Chapter 15 #3
He sat down and weaved a bit, then gave her a silly drunken grin, revealing a large bloody gap where his bad tooth had been.
“Gone. There…see? I’m grateful, lad, for staying with the load.
” He inhaled deeply, whistling slightly.
“I see your dog is awake. Good…good. Now we’ll be off to find your stables.
” He paused, shook his head and moved his mouth oddly slipping his tongue into the space where his tooth has been.
“This fresh hole in my mouth is making music. I breathe and whistle.” He inhaled. “There. Did you hear that?”
Before she could agree, he was off talking about the barber and how much the usquebaugh burned his mouth and throat but lessen the pain greatly, except for when the hard grip of the barber’s tool clamped onto his deviled tooth, and he snapped the reins and continued to blather on… only twice as fast and loose.
'Twas not long before Glenna had bid a sweet farewell to Heckie, who drove off to take his load to the mill for grinding, talking avidly to the ox team and occasionally taking another sip from the flask. Skye and Fergus were fed and boarded in backstreet stables owned by the town’s well-trusted alewife, so Glenna moved without worry down the short maze of narrow alleys.
With her coins safely tucked inside her chest bindings, and a few more in her boot (no thief would be fool enough to carry a purse about a market that would no doubt be crawling with divers and pickpockets) she stood at the edges of the market cross and took it all in.
After purchasing apples and root vegetables for the road, the thought came to her that it had been a long time since she’d entered a market without being there to stake out the easiest victims. She felt easy, light of foot and mind, and she hummed a merry tune as she moved from booth to booth.
The scent of warm oat and cinnamon honey cakes wafted from nearby and she bought one and ate it like a child given a treat for the first time.
Colorful flags and tent awnings were trimmed brightly to catch the eye.
The unmistakable scent of fresh bread and the sweetmeat call of pieseller’s booth drew her into the thick of things, past the dancing of tumblers and the lively song of bonepipe and naker drum, on to the tented booths where huge cheeses were sold by the slice and crusty bread made with light flour were all but impossible to pass up.
Munching on her third mincemeat pie and feeling fat as that spotted sow, she paused at the mercer where silk as fine as hoarfrost hung next to stacked bolts of Flemish velvet softer than feather down, and shimmering metal threads of thin gold, copper, and silver lined the back shelves.
What would that silk feel like against her skin?
“You, lad.” The mercer whacked her hand with a measuring rod.
“Ouch!” She pulled back quickly and the pie slipped from her other hand. Wincing and stunned, she rubbed her throbbing hand as tears burned the backs of her eyes.
“Little bugger!” He waved the measuring rod in her face. “Keep yer greasy fingers off the goods!
She bit back the urge to curse him to the bowels of hell and instead looked down to hide her tears. Her pie lay broken in two on the ground. A large boot of oxblood cordovan leather smashed the pie, and she slowly raised her face upward.
A tall knight with bright red hair stood but a hand’s breadth away, staring down at the pie oozing up from the edges of his boot.
He looked at her and his dismayed frown faded.
“Lady Caitrin!” He gaped at her with an expression that was almost comical…
until he said, “We left you at the castle. How did you come here? Surely you are not alone?” He looked around swiftly.
“Finn will have your head…wearing peasant clothes again.
What were you thinking, woman? He whispered harshly.
"You swore you would obey all his commands.” The knight grabbed her arm tightly.
Lady Caitrin? “Let me go, sir.” She pulled on her arm but he had the grip of a giant. “I am no lady. I am Gordie of Suddy.”
“Aye…and I am St Columba facing the great monster of the Ness.” His hand moved so fast she hadn’t time to stop him. He jerked her hat off her head and her braid tumbled down her back.
There was a gasp from the crowd nearby, which was growing, a sea of curious, wide-eyed faces.
She snatched her hat and crammed it back on just as he began to drag her away. “You, my lady Cait, will come with me to find Finn, and you can then tell your husband your boldface lies.”
Oh God… She dug in her feet, and bit him hard on the arm, her hand going for the knife in her boot.
He swore in a huge and loud bellow.
She kicked him first in the knee and again between the legs.
With a loud “Offffff!” he doubled over.
She snatched away her arm, cut his purse from his sword belt and ran, weaving in and out of the crowd, crawling under displays and leaping past anyone who got in her way, leaving a path of overturned carts and tables and spilt goods, screaming merchants and utter chaos.
Scrambling on hands and knees, she crawled away from the center of the market, under a rack hung with tunics and braies, (she grabbed one of each and a handful of crossgarters, tucking them in her trouse) and scurried around a table stacked high with bolts of wool and linen.
Over and behind the booths and carts she went, weaving like a frightened hare.
Creeping along behind a line of tailors’ displays, she managed to pull a dark woolen cape from a corner hook undetected, before she ran on and snatched a green feathered hat with two more just like it from a plumer who had turned away to watch the commotion.
