Chapter 15 #2
“And to face charges of murdering Leif,
without any proof other than your word you didn’t.” She sat up and
grabbed him by the neck of his tunic. “Promise me you’ll not leave
Owen’s keep for Roger’s right away. Give me time to get home and
sail back here with my father. Then you can sail back to North
Shore Keep with us, and we can confront Roger over his lies and
deceit together.”
“How much time are we talking?”
“Four to six days for me to sail to Sea
Ridge, two days there to prepare, and four to six days to sail back
here, a day to ride to Silver Water Keep for you and a day to get
back to the ship, then two days to sail from here to North Shore
Keep, so ten and four to ten and eight days before we made it back
to confront Roger. It took us ten days to ride from there to here,
with a few stops on the way,” she said with a sensuous smile. “So
even figuring for bad weather, it would take you ten days to ride
back there. Another six to eight days shouldn’t matter too
much.”
“I don’t know. Roger could get frustrated at
not finding us and start taking it out on my family. Besides, how
long I stay at Silver Water Keep is up to Laird Owen. I don’t want
to impose on him anymore than I already have.”
“You’re no imposition, Roark MacInnes,” Owen
said from his bed. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you
wish.”
***
Roark woke the same way he’d fallen asleep in
the wee hours of the night, with his arm wrapped around Alina, and
her head tucked under his chin. They’d spent most of the night
sitting on the bed and whispering their thoughts, dreams, and hopes
to each other while their time together sifted away. Alina had sung
“Somebody” to Roark, her voice soft, pure, and achingly beautiful.
It had been the most tender, sad, bittersweet night of his life.
And now it was at an end.
“Alina.” He nuzzled her cheek as Owen stirred
in his bed. “Time to wake up, my sleepy little owl.”
“Nnnooo.” She burrowed her nose deeper into
his tunic.
Roark grinned. She really wasn’t a morning
person.
“Aye, Ali girl,” he said, hugging her and
placing a kiss on the crown of her head. “Dawn is breaking.”
She yawned, shifted, and blinked her sleepy
green eyes up at him. “Not yet,” she pleaded. “Surely we can sleep
in a little long…” Her sleepy eyes widened. “Damnation.”
“Aye,” Roark said, pushing a lock of hair
from her sleep-dampened cheek. “Damnation.” He lowered his mouth to
hers and kissed her, long, soft, and tender. He started to pull his
mouth away and she threw her arms around his neck and deepened
their kiss, branding his lips with hers, branding him, his heart,
and his very soul.
“I, ah, I hate to break this up,” Owen said
from across the room. “But we need to get going if we want to make
the Trade Wind in time.”
Roark held Alina by both shoulders and stared
into her eyes. “We can do this,” he told her. Told himself. “We can
do this.”
She smiled and blinked back her welling
tears, sniffed, and nodded. “We can do this.”
They met up with Niels in the common room,
where he told them he’d been right about the raggedy band of three
nosing around the wagon last night, though not too close or too
long when Duncan and Liam confronted them. He’d heard Roger’s men
had left town shortly after their group had arrived.
Owen bought two loaves of bread, a wheel of
cheese, and a pitcher of ale from the innkeeper that they took to
the stables, where the draft horses were already hitched to the
wagon and their mounts all saddled. They split the food and drink
amongst themselves and ate it quickly, and then it was time to
go.
Unable to resist the chance to touch Alina,
Roark took her by the waist and boosted her onto Etain, running his
hand down her breeches-clad thigh and booted calf, guiding her foot
into the stirrup. Loath to remove his hand from her, her gave her
ankle a gentle squeeze and then broke his hold and mounted
Beasty.
The docks were only a short ride away, yet
each step felt like a league as they made their way down the road
in the thick, early morning mist.
Roark sidled Beasty closer to Etain and held
out his hand, his throat constricting as Alina reached out and
twined her fingers through his. He tried to smile, to reassure her,
and himself, and was pretty sure it came out more of a grimace.
They held on tight to each other’s hands as
the docks came into view. Niels pointed out the Trade Wind
tied off at the nearest pier, and men appeared on the deck of the
ship. The mist cleared and other men appeared on the road, all of
them mounted and all of them armed, blocking their way to the
ship.
Roark recognized them immediately. Three of
them were Ned, Shaw, and Cam, and the other four were Roger’s
men-at-arms. He pulled his scarf up over his nose and Alina pulled
her woolen cap lower over her forehead.
“What is the meaning of this?” Owen demanded
as Liam pulled the wagon to a stop. “I am Owen MacLeod, laird of
Silver Water Keep. Who are you to block our way?”
