“If you want him dead, do it yourself.” Caden jerked his head toward Rhianon. “There’s a knife.”
Sorcha’s stomach turned at what, only moments before, she could have done without thinking. Hadn’t she crushed the woman’s skull in? Yet Sorcha reeled away, mustering all her will to push down nausea as Caden tugged Tunwulf into the hallway.
“Chains and a gag will keep him and the guards till morning,” Caden called back. “Dead or alive, half of Bernicia will be after us come daybreak … at least to the river Tweed.”
Sorcha leaned against the wall. She’d just fought for her very life and as much as killed a woman, though none would believe it was self-defense. There was no turning back now. Losing her nerve was not an option. Her gaze fell upon the chest of jewels as she straightened.
Her inheritance. The jewels would fit in her harp case. While what was done couldn’t be undone, the gem-studded gold would go a long way in a new life. If anyone deserved them, Sorcha certainly did after what Tunwulf had put her through. She huffed, working up her rage. Anything to banish weakness and doubt.
Would there was more she could take from the villain. Something that would wound his pride to its black core.
The image of Cynric’s ruby-studded dragon ring came to her mind. Elford’s symbol of power and prestige.
Calculation pulled at her lips.
Perfect.
Chapter Twenty
Caden couldn’t help his annoyance. Martin had been certain his and Modred’s diplomatic pressure for trial by combat would be granted. It was the best hope. That, and Caden’s sword arm.
But there was no explaining this mess. No bringing Rhianon back to life. Funny, how someone so evil could look so angelic in death. Even now, after all she’d done, he felt nothing but pity. This time she’d met her match in Tunwulf. More so.
“We’ll head inland to the Berwick road till daybreak. Then we’ll have to stay off it, for that’s where the Bernicians will catch up with us. Unless you’ve got horses,” Caden said as Utta reentered the cell. It was too risky to try to fetch Forstan from the royal stables.
“No horses,” Utta apologized. “But I got a cousin married to a cottar who lives at the ford of Hahl Burn. He says if ye follow the burn to its head, ’twill take ye through the moors, if ye always bear to the north. Thing is, ye’ll need a boat. An’ there’s not enough coin in the purse for that.”
She glanced to where Tunwulf wore naught but a scrap of blanket and his gold torque. “But that will buy the man more boats than he can use.”
“That won’t draw much attention to us.” Caden snorted. Though the Bernicians wouldn’t expect them to go through the moors. Tunwulf would head straight for the old Roman road leading to Berwick. “I suppose seeing how it’s the villain’s plan that got us here,” he reasoned aloud, “his gold will get us what we need.”
Caden hoped God would see it that way. He’d done a lot of things in his time. Sinful things. But stealing was not one of them. For the first time in his life, he had a Father who accepted him. He struggled to the best of his understanding to keep it that way, praying as he dragged the unconscious guards in from outside.
Abba, stay with us. I’m counting this as a sign of what You want us to do. By all rights, this crazy plan shouldn’t have worked. Wouldn’t have until Tunwulf and Rhianon turned on each other.
A flashback, that of Rhianon’s nurse and mentor turning on her, came to his mind. Aye, that was God’s handiwork. Evil turning on itself. Still …
Let us be in Your hand, not Sorcha’s. She’s decent enough, though mighty light-fingered.…
And a fine figure of a woman, even dressed in men’s clothing, he finished, as Sorcha walked into the cell. She’d never pass for a man, but by his racing blood, she made a man’s clothes look good.
Abba! Caden wasn’t certain what else to say, only that he’d need his Father’s help to make it right in Heaven’s eye.
“Good thing we have more than one set of chains.” Her wits more assembled than Caden’s, Sorcha motioned to Utta to help her drag one of the guards to a pair of shackles bolted to the wall. “Though we’ll need something to gag them.” She straightened. Her gaze fell on Tunwulf’s blanket and darted away, as if his hairy navel had winked at her.
Caden suppressed a grin. “We can tear strips off your shift,” he suggested, pulling the last guard to another set of chains hung on the wall.
Sorcha looked at Caden as if he’d just proposed they go back to their cells. “Or your shirt.”