For protection, she sliced open a large sack of his down and sent a cloud of feathers into the air, before ducking, tucking up her hair under the hat, pulling closed the cloak, and within moments she had made her escape.
The north end of the market was already chaotic with the business of cattle and horses being bartered by raucous copers, and men racing swift and agile Arab and Barb-blooded mounts for betting stakes.
Losing herself amongst the crowd, she slowed to catch her breath, staying in the thick of them, and she wove her way north, away from the main market cross.
She reached the high end of the market at the tinker’s corner and heard a horrific, angry shout.
“Cait! Caaaait!”
She swung around as a tall nobleman in a red tunic plowed through the crowd and leapt over one tinker’s booth before knocking down a stack of copper pots. His intended path was straight towards her, hands out, and he looked as if he were preparing to go straight for her throat.
“Bugger!” She took off northward, heart pounding in her ears, crossing the road and ducking down an alleyway, running for all she was worth.
She took another side path then slipped into recessed doorway and pressed back against the door, holding her breath as she heard the thunder of more than one person's bootsteps running down the alleyway, coming nearer… then past.
“You men! Get your mounts and ride to the town gates. She will not escape again!” came the man’s angry shouts.
Panting in time to her beating heart, she closed her eyes.
She knew the man who was coming for her.
His overly handsome and striking face was memorable, although she recalled him more clearly with his bare chest…
and bare arse. He was the drunken lord whose horse she had stolen, the first man she had left naked in the road.
Who was Lady Caitrin? Whoever she was Glenna pitied her, surrounded by men who bellowed at her, handsome, naked, or no.
She counted slowly and waited, listening in case it was a trick, then counted again before she stepped away from the door and edged back toward the alleyway, back pressed against the stone wall of a carpenter’s shop—she could hear the sudden pounding of a hammer, and when she felt safe, she doubled back and made her way to the alewife’s stables, sought out the woman and used some of the knight’s coin to pay for the feed and shelter.
Inside, Fergus spotted her and sat up, tail wagging, a look of adoration on his silly face.
“Hullo, Fergus.” She fell onto a pile of hay, drew up her knees, slipped her arms around him and laid her head against his warm fur when she realized she felt lost and a little alone.
She grabbed Fergus’s floppy jowls and shook his head a little.
“But I am not truly alone. I have you, do I not?” she said to him, putting her face up to his.
He still smelled like the abbey soap. Suddenly she could hear the memory of her own laughter echoing in her head, as if she were back there again.
For that one single moment, while bathing Fergus, there had been nothing on her mind but the joy of her laughter and a natural warm bond with Montrose, the kind she’d had with Al and El—a rare occasion in her life now, when she wasn’t worried about what she had to do next and how they were going to go on.
Why did that make her belly churn and her chest ache, as if she had lost everything all over again?
One breath more and tears burned in her eyes and she sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
She lifted her tunic and pulled the spare clothes she'd stolen from her belt then added the knight’s coin purse on the pile next to her.
Staring at her plunder, she felt nothing good.
They were not hers, she thought, in a rare bout of conscience.
Stealing was no lark, held no happiness for her, anymore than being alone was any kind of lark or pleasure.
Being alone was just that…alone. Empty. For the first time she could ever remember, she was truly afraid to go out into the world.
She was afraid to leave the hay she was sitting upon.
Al and El were no longer part of her life.
They did not ride at her back or laugh at her jests or hug her just because she was their little sister.
A long and quiet time passed before she looked at her situation without self-pity.
She had spare clothing and more than plenty of coin.
She dumped out her boot and removed the money she’d carried inside her chest bindings.
But she had no supplies. Her plump bag of apples and turnips were back at the mercer’s booth, and she dared not return to the market, now being unmasked and a woman.
To stay in town was no longer safe for her.
All was ruined. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, searching for some of that infamous courage in the blood of kings.
Perhaps Montrose and Alastair had lied about her father, she thought, having no great surge of some magical, instinctive feeling that made her want to rush out and face warriors, naked noblemen, or her unknown future.
She got to her feet, picked up her saddle and readied Skye, cinching the belly strap, tying on her possessions, moving by rote.
She left the stables, Fergus following and looking none the worse for wear after his encounter with Montrose’s spiked beer, but she did not head for the western walls where those men were looking for someone named Lady Caitrin.
To the east stood the castle on its great crag, and to the south was the wide stretch of the River Ness--another ferry crossing--which she dared not chance, and that was the only way to the southern side.
Instead she moved past the alehouse and into an alleyway that circled to the northeastern edges of town, heading swiftly towards the old northern gate.
Seldom used since the treaty with the Norse rendered the town no longer a target, the back gate was forgotten--a place where she and Al had crept into town once before--and where she now left Inverness and rode into the slough marshes, through the reeds and peaty black water that dirtied Fergus’ clean paws and belly hair, out over the Great Beyond, heading westward across the northern lowlands and towards all the places she was supposed to avoid, because she had no other choice.