by Jill Barnett
Deception had its advantages.
Handfast marriage was supposed to be a convenience, and existed here in a land whose breadth and wild extremities made marriage ceremonies convenient only when there was a clergy nearby. Men of God were readily available to the wealthy nobility (the Church and a man’s coin were seldom far apart from each other). Silver and gold bought absolution and penance, bought ceremonies of baptism, funeral, and marriage.
But for the people of villages, of the manors and castles where their lords were often gone to war--to crusade, diplomacy, or forced by their oaths of honor and fealty into eight months service to their liege, the laws of handfasting made marriage possible without waiting for months and even years for a priest to happen by. A public declaration of husband and wife by a man and woman was a binding handfast betrothal, and if the handfast was consummated, the marriage was legal.
Consummation… He took a drink of wine. The lust he was feeling be damned to Hell—at least that was what he mentally chanted over and over when his gaze repeatedly wandered to the corner where she slept, her bare legs uncovered again and calling to him. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, refilled his goblet and drank deeply, telling himself he controlled his body, not the other way ‘round. But the truth was: he was living in his own hell, where the flames were licking at his feet…and between his legs.
He recognized the danger before him, but knew, too, that if he wanted her, he could have her. A young man on the tourney circuit learned more than the techniques of war. Seduction was as much a weapon as his finely- forged sword, and as a careless youth he had used that power merely because he could, or to fill time and satisfy his own curiosity--a desire to learn the extent of man’s power over a woman—how far could he go? He learned he could go as far as he wanted.
But he was no longer a callow youth whose lust guided his actions, who plunged his sword recklessly into his prey—he had lived that lesson--and his ego was not such that he needed to tick off another conquest. The consequences were too high a price and he had waited a long, long time for Dunkeldon.
The half full wine ewer sat in front of him, and he refilled his cup. His desire and drive to regain what was taken from them was what consumed him--an obsession that was behind every single piece of silver or gold he’d earned, and behind the choices he now made. He drained the goblet and set it down hard on the table, wiping his mouth with his other hand. The girl did not matter. She was merely a means to an end.
* * *
“Get up!”
Glenna awoke from the prod of Montrose’s boot tip. Disoriented, she opened her eyes. The wooden wall was just inches away from her nose. She had to turn over to face him and winced.
He stood over her, his face hard and shadowed; he held a bright yellow torchlight that flickered over his taut features.
She threw her arm over her eyes and groaned.
“God’s eyes, woman! Cover yourself!”
What was wrong with him? She kicked and wiggled her gown down over her bare legs. He grunted something and turned away, so she closed her eyes. Just a little more sleep...
“Get. Up,” he said impatiently. “The ship sails with the early tide.” He paused, then bellowed. “Glenna!”
Lord, but the man was loud. She took a long-suffering breath and sat up, shoving the hair out of her face and frowning up at the intensity she saw in his gaze. “Why are you so angry?”
“ ‘Tis late.”
“But it is still dark.”
“Change back into these.” He tossed her peasant clothes at her. “We have no time for arguments.”
“I was not arguing. I was pointing out a simple fact.”
“We have no time for idle chatter.” He spun around and walked to the door that led to the stables. “Come dog!”
Fergus loped over to his side—the traitor—and a minute later the door closed with a resounding thud. The urge to throw her shoe at it was overwhelming, but she cherished those red shoes and would never risk damaging them. Although… Had he still been standing there barking at her—Montrose not Fergus—she might have risked her shoe for the joy of watching it bounce off his hard head.
She paused and picked up the infant coverlet, touching almost reverently the stitches that formed the intricate designs. Her mother made this for her. She bit her lip against the silly tears she felt rising. She swiftly wrapped it up and tucked it away before Montrose came back in bellowing for her to hurry. She dressed, carefully sliding into her peasant boots--the red shoes had rubbed blisters on her toes-- and she braided her hair, muttering a litany of new names for him, “My lord Judas…” No, that was her dog. “My lord Thickskull. My lord Goathead. My lord Lackwit.” All had a certain satisfying ring to them.
