by Amanda Scott
When Fife’s man had requested the bishop’s permission to interrupt their comfortable evening, it was to tell them the Norse ship had left the harbor.
“It sailed not long after we beached, my lord,” the man added.
“Why did you not come and tell us at once?” de Gredin snapped.
Fife said, “What difference can that make? We would scarcely chase it now, even if we wanted to. Why should we care what a Norseman does?”
“Why would any Norseman leave a safe harbor after dark?”
The man who had brought the news looked wretchedly at Fife. “We didna think o’ that, my lord. We didna think nowt until a wee while ago when one o’ the chevalier’s lads said he’d caught a glimpse o’ its stern as we passed it earlier.”
“Sakes, you’ll never tell me it was the Serpent!” Fife exclaimed.
“Nay, he didna ken the name,” the man said. “But he did notice it has a stern port like the Serpent’s, my lord, with crosspieces that form the shape of an M.”
“The Serpent’s crosspieces do form an M,” Fife agreed. “But, surely—”
“We must follow at once, then!” de Gredin exclaimed. “If we have any chance of catching sight of them, my lord, we surely want to do that.”
Fife wanted to do nothing of the sort. If he could imagine any more horrible death than wrecking one’s boat and drowning in the sea, it was doing so on a pitch-dark night with no hope of rescue. But when de Gredin went on to explain to the bishop that some miscreant had stolen the earl’s fine ship, Fife could hardly insist that he would rather sleep in a comfortable bed than try to recover it.
De Gredin would likely agree that he should stay with the bishop, and then be off by himself to capture his so-precious treasure and take the Stone as well.
Resigned now to his fate, Fife sent a prayer aloft and tried to get comfortable, realizing only when the man-at-arms serving as his personal attendant told him so that de Gredin had quietly put half of the earl’s other men on the second longboat.
Having made his most persuasive case for sharing the cabin, Giff had heard Sidony gasp softly in response, and his body stirred hopefully. From the moment she had denied him, his desire to hold her in his arms—indeed, to do much more than that—had grown so that what he felt now was pure lust, and he knew it. Her shoulders were warm beneath his hands. His fingers itched to caress her bare skin.
He drew a long, silent breath and carefully released her.
“I suppose you could stay for a while,” she said.
“I’m afraid they’d expect me to stay all night.”
“Every night?”
“To do aught else would denote banishment, for which they would think less of me, or lack of interest on my part, which would—most unfairly—reflect on you.”
She shot him a speculative look but said only, “Then you had better stay tonight at least. I suppose I can trust you to keep your word.”
His hands went back to her shoulders before he thought, and he said, “You can always trust my word when I give it, lass, but in this matter, I will not swear it, because I am not sure I can trust myself. You are too bonnie, too enticing to a man’s lust, and mine is gey strong for you. So take care that you don’t tempt me too much. If you do, I’ll not want to answer for my actions.”
Her eyes widened so much that he wondered if he had frightened her.
Sidony felt a tingling thrill at the thought that she could tempt him so. She had heard bards’ tales of women who wielded such power over men but had never dreamed that she could tempt any man to foreswear himself. The feeling was so energizing that temptation stirred to see what would happen if she tested him.
“Don’t be thinking that I’ll give you a dagger to defend yourself like the ones I’m told your sisters Isobel and Adela carry,” he said with a smile. “I can order the men to catch a large salmon, though, and give it to you to use if I forget myself.”
She laughed at that, and the tension between them eased.
“I don’t need a salmon, sir,” she said. “I can always whistle for help if I need it, or scream. You may stay tonight, but I hope you do not expect me to undress for bed whilst you watch me.”
“I’d like to do that, right enough,” he admitted. “But I’ll see to the crew and speak to Wat Maxwell. Don’t worry about the lantern. I’ll put it out when I return.”
He was gone on the words, and having no idea how long he would be away, she quickly took off her doublet and skirt, shook out both without a hope of doing them any good, and hung them on hooks fastened to the wall by the washstand.
The water-filled ewer sat in a deep pocket in the stand, so the motion of the boat could not tip it onto the floor. She carefully poured enough to wet a cloth, then scrubbed her face and arms and behind her ears. Using her finger, she scrubbed her teeth as well as she could, then pulled two thick feather quilts from the kist where she found them, tossed one onto the top bed and spread the other over the linen-covered pad on the lower one and slid in between them, shivering in her shift.
One could not call such a bed comfortable, and she tried to imagine Fife sleeping on it. Doubtless his manservant would have piled it with eiderdowns first to make his lordship a nest, but with the thin pad that pretended to be a mattress under her, she was certainly more comfortable than when she had wakened in her prison under the floor. And she was sleepy enough, she thought, to sleep on a rock.
She had almost dozed off when the click of the door latch brought her wide awake. “Is that you?” she called, drawing the quilt to her chin as the door began to open. Realizing anyone could answer yes to such a question, she bit back a giggle.
He opened it just wide enough to step inside, shut it behind him, and said, “Were it anyone else, he’d be taking his life in his hands, and well he’d know it.”
