Chapter 4 #2
She exhaled with a great deal of exasperation.
He was demanding a story. She’d give him the truth.
“Fine, if you want a story, entertainment, then you shall have it. I am Scottish. Well, perhaps my father wasn’t exactly a native, but my mother’s people have been here so long that they are part and parcel of the land.
I am, as you’ve suggested, a ward of the king.
My father died recently and unexpectedly and King David has determined that he must give me and my land to a horrid, wretched, despicable, pockmarked, miserable Norman-bastard of a friend and supporter.
I have determined that I will not be so given. ”
“Ah …” he murmured. Had she received sympathy from him at last? “I see.”
“So you do understand, and you’ll help me, and I’ll make you richer than you are, even if money isn’t a tremendous concern to you.”
“I’m still confused.”
“Why?”
“Just where is it that you’re trying to go?”
“Downriver.”
“Why?”
“I’ve kin there.”
“There’s nothing but a Viking encampment downriver.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You’re kin to Daro the Viking?”
“He’s my uncle.”
“Are you also kin to Bjorn Hallsteader?” he asked sharply.
“No,” she said, surprised at his tone, but nonetheless pleased that, for once, he didn’t know what he was talking about at all. “Hallsteaders hail from Denmark; my father was the son of a Norwegian jarl.”
“Danes, Swedes, and Norse have been known to fight together.”
“Aye, and Vikings have fought for the king.”
“Still, you intend to pit the Vikings against the king?”
“No! And how dare you assume that my Viking kin would take arms against the king? I simply intend to remove myself so that I may be in a better position to explain my feelings and situation to the king.”
“If you intend to cause bloodshed and insurrection, you had best be able to explain yourself.”
“I do not intend bloodshed, or insurrection! My father was a Viking who loved Scotland, and the concept of a united Scotland, more than you can imagine. And good God, but you are presumptuous! What is any of this to you?”
“Oh … nothing,” he murmured. His attention was suddenly directed to the right oar. He seemed to be struggling with it, twisting it around in the oarlock.
“What are you doing?” Mellyora demanded. “Don’t play with it so, you must be careful—you’re ripping the oar out of the lock—”
Even as she spoke, the oar slipped from the lock, and into the water.
“Och!” he gasped. “M’lady, would you look at that!”
“What have you done?” she asked with incredulous dismay. Was the man dangerous—or simply an impossible clod?
“The oar,” he said sadly.
“Yes! The oar—”
“It fell right through the hole.”
“Of course, you fool! You wrenched the oar free from the oarlock! That is what happens if you take an oar from the lock and don’t hold it—”
“Dear Lord!” he exclaimed suddenly.
“What?”
“There went the other one.”
“My God, but you can’t be such a fool. How can you sit there tormenting me with a million questions while you haven’t the sense to hold on to the oars—”
“My dear lady, I’m so sorry, but you mustn’t worry,” he said cheerfully, and suddenly he was standing.
“Now what are you doing?” she asked incredulously, staring up at him.
“I said not to worry—”
“Don’t worry!” she repeated, staring at him in disbelief. “Please, God, I don’t mean to be cruel, but you’re a clumsy oaf and you’ve created pure disaster for me—”
“I’ll swim back to the shore and acquire more oars.”
“That takes time!”
“Rest assured, lady, I’ll be back for you—and your gold of course. Don’t be distressed. I promise—I vow to you—that I will take you exactly where you should be once I return.”
“How could you have done this to me? I am desperate, and time is so important. How could you? You should be horsewhipped, beaten—”
“Tortured? Burned at the stake, perhaps? Broken on a wheel?”
“Perhaps no less!” Mellyora said in rising dismay. In all her life, she’d never treated a servant with anything but kindness. All men were unique, she had been taught. In the eyes of God, the simplest man deserved the greatest sympathy.
But God had never seen fit to inflict her with such a wretched fool before. He had done so now. Now, when she was in the gravest peril. And this man wasn’t just a wretched, clumsy, oaf, he was an insolent one as well, taunting her as he made a mockery of her getaway.
“Broken on a wheel, but left alive to burn at the stake!” she muttered angrily.
“M’lady, I will come back,” he said. She realized that he was about to dive into the water when he doffed his cloak and cast it upon the seat where he had been sitting.
She saw his face at last.
