by Deborah Hale
Rath could not let a challenge like that go unanswered, even though he sensed what dangerous combat it might spark.
“There are some things a man just... knows.” His tongue caressed every word as he leaned closer to Maura. “What makes you so certain a kiss from me would not bring you pleasure? Have you ever been properly kissed by a man? One of the lads from the village, perhaps?”
“A Windleford lad?” Maura laughed and some of the tension eased out of her body. “Between their fear of Langbard and their fear of the Han, there was not a lad in the village brave enough to speak to me, let alone try anything more daring.”
What a pack of fools!
“I could not let you kiss me, no matter how pleasant it might be,” said Maura. “Because... I am promised to another man.”
“Of course. The aunt in Prum—I should have known.” Rath let go of her and backed away. “You seem to have gotten the knack of angling.”
No sooner had he put a safe distance between them than the line went taut and Maura squealed.
“Do not let go!” Rath cried.
It had taken him a while to find a likely looking branch for a rod, and he did not want to lose it into the lake. The next thing he knew, he was standing behind her again, his legs braced and his hands gripping the rod over hers. The power of the pull on the end of the line surprised him.
Maura let out a trill of anxious laughter, followed by another squeal when the rod gave a sudden twitch in her hands and almost tipped her off balance.
“What have you snagged, lass, a lake lizard?” The fish was either very big or a fierce fighter—perhaps both.
“Lake lizard!” Maura’s grasp slackened.
She backed away from the water, but had nowhere to go... except to press herself tight against him. Rath almost lost his grip on the fishing rod.
“Hang on!” He could barely force the words out, for every breath he inhaled filled his nostrils with the scent of her.
“And do not be daft. There is no such thing as lake lizards.”
“So you say.” Maura did not sound convinced, and she did not budge an inch away from him. But she did clasp the fishing rod tighter.
“So I say.” Rath nodded, in part to feel the whisper of her hair against his cheek. “And since I have seen more than one lake in my life, you may take my word. This is a big fish, with plenty of fight in him. If we can land the creature, we will eat well for our trouble. We must tire him out.”
For what seemed like a very long time, yet not half as long as Rath would have liked, they nestled together, fighting the fish. Pulling it toward the shore as close as they dared without breaking the rod, then leaning forward and letting the tip of the rod dip beneath the water surface as they allowed the fish swim away before dragging it back again.
Rath fought a similar battle with his self-control. Until today, he had been able to rely on his will to curb his passions. But how was a man to resist the temptation of a woman in his arms, her hair blowing in his face and her soft curves pressed against him? By the time they landed the gasping, writhing fish, Rath was ready to collapse onto the ground writhing and gasping along with it!
“That should make a fine meal,” said Maura, her voice breathless from their long fight with the fish. “A pleasant change from cheese and cold mutton sausage, at least.”
Her hands trembled as the fishing rod fell from her grasp.
“You build the fire.” Rath pulled his knife from his belt. “I will gut this fellow.”
“A moment!” Maura held up one hand to forestall him. The other she reached toward the fish which gave one final violent twitch then lay still.
“A moment for what?” Rath ran the pad of his thumb over the blade of his knife.
“The blessing I told you about. To thank the Giver and to dispatch the spirit of this creature back to the water.”
“Spirit? Of a fish?”
Maura lifted her face to his. Her gaze flashed a challenge, while the slope of her brows conveyed a wistful entreaty. “Do you not believe that all living things have spirits?”
“I am not certain I have a spirit, let alone that dead fish.” Rath pointed with his knife. “But do what you will. I need to go sharpen my blade.”
Before she could reply, he stalked off to find his whetstone. When he returned to clean their catch, his disdain was honed to a fine edge, as well.
“So, is your Giver all thanked and this fat fellow content to be eaten?”
When Maura nodded, Rath thrust the point of his knife into the fish’s belly and sliced it open with one fierce slash. As he thrust his bare hand in to wrench out the slimy innards, he glanced up at Maura with narrowed eyes ready to relish her look of disgust.
But she defied his expectations. Her head tilted in a pensive, curious manner. “What did the Giver ever do to harm you, Rath Talward? How can something you claim not to believe in do you harm?”
Such daft questions did not deserve answers. Yet words seemed to form on Rath’s tongue without his leave. And they were too bitter not to spit out.
“It can do you harm when others believe and act on those beliefs in foolish ways.”
He forced his attention back to the fish. He would rather gut and clean a hundred stinking fish than talk about this.
“The old woman who raised you?” Her gentle tone slipped the question beneath his guard. “Was she unkind? You did not make her sound so when you spoke of her before.”
“Ganny, unkind?” Rath could not summon words strong enough to denounce the wicked folly of that notion. “She would not have known how to be!”
“Then how did her beliefs harm you?” Maura asked. “Langbard taught me the Way of the Giver is one of peace and respect for all life.”
When Rath did not answer, she added, “I do not mean to be contrary. I only want to understand.”
