Chapter 4
At Sea
The day’s light from the open hatch had
dimmed to dusk when Roark carried a bowl down with Alina’s
supper.
“Mutton stew,” he said, handing her the bowl
and sitting down beside her. “And the last of the bread. Tomorrow
it’ll be back to salted meat and hard tack along with a few carrots
and turnips.”
Alina said nothing. She had no real appetite
and only ate to keep her strength up, sneaking side glances at
Roark, who apparently meant to sit with her until she finished
eating.
“May I go deck side?” she asked, handing him
her empty bowl. “I could use some fresh air and movement. You can
tie my wrists together if it makes you feel better,” she added when
he hesitated. “If you don’t believe me when I say I won’t try to
get away.” She smoothed what was left of her torn and tattered
gown. “Besides, where am I going to go? I’m in the middle of the
sea, hundreds of leagues away from land, with nothing but the
shredded gown on my back.”
Roark eyed her tattered gown and went to a
chest and pulled out a linen tunic and pair of trousers and tossed
them at her feet. He motioned for her to stand and unlocked the
iron cuff.
“Put those on,” he said. “When we go topside,
stay by me.”
He turned his back to her, and Alina quickly
doffed what was left of her once favorite gown and shivered, as
much from the chill of the oncoming night as from the fact she was
standing naked no more than two paces from Roark. She pulled on the
trousers and tied the stays, then donned the tunic, which was soft
and well-worn and a decent fit, as were the trousers.
“Whom did these clothes belong to?” she
asked, pulling on her boots.
“A stable lad.”
Alina chuffed. “You really did plan this all
out.”
“Not all of it,” he grumbled before turning
around and facing her, his mouth quirking at the sight of her
dressed like a boy. He swept a hand toward the ladder. “Ladies
first.”
Alina stepped up into the cool night air and
breathed in the tang of salt and sea. She’d sailed with her father
on several short voyages to neighboring ports through the years,
and always thrilled to the feel of a ship beneath her and the open
sea and sky beyond her. Though sailing as a prisoner with six
seamen and Leif watching her every move took away much of the
thrill.
She stood at the stern with her face into the
chill spring wind, shivered, and crossed her arms.
“Roy,” Roark called out from beside her.
“Fetch a pelt from the hold for the princess, will you?”
“Aye, sir,” the seaman with flaming red hair
said before disappearing into the hold and coming back up with a
pelt Roark laid over Alina’s shoulders.
Alina pulled the pelt’s edges close and
rubbed her cheek on the thick, rich fur, fighting a sudden urge to
cry.
“Alina?”
She met Roark’s concerned gaze, which somehow
made it harder to hold back her tears. “My father’s pet name for my
mother is Little Lynx,” she sniffed. “He gave her a lynx throw as a
wedding present, and it’s her favorite to this day.”
“She wore it last night,” Roark said. “While
you sang and she played the harp.”
“Meadowlark,” Alina whispered, swiping at her
welling tears and wishing she was sitting with her family around
the hearth fire and singing along as her mother played. “That’s
what she named her harp.”
“She played beautifully.”
Alina drew a shaky breath in and blew it out.
“You can always tell what she’s feeling by what she plays.”
“What’s your tell?”
“My tell?”
“How can a person tell what you’re
feeling?”
Alina held Roark’s intent gaze for a long,
interminable moment, and then dropped her eyes to her feet.
“I don’t have a tell,” she said.
Roark cupped her chin and lifted it until she
was staring into his rain eyes. The corners of his mouth lifted and
his eyes crinkled. “Yes, my beautiful green-eyed owl, you do.”
Alina’s cheeks flushed hot and she pulled the
lynx throw closer around her shoulders, wondering what he thought
her tell was and refusing to ask him. If he answered with something
kind, she’d burst into tears in front of him and the entire crew.
And she refused to do that. She looked up into the darkening sky
and found the Big Bear and the North Star to the starboard and the
Hunter to the portside with the Lady in the Chair to the starboard
bow. They were sailing west, southwest.
“Is the looking glass handy?” she asked.
He grinned. “Stay here,” he said, as if she
had anywhere to go. “I’ll get it.”
Roark disappeared into the hold and Alina
gave Leif her back as he sauntered over to her.
“You won’t be so high and mighty once we
reach my father’s house,” he said. Alina could actually feel his
hatred boring into the back of her skull. “Roark’s protection will
mean nothing to you there.”
She slid a sideways glance at Leif as he
moved away and Roark’s head popped up out of the hatch. Roark
watched Leif for a moment and then came up on the deck and over to
Alina.
“Do I want to know what that was about?” he
asked her.
Alina shrugged. “He told me once I’m handed
over to his father, your protection will mean nothing,” she said,
trying her best to act as if Leif’s threats were idle.
