Judith E French (2 page)

He scratched his head. “It sounds painful. Mayhap we’d best be certain they don’t catch us.” He took a step toward her.

“No! Stay away from me!” She whirled to run, but the sucking mud pulled at her feet. She slipped and fell facedown. A heartbeat later, he had her. Anne opened her mouth and began to scream. He clamped a broad hand over her mouth and gathered her up in his arms.

“Hist that screeching now,” he warned. “Ye sound like an Iroquois squaw.”

She caught the skin on his palm between her teeth and bit down as hard as she could. He didn’t flinch.

Anne felt his face pressed against her cheek. She couldn’t see him because somehow, in the struggle, the plaid was over her head.

“Hold your tongue, lass,” he warned. He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone demanded caution on her part. “Mind your manners, or I’ll have to bind and gag ye, I swear I will.”

Anne stopped fighting and let go of his hand.

“That’s better. Now listen well, for I doubt I’ll soon have time to repeat myself. I’ve no designs on your purse or your body. ’Tis fair-shaped enough, what I can see of it, but I’m not a man to reave from a friend’s stable. You’re as safe with me as if I was your blood brother. I’m taking ye to Bruce in Scotland.”

Anne’s heart sank. There was no reasoning with him. No matter what he said, she knew that he was carrying her off to her death. She made no further protest when he lifted her petticoats and took hold of her hoopskirts. There was a loud tearing sound. He spun her as easily as though they were partners in a country dance, then he lifted her out of the hooped frame.

“A bride’s finery is no good for riding, that’s certain,” he said. “I’ll take a little of this off for good measure.” He pulled a dirk from his waist and cut ten inches off the hem of her gown.

“You’ll have to kill me first,” she stammered. Fear thickened her tongue and made the rain and cold fade away. “Murder me and be done with it, for mercy’s sake.”

“For the love of God, woman! Have ye heard nothing I’ve said? Bruce Sutherland sang your praises right manfully over his jack of whiskey, but he never said ye were a lackwit. You’re going to make me do this the hard way, aren’t ye?” He jerked a leather thong from the top of his moccasin. Before she knew what was happening, he’d seized her wrists and bound them together in front of her.

“No,” she groaned.

“Astride is easier on the gut than belly-down, hinney,” he said. He lifted her up and set her on the horse in front of his saddle, then mounted behind her.

Anne gasped as one muscular bare calf touched hers. He tucked the thick folds of the woolen plaid over and around her, covering her from head to toe.

“Give me your word you’ll not betray me, and I won’t gag you,” he rumbled into her ear. An iron arm encircled her waist and held her tight against him.

“Don’t cover my mouth,” she pleaded.

“An
aye
will suffice.”

The stallion arched his neck, and his great legs moved under them. Anne heard the squeak of the coal yard gate and the sharp cadence of the horse’s hooves against the cobblestones.

She stiffened her body, straining to stay as far away from Ross Campbell as possible. He chuckled softly and began to whistle and then to sing the words from an old ballad.

I
t was still raining. Anne pushed aside a fold of the woolen plaid that covered her head and saw three bound prisoners in an open wagon being drawn by a single water-soaked ox along the narrow, shop-lined street. An armed guard walked beside the great-horned red and white beast; four more guards walked behind the wagon. None of them looked particularly enthused or competent. Even the prisoners seemed more downhearted by the weather than whatever fate was in store for them.

One of the prisoners wore a battered sign around his neck that read
Highwayman
. He was a thickset balding man with no chin and a prominent nose. Anne thought he looked more like a tailor down on his luck than a
gentleman outer
.

“Don’t even think of appealing to that lot to save you,” Ross Campbell cautioned. “I could take those five with my eyes shut and a grizzly bear at my back.”

Anne didn’t mistake her captor’s softly slurred threat for idle boasting. The slack-bellied guards looked more accustomed to lifting mugs of ale than the weapons on their belts. In contrast, this savage Scot seemed as deadly as a tightly wound crossbow. She could feel his rock-hard thews, could sense his readiness to spring into action. It would be useless for her to cry for help from these poor guards. Ross Campbell would scatter them like barnyard poults before a hunting hawk.

They’d been wandering around the city for hours, getting wetter and wetter. The heavy woolen plaid that had seemed so warm when she’d first wrapped it around her was now as wet and cold as her feet. Anne was beginning to wonder if her captor was stupid as well as crazy. If he had a plan for escaping London, he hadn’t given any inkling of it yet.

“Where the hell are we, hinney?” he rumbled in her ear.

She jumped. Had he read her mind?

“Do ye know this part of the city?”