“You’re not wearing the shift,” he pointed out.
“But I will, if we get out of this alive.” A smile quivered on her lips. “Truth is, I’ve never had one so fine.”
Women. Their necks weren’t out of the noose yet, and she was hoarding a wardrobe. Caden looked at the taut leather bag in which she’d stowed her things. “I’ll not be carrying that for you. The lighter we travel, the better.”
“I’ve done without a man’s muscle this long.” There went that stubborn jut of her chin. “I can go a bit longer.”
Utta stepped in. “I’ll cut strips from the witch’s shift before we’re all set to swing from a rope.”
She drew out her dining dagger and disappeared into the hall. In no time, she returned with the linen, and the men were properly gagged.
Moments later, Caden stepped out into the night air, wearing a guard’s tunic, cloak, and weapons. At this late hour, it was eerily quiet within Din Guardi’s stockade. A thick mist separated the heavens from the earth, the moon behind it giving their surroundings a ghostly appearance.
Now all they had to do was get through the gate. He hoped the women had thought of that.
They had, and Caden didn’t like the plan either, but what other option was there?
Sorcha played the part of a young man caught by his wife, the shorter Utta, with another woman. The tavern maid flailed the life out of Sorcha with a switch, all the while tugging her home toward the village below.
“I’ll not stand ye spendin’ another hour here with all yer fancy friends while I carry yer own wee babe in my belly,” Utta wailed. “Yer comin’ ’ome if I have to drag ye all the way.”
Such was their commotion that guards along the ramparts watched as well. Caden easily blended into the shadows and escaped into the night beyond without so much as a stray hound’s bark to call attention to him.
The thick fog hid him a distance away where, instead of going ahead of them as Sorcha suggested, he waited, hand on sword, in case there was trouble.
“Don’t be runnin’ away from me, you cheatin’ son of a slop bucket!” Utta shrieked close by. “The gods strike ye down if ye ever set foot inside them gates again. An’ if they don’t, I will.” She wailed again at a pitch a professional keener would envy. “’Ow could ye?”
“Run, man, while ye can!” one of the guards shouted.
Sorcha streaked by, her bag clutched to her chest. Utta followed, calling upon a considerable vocabulary of obscenities that left the soldiers behind her laughing and jeering.
It would have been amusing, were their lives not at stake. Tension flowed out with Caden’s held breath.
“Thank You, Abba,” he breathed softly. So far, so blessed.
Freedom. Sorcha savored it as she and Utta made their way in silence down the causeway of cobbled stone and sand. Salt-laden air filled her nostrils along with the faint scent of fishnets and crafts that rose from the beach below. Even the stench of rotting fish guts wafting from where catch after catch had been cleaned was welcome. Anything but the smell of death left behind in her cell.
She was a murderer. ’Twas self-defense, but Rhianon was dead. Life in Din Guardi was just as dead for Sorcha now. She tried to force the image of Rhianon, the knife protruding from her body, out of her mind.
“More’n me’s gonna miss ye, Sorcha,” Utta sniffed, unwittingly helping her. The maid used a short laugh to hide her emotion. “But I’ll wager that big Cymri’ll take yer mind off�
�n us, soon enough.”
“Caden?” The toe of Tunwulf’s boots caught on one of the uneven paving stones of the causeway, nearly tripping Sorcha. “I hardly think I’m in Caden’s good grace now, even if we saved his manly hide.”
“That ain’t what Gemma says,” Utta said in a singsong voice. “Said you two danced like swans bound to mate for life.”
“Gemma wasn’t closed up in a—”
A strained grunt followed by a loud splash cut Sorcha off. They were closer to the beach than she’d realized.
“What was that?” Utta stopped in her tracks.
“Someone’s over there.” Sorcha pointed to a tiny golden haze in the mist a short distance away. A lantern, perhaps.
They’d made better time than she’d thought. She could hear the soft wash of waves upon the beach to their left, but little else.
The vision of a body being dumped came to Sorcha’s mind. It was not unheard of to find some poor soul who’d been robbed and beaten, drowned upon the beach when day broke.
