by Alisa Adams
Maudie moved away to the end of the corridor to give Adaira and Rodric a moment to say goodbye.
He took her hands in his. “Thank you, Adaira,” he said, his deep voice husky with emotion. “I will remember this when we come to—”
His words were cut off abruptly by a furious yell from the other end of the corridor. They both spun to face this new danger. It was Duncan, backed by four guards armed with spears. Adaira spun around, horrified to see another four guards advancing on them from the other direction. To her relief, Maudie had disappeared. There was no way out. She looked at Rodric.
“Get them!” shrieked Duncan, and the guards began to charge.
Rodric moved swiftly. He knelt with his back to her. “Get onto my back, Adaira,” he said grimly. “Wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist. I’ll need my hands. Whatever you do, don't let go.”
With no choices left to make, Adaira did as he said. He lifted her weight with ease, and Adaira held on for dear life. As the guards converged on the very space where he had been, Rodric leaped from the window into the driving rain.
8
Rodric’s Escape
The wall was sheer. Before going to Rodric’s cell that night, they had taken a long, thick rope and hung it from an ancient, massive iron spike, which was driven into the stonework below the lip outside the window for some forgotten purpose. It had been Maudie who had discovered this lucky circumstance during her chats with the guard, and they had decided that they could use it to hang the rope without having to worry about it being discovered. Now, however, Adaira wondered how long it would be until the men at the window worked out where the rope was and cut it, sending them falling to their deaths.
She looked up from where she clung to Rodric’s back as he gripped the rope with his strong hands and clambered downward as fast as he could manage. Silhouetted against the torchlight coming from the window, she saw the heads of the five men, one of which she was sure she recognized as Duncan.
“Where is the rope secured?” she heard one of the men call.
“I cannae see!” shouted the other.
Then Duncan pushed them back. “Get out of the way!” he roared, and leaned right out of the window, sticking a flaming torch out into the darkness and moving it around, looking for the place where the rope met the wall.
Rodric, meanwhile, was moving with all the speed of a cat in pursuit of a mouse. She clung to his back as he had instructed, while he clambered with astonishing agility down the thick rope. They were still so far from the ground that a fall would mean certain death, but a few more yards would give them a good chance of survival. Above them, the shouting voices and the silhouetted heads receded as Rodric and Adaira dropped down the wall.
“I can feel them cutting the rope!” Rodric cried out suddenly.
Adaira’s heart jumped into her mouth. Above, against the torchlight, she could just make out the shape of Duncan, leaning out of the window and sawing at the taut rope. Rodric was moving faster than she could have ever believed, but it was still a long way to the ground.
The rain lashed them and the wind howled around their ears. Suddenly, Adaira realized that there was a great tree near them; they were climbing at the level of its uppermost branches. It was their only chance.
“Look, Rodric, look!” she cried into his ear. “The tree! We must jump to it!”
He twisted his neck to look, and at that very moment, they felt a great lurch as the last strands of rope began to give way above them.
“Ach, it’s a mighty jump!” Rodric shouted through the howling wind. It was indeed, but they had little choice. It was leap or die.
A sudden blast of lightning flooded the whole dreadful scene and showed it in horrific detail. Above, Duncan laughed aloud as he slashed at the last strands of the thick rope. The wind threw the tree limbs about, bending them this way and that, and in the glare of the lightning, they saw the ground far, far below them. Rodric let out a wordless yell of fear and courage and launched himself at the tree. Adaira squeezed her eyes closed and clung to him as hard as she could, praying to God and every saint she could remember.
The immense strength in Rodric’s powerful thighs propelled him away from the wall and into the air like a swimmer through water. He reached, grasping at the thin, whip-like branches of the tree. For one horrible moment, he was convinced that he had not managed to get far enough, and he began to fall downward, but then he caught a thin branch and felt himself swing into the canopy. The branches smacked at him and tore his clothes, but he held on for dear life until he crashed into a thicker branch that broke his fall.
“Adaira!” he called. “Adaira! Where are you?”
“I’m here,” she panted. “Are we safe?”
He almost laughed. “Not safe yet, lass, but safer than we were.” As he spoke, he began to slip. The bark of the tree was slick with the soaking rain, and he could not fix his grip. Adaira screamed as they began to fall again, bumping their way down through the canopy before coming to a stop once more, held up by a fork in two of the lower branches.
Another flash of lightning showed the ground, not ten feet below.
“You’ll have to let go of me!” he shouted to her through the cacophony of the thunder. “I think I can jump it. If I can land without breaking my neck then I can catch you.”
She nodded, releasing her grip on his back and clinging to the tree. Without delay, Rodric swung to his full length and dropped to the ground, rolling with the fall and then coming up to his feet with a grunt.
“Nothing broken,” he muttered to himself. He looked up. Adaira was peering down at him from the branch. Rodric stood directly underneath her, and he saw her take a breath and gather up her courage to jump. When she swung down as he had done and dropped from the canopy, he caught her in his arms and placed her upright on the ground.
They stood facing each other. It was pitch black, but another lightning flash revealed each to the other, and they both laughed. Scarecrow figures, they seemed, soaked, with bits of the tree in their hair, their clothes scratched and torn and their hair plastered to their heads.