When he came back through the door, Fergus at his side, she was ready to leave and stood there hugging her satchel tightly to her chest, stubbornly determined to remain silent. Apparently he still was angry because he was glaring at everything. He bent down and picked up her hat, shoved it down on her head and said, “Cover your cursed hair.”
Silent, she twisted her braid up under the hat and tied the strings under her chin. Like some lackey she followed him outside, where their mounts were waiting. They led their mounts toward the docks with him lecturing her about acting like a lad—apparently there was time for idle chatter-- before he went moodily quiet. From then on he spoke no more, except to warn her to stay clear of everyone and to keep 'that hat on.'
“According to my brothers, my lord, even a lad is unsafe from some men aboard the ships, so I don’t see why keeping my hat on matters.”
“Just do as I asked,” he said through gritted teeth, tightening his grip on her arm and half dragging her along.
"Odd that I heard no question...only a command."
He said her name as if it were a curse word.
Fine! Do as he arrogantly demanded, she thought miserably and was about to say so until she caught a glimpse of his face. Clearly he wanted to fling her into the sea and be done with her. At the gangplank, he released her and stood stewing as she led Skye up the wooden ramp, then he began barking directions at her and warnings that were completely unnecessary, since Skye moved swiftly and easily onboard. Montrose followed with his horse, which balked and pulled at his bit and gave him some trouble. She smiled, then echoed his warnings, which earned her a cold look that said he had no sense of humor.
On the captain’s orders, poor Fergus was stowed on the dark belly of the mid-deck with the horses and cargo, above the oar deck. After she removed Skye’s saddle and secured her belongings by Montrose’s packs, she paused, then turned toward the ladder, but Fergus gave her that big-eyed lonely look. She started to walk away from him, head high. “Do not look to me for pity, you traitorous hound. Turn your lamenting looks upon your new master, my lord Thickskull, Goathead, Lackwit Montrose.”
Fergus whimpered pitifully.
So Glenna ran back and rubbed Fergus on his big shaggy ears and under his chin. “You are an ungrateful whelp.”
His eyes wide and contrite, he licked her hand lovingly.
“I’ll come back later,” she promised, just as Montrose stuck his head down the hold, a bright lantern hanging from his fist—the man had a penchant for blinding her--and he blustered at her to come up.
“Did you not hear me?” He half-yelled.
Blinding her, apparently, was second only to his penchant for shouting at her….
The sun was not yet up and already her head ached from all his bellowing. Did the man not understand the concept of honeyed words?
“Are you deaf?”
She stopped. Her brother El would have turned and run like the Devil himself was at his back from the look she gave Montrose, but he appeared completely unaffected. The more he browbeat her, the more she felt the intense need to try to spite him.
She took her sweet time, moving as slowly as she could without being overly obvious, then she stopped, wincing. “Oh! There is a stone in my shoe.” She removed he
r shoe, shaking it, searching inside and taking her sweet time.
Eyes narrowed, he pinned her with a hard look that told her steam was ready to come out his ears. In a serious and deadly calm voice he said, “You would be well-served to move more swiftly.”
“With a stone in my shoe, my lord, ‘tis difficult to move at all much less more swiftly,” she said sweetly and then pretended to drop her shoe. “Oh!” She bent to pick it up and leaned against a beam for balance while she took her sweet time slipping it back on and tieing the strings.
His eyes were closed and his lips were moving as if he were praying…or counting.
“Oh. Wait,” she said. “How the devil did that happen?” She sighed hugely. “Look at this.” She pulled on a hat string. “My hat strings have come loose. How fortunate for me I caught it. We wouldn’t want my hat to fall off and reveal my cursed hair.” She fumbled for a moment, then another, and another before she set about retying them…as swiftly as an ancient blind woman.