Roark held the spyglass out to her, and when
she took hold of the leather tube, he laid his hand over hers and
pulled the spyglass and her to him. “I swear to you, Alina, no harm
will come to you as long as I have breath.”
Alina stared into silver eyes as deep and
reflective as the sea on a glassy day. “You don’t know how much I
wish I could believe you,” she said.
“Oh, I have an idea,” Roark said with that
slow, easy grin of his that made her melt from the inside out.
“About as much as I wish you would,” he whispered in his Green
Isles tongue.
She glanced over at Leif, who was standing at
the bow, speaking with the captain. “How?” she said in her Northern
tongue. “How can I ever trust you again after you trapped me and
abducted me? You flirted with me, lied to me, and kissed me. You
proposed marriage to me.”
“That kiss and proposal were the most honest
things I’ve ever done in my life.”
***
That kiss and proposal were the most honest
things I’ve ever done in my life.
The fever dream of Roark’s words plagued
Alina as she paced around the ship’s deck in the brisk morning air,
running round and round her mind as they had from the moment that
she’d walked away from him last evening, and through a night of
fitful sleep.
A restless sleep she’d woken from too many
times to count to find herself lying next to him, staring into the
deep, silver pools of his eyes reflecting her own confusion back at
her.
“I swear,” Leif said loudly enough for both
Alina and Roark, who stood at the stern looking through the
spyglass, no doubt searching for any signs of her father’s
longboats, to hear, “you’re pacing as much today as Roark was
yesterday. What is it with you two?”
“I’m not used to inactivity,” Alina said
pointedly as she passed Leif, who sat on an overturned bucket,
drinking his third cup of beer for breakfast. “Nor, I would guess,
is Roark.”
Leif lifted his sloshing cup up to Alina. “We
all deal with it differently, Princess.”
“What did they say?” one of the crewmen, a
dark-haired, dark-eyed man who looked like the crewman checking the
anchor rope enough to be his brother, asked in heavily accented
Green Isles.
The other crewman, who was slightly stockier,
shrugged. “Not sure,” he said and glared at Leif. “Something about
sitting on your lazy arse all day while others are working their
arses off.”
The slimmer man snorted and Alina turned to
hide her grin.
“Ha, ha,” Leif groused. He jutted his chin
toward Roark. “How’s standing around staring through a spyglass
working?”
“How’s keeping an eye out for those who might
be coming after us not working?” the stockier man said, and
spit.
“You better watch yourselves, you Pict
bastards,” Leif snarled. “Or my father will have your bog
hides.”
“Me and my brother be the captain’s men,” the
stocky man said. “Not yer father’s. We’re paid to get a job done
and we be gettin it done. You don’t like what we say to you whilst
we’re working, get off yer arse and be useful. Otherwise, shut the
fuck up.”
“What did you say to me?” Leif bellowed as he
stood on unsteady feet.
“I said I’m tired of listening to ye jawin
and thinking yer better’n us.”
“I am better than you, you black-eyed
boggers,” Leif huffed as the red-headed sailor named Roy and the
cook walked over and stood to either side of the brothers, arms
crossed and jaws jutting. “My father—”
“Laird Roger,” Roark said, stepping between
the sailors and Leif, “would expect all of us to stick to the job
at hand and not be fighting among ourselves.” He pointed the
spyglass east. “So far, I’ve seen no sign of us being followed, but
that could change at any time.” He looked from the men to Leif. “I
suggest we get back to it, or would you rather chance waking
Captain Murtaugh and Gall from their sleep to deal with the lot of
you?”
The men grumbled and went back to their
duties while Leif stood glaring at Roark.
“You had no right,” he snarled.
“I had every right,” Roark growled back.
“Your father entrusted me to see this plan through and to keep your
hotheaded temper in check.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Yes. He did.”
“Don’t think I won’t ask him when we get
back,” Leif grumbled.
“Do. But be ready to explain why.”
Leif drained his cup with one long swallow,
the beer dripping down his chin into his beard, and then he threw
the empty cup onto the deck. “What are you looking at, bitch?”
Alina stepped back at the vitriol in his
voice and the rage in his bloodshot eyes.
“Leave her alone, Leif,” Roark said, his
voice deadly calm. “She has nothing to do with this. She doesn’t
even understand what was said.”
“She understands you took her side and theirs
against me well enough,” Leif said, whipping his arm out toward the
crew, who listened and watched and made no pretense of hiding
it.
Roark took a deep breath in and blew it out,
shaking his head and grinning good-naturedly. “You’re drunk,” he
said. He slapped Leif on the shoulder and kept his hand there. “You
should go below deck and sleep it off.”