Sorcha reached for the guard’s dirk that she’d stowed in the laces of the oversized boots. “Keep moving,” she whispered, touching Utta’s arm with the other hand.
She steered Utta away from the light toward a small stone dock where shallow-drafted boats might unload their cargo directly onto land. Then they headed toward Water Street, the last row of buildings before the waterfront. With any luck, they’d heard whoever lurked in the dark before he’d heard them.
Taking painstaking steps to avoid noise or tripping over any debris or discarded pieces of crating, Sorcha listened for footfalls. Suddenly Utta shrieked against a muffling hand, driving a stake of alarm through Sorcha’s chest. Something large and furry brushed against Sorcha’s leg and scurried over her feet.
“Just a cat,” she told Utta, choosing to believe that was all. She shouldn’t have insisted on separating from Caden and his going to the warehouse ahead of them. They’d not met a soul on the causeway to question them, although Sorcha and Utta’s distraction had allowed Caden to slip out unnoticed and without curious inquiry. Forcing air into her lungs, as if gathering courage, Sorcha moved forward again, her gaze fixed on the far glow of a cresset kept burning at night by the dockyard.
Suddenly the sand crunched against rock beneath heavy feet, and a giant shadow materialized out of the mist, blocking Sorcha’s view of the firelight. The night went black as death itself.
“By the gods’ breath!” Utta clutched at her heart.
“Well now, what would you two be lookin’ at, out as ye are at this hour?” The question was more an accusation, that of a murderer wanting to know what they’d seen.
Dread climbed Sorcha’s spine. “We’d be looking to find our way home.” She tightened her grasp on the knife. If they needed defending, it would be up to her. Caden was likely warming his hands over the fire in the hearth at home by now.
“An’ a bloomin’ cat scared the life outta us,” Utta chimed in, her voice still shrill from it.
All Sorcha had to do was step forward and drive the blade in beneath his rib cage and upward toward his heart. That’s what Wulfram had taught her. The oaf would never see it coming.
“Utta?” The man leaned down, staring closer in disbelief.
Sorcha held back.
“I thought you was workin’ at the tavern,” he said.
Wait, she knew that voice. The name of its owner caused her heart to leap into her throat.
Wada!
Chapter Twenty-one
“Utta, run!”
Sorcha let the leather sack, useless as a weapon now that the harp was gone, slide from her shoulder and thrust her pilfered knife upward. But something struck her wrist. Something wooden that surely broke the bones. She cried out in anguish, blinded by the pain. Even if she still clutched the knife—and she couldn’t tell—it was useless. Nausea squirmed in her belly, while her senses groped upward, clawing for the numbness of unconsciousness. But the Wyrds were not finished with her.
Nor was Wada. He clamped an iron fist about her arm, pulling her upright. Sorcha saw the club in his free hand coming down again. She threw herself against her assailant, making it hard for his swing to impact … much. It glanced off her back, but nothing broke.
“I been waitin’ for this a long time,” Wada swore, trying to shake her free.
Sorcha had to think fast, or she’d be the next person he dumped into the water. With a groan, she let her body go limp, as though she’d fainted. Wada cursed as her dead weight pulled her free of his grasp.
It gave the villain pause. Pause enough to think beyond clubbing. A warm, helpless woman was more than Wada could resist. He seized her wrist—thankfully the uninjured one—and started to drag her away from the glow of the distant cresset and toward the beach. Sorcha used the delay to gather her wits. She’d lost her bag and her only other weapon. She couldn’t even put up a fight with one wrist shooting bolts of pain straight to her brain.
Heavenly Father, save me!
Wada dragged her onto the sand, which was cold but softer than the cobbled dockyard. “’Twill take more than a prayer, ye feisty little slut.”
A prayer? With nowhere else to turn, Sorcha had instinctively mimicked Princess Eavlyn’s pleas for her life. What had the thief said when he was about to die? Because Sorcha knew she was.
Remember me.
That was it. She mouthed a prayer. Heavenly Father, remember me, a sorrowful thief. Remember me….
The words surged like a prow through waves of her agony. Sorcha clenched her fist, the injured one, with new resolve. It hurt and was slippery with blood, but it worked.
