Chapter 6
By the time she came to the embankment in the night, Mellyora was freezing and exhausted. She had lost direction in the darkness, and it had seemed to take forever to reach the opposite embankment.
There, she had found a fisherman’s lean-to, a hut of stone and mud like the one on the opposite bank, and it had seemed compellingly welcoming, a break against the chill wind of the night.
Even with the Viking camp so close, she had paused there just to rest for a few minutes.
Shivering, weak, and weary, she had longed to start out quickly again.
But the swim had exhausted her more than she had thought possible, and she realized she had slept very little in weeks now, hardly doing so since Adin had died.
In the small hut she’d closed her eyes, she’d dozed, and when she opened her eyes again, there was light, and there were fishermen on the water, and she could see the little boat she had borrowed the night before.
It was just a few feet from shore, as if it waited for her.
It had drifted close to the embankment. Amazingly, in the light of day, she could see the oars.
They had surfaced, and they floated close to the drifting boat.
The day was nearly as chill as the night, and her clothing and cloak were in the boat.
It wasn’t far at all. She could reach it with just a few minutes’ swim, and take it the rest of the way downriver to the Viking camp.
If she were found walking along the embankment, she might be in for some grave difficulties. She decided she needed the boat.
Without a fool young oaf to lose the oars for her again!
She wondered vaguely what had happened to her boatman of the night gone by.
He hadn’t returned for her. Or had he? He wouldn’t have seen her in the hut.
He would have to think that she had either found her uncle or perished in the darkness.
His fault. With luck, he’d feel guilty for being such an idiot and for assaulting her in the first place.
The river was deep and wide and very cold.
Mellyora’s teeth chattered, her bones ached, she could barely force herself into the water, and then to keep moving.
But she knew the harder she swam, the greater force she would exert, the more warmth she would generate within herself.
She really had no choice, not anymore. Perhaps it had been foolish to plow back into the water—it seemed more so every second—but she had done it, and therefore, she had to keep going.
Everything she had done since her audience with the king might be conceived as foolish, she admitted to herself.
If she didn’t freeze to death or drown now, she might have broken her neck earlier.
But she didn’t have many weapons with which to fight, and it was one thing for kings to believe they had the right to command the future, but since that future was hers, she had to wage war with the king in whatever way she could.
She wouldn’t allow any of it to be foolish.
Achieving her goals would be vindication.
She would keep herself from freezing, and she would reach the boat, secure the oars, and find her uncle.
She was a good swimmer, a strong swimmer, and she would make it.
Finally, raising her head to draw a breath, she saw the boat. Relief filled her. In the not so far distance, she could even see the Viking camp, men up and about now, women working at their cooking fires.
Before long, she’d reach her destination. Which she needed to do. The king would have men out any minute, searching for her. Maybe it would take until midday, when Jillian realized she didn’t sleep, and alerted the king that she was gone.
Yet just when she thought another hard kick would bring her to the boat, she felt a startling new force against her. She gasped, gulping in water as she was suddenly jerked back. She wasn’t alone in the water. Someone had seized her and was pulling her back, trying to drown her.
A hand was upon her waist. She twisted, kicking and clawing with fear and desperation, her nails digging into flesh. She was released; she started to sink. She kicked hard and shot to the surface, desperate for breath.
She had barely breathed in before hands closed around her again.
Being held in the water instantly panicked her; she was certain an enemy was trying to drown her.
This time, she tried to bite. Her teeth met flesh.
The arm in her mouth slammed against her with such a power that she released her grip, stunned, and certain she was about to die.
The arm around her was like a cordon of steel.
But she wasn’t being drowned, she was being dragged out of the water.
In deep dismay she realized that she had swum so hard only to be dragged back to the embankment once again.
She kicked and wriggled, trying to twist around so that she could assess her enemy.
She could barely move, scarcely breathe.
In seconds she found herself slung down upon the embankment.
She was so cold, it was hard to fight. Her assailant was about to come over her; she caught the rich mud in her hands and cast it upward, into his face.
