The Man by the Fire

The man was sitting on the log by her fire on the fourth night, and she had not heard him arrive.

He was perhaps thirty. Dark coat, mud to the thigh, a blade across his back with a plain hilt worn pale at the grip. He had the stillness of the very good ones. He was turning her own boot over in his hands, which she had left out to dry, and had apparently been doing this for some time.