Suddenly Wada let her go. And no wonder, for he’d dragged her into the pitch of the night. Sorcha could imagine him tearing at the laces of his trews and seized the opportunity to thrust herself away. His heavy foot came down hard on her abdomen. Breath rushed out of her lungs, nearly taking consciousness with it. If he leaned any harder, he’d crush her ribs. If he hadn’t already.
Still she eased up her knee, envisioning exactly where to kick. And kick she did. As hard as she could.
Wada shrieked, dropping to one knee—off balance enough that Sorcha’s second kick sent him reeling and moaning on his side in the sand. She scrambled away from him, but her limbs moved as though leaden. As she dug in the damp sand to rise, Wada grabbed the hem of Tunwulf’s oversized tunic. With a vicious yank, he pulled her to him.
“I’m goin’”—he drew in a pained and ragged breath—“to kill you.”
The garment held her enough for Wada to get one giant hand on Sorcha’s neck. And then the other.
“An’ then I’ll have ye” —he pulled in another breath—“’fore the warmth flees that luvly body o’ yours.” The biting crush of his fingers cut off her air.
Her outcry bottled inside her chest. As she tried to pry his hands away, the sounds around her—the whisper of the waves, her assailant growling like a beast that had tasted blood, the kick of her feet in the soft sand—all started to mingle into a giant hush.
Except for Wada’s taunt. “An’ not a soul’ll care.”
Remember me. Sorcha clung to those two words.
Until two more exploded out of nowhere. “I care.”
Caden’s image floated into Sorcha’s mind. Bone cracked like thunder in her ear. Hers? Wada jerked violently behind her. The strength in his hands faded until they fell away from her neck.
Sorcha gasped, again and again, gulping volumes of sweet air. The heat and stench of Wada’s body drifted away from her. She tried gathering her scattered senses. Through the mist she made out a large figure dragging him toward the water. Caden. It had been his voice, hadn’t it? The one that said, “I care”?
Relief ricocheted through her as the two figures blended into the night. She heard a splash followed by Caden’s voice. “You’ll never harm another soul, you blackguard.”
The words gave her peace. Peace enough to realize she was still alive and so were Caden and Utta. H
er feet moved, her legs worked. And so did her hands, though it hurt when she pushed herself up. Alive.
The Christian God remembered her?
Caden interrupted her thoughts. “Are you hurt?”
Or was it Caden?
“N-no,” she rasped. Alarm edged in. What if she couldn’t sing? Her voice was her survival. That, and her inheritance.
“My bag!” Sorcha lunged away from Caden on spindly legs and would have sprawled on the sand but for his quick reaction. The same hands that had just snapped Wada’s neck caught her and drew her to him. Just as strong, but gentle. “My bag,” she repeated, as he cradled her in his arms. “I need to find my bag.”
“You’re welcome, milady.” His sarcasm smacked her.
“Oh, I … of course, I thank you. You saved my life.” But she had to find her inheritance before someone else stumbled upon it. More than four-legged vermin lurked the docks. “Will you help me find my bag? Everything I own is in it.”
Sorcha heard rather than saw Caden’s resignation. “Be quick, else they’ll follow us by the trail of corpses in our wake.”
It was visible once they reached the cobbled surface of the dock. Despite the thick mist, she could make out the dark lump containing her valuables in the distant glow of the cresset. Sorcha gathered it to her chest.
Thank You, Heavenly Father … if it was You who saved me.
The stars might have favored them, but the clouds didn’t. Their dark cover burst as Caden and Sorcha left the warehouse. What the downpour didn’t soak through the oilcloth that Sorcha had found for them, the long walk through standing water to the riverside did. Between the high tide and the rain, even the elevated path was flooded.
Caden didn’t even bother to remove his boots when he shoved the small flat-bottomed boat they’d bought with a chunk of Tunwulf’s torque into the water and hopped aboard. Soaked couldn’t get any wetter. Nor could the boat’s owner have grinned any wider when he’d been paid enough to buy a new craft to replace the dilapidated one he’d sold them.
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