Rath found his voice. “Then understand this.” He jabbed the air with his knife for emphasis. “Those too-peaceful beliefs were to blame for our hard life and for her death. Always looking out for other folk who never returned the favor. Biding patient and stupid as a sheep for the Waiting King to return, all the while the wolves were circling.”
With a fierce slash, he cut the fish’s head off, then its tail. “I learned from her folly, though. Since then, I refuse to trust in anything but my own strength and guile. And I refuse to care about anything but my own survival.”
He tossed the gutted fish to the ground in front of Maura. “You may not think it a very noble creed, but it has kept me alive all these years. That is more than I can say for Ganny and your Giver!”
In the wake of his rant, a strange sense of relief settled on Rath, the way a seething belly calmed after a violent bout of retching.
No doubt Maura would respond with scolding or argument. He hoped she would. A good battle of words might be just what he needed to cure the sweet ache in his flesh she had inflicted.
He cleaned his blade on the grass, then wiped it with a scrap of oiled cloth before thrusting it back in its sheath. When she did not reply at once, he ventured a wary glance at her.
But she did not glare back at him, or even look toward him. She had picked up the cleaned body of the fish, now nothing more than a piece of fresh food. With an absent air, she gazed down at it, one finger sliding over its smooth skin.
“It kept you alive,” she mused softly, more to herself than to him. “I wonder—is that kind of life worth living?”
Her gentle query stung Rath hard, in a place he had thought himself invulnerable. So he did what he’d always done whenever he had been fool enough to wander into an ambush.
He fled.
Maura did not think much of it when Rath stalked off after cleaning their catch. Surely he would return to eat.
For the next little while, she had plenty to occupy her. First she built a small fire, then seasoned the fish with a sprinkle of herbs and wrapped it in several layers of wet pond-flower leaves. Finally she buried it in the hot ashes to cook.
What ailed the man?
She had challenged his unbelief and the merits of a life lived with no thought for anyone but himself. What of it?
When Langbard first took him in, over her objections, she had said any number of things that should have offended him far worse. He had seemed impervious to her insults, often pretending to be flattered by them.
Could he have some other reason for abandoning her? As darkness began to fall with no sign of his return, Maura grew more and more certain that was what Rath Talward had done.
Had their disagreement reminded him of the way he meant to live his life? He had strayed from that self-contained path in recent days—keeping guard while she had attended to Langbard’s passing ritual, helping her escape from Windleford, then escorting her this far south. Contrary to his self-serving creed, he had risked much for her.
Perhaps he’d recognized it himself and feared he might be sliding down a slippery slope toward the kind of selfless virtues he claimed to despise. Or perhaps he had hoped to receive her favors in payment for his services. Upon discovering she was not prepared to make such a bargain, he might have decided the whole venture was no longer worth his trouble.
At least he’d had the decency to leave her the pony and supplies. As Maura faced the prospect of continuing her journey without him, that provided little comfort.
In an effort to soothe her mounting alarm, she tried to commune with the Giver. But never had it felt so remote—as though it dwelt far off, among the distant stars that glittered in the night sky, rather than quickening every living thing around her.
Wrapped in her cloak beside the banked fire, she fell into a restless sleep, plagued by fearful dreams. The forces massed against her loomed larger and more menacing than ever. Not just the Han and the Xenoth, but lawless Embrians, wild animals, distance and terrain. Her own resources were pitiful by comparison, and dwindling.
Against all reason, she had felt safe in Rath Talward’s company. It might have been nothing more than an illusion, but it had brought her some comfort and enabled her to carry on.
Later that night, the sound of stealthy footsteps roused her from a fitful doze. All her fretting had been for nothing—Rath Talward had come slinking back at last.
Resentment and relief warred within her.
Suddenly rough, powerful hands seized her and a large, foul-smelling palm clamped over her mouth. Maura tried to scream, though a curiously detached part of her wondered why she bothered when there was no one to come to her aid. Not that it mattered, for the beefy hand muffled her cries. When she drew breath through her nose to fuel her struggle, the reek of unwashed flesh made her gag.
She tried to use some of the tricks that had proven so effective against Rath, the morning he had made the mistake of grabbing her from behind. But the person who held her had no wounds she could exploit... at least none that she knew of. She writhed in her captor’s grip, all the same, pummeling his stout legs with her heels. She might have been kicking a tree trunk for all the good it did.
From out of the shadows came the voice of another man. “Sounds like you have bagged yourself a hissing hillcat, Orl. Think it needs to learn some manners?”
The man who held Maura gave a garbled grunt.
An instant later, another hand lunged out of the darkness to clout her on the side of the face. The shock of the blow stunned her. Pain thundered through her head.
“Another peep and I will hit you hard next time,” growled her assailant in a tone of cruel satisfaction that warned Maura he would welcome the opportunity.
Clenching her teeth, Maura managed to mute a sob into a faint whimper. She prayed it would slip beneath the threshold for more punishment.
It must have, for the man who’d struck her moved away and spoke to someone else. “Just her?”
“Looks like.” To Maura’s ringing ears, the pitch of the answering voice suggested a younger or smaller man.