“I’m your prisoner,” she reminded him timidly. “How should I know where you’re going?”

“These streets are worse than rabbit warrens. I’ve never seen so many people all in one place.”

She took courage from his weakness. “You’ve never been to London before?” she ventured, deciding he must be a bumpkin if he thought London was crowded today. The streets were nearly empty due to the heavy rainfall; even the beggars and footpads had been driven to find shelter.

“Nay, and I’ll not come again if I ever find my way out of this foul-smelling—”

“You needn’t worry about going anywhere again,” she retorted. “I told you. You’ll be drawn and quartered. What’s left of you will feed the fish under London Bridge. This isn’t the heathen Highlands of Scotland. We take a dim view of kidnappers here.” She paused for a breath. Both of his hard bare legs were wedged against hers. She’d given up trying to avoid touching him—it was the only spot on her that was warm. “I know where we are,” she continued. “This is Cheapside. If we go that—”

“—way,” he finished. “I’ll end up in the king’s privy, or mayhap, Newgate Prison. Wasn’t that what ye had in mind, mistress?”

“You’re the one who asked me where we were,” she reminded him. “You’re the one who’s lost. You haven’t a chance of getting me out of the city. Release me, and you might escape with your neck.”

“Hist, woman, ye have the tongue of a jay. A man cannot ask ye a simple question without loosing a flood of abuse.”

Anne was shocked into silence. No one had ever accused her of being a scold. “Sweet Anne,” they had called her, and “gentle Anne.” If she was behaving abominably, it was this savage who had caused it.

Ross reined the stallion close to an overhanging house and called out to a man carrying a live sheep over his shoulders. “Can ye tell me the way to London Bridge?” he asked.

Anne tensed. “Please,” she began throatily. “I—” She broke off abruptly as the Scot’s hand around her waist moved higher under the plaid, and she felt the cold, hard blade of a knife beneath her chin. “Ohhh,” she gasped.

“My wife is near her time,” Ross continued smoothly. “Her sister lives just beyond the bridge. I’d have her there and abed before she slips the babe.”

The farmer motioned with his head. “That way. Left when ya come t’ Cannon, then right on Fish Hill. Ya cain’t miss the bridge.”

“Thanks to ye, good sir,” Ross replied, urging the black horse into a trot. “Never fear, sweeting,” he murmured to Anne. “I’ll have ye safe in no time.”

She ground her teeth in frustration. No matter how much she’d wished to avoid wedding Murrane, she hadn’t wanted to be carried off to be raped and murdered by some Highland brigand.

A voice from her childhood echoed in her mind.
Out of the pot and into the fire,
her old Welsh nurse, Janet, had always warned. Anne shivered. She’d done that, right enough. If Ross Campbell wasn’t spawned in hellfire, he gave a good imitation.

Why hadn’t she agreed to marry Murrane months ago when her father—her stepfather, Langstone, she corrected—first informed her of the match? If she had, she’d have been far from here, safe in Murrane’s stone-walled keep in Northumberland.

Without warning, she sneezed and then sneezed again. Her nose began to run, and she lifted her bound hands helplessly. “I need a handkerchief,” she pleaded. “My nose is . . . My nose—” She sneezed again and burst into tears.

“For the love of God, woman.” Ross caught a corner of her plaid and wiped her nose roughly with it.

“Oh,” she moaned in total mortification.

“Hist your wailing. Have ye never been wet before?” The stallion snorted and shied away from the bloated body of a dead dog lying in the street. Ross patted the horse’s neck and guided him wide around the carcass with soothing commands. The black laid back his ears and pranced, stiff-legged on the slippery cobblestones.

Anne whimpered, clutching frantically at the horse’s mane. When the skittish mount had leaped sideways without warning, she’d lost her balance and slid forward on the withers.

“Can ye not ride, woman?” He pulled her upright with an impatient jerk of his wrist.

“I ride well enough,” she protested, “sidesaddle. I’ve never ridden astride. This devil-beast isn’t even broken.”

Ross chuckled. “He suits me well enough. My daddy always said a docile woman or a docile mount aren’t worth feeding.”

Anne squeezed her eyes shut. Another personal need was making urgent demands on her body. “I should have turned Catholic and taken the veil, like Janet wanted me to,” she whispered under her breath. At least nuns were free to use to use a garderobe when they had to!

“What are ye whining about now?” he demanded.

“I—” A musket fired behind them. Above Anne’s head, a wooden sign splintered, showering horse and riders with bits of wood.

“Halt!” a watchman yelled.

