She rolled onto her side and idly picked at a crack in the stone wall, thoroughly miserable.
~*~
Holden paced his chamber restlessly, shaken by the fact he’d almost slain a woman. Her countenance was etched into his brain now―the silky hair bunched in his fist, the crystalline blue eyes bright with fear, the delicate nose glazed with the sweat of battle, her lips trembling as he held her life in his hands. She’d been even more beautiful than he remembered, beautiful and dangerous, like that damned wildcat.
He saw now what Roger had meant about the savage Scots. Mother of God, even their women were warriors.
He tried to rub the headache from his temples, completely at a loss as to what to do with the lass.
He had to believe she’d come alone. No knight worth his armor would have stood by while a mere girl battled a seasoned warrior. But her clansmen would come for her eventually. She was their laird. What would he do when they demanded her? He had to maintain peace between the English and the Border Scots, but he couldn’t simply release the lass.
By all rights, he could claim her life―she’d attempted to slay him underhandedly―but it was impossible for him to imagine raising a fist against her. She was a woman, for God’s sake. They were gentle creatures. They were to be protected. Even now, despite her crime, a wave of guilt washed over him as he thought about the wisp of a girl he’d imprisoned in a cold, dank tower cell by his own cruel hand.
He fingered the hilt of his sword. For the first time in his life, his trusty blade felt like just a useless piece of steel, and he realized he had no idea what weapon to use against this perplexing foe.
Burdened by frustration and anxiety, he cursed and left for the practice field, where his men were astounded by the rigorous bouts he made them endure the rest of the afternoon.
~*~
Cambria leaned against the iron bars of her prison and counted the stars as they emerged gradually from the darkening heavens. She’d stopped dwelling on her failure now and begun to use her clever Gavin brain.
Escape was possible. Just like his foolish little brother, Holden de Ware had made the mistake of underestimating her desperation and resourcefulness. Not only had he provided ample bread and pottage for her supper, but he’d generously sent the squire he’d promised to help her remove her armor, knowing she couldn’t very well sleep in it. This last kindness would cost him his prisoner.
Without the heavy mail, she could squeeze through the bars at the window. Wearing only her linen undergarment, she tore her tabard into long strips, which she tied together. It was a simple matter to secure the rope of rags to the bars, letting it fall to the ground below.
Taking a few deep breaths, she expelled all her air and squeezed painfully through the grille. The faint light of the crescent moon afforded her cover, mercifully dimming her downward view. Nonetheless, her belly tightened as she teetered on the narrow ledge and gazed down the long wall of the tower.
She gave a testing tug on the rags, and then, clamping her eyes shut, swung out over the empty darkness. The rope twisted once, and she banged into the wall, bruising her shoulder, but the fabric held. She clung to the rags with trembling limbs and lowered herself inch by slow inch, not daring to look down into what seemed a bottomless black pit. Several times, she scraped her knees on the rough gray stone of the castle wall.
At last, she felt the cold, damp earth beneath her bare feet. She edged cautiously from the shadow of the castle wall to the open field, then from the field to the forest. When she reached the haven of the trees, she cast aside stealth and ran as swiftly as she could in the thick black.
All night she ran, to the hooting of owls and the skittering of mice, shivering in her thin garment as the cold mist wrapped cruel fingers around her body. Her heart pounded in her ears as she scrambled through the brush, scratching her arms and legs. But always she thought of the Gavin, of her ancestors who had run naked through this savage land and survived. If they had done it, she could do it.
She was the Gavin.
Hours passed, and dawn at last began to lighten the sky above the rolling, oak-studded hills that, with any luck, would lead her eventually to Robbie and his band. She paused for a moment at the crest of a grassy hillock, letting her knifelike breaths dull to a steady throb. She was weary and hungry and in need of sleep. But she had to push on. She couldn’t let the Wolf find her.
“What?” Holden exploded, slamming his fist on the oak table. The impact startled the skittish servant and made his own watered wine splash up over the lip of its chalice. “Satan’s ballocks!”