“Which way?” said Rodric, but then a glance around showed them that they had only one choice. Already, off to their right, they could see the bobbing lights of torches. It was a line of men, advancing slowly toward them from the direction of the castle gate.
“Away from them!” suggested Adaira. They started to move, but it was hard going. The ground was wild and rugged, brambles caught at their clothes, and the occasional lightning flashes were their only source of light. Despite all that, they seemed to be making steady progress. The great bulk of Castle Dunn, like a darker patch of blackness against the night, was receding with every step.
They had been running for what seemed like an eternity to Adaira when the rain began to ease. The clouds, which had been thickly covering the sky, began to clear, and a little moonlight filtered through. Adaira was shivering, her teeth chattering. She’d had no intention of leaving the castle with Rodric—that was not part of her plan—and so she was only dressed in the light shoes, practical linen kirtle, and wool dress which she was used to wearing for indoor days around the castle. He, at least, had his heavy woven plaid and sturdy boots. She was so cold that her teeth were chattering.
“Rodric,” she gasped through her shivering, “I don’t know how much longer I can keep going!”
Unbidden, he felt a flash of fury course through him. She was holding him back. But that fire only lasted for a moment before it was quenched by guilt. She had fed him, saved him, even risked her life for him, and now look at her. In the faint moonlight, she stood shivering and hugging herself, drenched and cut and bruised. Pity washed over him.
“Oh Adaira, come here,” he said regretfully. “I am sorry I got you into this.” He stepped up to her and picked her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing. She pressed herself against him for warmth. “We’ll not have far to go now,” he crooned gently to her, though in truth he had
no idea where they were or how far they would have to go.
He looked around. Far away, he could still see the castle, but there was no sign of pursuit anymore. In the faint moonlight, Rodric could see that he stood at the edge of a little woodland that clung to the lower slopes of a range of hills. The country was rugged and uneven, and he thought that perhaps they might find some shelter in the woods—a dry spot under a fallen tree, perhaps, or maybe even an empty trapper’s hut. Holding this hopeful thought in his mind, he began to forge up through the trees, aiming for a gorge in the side of the hill that he could see some way off.
She will catch a chill if I cannot get her warm, he thought, and that spurred him on. Adaira was dead weight in his arms and, strong as he was, he did not think he could carry her all night. He had no idea about the layout of this country, and at the back of his mind, there was a fear that they were moving farther and farther into the enemy’s country and away from his father’s army.
He reached the opening of the steep cutting he had been aiming for. High, fern-clad sides reached up fifty feet to a ragged undercut clifftop overhung with trees. A stream chuckled and bubbled down the floor of the cutting, and since no better choice presented itself, he followed it, treading along the slippery stones at the water’s edge.
Luck favored Rodric Montrose that night. The rain had almost stopped, and after he had walked for ten minutes or so along the edge of the stream, the narrow cutting opened out into a small, high-sided, enclosed clearing. There was a waterfall at one end, and thick growth cloaked the walls. But over to the left, there yawned the dark entrance to a small cave. He did not wait, but hurried over, peering inside.
No wildlife, at least, he said to himself, sniffing the dry, musty air inside. If the cave had been the den of a bear, a wolf, or even a boar, there would have been a strong smell, and even Rodric did not feel quite up to fighting a bear just at present. Reassured that the cave was uninhabited, he ventured inside.
“Here, lass,” he said tenderly, as he lowered Adaira to the sandy floor of the cave. “Here’s shelter.” He was not sure that she could hear him, but he spoke all the same. “Now if only we had a way of starting a fire—”
“Oh,” she said groggily, “that’s easy enough if you can find some dry wood.”
Rodric nearly jumped out of his skin with fright. “Adaira,” he said, “I thought you had passed out. I was worried in case you were chilled to death!”
“I’m all right,” she groaned, rolling over and pulling her pouch from her belt. Outside, the rain had stopped, and the moon shone into the cave with enough light to see by. Adaira yanked at the leather cord that held her purse closed and tipped out a piece of flint and a metal striker onto the sand. “I always carry these,” she explained. “Just in case I have to scale down castle walls and run for hours in the rain!”
Rodric laughed, but he was impressed. “I’m really glad that you do, lass!” he said fondly.
She gave him a weak smile back. “Find wood,” she said, and he nodded. Outside, he found a fallen tree, which seemed like it had been down for a long time. Below it, there was some wood which was dry enough despite the rain. Rodric snapped off an armload of branches and hauled them back to the cave, then went out to get another load. When he got back, Adaira had taken out her little belt-knife and shaved small pieces of wood into a small pile for tinder. As Rodric dumped his second load of firewood on the ground, Adaira struck sparks into her tinder and was almost immediately rewarded with a flicker of flame.
“You are good at that,” he said admiringly. She blew gently on the flame as she added twigs, then said, “I always enjoyed starting fires. My maid at the castle, Maudie...oh, I hope she is all right. I hope she got away. We always tried to share the work of starting fires in our apartments. I enjoyed it, so I practiced.”