She struck him, twisted, and started crawling to freedom.
But he was suddenly before her, bare feet staunchly embedded in the mud.
She turned again, and he was upon her, arms wrapped around her waist as they rolled on the embankment.
She flailed furiously with her fists, fighting the man, desperately wishing herself back at the fortress at Stirling.
For the moment, she cursed herself for her foolishness in thinking she’d had a real chance at escaping the king and finding the freedom she had been willing to risk so much to find.
Who was this madman who had risen from the river like a sea monster?
What had she done, had there been any other means of reasoning with the king?
Was she about to be raped and murdered? Her knife remained at her calf, and she reached for it, drawing it from the leather sheath.
She didn’t want to die, she was terrified, but she couldn’t just lie there like a frightened lamb and allow herself to be slaughtered without a fight.
She tried to raise her weapon high, to bring it down with a worthwhile effort …
“So you’re a traitor, thief—and would-be murderess!
” she heard as long fingers curled around her wrist with such strength that she cried out at the pain, forced to release the weapon.
She was slammed down upon her back, and her assailant was over her.
Her knife was in the mud, and her wrists were pinned above her head while his face hovered grimly just above her own.
She inhaled sharply, seeing the monster who had assailed her.
“You!” she charged. It was the wretch who had lost the oars and left her in the river.
Apparently, he didn’t feel guilty for his first assault. He was attacking her once again.
“Aye, lady, I said I’d be back.”
“You loathsome, despicable creature! First, you desert me in the river, and then you assault me and attempt to drown me! How dare you! I tell you, you are in sorry shape, you wretched fellow, there is no question now, you will be treated severely, you will pay—”
“I don’t think so,” he told her.
She fell silent, staring up at him. His eyes were more chilling than the night. Deep blue Arctic frost. His features were fierce, tense, frightening.
He was back. After the night. He should have been gone, he should have rued that he had seen her in the first place, and he should have stayed far away when word went out that the Lady Mellyora had escaped Stirling Castle.
Had he decided to demand a ransom for her after all? Did he intend to kill her? No, what value would there be in her murder? Yet, he looked angry enough to throttle her then and there, and she thought it was far more than the chill in the air that was causing her to shiver.
She tried to be calm, and perfectly still. Not fighting him, she hoped to muster her strength if the moment came when she might slip free from him. “You know,” she said with solemn warning, “you are making a grave mistake. You don’t understand who I am—”
“No, I understand exactly who you are.”
“All right, I may be at odds with the king, but if he knew that you had nearly drowned me, that you—”
“I wasn’t trying to drown you,” he said, and assured her, “You would be dead now had that been my intent.”
“Then—”
“I was trying to help you out of the water.”
“Were you? You’re lying, you bastard, you were rough and cruel and brutal—”
“I’m not lying, you little witch! You were rough and cruel and brutal. You started scratching and biting and fighting and left me little choice but to drag you out—perhaps a little less than gently.”
She narrowed her eyes, wondering at his words when he was obviously furious enough to do her great damage. He was shaking, she realized, as if he was expending considerable effort to keep from doing her bodily harm. A renewed sense of unease swept through her.
“Why did you attack me in the water?”
“I didn’t think you were going to make the boat.”
“I’m an excellent swimmer.”
“Indeed. That’s why you got nowhere last night.”
“I was cold, and tired.”
“And weak,” he said.
“I was doing just fine on my own.”
“But now you’re with me.”
“You still don’t understand, do you? Terrible retribution will come your way. You’ll be—”
“Disemboweled, hanged, drawn and quartered?”
She stared at him. How dare he be so mocking when such a fate might well await him?
“Yes!” she lashed out. “In fact, if you don’t let me up immediately, when I see the king, I’ll see to it that you receive exactly what you suggest—you’ll be disemboweled, hanged, drawn and quartered—and then your pieces will all be burned and the ashes cast to the wind!”
He rose and looked down at her. “My lady, I don’t think so.”