He ran his fingers through his uncombed mane in frustration and came to his feet, raking his chair across the rush-covered stones. He had to curse his own stupidity as much as the fey wench herself for the ease with which she’d escaped.
To be honest, her ingenuity and determination intrigued him. But there was no room for intrigue when one was about the king’s business. This was his first major coup for Edward. He couldn’t afford to let one vengeful Scots lass undermine his plans, no matter how intriguing she was.
“Trouble, my lord?” Roger Fitzroi ambled into the hall, munching on a breakfast of oat bread.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“The Gavin lass escaped?”
News evidently traveled fast in the castle. Holden took a swig of wine.
Roger nodded in empathy. Then he set aside his bread, lowered his eyes, and clasped his hands before him. “My lord, I know you were displeased with the way Blackhaugh was managed. I fear my brother’s murder left me blind to reason. Perhaps I can make amends. I would consider it a matter of honor and proof of my loyalty to fetch the girl back for you. I can leave within the hour.”
Holden almost choked on his wine. Was Roger experimenting with humility for the first time? Or had he at last realized that his rash actions might cost him his royal stipend? Holden stroked his chin. While Roger’s motives might be less than pure, the man knew he couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes. If Holden sent along a few of his trusted men as well...
“Very well,” he replied. “But take Myles and Guy with you.”
Roger nodded.
“And Roger?”
The knight paused.
“I want her alive and unharmed, or I’ll have your head, king’s kin or not.”
In spite of what she’d done, Holden admired the spirit of the girl, and he didn’t want that spirit broken.
~*~
That spirit and what few berries and nuts she could scrounge in the forest kept Cambria alive. For two days she ran, her body weak with hunger, sleeping only briefly in makeshift nests of twigs and leaves. Her feet were blistered, her fair skin chapped by the harsh wind, her linen garment in rags from the underbrush.
As the likelihood of her capture grew slimmer by the hour, so did the probability of meeting up with her clansmen. She wondered if Robbie would even recognize her in her disheveled state. She had no coin, no clothing, no proof of her birthright, and she was alone.
Another woman would have courted despair, but with each mile she traveled, Cambria grew more and more filled with hate and anger. No single person had caused so much destruction in her life as this demon, Holden de Ware. With one cruel stroke, he’d taken her father, her land, and her rank, and reduced her to this, a half-naked fugitive foraging for berries. By God, she’d survive, if only to scratch out his devilish eyes.
Certain she’d eluded the cursed English, she stopped to rest. Surely Holden’s men would have given up or lost track of her by now. She’d chosen a path far from the main road. Comforted, she nestled against a gnarled oak, covering herself with fallen leaves, and slipped into a heavy sleep.
The sun had moved halfway through the sky when she first heard the sound, the faraway baying of a hound. Swiftly she arose, shook off the leaves, and climbed up onto an oak branch for a better view.
“Nay.”
Her heart sank as she peered at the glen below. The hours of running, the
lack of sleep, the pain and hunger, all had been for nothing. The two knights restraining a wildly lunging hound wore the crest of de Ware.
Chapter Four
“Nay,” she whispered, choking back a sob.
They’d hunted her down like an animal. And now she was trapped, helpless. Terror cinched her chest, making her breath short and shallow.
Dear God, how could she escape? The hound sounded half-starved. In another moment, it would catch her scent. And if it attacked...
She swallowed hard. She had to calm herself. Panic was a poor master. They were only two men, she reasoned, and they hadn’t spotted her yet. There was still time. There was still hope.
The baying intensified, threatening her determination. Quietly, she slipped from the tree and darted into the woods. It might be impossible to outdistance her pursuers, but the forest would at least provide a screen. And if she could find a stream to follow, she might throw the hound off her scent.
Her hopes withered quickly.