She was feeding larger pieces of wood into the flames now. The crackle and pop of the dry wood catching, the smell of the woodsmoke, and the growing light and warmth were incredibly welcome and soothing.
They worked together in silence for a little while, Rodric breaking up the wood into smaller pieces and Adaira steadily building up the fire, until they had a good little blaze going. They sat close to it, and after a while, their wet clothes began to steam and dry.
It made no sense to sit apart, since together they could share body heat. She leaned against him companionably, and he put an arm around her.
“Adaira...” he began, but she stopped him, reaching up to touch one finger to his lips.
“Let us not talk tonight,” she said. “I just want to enjoy this warmth. Tomorrow, there will be much to say and much to do, I’m sure, but tonight I just want to sit here, at peace, with you, if we can.”
So they did.
9
The Village of Auldford
Rodric and Adaira woke together in the morning with a start. He had been lying back on the sandy cave floor, and she had fallen asleep with her head pillowed on his broad chest. They hastily pulled away from each other, both a little awkward in the cool morning light that filtered in through the ivy-curtained entrance to the cave.
“Good morning,” said Adaira, with a small smile, as she reached up to push her wild hair out of her eyes. He smiled.
“Good morning to you, too,” he said gallantly. After a moment of looking at each other, they both laughed and felt the tension ease.
“Are you—” he said, and she spoke at the same time, “Will you—”
They both stopped and laughed again.
“Please,” Adaira said encouragingly, “go ahead. What were you going to say?”
“I was just going to ask how you are feeling,” he replied. She stood, stretched, and sneezed, grimacing as she looked down at her ruined dress.
“Actually, I don’t feel too bad, considering what we went through last night. And my clothes are dry,” she replied. “Well, dry enough, although I doubt if I will ever wear this dress again! And you?”
Rodric glanced down at himself and raised his eyebrows. He was filthy, scratched, and bruised all over and his hair was tangled and adorned with dozens of leaves and twigs. He grinned at Adaira. “I look like a scarecrow,” he said ruefully, “but no broken bones. I am hungry, though.”
“Aye, me too,” said Adaira, “but there’s little hope of a meal as far as I can see. We should get going, don’t you think? It’s early, but my brother will have realized by now that we did not die in the fall. No doubt those men last night were looking for our bodies. He may send men out to look for us again this morning, and they might have dogs too.”
“You are right,” said Rodric. “We were fortunate that the weather was so bad last night, but we have slept safe, and we are the better for having rested, but we should move on as soon as we can.”
She stood straight and looked him in the eye. “Ready when you are,” she said, and he nodded once, his expression set and determined.
They ventured out of the cave and went first to where the waterfall splashed into a clear pool at the back of the clearing. Here, they washed their faces in the cool water and drank deep.
“There’s no food to be had without hunting,” said Rodric, “but we can at least quench our thirst before we set off.”
Cautiously, wary of pursuit, they made their way back to the entrance of the little gorge and out into the woodland beyond. It was very early still, but the birds sang and flitted from tree to tree, busy at their nest-making already. There were few leaves on the trees yet, but the whole woodland was suffused with a flush of green as countless tiny buds prepared to burst into leaf.
Adaira breathed deep and let out a long breath. Rodric was standing a little way off, looking up the hill, but then turned to her and spoke.
“Do you know your way about this country?” he asked.
She shook her head with regret. “I could find my way if I were on the road, but I’m not really sure where we are at the moment,” she replied.
He nodded thoughtfully. “We need to link u
p with my father's army,” he said. “But we need food and supplies before we can think of doing that.”
Adaira pointed up the hill. “Let’s climb up a bit,” she suggested. “Perhaps if we can get a look at the country, I will be able to tell better where we are.”
Together, they made their way up the wooded hillside until they reached the bare, rocky, treeless ridge at the top.
“Go carefully,” Rodric warned, laying a hand on her arm. Adaira had been about to press on up to the top, but Rodric crouched, waiting. “We will be running the risk of being seen if we stand exposed up there against the sky. Be very careful.”
Cautiously, the big man and the slender woman advanced up to the top of the ridge. They turned, sitting on the rocks rather than standing up. Under a rapidly dispersing blanket of early morning mist, they could see the whole country laid out about them. It was not an encouraging sight.
Thickly wooded hills rose steeply into mountains from the flat plain. In the middle, and close by the road which wound through it like a gray ribbon, Castle Dunn brooded, dominating the valley. It was a squat, ugly building, not pleasing to the eye, but a well-built defensive fortress.
“We have come the wrong way,” said Rodric through gritted teeth. “In our haste, and in the dark, we’ve come southeast, when my father’s army is to the north.”
“And the mountain ranges block our passage that way, even if we could pass Castle Dunn undetected,” added Adaira.
“Aye, there’s no tackling the mountains without food and gear. Damn, how can we get back to my father? At this rate, he will besiege Castle Dunn before we can reach him, and all our efforts for peace will be for nothing.”
They sat dejectedly for a moment, then Adaira squared her shoulders. She moved toward him and reached out to take one of his big hands in both her smaller ones. “Rodric, take a breath. We must find food and shelter first, and then perhaps we can think better. We should try to find horses too, and ride north.”