She experienced that thrill of feminine power again. She did not believe for a moment that he would kill a man whose only mistake was opening that door, but the fact that he had said he would was heady.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Between Arbroath and Montrose. We passed Devil’s Head a few minutes ago and should shortly be able to make out the two high points of Meg’s Craig.”
“Faith, I don’t know how you can tell. I don’t even recognize those names.”
“The stars are beginning to peek through, but surely you ken Arbroath.”
“I know our famous declaration of independence from England was signed there fifty years ago, but I do not know where Arbroath is.”
“We’re about two and a half hours out of St. Andrews, traveling at four knots per hour. If this wind holds steady, we hope to make Aberdeen by morning.”
“The oars are still up,” she said. “I can tell by the motion of the boat.”
“We’ve no need of them with a wind as favorable as this and the clouds breaking, but both are unpredictable. Are you ready for me to put out the lantern?”
Her body tingled with new sensations. He looked immense in the cabin, his head nearly touching its ceiling. “Do you think that bed will hold you?”
He chuckled. “I can put you up there if you’d prefer.”
The thought of having to climb up there with him in the cabin, or down again with him in the lower bed, was almost worse than the thought of his lifting her up there in her shift. “I’d liefer stay here,” she said, hoping she sounded dignified but certain she’d heard a squeak in her voice that was anything but.
He was kind enough not to laugh again. “I’ll take off my boots,” he said, “but you might want to tuck back a bit, because I’ll step on the edge of your cot to ease onto mine, and this ceiling is not anything like as high as a normal one.”
Then, the lantern was out and the chamber pitch black, but she knew when he put a foot on the edge of her cot and hoisted himself to the bed above hers. She lay tense in the darkness, still chilly, trying to relax, tinglingly aware of him above her.
“Do you really fit up there?” she asked a m
oment later.
“Near enough,” he said. “I’ve slept in worse places.”
She tried to imagine what they could be.
The motion of the boat was restful. Eventually it would rock her to sleep, but the moments crept by. He shifted, making the wood creak.
Telling herself to stop worrying about him crashing down on top of her, she wriggled on the thin pad and wondered how the oarsmen slept in the small spaces allotted them between the rowing benches, or on the benches themselves.
Jake had told her there were hammocks they could sling in the underdeck spaces but “none so many,” according to the boy, and only when those spaces were not filled with cargo and provisions. Western galleys had no underdecks and carried few provisions, nearly always beaching at night and depending on their men to hunt or fish for their food. Remembering her supper with Jake, she smiled.
She shifted again, certain her hips would be black and blue by morning.
“Still awake?” he murmured.
“I was just thinking,” she said.
“About us?”
“About the ship,” she said. “You never said how you came to steal it—or its captain. And, although you said your decisions to sail away from Lestalric and St. Andrews were not impetuous, can you say the same about stealing the ship and its captain, or stealing the priest? How can you do such things? Especially steal a ship. I should think that would be an impossible feat for one man alone.”
Smiling, Giff said, “At the time it seemed the right thing to do, so I did it.”
“But the ship did not belong to you! You cannot just take things, any more than Jake should. You told him so and even wanted him to repay your shilling.”
“The difference is that I needed both a ship and a way to slow Fife down. He had learned about the Dutch ship I’d hired and sent it on its way. I’d point out, too, that had I not taken this ship, you’d still be a pawn he could threaten to force our capitulation. Doubtless that was his intent when he ordered your abduction.”
“Do you know, I don’t think he did order it,” she said thoughtfully. “Not that he would not have done so had he known he could, for he did try to arrest Adela last year to force Rob’s hand. But recall that when de Gredin captured me, Fife was searching Isabella’s party. How could he even have known I’d be on the ridge?”
“One could suppose that the same spy that told Fife about Isabella’s plans somehow learned about your plan to ride with Lady Clendenen to meet her.”
“Was there really a spy?”
“Aye, but he was at Roslin,” he said, remembering.
“I did not see anyone else I know with de Gredin,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Fife could not have known you would be there, because no one expected you to ride so far. De Gredin must have seized the chance when you provided it. I wonder if Fife knows even now that you were aboard this ship. Aye, sure, he does. You heard de Gredin order his men to tell him.”
“You have not said yet about taking Fife’s ship,” she said.
He grimaced, but she deserved an answer. “You will probably call it impetuous, or impulsive, even reckless and foolhardy.”
“You do frequently seem to behave so,” she said.
“In troth, men have called me all those things from time to time. But I have found that in the midst of chaos one can always find at least one moment of opportunity. I look for that moment and seize it when it comes.”
“And that is what you did with the ship?”
“Aye, sure. I did not think about its being Fife’s ship. I just saw my chance when I realized that, besides the captain and Jake, only two men were aboard.”
“But you abducted Captain Maxwell and Jake, too!”
“I asked Maxwell to swear fealty to me, as I would ask any man in such a case. He did so, because I also vowed to protect Jake. Had I put them ashore and Fife got hold of them, he would hang them both for the loss of his ship.”
She said nothing to that.
He let the silence lengthen, then murmured, “Still awake?”
“Aye.”