Ross let out a wild scream, drew his sword, and brought it down heavily across the stallion’s flank. The horse lunged forward and galloped down the street. Two more shots rang out. The horse slowed his momentum and reared, snorting, into the air.

Anne kept her eyes shut. Her fingers were wound so tightly in the animal’s mane that she couldn’t have let go if she had wanted to. Ross leaned forward over her, crushing her with his body. She heard the terrifying sound of his sword swish through the air. There was a sickening thud and a man’s groan. Then the horse was running again.

She opened her eyes to see four soldiers with pikes and muskets blocking the street in front of them. Ross never hesitated. The black horse galloped straight at them, then the Scot squeezed his knees into the animal’s sides and pulled back on the reins. The soldiers scrambled aside as the horse jumped. A cry of pain told Anne that one man hadn’t gotten out of the way of those terrible hooves soon enough.

Ross turned the horse south onto Fish Hill Street. London Bridge was only a short dash away. Another group of horsemen galloped toward them from Tower Street.

“Hang on,” Ross shouted in her ear. He let go of her and pulled a tinderbox and a round leather ball from his saddlebag. Taking the stallion’s reins between his teeth again, he struck a spark and lit the fuse on the ball.

Anne screamed as a pie seller loomed up before them. The black horse dodged left around the terrified merchant, leaped over a pig, and plunged through the center of a herd of sheep. Anne lost her seat and slipped forward over the horse’s neck. She knew she couldn’t hold on any longer. Her head hung only inches from the milling herd of frightened sheep—the stench of manure and wet wool filled her nostrils. One black-faced ram, climbing on the back of another in an effort to escape, banged into her chin with his muddy nose. “Help me!” she cried.

Pain shot through her as Ross seized her by the hair and dragged her back up on the stallion’s withers. “I said hang on,” he admonished.

It was a race for the bridge. The soldiers behind them kept up a steady fire of gunshots as they pounded down Fish Hill. Ross’s horse jumped the last three ewes and a spotted sheepdog, narrowly avoiding a collision with a coach and four. Pedestrians scrambled for safety. A mule rammed into a gray mare pulling a farm cart, and the cart overturned, spilling cabbages and driver into the muddy street. The farmwoman came to rest in a puddle of water. She shook her fist and cursed as the stallion galloped by.

Anne got a strong whiff of something burning and realized that what the Scot had lit was another bomb. He’d lit the fuse, but he’d not thrown the explosive device. If he didn’t throw it soon, they’d both be blown to bits.

The big horse stretched out and covered the ground in great, powerful bounds. The traffic had thinned; the cobblestone street was clear of wheeled vehicles. Ahead of them, through the pouring rain, Anne could see the buildings at the entrance to the bridge. It was fast growing dark, and her sense of distance seemed distorted in the misty twilight. She blinked away the water that streamed down her face and into her eyes.

Something was wrong.

“Look out!” she cried. To her horror, she realized that the bridge had been blocked with overturned wagons. Armed men crouched behind the wagons. In front, wearing the green and black livery of her betrothed, Baron Murrane, were two burly retainers with crossbows and square-tipped arrows. And in the shadows, behind the ale cart, Anne was certain she recognized Murrane himself. He raised a French musket and took aim.

“Stop!” she shouted. “Don’t shoot!”

Fire and white smoke belched from the muzzle of his gun. Ross’s stallion screamed and reared sideways as a bloody furrow plowed across his rump. The Scot yanked the animal’s head to the right and dug in his heels. The black lunged forward toward the barrier.

A crossbowman raised his weapon, and Anne shut her eyes as Murrane’s men howled with the scent of victory.

Anne steeled herself for the flesh-shredding blow. The metal bolt shot from a crossbow carried enough force to pierce armor, and at this range it was impossible for the bowman to miss. Instead, she felt the stallion wheel hard to the right.

Anne opened her eyes as Ross Campbell gave another spine-chilling whoop and lobbed the bomb at the bowmen. The horse plunged through the alley between two houses. The pathway was so narrow that a jutting board grazed Anne’s right knee. She heard another gunshot behind them and the clamor of angry male voices. The Scot laughed and rose in his stirrups. Anne’s heart missed a beat as the big horse gathered his legs under him and leaped into empty space.

The last thing she remembered was plummeting headlong toward the black, turbulent waters of the Thames.

 

 

Anne choked up a mouthful of water and gasped for breath. She tried to lift her head, but something heavy was pressing her down. She spit up another great mouthful, and the world began to spin. She was falling . . . falling. Down, down into cold darkness.

 

The earth was moving under her. Not like before . . . not spinning. This time it was rocking . . . swaying. She could hear the soothing rumble of . . . rumble of wheels against a dirt road.