Chapter 47
Chapter forty-seven
Ormdale
Violet was beginning to think that Elfed was harbouring a grudge against her.
After shimmying hand over hand up the rope and hauling herself onto Elfed’s back, she had tried once more to clip on the riding harness Edith had lent her, only to find they were suddenly nose-diving and she had nothing to grip except the harness—which was not connected to Elfed.
For a moment, her windmilling arms found nothing but air.
Then she saw orange.
It was like getting smacked in the face by a sunset.
And now she was lying, face down, on one outstretched wing. But she was too weighty for it, so Elfed overcorrected, sliding her towards the other wing.
Violet scrambled with arms and legs for a hold but ended up grabbing onto his wing tip on the other side, hoping it didn’t hurt him, looking down a remarkably long way to the deepest part of the Orme River, dark as an enchantress’s mirror.
Possibly this impeded Elfed’s ability to fly, for they were now spiralling downwards fast, and Violet forgot about hurting him and just clung.
Her own reflection rushed at her, face contorted, hair streaming.
Then the water slapped her in the face—a freezing, vicious blow.
Still, it didn’t hurt quite as much as she’d expected, and she realised that Elfed’s wing tip had broken the surface tension first.
Violet opened her eyes underwater and saw Elfed’s great eye through a churning mass of bubbles. He blinked once at her, as if to say Yes, I really meant it, then clawed his way back to the surface, leaving her.
It occurred to Violet that making her closest friends angry was something she was remarkably good at.
The next thing that occurred to her was that she wasn’t floating back up to the surface.
She was wearing too much. She shuffled off the great coat, but her lungs were burning with the effort not to breathe, and her clothes felt as heavy as so many layers of lead.
She was finally going upward, but it was too slow.
If it wouldn’t have cost her the last of her air, she would have laughed. After all of the risks she’d taken, she had not thought to drown at the back door of her family home.
A great rip of pain seared through her midsection.
She stretched one arm above her to the surface, as if she could pull herself up with a fingertip.
Dear God, I’m sorry I didn’t have much to say to you before. It’s probably a bit late to start now, isn’t it? I expect you are as angry at me as the rest of them are.
Then something enormous disturbed the water, wreathing her in bubbles.
A monstrous, toothy grip closed around her ribs and she was dragged into the cold, heavy world of air, coughing and blowing water from her nose. She landed with a loud splosh in the mud of the riverbank.
Elfed stood over her, huffing at her and pushing her hair out of her face with his tongue, while Violet lay still, coughing every now and then.
“I’m not sure I deserved that,” she said to him.
Violet felt as if someone had joined them, and heard a gentle whinny. She wiped mud from her eyes to see Simon, looking down at her from the bridle path.
“Anything broken or bleeding, Violet?” Simon asked. “I thought he might have grazed you, holding you in his teeth like that.”
She patted her ribs under her cardigan and tried to peer down her neck at her underthings.
“No, not a scratch. The corset saw to that.” She crawled to her feet, amazed at the amount of water that poured off her.
Her boots made a sucking noise. She looked at Elfed, who was enjoying a refreshing drink of river water. She began to shiver.
“Do you think I ought to get changed before I try again? I’m sorry I said corset,“ she added. Ladies’ underthings were not a welcome topic in mixed company. “Though I suppose being married for ten years means you at least know about them.”
Simon’s lips fought a small battle before succumbing to a smile. Then he shook his head.
“Get up behind me, lass. I’ll take you up to the abbey to dry off,” he said.