‘Twas quite enjoyable when she was finished to look up and see his jaw clenched that tightly. She resisted the urge to whistle a jaunty melody as she sauntered over to the ladder leading above-deck. She paused at the base, hand on the ladder rails and then sweetly smiled up at him.
He was counting.
She was trying not to laugh. A cursed eye for an eye…. A cursed tooth for a tooth….
* * *
The wind picked up shortly after dawn, and the oarsmen kicked the locks and pulled in their oars. Square sails caught the breath of wind and billowed and snapped, sending the ship cutting through the water and out into the open firth, where the waters eventually grew as wild as the skies above, and became stormy and gray...the same color, Lyall realized, as Glenna’s skin.
For most of the day the ship rolled over the growing sea, and she clung to the railing near the aft, hanging there limply, and soon her pallor was no longer gray, but greenish, as if she had eaten grass. She lay with her cheek pressed to the side of the ship, her arm flung over her head.
He placed his hand on her shoulder.
She opened her eyes and stared dully at his boots. “If you have come to bellow at me again, do not…please… just kill me and put me out of my misery.”
She looked miserable. He thought to help and tried to give her some water, but she groaned, held up her hand, and told him to leave her be.
When he offered her an oatcake a while later, she muttered curse words he had never heard come from a woman.
The waters grew, waves sloshing over the deck, sending the ship lurching over the waves, and he was worried about her. He waited longer than he was comfortable before he approached her again and told her she should be under the canvas shelter where she was safe.
She answered him by spilling the contents of her belly at his feet, so he went to wash his boots. The crew appeared too busy to notice her, or if they did, they chose to ignore her. But Lyall stayed within sight of her, his hand on his weapon.
Overhead the clouds grew thick and thundering, and in time, blocked out everything. The only light he could see came from crackling flashes of lightning and he could not say what the time of day. The wind came on strong and wild; it began to howl like wolves and the ship pitched and rocked as the sea slapped against it.
The sky grew blacker, as did the sea, and the some of the crew scurried to take down the sail before the wind sent them keeling over. He could hear the oar master shouting commands on the oar deck. Whenever the ship rolled over a swell, the oars cut through the water in desperate rhythm to steady the course.
Though Glenna clung to the side and continued to beg him to leave her be, Lyall stood solidly behind her, worried she was no longer safe there, weak as she looked; the waters were growing into a tempest, buffeting the ship over the roiling sea.
The clouds swooped down ominously dark and low. Rain began to spit down on the decks; the swells grew higher, and a wave washed dangerously over the decks as the sharply-arched prow of the ship plummeted down the backside of the steepest wave yet.
As they plunged down the next swell and the next, Lyall saw the oars come up on the starboard side and the ship listed sharply. Men began shouting and one of the crew was the first to lash himself to the mast. Lyall tightly pinned Glenna to the strake of the ship with his whole body, his ribs protesting. Her head lolled back, her hat still on but sodden, her braid tumbled out, and she looked up at him as if she wanted someone to throw her overboard.
He took a deep breath and swept her up into his arms, planning to take her to safety despite her stubbornness, despite the pain.
She grabbed a handful of his hair in her fist and yanked hard. “No! Please…do not move. Do not move,” she moaned and her hand went to her mouth just as a wave swept over the side and sent them both crashing to the deck and sliding down as the ship listed.
Water went up his nose and in his eyes. He lost his hold on her, pain stabbed through his chest and the deck seemed to sway and rock and slip.
He heard her scream his name.
“Glenna! “ he called out but the sound was swallowed by the storm.
Panic hit him. By luck or by God, he grabbed a handful of her wet tunic and gripped the ballast stone with his other arm as another wave washed over them. If he had not broken his ribs before, if he did not know that pain, he was not certain he could have saved her. The ship righted and he clung hard to her clothes. She coughed and spat. He held fast, saltwater stinging his eyes, then he felt her move, crawling onto him, her arms clinging to his thigh.
“Montrose.” Her voice was waterlogged, panicked.
