Chapter Six #2
Addax wasn’t sure why he felt a sense of urgency, but he did.
Or perhaps it was more concern than urgency.
The lady couldn’t attend her own wedding feast and then suddenly appeared on the battlements?
Why? Berwick’s walls were very steep in places, and quite high, so someone wandering the walls, unfamiliar with them, could be in danger.
But in the back of his mind, something told him it was more than that.
She was upset that I consummated the marriage at the church.
Maximilian’s words were rolling around in his head.
Addax had thought them distasteful when he first heard them, more so because Maximilian seemed to have no issue with what he’d done.
A business arrangement, he’d said. He’d treated her like an acquisition, not as a woman with heart and feeling.
Addax had been privileged enough to have a couple of conversations with Lady Emmeline and found her intelligent and kind.
God knew, she was beautiful. To think of Maximilian abusing a woman like that brought him real disgust, but the truth was that it really wasn’t any of his business.
One man simply didn’t interfere with another man’s marriage.
But something told him to make sure Lady de Grey wasn’t about to throw herself from the battlements.
He moved faster.
Slipping up a spiral stairwell in the nearest turret, he came out onto the wall and quickly headed for the last place he’d seen the lady.
He heard footsteps behind him, suspecting Essien had come with him, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he could see de Wolfe as well.
Further behind he could see de Norville and Hage.
Everyone was coming with him, perhaps fed by his own sense of trepidation.
When a damsel was in distress, the knights went to work.
Even if that damsel was married to another knight.
As Addax suspected, the stairs on the top of the wall leading down to the jetty in the river below were difficult to see at night, even beneath the full moon.
He took them quickly, perhaps a little too quickly, because he could see the lady far down below, disappearing into a turret that had stairs leading down to the riverbank.
There were soldiers down there, guarding the access and the boat jetty, but by the time Addax and the others reached the turret where she’d descended from the wall, they could see her by the river’s edge, and no one had tried to stop her.
The guards on duty were just standing by, watching her.
That made Addax move even faster.
Emerging onto the sandy, rocky shore of the riverbank with the jetty spread out in front of him to his right, he watched as the lady simply stood on the edge of the river.
The River Tweed was a major river in the north, so it was wide and deep and cold, and it tended to move swiftly in places.
Addax and the group came to a halt after having taken only a few steps from the turret stairs, observing her as she seemingly watched the river flow by.
The guards in the area weren’t paying much attention to her, but they were paying attention to five knights who had just come down from the castle.
One of them approached Addax, but the second he took his focus off the lady to address the guard, the woman sloshed right into the river and submerged.
That brought the knights running.
William and Paris ran upriver, the direction it was flowing in, as Addax and Essien and Kieran ran for the spot where she had disappeared.
Addax was throwing off his scabbard and clothes—anything he could get his hands on, because it would weigh him down once he jumped in—and Essien was doing the same.
They were without protection this night because of the feast, but William, Paris, and Kieran were all in heavy mail.
Paris and Kieran in particular because they’d been traveling.
There was no way they could get it off fast enough, so Addax turned to Kieran as he ripped off the silk tunic he’d been wearing.
“Find a rope and anchor,” he said quickly. “Anything you can throw to me as a lifeline for when I find her. Hurry!”
As Kieran quickly turned away in search of the requested gear, Addax plunged into that icy river right where the lady had disappeared.
It was dark and freezing, and he couldn’t see a thing.
He was forced to use the only sense he could, the sense of touch, as he began frantically grabbing about in the water for a limb or a dress or even hair. Anything to grab hold of.
But there was nothing.
Essien went on off to his left, diving into the river with an enormous splash as Addax came up for air. He waited a moment to see if his brother came up with something before plunging in again, deeper this time. He could feel the current of the river, pushing him toward the town and the sea beyond.
Still, he found nothing.
As he came up again for air, he caught sight of William diving into the river about twenty feet to his left, closer to the bridge that spanned the river from Berwick to the shore on the other side.