“Do you understand now why I sometimes act as I do?”
Sidony did not answer. She liked listening to him, and it was clear that he believed he had done the right thing. But something bothered her, and she was not sure she should tell him. Men, in her experience, did not like their actions criticized.
“What is it, lass? You’re burning to say something more to me. I can feel it.”
“Just, it was only luck that I was aboard this ship, so it is unfair to suggest that what you did was right because of my being here. Moreover, to have found yourself without a ship at the last minute seems like dreadfully bad planning for so important a venture, one that others had been planning for almost a year. Even with great treasure at stake, do all men simply wait for that moment of opportunity?”
Her stomach tightened in the silence that followed, but his voice remained reassuringly steady. “No matter how carefully one plans, something always goes amiss, and the likeliest time for error is at the worst possible time. With our cargo already on the move, I had to act fast or the whole venture would have failed.”
“I do see that,” she said. “But others have said things, too, you know. They seem mostly to say them about you in jest, but one does wonder all the same.”
“When you know me better, mayhap you will cease to wonder about me, but you may always say what you like to me and ask me anything, anytime.”
“Any time?”
“Any time that we are alone like this,” he said firmly. “Now, go to sleep.”
She smiled and shut her eyes. The previous day had been terrifying, but she felt safe again. Even on the hard bed, she plunged into sleep, deep and dreamless.
When morning came, she awoke to find herself alone in the cabin.
Giff stood atop the aft cabin, peering into the distance behind them. Puffy white clouds billowed to great heights in the sky, warning of worse weather ahead. They were south of Aberdeen yet, but he thought they could make Peterhead by dusk.
He could see no sails behind them, and to be sure, the strong wind had given them good speed, but for all that he hoped Fife’s lack of courage on the water had kept him in St. Andrews, he had a nagging hunch that the hope would prove false.
Wat Maxwell, having given up his bed to Father Adam, had been up all night, in command, and Giff had been confident leaving him in command. Not only did he feel instinctively that Maxwell was trustworthy, but he knew that although the Sinclair oarsmen would obey Maxwell’s orders, they would not hesitate to wake him at once if Maxwell issued any unacceptable command such as a surrender to Fife.
Before climbing atop the aft cabin, Giff had sent Maxwell into the forward one to get some sleep, brushing aside his protest that the priest had not yet arisen.
“Doubtless he enjoys the chance for a lie-in,” Giff said. “But he cannot sail this ship, and you need rest or you’ll be no use to me. Roust him and get to bed.”
So Maxwell had gone.
Giff turned and scanned the rowing deck for one of the smaller oarsmen. Most were long-limbed men with powerful legs and backs because, being Sinclair men, they were fine warriors as well as oarsmen. Finding one he thought would do, he caught the man’s eye and beckoned, then climbed quietly down off the cabin in case the lass—his beautiful, stubborn bride, he thought with a smile—still slept.
“Aye, sir?” The wiry oarsmen gazed at him through candid gray eyes.
“Blegbie, isn’t it?” Giff said.
“Aye, sir, Ned Blegbie.”
“How do you feel about climbing the mast, Ned Blegbie?”
The man grinned. “Nobbut a wee cat’s stroll, sir.”
“I agree, but it is lowering to morale for a ship’s master to have all the fun, so take yourself as high as you safely can and shout if you see any sail behind us.”
Still grinning, Ned Blegbie shinned nimbly up to the yardarm. Then, using the halyard l
oops, he climbed until his head was just above the masthead.
“I could do that, easy.”
Giff looked down to find Jake beside him, watching Ned Blegbie.
“You’d better not let me catch you,” he said sternly. “And don’t tell me your father lets you, because I won’t believe it.”
“Nay, he caught me starting up once and pulled me back. But I’m no’ afraid.”
“Have you done it?”
“Aye, sure. A couple o’ the men as were aboard afore ye took the ship, they dared me to, one night whiles me da’ were sleepin’. They promised me a farthing if I touched the masthead. I told ’em I’d do it, but no’ for a farthing, so they said they’d give me a ha’penny, and they did. It were gey easy.”
“Those men can be glad they are no longer aboard this ship,” Giff said. “Have you no chores to do this morning?”
Jake sighed. “I’ll do ’em, then. Ye needna put yourself in a thunder-pelt.” His gaze shifted to a point behind Giff. “Are ye really married to her now?”
“I am,” Giff said, turning to see Sidony in the aft-cabin doorway.
He smiled at her and got a winsome smile in return.
“Sir!” Ned Blegbie shouted. “Two sails, aft t’ steer-board!”
Fife was cautiously hopeful. He had ordered the men to erect a canvas shelter for him at the bow of the longship, to protect him from any rain that might come or from too much sun if they ever saw the sun. Moreover, according to de Gredin, the Serpent was just an hour ahead of them. Fife couldn’t be sure, himself. He did see a ship on the horizon, but it was too far away for anyone to be sure, and he said so.
De Gredin said, “There are few ships of such a size in these northern waters. I’ll be very much surprised if it is not the Serpent.”
“Then tell the lads to put on speed so we can catch up to her,” Fife said.