Chapter 3 #2
and intact,” Roark said. “Leif was trying to scare you.” And
me. He lowered his voice to a whisper and spoke to her in his
Green Isles tongue. “Nobody except me knows you speak our language.
It would be wise to keep it our secret.”
Alina eyed him warily. “Unless this is part
of your trap too. You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you, or
anything you and your cohorts say in front of me, supposedly
thinking I don’t understand.”
“I could forgive you anything, my lady owl,”
he said.
Embarrassed by his admission and the startled
expression on her face, he turned and climbed up to the deck.
***
The muted voices of the crew floated down
into the hold and Alina heard the sounds of an anchor being hauled
up and sails being hoisted followed by the snap of sails filling
with wind. The ship groaned and lurched forward. They were setting
sail under the light of the moon and, if the wind held up, would be
out of the bay and out of sight by dawn.
From what she knew, it took three days to
sail from the east coast of the Green Isles to Sea Ridge, as the
wind typically blew eastward, which meant it would take twice as
long to sail back. She pulled her lips back in a feral grin. Once
her father figured out who’d taken her, he would be on his swiftest
warship and fast on their stern. Longboats didn’t depend on wind.
They sailed when it was convenient. Otherwise, they were powered by
oars pulled by ten and two big strong, heavily armed Northmen. Six
days would be plenty of time for a longboat to catch up to the
heavier, slower trade ship.
Giving in to the exhaustion of the day and
the rolling, lolling motion of the ship, she removed her boots and
lay down on the pelts, making plans for any number of scenarios,
determined to be ready for whatever came and refusing to even
consider that she might never see her home again.
When she woke, she was still alone in the
hold, which was dimly lit by the gray of dawn filtering down
through the open hatch to the deck. She used the chamber pot next
to her pile of pelts, grateful her moon-flow had ended three days
ago, one less thing she’d have to deal with during this ordeal.
Roark came down the ladder and gave her a
quick half-smile, which she returned with a hostile glare.
“Have you used the chamber pot yet?” he
asked.
“I have. Perhaps you’d like to carry it up
and empty it,” she said, and then added in her mother’s Rus tongue,
“Perhaps the gods will be vengeful and spill it all over you.”
Roark quirked his brows but didn’t ask her to
translate. He didn’t have to.
“Perhaps you’d like to carry it up to the
deck and empty it,” he said. “Get some time top side in the fresh
air.”
Alina grudgingly held out her arm and Roark
unlocked the iron wrist cuff. She considered pretending to trip and
spilling the chamber pot’s contents on his head as he followed her
up the ladder, but with her recent luck she’d be made to clean it
up. Plus, she didn’t want to lose her chance to be deck side.
The crew stopped what they were doing and
watched as she poured her piss over the side, rinsed the pot out
with a ladle full of seawater, and set it down on the deck next to
the bucket. She lengthened her spine and filled her chest with
brisk, salt-tinged air, and took in her surroundings with Roark
standing no more than two paces from her, watching her every
move.
“I’m not going to jump over the side if
that’s what you’re worried about,” she told him. “I’ve decided to
be an accommodating prisoner while I wait for my father’s
longboats, what you call warships, to catch up to you.” She faced
west and smiled as the eastward wind blew her hair back, and then
she faced east, where her homeland was a shrinking line on the
horizon. “I hope you and every man on this ship have made peace
with your gods,” she said loudly enough for others to hear. “My
father’s retribution will be swift and merciless.”
“If he figures out to look for us at all,”
Leif said from behind her. He stepped up to her other side with a
smug grin. “We covered our tracks and left pieces of your gown and
cloak to make it look like you were dragged off into the woods by
some wild beast. We even left a trail of pig’s blood to complete
the ruse.” He chortled and lifted his chin toward Roark. “That was
his idea.”
“My father will figure it out,” Alina said.
He wouldn’t stop his search for her until he had absolute proof
she’d been dragged off and killed.
“Maybe,” Leif said. “Maybe not. Even if he
does, it’ll take him several days of searching for your body
first.”
“His longboats sail three times as fast as
your barge of a ship with the wind at your back,” Alina countered.
“And you are sailing against the…” Wind. Which had stopped blowing
eastward and now blew west.
Roark put his nose to the wind, while Leif
showed no signs of noticing it had shifted in his favor. If he had,
he’d have surely been gloating by now. Either way, there was
nothing Alina could do about the wind, but she could get some
answers.
“Why am I here?” she asked Leif.