Addax swam out toward the middle of the river now, taking a deep breath before submerging himself and swimming as deep as he could, grabbing around in the darkness.
There was nothing. But as he turned to surface, his foot brushed against something. He became slightly tangled in it.
Fabric.
Turning around even though his lungs were screaming for air, he went back the way he’d come, deeper into the river, and managed to grasp the fabric that had wrapped around his foot.
Pulling as hard as he could, he found an ankle.
Grabbing it, he swam with all his might to the surface before he, too, drowned.
He was starting to see spots before his eyes.
Just a few more feet and he could make it.
Push, man, push!
He broke the surface.
“Help!” he shouted, sputtering. “I have her!”
Essien and William immediately began heading in his direction.
He couldn’t stand up, so he treaded water as he pulled the lady up, righting her so he could bring her head to the surface.
He ended up having to grab her by the hair to lift her head, and her ghostly-pale face came to the surface as Essien reached him.
A little less winded than his brother, Essien took the lady and began to swim with her back toward the shore.
He was joined by William, who was able to stand at that point, and William took her from Essien, swinging her up into his arms as he struggled out of chest-deep water toward the shore.
Kieran ran out to meet him.
The big man took the lady with ease, racing her back up to the shore, where Paris was waiting.
Paris was, in fact, a fine healer and had trained for years under the tutelage of Northwood Castle’s surgeon, so he had Kieran lay the lady on the shore and turn her onto her stomach.
Straddling her slender body, Paris pushed on her lower back, firmly and strongly, using her diaphragm to force water out of her lungs.
Addax was the last one out of the water, exhausted and freezing, as he came around to watch Paris try to revive the lady. He’d very nearly drowned himself, so he bent over, hands braced on his knees, coughing to clear out the water that he’d swallowed.
“Is she alive?” he asked, breathing heavily.
Paris was methodical and calm as he continued to push on the lady’s back. “We shall see,” he said. Then he turned to Kieran beside him. “Get some blankets. Anything will do.”
As Kieran turned to carry out the request, Addax called after him. “And tell those guards not to breathe a word of this,” he said. “We do not want the lady’s… accident made known, so tell them if they talk about it, you’ll cut their tongues out.”
Kieran nodded, running for the guards, who were collected over by the stair turret, watching the action unfold.
There were four of them, and Kieran took them with him on the hunt for blankets, which would also make it easier to control any leak of information, because Kieran could shut it down immediately.
It was bad enough that the situation had happened.
No one wanted the lady shamed.
As Kieran went about finding blankets, Paris continued his steady pressure on the lady’s back.
Essien and William were standing over her, watching with concern, as Addax finally caught his breath.
He went around to the lady’s head and knelt down, pushing her wet hair away from the right side of her face.
“My lady,” he said. “Lady Emmeline? Do you hear me?”
She didn’t move, and Paris continued to push.
Some water was coming from her mouth, but she still wasn’t moving.
Addax didn’t think she’d been under long enough to truly drown, but maybe he was wrong.
Or maybe they weren’t trying hard enough.
Reaching down, he lightly slapped her on the right cheek.
“My lady?” he said, a little louder. Then he slapped her cheek again, harder. “Emmeline, wake up. Do you hear me? Awaken!”
He slapped her again, and she seemed to stir.
That had Paris pushing both fists into either side of her torso, just below the ribcage.
When he did that, Emmeline suddenly lurched and began vomiting up water, coughing, gagging.
Water spilled out of her, and Paris pounded on her back, helping her clear out her lungs.
“Breathe, my lady, breathe,” he said steadily. “Slowly, now. Just breathe.”
Emmeline was coughing and gasping at this point, disoriented.
But she was aware enough to know that she didn’t recognize Paris’ voice, so she tried to push herself up, scrambling to escape the stranger.
Addax was by her head, however, and as she fought to get up, he grasped her by the shoulders and held her fast.