Tearing through a grove of oaks, she nearly collided with another pair of mounted knights, more of Holden’s men. These two she remembered all too well from the Blackhaugh massacre―the big golden knight, Roger, and the dark rat of a man who’d stolen her father’s sword.
Roger guffawed, clearly surprised. “So, you’ve made my work easy; you have come looking for me!” He whistled a loud signal and galloped toward her.
Her heart pounding, she whirled and bolted for the thick brush, all too aware she was only delaying the inevitable. She stumbled clumsily, aimlessly through the dense foliage, whimpers of panic rising in her throat.
Then she heard the command to unleash the hound. Faith, it would flush her out like a rabbit! Her lungs ached, but when she heard the dog’s crazed yelp, she forced her legs to pump harder, unable to quell her instincts to survive.
Clearing the edge of the wood, she glimpsed freedom. But the only escape was into an open field of thistles. She hesitated. The weeds were thick and sharp.
The hound bayed again.
Out of options, she loped forward, ignoring the thistles catching at her shift, gasping as the spines cut her bare feet.
The mongrel caught up to her in no time, snapping at her heels, and she stumbled to the earth. Wincing in pain, she tried to scramble away from its eager jaws.
Just as she felt the hound’s dank breath on her skin, the black-bearded man spoke sharply to the animal, calling it back. He tethered it with a heavy chain, and then tossed it a scrap of meat. The hound tore into its supper ravenously.
Cambria swallowed dryly, frozen with terror on the ground, her cheek pressed against the weeds, her breath coming in short, burning gulps.
“Take her, Myles,” Roger ordered smugly.
A young knight dismounted and bent to help her to her feet. Her strength was nearly spent, but she still struggled against his kindness. Undaunted by her resistance, he gallantly removed his cloak and wrapped it about her naked shoulders, regarding her with sympathetic gray eyes.
It was more than her weakened spirit could stand. To her horror, her eyes welled with moisture. Mortified, she twisted out of the young knight’s grasp and turned on him, casting the cloak away.
“Your garment stinks of England!” she cried. “I’d rather die from the Scottish cold!”
Displeasure flitted across the man’s face as he retrieved his cloak. Stiffly, he listed her onto his steed and then mounted up behind her. The four horses turned back through the trees.
At first she sat bolt upright, vigilant lest any part of her come into contact with her captor. But as they rode mile upon mile, her exhausted body betrayed her. Slouching wearily in the saddle, she faded in and out of sleep until she finally slumped against her guard’s chest.
Hours later, she awoke to the rude pawing of her bare thigh. Roger. She jerked away in surprise, reaching for the dagger she always carried in her belt and nearly unhorsing both herself and Myles, who reined his steed away in irritation.
Roger only chuckled and gave her a mocking bow. Then he gestured toward the moss-grown thatched inn tucked into the shadowy wood where they’d stopped. A reed-thin old man emerged from the dark doorway, followed by a wrinkled crone fidgeting with her dirty surcoat. Disoriented, it took Cambria a moment to realize that this was to be their lodging for the night.
The old man came forward to collect coin from Roger. His stooped wife, wary of the knights, muttered nervously and motioned for Cambria to come with her.
The inn was warm and redolent with the comfortable smells of mutton and ale. The woman guided Cambria to a table. She sank gratefully down onto the worn bench, ignoring the stares of the other patrons in the room.
The flickering fire felt like a balm upon her face, warming her through to her bones. When the woman returned with a trencher of pottage and a tankard of ale, she feasted ravenously, unmindful that the greasy fare might turn her stomach later.
No sooner had she gulped down the last morsel of her meal than Roger directed the woman to have a hot bath prepared for Cambria upstairs, grumbling all the while about the cost of Lord Holden’s whims.
For once, Cambria didn’t mind complying with the Englishman’s instructions. Slipping out of her ragged, filthy shift and into the soothing water of the wooden tub, she relaxed for the first time in days. She soaked the myriad cuts on her body and scrubbed her head vigorously with the scraps of scented soap until her hair shone like a silk robe.