Scott, the captain of Roger’s men-at-arms,
urged his horse forward, his gaze flicking over Roark and Alina
before he addressed Owen. “We are the men of Laird Roger MacKinnon
of North Shore Keep,” he said. “Sworn to apprehend the murderers of
his only son and return them to him for a fair trial and public
hanging.”
“What is that to us?” Owen said.
Scott lifted his chin toward Roark and Alina.
“I see the murderers, Roark MacInnes and the serving wench, Alina,
amongst you there. I demand you turn them over to us.”
“Or?”
Scott glanced from his men, who were all
armed with short and long swords and wore lacquered chest plates
and arm guards, to Owen’s who, though armed with short swords, wore
no armor other than their thick leather jerkins. Among whom only
Owen and Niels had long swords. “Or we will take them by force and
you will suffer the consequences of Laird Roger’s wrath.”
Owen laughed, short and harsh. “This laird
Roger must think his arms long indeed if he thinks they can reach
me here.”
“Will you give the man and woman over?” Scott
asked, his question more of a demand than a request as Ross, his
second, urged his horse forward.
“I will not,” Owen said as curious onlookers
began to line up along the road.
On board the Trade Wind, three of the
crew started to descend the gangplank, each one armed with a short
sword and various blades, while three more stayed on board,
brandishing their blades from the rails. Scott and Ross both
glanced behind them to see the three crewmen spreading out around
them, and Owen grinned. It was now Roger’s group who were
outnumbered.
“Well,” Owen called out to Scott. “What’s it
to be?”
Scott and Ross sat taller in their saddles
and pulled their long swords, as Douglas and Todd, the other two of
Roger’s men, did the same. Ned, Shaw, and Cam brandished their
short swords. Owen and his men pulled their weapons too, and Alina
had a death grip on her waist blade with one hand and her boot
dagger in the other.
Roark had been in enough fights to realize no
one was going to back down, and people were going to get injured
and die if a fight broke out. Laird Owen could be hurt, or killed,
leaving his wife and children without him. Alina could be injured
or killed, or taken prisoner and sold as a slave, and then all of
what they’d gone through would be for naught.
“I’m sorry, Ali,” he said. “I know I promised
I’d wait to go back and face Roger, but if I don’t go with them
now, people will die. You could die. I won’t be responsible for
that, not if I can stop it.”
“No.” She shook her head, her eyes pleading
with him. “Roark, no.”
He let his eyes tell her what he couldn’t and
urged Beasty forward between Owen’s and Niels’s mounts and lowered
his scarf.
“What are you doing, lad?” Owen said.
“Stopping this before it gets bloody.” Roark
urged Beasty forward a few more steps. “Scott, Ross,” he addressed
Roger’s men. “You know me. You know I’m a man of my word.”
“Aye, you were,” Scott said. “Before you
killed Leif.”
“I didn’t kill Leif,” Roark said. “I did beat
him senseless when I came upon him trying to rape Princess Alina.”
Both Scott’s and Ross’s heads shot up. “I wanted to kill him,”
Roark admitted, “and would have, but Princess Alina stopped me. We
left him tied and gagged and alive in the stables, defenseless,
apparently, against whoever did kill him. But it wasn’t me or
Princess Alina.”
“That’ll be for you and the laird to work
out,” Scott said.
“So it will,” Roark agreed. “Which is why I
always meant to go back to North Shore and deal with it all, after
the princess, who’s an innocent in all of this, is on her way
home.”
Scott scoffed. “You say that now.”
“He has said that since the day he and my
cousin, Princess Alina, came to me for aid and shelter,” Owen said
as he and Niels brought their mounts forward to flank Roark.
Roark nodded his thanks to Owen and then made
a point of looking at the growing crowd of townspeople, as did
Scott and Ross.
“My offer is this,” Roark said, speaking loud
enough for the crowd to hear. “Let Princess Alina board the
Trade Wind, let her sail home to her family at Sea Ridge in
the Northlands. Let her safe return assuage her father’s, King
Jerrik’s, anger at her having been abducted by Laird Roger
MacKinnon of North Shore Keep for his own vengeful purposes, and I
will leave here with you the moment the Trade Wind sails out
of this port.”
“We were told to bring back both of you,”
Scott said.
Roark squared his shoulders and shook his
head. “The deal is me and only me. In which case, I go with you
peacefully. If you try to take the princess, you will have to fight
for her.”
Scott shifted uneasily on his saddle and
looked over Owen’s men, the ship’s crew both on and off the deck,
and the buzzing crowd.
“You’re outnumbered, Scott,” Roark pointed
out. “Even including Ned, Shaw, and Cam there, who’ll as likely
turn tail and run as fight.” He saluted the raggedy brigands with
his short sword and they cackled and squirmed on their mounts,
their shifty gazes already searching for a way out of any fight to