He hauled her up to his chest with one hand and sheer determination and held her fast. “Wrap your legs around my waist, your arms around my neck. Hang on tightly.” He crawled over the square stone, then pulled them upright, his feet slipping on the slick deck, but he gripped a line overhead and held them steady. Before the next wave washed the deck, he made a run for the hold, slipping and sliding the last short distance.
The wooden hatch was closed and he gripped the iron hatch ring just before the ship’s motion sent them down onto the deck boards. He lay over her, protecting her with his whole body as the vessel moved straight up the side of a wave and more water sluiced over and past them, before the ship pitched downward again and hit the floor of a wave so hard he heard her grunt from the impact and pain from his ribs almost blinded him.
He took two deep breaths, then quickly got to his knees, jerked open the hold, shoved her down and slammed it shut just as another wave came and sent him tumbling across the deck. He hit hard against the side of the ship. His ribs sent piercing pain down his whole body. The air left his lungs.
Suddenly the water was lifting him, up and up. He reached out blindly and grasped a rope, pulling himself hand over hand until he hit the knot at an iron line cleat and held on with everything he had.
Below decks the oarsmen still rowed, their master shouting, his voice distant in the sound of the wind and sloshing sea, almost as if they were on another ship. Soaked, Lyall’s clothing kept weighing him down. He tried to pull off his gambeson, but it was stuck on a shoulder, tugging, pulling him with the next wave. The ironwork inside of it was impossible to cut with his knife, so he hacked at the leather seam, the blade slicing into arm and he felt the instant sting of saltwater.
The hatch flew open with a loud thud, and Glenna’s head, black hair wet, straggling and loose, came up through. “Montrose!” she screamed.
He realized she was going to climb out and try to come to him. “Nay! Stay there! Close the hatch!”
But she only looked at him with such a look of fierce determination that he knew what she was going to do. Foolishly, she braced her hands on the edge of the hold and started to pull herself up and out.
He had one chance, a break between waves and pitches of the storm, and he shoved off from the side of the ship, sliding, almost swimming across the deck toward her. His hands closed over the edge of the hatch. Then she was pulling him
down head-first, her fists tugging on his sodden undertunic as he fell down into the hold.
Water rushed in and over them, a nearby lantern hissed and the tallow candle went out, but other lanterns with candles as thick as his forearm rocked and flickered from iron hooks on the mid beams. Somehow she managed to slam the hatch closed. Standing on the ladder, she turned toward him. “Montrose?”
Unable to move, he lay flat on his back on the wet boards, the air driven from his chest, as if he had been thrown from a horse. He could hear the panic cries of the horses back in the aft deck, hear their hooves stomping on the boards. He tried to move but the edges of his vision began to darken. He was going to black out. Panic swelled in him as he watched the world fade...
Lastly, limned inside his last circle of vision was Glenna, hair like a tangle of black seaweed, leaning closely over him. Her frightened eyes searched his face.
A moment later her small fist jabbed him hard in the belly.
He gasped, sucked in a breath, and air, sweet, wet air, filled his chest… His ribs protested and pain like a lance down his right side. Starry bright light swam before his damp eyes. When the shadows of pain disappeared, he was breathing again, shallow breaths, because his ribs were still so battered that he dared not take even half of a deep breath.
She grabbed his shirt and shook him. “Montrose? Montrose! Montrose!”
“I hear you,” he said, then winced. “Stop shaking me, woman.” She let go and he slowly pulled himself upright, wincing, head down for a moment, his arms resting on his raised knees. His search for more breath was not a simple one.
When he felt he could speak, he met her worried gaze with a dark look. “That was a most foolish thing to do.”
“To hit you in the belly? I think not. You can breathe again.”
“No. Not your fist in my belly. I thank you for that. ‘Twas folly for you to open that hatch.”
The ship pitched again and she fell into him. He pulled her against him and she did not fight him; she settled into his side as easily as if she were grateful for his presence. They did not speak, and he wondered if her thoughts were where his were: what might have been? Was she wondering like he was how long he would have withstood the tormented seas.