend and filled half a cloth bag with sloe berries that had somehow survived the winter on the branch.
She also shot two rabbits because she was not going back to camp with nothing that required a bow.
When they emerged from the tree line back into the clearing an hour later, Kasper and Greg were already there.
Kasper had three clean catches. Greg had two and a graze that he was arguing should count as three quarters. They were both pleased with themselves in the way of people who expected to have won. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
Pierre set down his collection on the camp table.
The mushrooms. The watercress. The wild garlic. The ramps. The sorrel. The elderflower. The sloe berries. Rowena’s two rabbits.
Greg stared at it.
“That’s not hunting,” he said.
“The rules said points for clean catch and bonus points for variety,” Pierre said. “We have two clean catches and eight varieties of bonus.”
“You went foraging,” Greg said. “That’s not — you can’t just — “
“The rules didn’t exclude foraging,” Pierre said.
“Because no one thought they had to exclude foraging!”
“That seems like a planning failure on your part,” Pierre said.
Kasper looked at the collection. Looked at his three rabbits. Looked back at the collection.
“You cheated,” he said.
“I innovated,” Pierre said.
“You’re an Alpha,” Greg said, outraged. “You’re supposed to be out there dominating the forest, not — picking flowers.”
“Elderflower,” Pierre said. “They’re different.”
Greg turned to Rowena. “Did you know he was going to do this?”
“I suspected,” she said. “After the deer.”
“You let him.”
“I shot the rabbits,” she said. “I contributed.”
Greg sat down on a log with the expression of a man who had been defeated by something he couldn’t argue with and found it deeply unsatisfying.
Kasper examined the mushrooms with the attention of someone who was looking for a disqualification and not finding one. “These are genuinely good,” he admitted.
“I know,” Pierre said.
“I hate you,” Greg said.
“The elderflower makes excellent tea,” Pierre said. “You’ll feel better.”
The prize, which turned out to be the responsibility of choosing tonight’s dinner preparation, meaning the losers cooked — went to Rowena and Pierre by a margin that Greg continued to dispute for the rest of the afternoon, to the delight of the children who had appointed themselves judges and took the role extremely seriously.
Pierre handed Rowena her half of the prize decision with the formality of someone presenting something significant, which it wasn’t, which made it funnier.
She took it with the same formality. “Thank you, Alpha Pierre.”
“My pleasure, Marchioness.”
Miriam was watching from the camp chairs. Beside her, Vicky had put down the book she’d been reading at some point during the foraging argument and had not picked it back up.
They looked at each other.
Not at Pierre and Rowena specifically, just at the shape of the afternoon. The easy banter, the comfort of proximity, the specific way Pierre had handed Rowena that small piece of paper like it was something worth the care.
“Oh,” Miriam said quietly.
Vicky nodded.
Neither of them said anything more about it.