“You’re here at the pleasure of my father,
Laird Roger MacKinnon,” he answered her. “You’re his prisoner until
your father pays a king’s ransom for you, the terms of which will
be presented to him in a fortnight’s time when The Rover
sails back to Sea Ridge and presents your father the ransom
demands.”
“Why me? Why my father?”
“Because you’re your parents’ only daughter
and they ruined my family.”
Alina tilted her head at Leif. “How so?”
“They banished my father and uncle and their
families from Sea Ridge for being loyal to their liege, taking
their wealth and lands as their own.”
Alina chuffed. “My parents did this?
When?”
“Twenty years ago, when your father became
king and your mother his queen.”
Alina furrowed her brows. “The only people my
father banished from Sea Ridge then were his uncle Fenrir’s family
and the yellow beards who’d followed him, after they’d attempted to
murder my mother and father, and my father killed Fenrir in a trial
by combat.”
“Lies,” Leif spat.
“No,” Alina said. “They’re not.” The entire
kingdom of Sea Ridge knew this story. “Was your father one of
Fenrir’s men?”
Roark, who’d been listening intently, cocked
his head at Leif.
“You’ll find out in due time,” Leif said.
“I’ve told you all I’m going to until then.”
Alina still had one question. One point to
make. “If your family was brought to ruin by my parents, how is it
they’re wealthy, landed lairds in the Green Isles?”
“My father still had some friends and family
left in the world not swayed by your parents’ lies.”
“Lies?” Alina snorted. “Fenrir’s own wife and
son testified against him at his trial. His wife confessed they
killed my father’s mother and made it look like she took her own
life. That Fenrir smothered my father’s father, his own brother,
while he slept. His son confessed his father ordered the murders of
my father’s two brothers who’d preceded him to the throne, as well
as an earlier attempt on my father’s life, which took my mother’s
brother instead.”
“What were they supposed to do?” Leif
bellowed. “When the choice your father gave them was to lie or
die?”
“That’s not—”
“Time for you to go back in the hold,” Roark
said, stepping between Alina and Leif. He picked up the chamber pot
and held it out to her. “Now.”
Alina snatched the pot and jerked her arm
away as Roark reached for her elbow.
“You first,” he said, pointing toward the
hatch to the hold.
“Why?” she snapped. “Afraid I’ll hit you over
the head with it?”
“Yes.”
Alina flung a few of her Uncle Han’s favorite
curses at Roark as she climbed down the ladder, and glared daggers
at him when he picked the iron cuff up, waiting with irritating
patience until she finally held out her left arm and he clapped it
around her wrist.
“Is it true?” he asked, his voice low. “What
you said about this Fenrir and his yellow beards?”
“Every word.”
“Why should I believe your version and not
Leif’s?”
Alina met Roark’s gaze and held it. “Because
my version was witnessed by two hundred people.”
***
Roark stood at the ship’s bow, the sun on his
face, the wind at his back, Leif’s and Alina’s words swimming round
and round inside his head. For ten years, he’d been listening to
Roger’s and his brother’s, Donald’s, stories of the young, upstart
Jerrik showing up after years at sea to take the throne of Sea
Ridge from his dying brother and keeping the younger brother from
assuming the throne he’d been trained to rule while Jerrik had been
sailing across the known world. Not only had he forced his way onto
the throne, but he’d brought his young and inexperienced Rus wife,
an outsider, to rule as his queen.
According to Roger and Donald, the new king
and queen had run rampant over the kingdom, displacing long loyal
jarls and karls with their own people and concocting a tale of lies
and treason against Fenrir and his sons and loyal guard, whom
they’d denigrated as yellow beards, in order to strip them of their
lands and titles and send them into exile.
Roger and Donald had been two of the banished
guard and had fled with their wives and children and widowed
mother, who’d contracted a virulent sickness that had taken her
life along with those of Roger’s and Donald’s infant sons on a long
and winding journey, which eventually landed them in the Green
Isles, where their uncle, Ronald, welcomed them into his home.
Aging and without a living wife or children,
Ronald had named Roger his heir. He’d died six moons later of a
wasting sickness, and Roger had become the new laird of North Shore
Keep and Donald his chief counsel. Leif, Roger’s eldest and only
living son, had been three years old at the time, and Gwyneth had
been born at the keep four years later.
Now Roark was helping carry out the
MacKinnons’ revenge on King Jerrik and Queen Alyssa by kidnapping
their only daughter and delivering her to Roger to be held for
ransom. He laid his hand over the vial of White Milk in his tunic
pocket and shook his head at his luck, which was either really good
or really bad, depending on how he looked at it.