Chapter 7 #2
her parents and the rest of her family so much it felt as if her
heart had actually dropped out of her chest.
And then she remembered who she was.
She was the daughter of Alyssa, who’d killed
men who’d tried to kill her. The grand-daughter of Sahar, who’d
been the first woman to ever ride in and win the great races. Who’d
also been abducted by an enemy of her parents and escaped with the
help of Aleksandr, the bastard son of King Maksimillian, and they’d
survived the wilds together.
Because of her grandparents’ time in the
mountains, they’d made sure their children knew how to not only
survive but thrive in many different wildernesses. Lessons Alina’s
parents had passed down to their children.
She knew how to make a fire and build a
lean-to. How to hunt and fish with snares and sharpened sticks, and
how to skin and cook what she caught from squirrel and rabbit to
deer and elk. The women in her line had survived so much horror,
and Alina knew she could too. She knew how to take care of herself
in the wilds and the language here.
Her pearl necklace would pay for her passage
home on a ship. She would have to ask Roark for it back the first
chance she got and then make her escape. She may have promised to
stay and wait for her father, but she believed Roger had lied about
ransoming her back home. Myrna’s little threat today had only
strengthened that belief.
The only thing she hadn’t decided was whether
to tell Roark. She wanted to trust him, and she could certainly use
his help, yet every time she thought of confiding in him, she
remembered how he’d betrayed her, and the look on his face when
she’d realized what he’d done. The same look he had on his face now
as he met and held her gaze from the high table.
Making sure to eat her fill, Alina
surreptitiously packed a few scraps of mutton for mama cat into her
skirt pocket, along with a piece of hard cheese for the first of
what would be her secret larder. She drained her cup of beer,
called ale here, more to build herself up for what would likely be
some time alone in the wilds than from any real liking of the brew.
She was trying to figure out how to grab some cherries for her
hoard when Gare came into the dining hall, cap in hand.
“My laird,” he said, when Roger deigned to
acknowledge him. “The foal’s turned colicky and it’s Fergus’s day
ta home. I could use the princess’s and Roark’s help with the wee,
poor thing.”
Alina looked to Roger, and tried to seem more
curious than worried, as she wasn’t supposed to understand what
Gare had said.
Roger met her gaze with irritation and then
looked to Roark, who was halfway out of his seat. “Go,” Roger said
with an impatient wave of his hand. “This damned foal is starting
to cost me more than he’s worth.”
Alina sat on her hands as Roark walked over
to her. “Gare needs our help with the foal,” he said in her
Northern tongue. “He thinks it has colic.”
Alina stood and pretended to think about what
she’d already decided on. “Tell the cook to boil water enough for a
pot of tea,” she told Roark. “I need a handful each of dried
peppermint, dandelion, chamomile, and meadowsweet if she has them.
Tell her I’ll measure and steep them. I’ll go change into my tunic
and breeches.”
She grabbed a handful of cherries and made
herself walk, not run, up the stairs, where she quickly wrapped the
cheese and cherries in a linen square. It wasn’t much, and she’d
hoped to stash away more before she left, but it was better than
nothing. If she got the foal over his colic in good time, there was
a chance she could slip away from the stables in the dark of
night.
***
“Slow down, Alina.” Roark pulled on the sack
of herbs she was carrying as they headed for the stables.
“But, Ash—”
“Is fine. Gare and I made the colic story up
so I could get you away from the house.” She slowed her pace to
match his, her head tilted, waiting for him to explain. “I went to
the docks today and spoke to Kerry and Kerwin.” He hesitated,
hating to tell her what he’d found out, but she needed to know.
“They’re preparing The Rover to sail in ten days, only not
for Sea Ridge.” Her head tilted the other way. “They have orders to
sail through the Mid-Earth Sea to a desert port, where you’re to be
sold as a slave, and not as any slave, but as a pleasure
woman.”
Alina stopped walking, and Roark gently
tugged her by the elbow in case they were being watched from the
house. No guard had come out yet, but he figured one of them would
as soon as they finished their supper.
“He wants me to be sold as my
great-grandmother was.”
“That was my take on it too,” Roark said.
They’d reached the stables, and he pulled her to the far side of
the building where they couldn’t be seen from the house. “I don’t
believe Roger intends to ever tell your parents you’re alive. He
has to know your father would wreak havoc on this place if he found
out. Knowing Roger, he’ll send spies to report back to him how
deeply your family grieves to savor his sick, twisted revenge
without fear of retaliation.”
“I have to leave this place,” she said, her
face pale in the moonlight. “Now.”