But eventually the water cooled. And as her sweet languor faded, she plotted her escape.
“Have ye finished then?” the innkeeper’s wife demanded as she entered, startling Cambria from her thoughts.
“Oh! Aye.” Cambria took the coarse linen towel from the woman and stepped from the tub. As she briskly rubbed herself dry, she glanced sideways at the old crone.
Mimicking her mother’s timidity, she whispered, “They hold me against my will, you know.”
The woman dried her hands anxiously on her grubby apron. “’Tis no business o’ mine, mistress.”
“But they killed my father!” Cambria snapped, and then continued more softly, “And they may kill me as well.”
“Oh, miss.” The woman shook her head. “I’d like to help ye, but I’d be puttin’ a rope around my own neck.”
“Please,” Cambria pleaded. “You wouldn’t have to help me. You could but leave a door open, a shutter ajar...”
The withered old beldame was firm. “I’ll give ye balm for yer hurts, and I’ll give ye a kirtle to wear, but I’ll not call upon the wrath o’ those swordsmen below.”
Cambria pursed her lips in frustration, and then forced herself to smile at the woman. She accepted the balm and the rough kirtle with thanks.
After the woman had the tub taken away, Cambria hastily dressed, then plaited her wet hair into a thick braid. She scanned the room, reviewing the possibilities for escape. She studied the shutters of the room. They were nailed closed.
As she rose to investigate, her stomach churned in protest, reluctant to digest the heavy stew she’d eaten earlier. She cursed under her breath, as much at her poor judgment in wolfing down her meal as at the fact the shutters were nailed tight. She needed something to pry them open. Damn, she decided, clutching her belly as a wave of nausea swelled in her, she needed a concoction for her stomach first or she wouldn’t be able to think clearly.
Of course! She could go to the kitchen to ask the innkeeper’s wife for an elixir and possibly pilfer a tool of some kind to use on the shutters.
She eased the door open. The four de Ware knights were now the sole occupants of the common room, seated around the table close to the fire, swapping boasts and dares. They were obviously well steeped in ale and past all reason. Young Myles swayed on the bench, and Roger pushed at him belligerently every time he chanced to lean upon him. Roger and the rat-like man cuffed each other, more out of habit than malice, it appeared. The black-haired giant snored loudly into his black beard atop the table, while beneath it, his h
ound crunched contentedly on a bone. Cambria held her breath as she descended the steps, trying to slip past unnoticed.
But Roger spied her at the bottom of the stairs.
“Well, look here, Owen! There wasa wench beneath that filth.”
“And a right fair wench, too,” Owen leered. “Seems a waste, all that sweet flesh lying alone up there in that cold chamber.”
“Aye, it’s weeks since I had me a clean-smelling woman.”
Cambria felt as if her legs were caught in a sticky bog, that no matter what she did, she was only going to sink deeper. Unaccustomed to this kind of warfare, she shrank back against the dingy wall. Suddenly, her stomach was the least of her worries.
“Are you surprised, wench?” Owen asked, his dark, greasy hair and crooked teeth garish in the firelight. “Have you never heard, ‘to the victor go the spoils’?”
Befuddled with drink, boyish Sir Myles nonetheless stepped forward in her defense. “Lord Holden gave orders she was to be unharmed.”
Roger snickered and pushed the boy back onto his bench. “I won’t harm her. I’ll just break her in like a good palfrey. Holden will be grateful for the service.”
Cambria’s eyes widened in disbelief. She coiled her muscles to spring, but before she could move, Roger signaled to Owen, who caught her easily by the arms. She fought in earnest, heaving her body against his grasp, but he was as tenacious as a ferret. The two men laughed at her efforts, enjoying the sport.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the innkeeper’s wife emerging from the kitchen, but she knew no help would come from that quarter.
“What are you called, fiery maid?” Roger asked, stepping close to her. He reeked of ale.
She thought of her clan and clenched her teeth, refusing to answer.
“Your name, wench!” he repeated.
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