“Is she daft, coming here alone?” asked the first man.
Both the other fellow and the one holding Maura replied with scornful sniggers.
What would they do to her? If they’d meant to kill her outright, she would not be alive now. A warning of Rath’s sent a deathly chill of panic through Maura.
“Compared to some... I am a perfect flower of honor.”
She was not quite as innocent as he’d believed her. She might have little experience of men, but she had some information that Sorsha had relayed from Newlyn about the ways a woman could be mistreated. The last thing in the world she wanted was to learn about them firsthand.
Chapter Ten
“HAS THE WENCH got anything worth taking?” asked the man who seemed to be in command, the one who had struck Maura.
“Just food and such in the packs, Turgen. But there is a pony.”
So they were outlaws... not that Maura had been in much doubt.
The question about anything worth taking made her remember her sash. She might be able to reach one of the lower pockets without squirming too much and risking another cuff from Turgen. But what could she reach that would be of any use to her?
Cuddybird feathers would be wasted in the dead of night. Spider silk was really only effective against a single enemy. Madfern, perhaps, or dreamweed? With those, she ran the risk of dazing or drowsing herself along with the outlaws, unless she could get upwind to cast the spells. Then there was the matter of getting her mouth free to speak the incantation.
“Not a bad night’s takings,” muttered Turgen. “Been awhile since we got a woman.”
The leer in his voice sent a chill through Maura.
But it was nothing to the dread that engulfed her when the other outlaw replied, “Hope she lasts longer’n the last one.”
That decided her. She must act the instant she got a chance. Until then, she must find some way to master her panic, so she would not be too flustered or too numb to take advantage of her first decent opportunity.
In case it proved to be her last.
Rath returned to the lake shore in the waning hours of the night, resolved to put as much distance as he could between himself and Maura Woodbury. As soon as he could.
While he still could.
Their earlier quarrelsome exchange had made him face the truth he’d been struggling to ignore. His brief alliance with her had already begun to change him in subtle ways he could not abide. If he let her get any tighter hold on him, those changes might threaten his survival.
How had she gained so much influence over him in such a short time? True, she was a fine-looking lass but he had long since learned not to make a fool of himself over a pretty face.
Was it possible the wizard’s ward had worked some kind of enchantment over him? He did feel strangely at odds with himself, and less in control of his actions than he had been in a great while. Perhaps his original suspicion of Maura Woodbury had not been groundless after all.
He had returned to her, hadn’t he, when cold reason warned him to keep on walking and forget they’d ever met?
The power of obligation had drawn him back the way a rod and line snared a squirming fish, the odor of which still hung in the air around the campsite.
But Maura, the pony and the packs had all disappeared.
Rath tried to dismiss the uneasy chill that seeped into his bones on that mild spring night. He should get some rest. Whether Maura had gone looking for him or decided to part ways, he had no way of knowing. Nor had he any hope of finding her until he had some light to see. Until then, the least wasteful use of his time would be to sleep.
Determined to do just that, Rath slid his sword from its scabbard. Then he pulled his cloak around him and settled himself in a sitting position, with his back to the oak’s broad trunk. Taking the hilt of his sword in his right hand,
he drew his dagger with his left and held then crossed in front of him, ready to lash out in defense the instant he stirred. Woe to any fool who blundered upon him before the sun rose!
Thus armed and determined to snatch an hour’s sleep, Rath found he could not rest no matter how hard he tried. In fact, the harder he tried, the worse sleep eluded him.
Maura was probably not in any danger. She had plenty of vitcraft tricks at her disposal to keep her from harm. He had seen first-hand how effective they could be. Even if she were in danger, it was no concern of his, much less his responsibility.
Was that what she had told herself, he wondered, when she had seen the Han closing in to slaughter him? Or when they had set their hounds on his trail? Or when he had swooned in the cold brook, miles from Langbard’s cottage?
If she had, she’d been right. His fate should not have mattered to her. Certainly not enough to risk her own safety as she had. Not once, but three times. She’d known nothing about him, except that he was an outlaw. If anything, that should have disposed her against him.
Though he was not sorry to have escaped being butchered, Rath wished his deliverance had come by some other means. Not since he was a motherless babe had anyone done so much for him, asking so little in return. He could not fathom it. It made him feel both highly privileged and deeply unworthy. He could not decide which of the two unsettled him worst.
Slowly his weariness began to overcome his disquiet, until there were only two questions left that it could not subdue. Around and around in his mind they chased one another, demanding answers but finding none. Where had Maura gone? And why?
Rath told himself he did not care. When that failed he told himself he should not care.
The lass belonged to another man, after all. And even if she did not, there could be nothing lasting between a woman like her and a man like him. He should not care what became of her. But Rath had knocked around the kingdom long enough and hard enough to know that people did not always oblige a body by doing what they should.
At last, just when he should have begun to stir, he fell asleep. Not long, yet long enough and deep enough that he woke with a start of alarm to find the sun a finger’s width above the low eastern horizon.