His eyes were searing and powerful. She found herself staring at him, as he looked back at her.
In a moment of surprised silence, she studied him.
His hair was rich and thick, shoulder-length, dark auburn.
His features were handsomely, strongly formed.
His jaw was quite square, his cheekbones were high and broad, giving him a rugged and commanding appearance.
His eyes, which had so caught her attention, were deep blue in color, almost cobalt, large and set beneath well-defined, arching brows.
He was young, she realized, yet somehow hardened for his years. He was exceptionally striking, powerfully masculine. There was something imposing and indomitable about his appearance that unnerved her. His eyes touched upon hers with a raw, chilling determination.
“Wait—” she began on a whispered breath.
“Nay, lady, wait for me. You’ll just drift for a bit—downriver, the way you wanted to go. Lie still and take care, and I will be back.”
“No, wait—” she cried.
But he had dived into the river, leaving her in the boat. Oarless, and stuck on the water.
Barely moving at all.
Damn him!
Once he had entered the water, she shivered, then shook off the unease he had caused her and concentrated again on the seriousness of her predicament.
He hadn’t understood the complexities of her problem at all.
She couldn’t just drift. She had to reach the Viking encampment quickly—before the king discovered she was gone, and sent men after her.
Far away, he broke the surface of the water.
“Wait—!” she tried crying again.
But he dived into the depths of the river once again, and when he broke the surface this time, he came up far from the boat, swimming hard with long clean strokes. He couldn’t possibly hear her.
And the distance they had come! Far from either riverbank.
Farther still from where she longed to be.
She swore. “What kind of an idiot loses both oars?”
The river was muddy, dark, and deep here. The oars were gone, beyond all hope. Unless they were to surface and float …
She looked about, searching the surface of the water. No. Fate was not smiling her way. The oars were not reappearing.
She sat in the boat, watching the moon in the night sky. She wasn’t moving at all, the current should be taking her at least at some decent pace!
Mellyora clenched her hands into fists in her lap. Oh, God, if only her father had lived! Or if only the king had taken heed of her words. She raged against the fact that no one seemed willing to listen to wisdom and logic—not when it came from a woman.
She had really thought David might at least have given her pleas some thought. He was a good king, a strong man who had made great strides in making Scotland a unified and more powerful country. She didn’t want to betray him, argue with him, or hurt him in any way.
She simply had no choice. This was her life. Kings liked to play with lives of others by the hundreds. It was part of what they did, of what they were.
Yet independence was part of what she was, and what she yearned to have. She told herself again that she didn’t want to defy the king; she simply wanted to be in a better position to compromise with him.
It seemed that she sat forever, weighing her problems. She realized that she was afraid, that she didn’t know what David would do if he believed that she had really betrayed him.
Once she was free, she could prove her loyalty.
Where was the fool who had lost the oars and gone to shore for more? Was he in the act of betraying her? He’d been gone so long now.
Did she dare sit here any longer?
No. Staying here, vulnerable, in the center of the river wouldn’t do at all.
She stood, calculating the distance to the shore, then dropped her cloak and cast off her shoes and hose.
The night was cool, the water would be cold.
No matter, she had to risk it. She stripped down to the linen shift beneath her blue gown, hesitated a moment longer, then gritted her teeth tightly.
She was a good swimmer, a strong swimmer.
She could manage the distance, and the cold.
Determined, she dived into the water.
The cold engulfed her.
Waryk touched bottom, and walked through the last few feet of water to the embankment.
There, he sank to the ground for a moment, lying back to breathe deeply, shake his head—and laugh.
So he looked like some rich man’s servant, did he?
Well, he was somewhat battle-stained and road-weary. Still, just who was she?
An heiress. The proud, blond beauty who had danced before the fire and told her tale about St. Columba.
He realized that he had never asked Sir Harry just who the heiress was.
And now, David was about to give her to a brutal old Norman knight, or so she believed.
She might be right. Who was the king wedding her to?
He did reward those who served him, and many who served him were of Norman descent.
The night was incredibly calm. The lady, whoever she might be, could sit and fume on the water for hours.
He might have been a bit more understanding, he chided himself, sobering. Having spent time, if brief, with Eleanora after the skirmishing, he should have had a greater sympathy for a lass with an aversion to an arranged marriage—especially to a man she would consider an invading monster.