“Yes,” Roark agreed. “You have to leave this
place, but not now. Not tonight. I have a plan, if you’ll trust
me.” She said nothing. “I know I betrayed your trust, betrayed you,
but I swear on my life, I will never betray you again.”
The door to the stables opened, and Gare came
out, peering around the corner. “Sorry, I couldn’t tell what I was
hearing.”
Alina strode past Roark and Gare and straight
for the brooding pen, where Ash had his head in the milk bucket,
drinking away.
“He’s fine,” Gare said with a sheepish smile
to Alina. “Really.”
Roark translated and Alina gave Gare a shaky
nod.
“Gare,” Roark said. “Can you wait outside the
door and warn us when anyone’s coming?”
“Will do.” Gare tipped his cap to Alina and
shut the door behind him, giving them some privacy.
Smokey shoved his nose into the pocket of
Alina’s breeches and she shooed him away. “That’s not for you.” She
pulled out a linen square and unfolded it, revealing a chunk of
cheese, a handful of cherries, and some meat scraps. She removed
the meat scraps and rewrapped the cherries and cheese and put them
back in her pocket. “Here, mama kitty,” she called, and the cat
came running and meowing. “Here you go, mama,” she said, tossing
the meat to her.
“What, or who, are the cheese and cherries
for?” Roark asked.
“For me. For later.”
“How long have you been stashing food for
your escape?”
Alina blinked her big green eyes, trying to
look innocent and failing.
“This is the first of it,” she admitted. “I
intended to keep my promise and wait for my father, but after what
Myrna said today…” She shook her head.
“What did she say?”
“She, in Green Isles tongue, she told me that
I had no idea what humiliations and abuses awaited me.”
“Damn them,” Roark ground out. “Damn them all
for lying cheats.”
The door creaked open and Gare let out a soft
whistle. Roark snatched the bucket of milk away and Alina knelt
beside Ash and propped him up by his belly, as if feeling it. Gare
entered the stables carrying a steaming kettle of water, followed
by Lara, one of the kitchen maids.
“How’s the wee thing doing?” Lara asked as
Gare handed the kettle to Roark.
“Too soon to tell yet,” Gare told her. “We’ve
got him standing, which is good. Now we need to steep the tea and
get some into him. We’ll be walking him half the night through to
help get things moving again.”
“Good,” Lara said, her cheeks dimpling. “I’m
sure with you taking care of him, he’ll be fit as a fiddle by
morn.” With a quick dip of her capped head, she turned and headed
for the door, leaving Gare staring gape-jawed after her.
“Go,” Roark told the moon-eyed man. “Go and
talk with her while you can before she has to return to the
house.”
“Are they courting?” Alina asked as Gare
practically ran after Lara.
“If they weren’t before,” Roark said, “I’d
wager coin they will be from tonight on.” He sat down and leaned
his back against the wall, patting the straw beside him. “We need
to talk.”
She sat next to him as Ash and Smokey nestled
up against her. “Talk,” she said.
“You’re right about getting away from here,”
he said, speaking softly so he could hear if the stable door
opened. “I’ll do everything I can to help you. I owe you that much,
at the verra least.” She said nothing, nor did she look at him as
she leaned her head back against the wall, staring straight ahead.
“I’m simply asking you to wait—”
“For what?” Now she was looking at him.
“Why?”
“There’s a ship sailing in seven days from
the southern shore of the firth,” he said. He pulled her pearl
necklace from his tunic pocket and held it in his open palm. “I’ve
spoken with the captain and he’s willing to take you to Sea Ridge
for the price of your pearl.”
She took her necklace. “Is this captain
trustworthy?”
“As trustworthy as I can find in so little
time. He owns his ship and isn’t beholden to any laird. As far as I
can tell, nobody outside of the keep and The Rover’s crew
know you’re here or who you are. Roger’s managed to keep your
presence a secret.”
“So that my father won’t hear any stray
gossip.” Alina took a deep breath in and let it out. She met
Roark’s gaze, her own guarded. “If I agree to wait and sail on this
ship…”
“The Sea Maid.”
“If I were to sail on The Sea Maid,
how do you propose I get to it?”
“That’ll be the tricky part,” Roark admitted.
“They set sail with the morning tide, so you’d have to show up at
dawn the day they leave. Any earlier, and Roger could find us and
take you again. It’s the closest port to North Shore, so it’s the
first place Roger will look. Any later, and you’ll miss the ship,
and then we’d have to make a run for another port and hope we find
another ship setting sail before Roger finds us.”
“You keep saying we. Do you plan on sailing
with me?”
“No. Once you’re safely away, I’ll come back
and try to misdirect Roger. Besides,” he added with a rueful grin,
“your father would kill me for my part in this, and rightly
so.”