Snow in July (16 page)

’Twas worth a try. For the battle seemed to be dwindling, leaving no clue as to the victors. Regardless of who’d been fighting whom, someone would come for her soon.

She set the wine and food down, shoved aside the rugs, and tapped on the floor, feeling a rush of satisfaction when the hollow sound confirmed her guess. Upon moving a chest standing on bare wood, she discovered a rope handle attached to a square set of bound planks. She gave the handle a firm tug.

Fierce barks burst from the hole, along with an even fiercer stench.

Hand to mouth, she stumbled back.

When the noises subsided, she crawled to the hole for another look. Growling began, low and menacing. Acting on faith that nothing was going to leap out at her, she dropped a few beef strips into the abyss. The sounds of greedy gnawing replaced the growling.

Why would the outlaws keep a starving hound in an escape tunnel?

Before she could puzzle out an answer, she heard shouts and the renewed clash of arms. With a whispered apology, she closed the hound’s prison, replaced the chest and rugs, snatched her remaining supplies, and bolted up the stairs. She fled into the opulent upper chamber, slammed the door, and braced it with her body, her chest heaving in time with her runaway heart.

Someone with a heavy, uneven tread thumped up the stairs. She whipped her head around, searching for anything that might serve as a better weapon than her dagger. But in this den of plush luxury, nothing presented itself. Nothing except…

The hearth—of course! She scurried over, grabbed the poker, and thrust it into the hottest embers for as long as she dared.

The footsteps thudded closer.

Fighting to control her breathing and her shaking hands, she took a position beside the door, cocked the glowing poker, and waited.

CLUTCHING HIS side, which was aching and bleeding freely where one of the outlaws had struck a lucky thrust, he dragged himself up the last few steps. By all accounts Kendra was being held in the uppermost chamber, but he needed the proof only his eyes could supply.

Even if she proved to be his final sight on earth.

He reached the landing and paused, gasping, to marshal strength. She might be guarded inside the room, though heaven alone knew how he’d battle a flea, never mind anything larger. In the heat of combat, he had killed the tower’s guard before thinking to ask the man how many of his companions were stationed within.

Of Ruaud’s fate he couldn’t be certain. They had become separated soon after entering that Godforsaken maze, when foes kept leaping out at random intervals like sparks from a pithy fire. Alain thought he’d heard his friend’s cheerful swearing after he had won free of the maze to reach the windswept summit, but whether or not the sound had been a trick of his battle-engorged senses, he had no idea.

After the initial clash, Alain had lost count of how many men he had maimed or killed. He shifted his hand to examine the flow of blood, unable to recall which outlaw had inflicted the wound. The number of men surviving to mount a second attack, he had no wish to contemplate.

As he stared at the door, pondering his next course of action, its edges blurred. Soon the loss of blood would render most options impossible.

He sucked in a breath, raised his sword, yanked on the handle, and stormed into the room.

Searing agony branded his torso.

As he gulped air, his knees buckled, and he fell. Darkness enveloped him. With the darkness came a single, devastating thought:

I have failed. Again.

RUAUD D’AUVAY tore through one of the huts near the dock, hunting for something to quell his hunger. As near as he could tell, all the brigands had either departed—thanks to Alain’s foolhardy but brilliant ploy—or lay stiffening under the stars.

Poking into casks, boxes, and open shelves yielded him two loaves of crusty bread, a generous fistful of dried beef strips, a cheese wheel, and all the wine he could swill.

Not a bad start.

He slung a full wineskin over his shoulder, lopped off a hunk of cheese, and carried it along with the beef and a loaf outside. He selected the side of the hut that gave him a view of the marsh and maze’s entrance, though he doubted any threats would come from the latter quarter. He and Alain had made short work of the ill-trained, ill-armed men.

As he chewed on the beef and washed it down with the surprisingly good wine, he reviewed the fight. Not counting the three who had escorted the Normans, the bargeman, and an unknown number who had abducted Lady Kendra, Ruaud and Alain had either killed or duped another three dozen outlaws. That made for a sizeable band by any reckoning, but Ruaud could not recall seeing anyone who had acted as the leader.

An unpleasant thought made him swallow his cheese hard. He eased it down his throat with several swallows of wine.

What if the outlaws’ leader—in all likelihood their fiercest and most skilled warrior—was guarding Lady Kendra? How would Alain, weary from captivity, battle, crossing the marsh, and climbing the hill, fare against such a man?

The lad’s passion for his bride ought to help, but every body had its limits.

He changed positions, but the angle prevented him from seeing the summit and the tower that crowned it.

Resolve flared in his heart to make sure Alain and Lady Kendra were all right.

Ruaud collected himself for the ascent, but his left knee buckled as pain shot up his leg. He massaged the knee hard, willing the pain to abate, with no success. One of the fatherless sons had connected with a savage kick, toward the end of the skirmish, after Alain had broken away to go after the woman. He judged himself fit to fight on level ground, but the injury rendered climbing damned nigh impossible.

As if in a dream, he became aware of faint, angry shouts wafting across the marsh. The outlaws, no doubt, but why they were shouting Ruaud couldn’t begin to guess. Brawling among themselves, perhaps?

Or had they found their dead companions?

He chewed on that thought a while, the implications souring more with each passing moment. If the corpses had been discovered, the men would return to confront him and Alain—probably were en route already. And they knew this lair far better than Ruaud did, in spite of any defense he could devise. Alain and Kendra, in the tower, would be safe enough for the present, unless they’d been captured.

In either case, Ruaud’s injury had rendered him powerless to assist them.

A skiff tied to the dock presented another option: he could cross the marsh and seek help. According to Alain, this hill lay near Thane Ulfric’s demesnes.

By God, that arrogant Saxon should be dealing with this lawless band! Not King William’s knights, who knew little about the land and less about its people.

Although Ruaud preferred the honesty of open combat, a fresh spate of muted shouts convinced him to hurry. Even if he neared the outlaws out on the marsh, the thick fog should shield him from notice.

He limped into the hut to refill his wineskin and replenish his food supplies, stuffing everything into a musty but serviceable sack. Upon striding to the dock as briskly as his knee allowed, he tossed the sack into the skiff’s bow, stepped in, sat, and began rowing.

Bracing his feet against the skiff’s sides didn’t put too much strain on his injury, and he made good progress.

Progress to where remained the key question.

For, unlike when they had traveled toward the island, with its conical shape peering through the mist, Ruaud had nothing by which to navigate. He could be rowing in circles and never know it.

He mused about Alain’s penchant for prayer, wishing that he, Ruaud, had cultivated similar habits. Surely God wouldn’t bother heeding the supplications of someone who hadn’t bothered with Him until well into his fourth decade of life.

And yet he couldn’t let the logic deter him.

“Holy Father, I—” Biting his lip, he frowned. It seemed brash to petition God directly, when he didn’t feel worthy to address the most minor of saints. But he had no idea which saint to call upon in this situation, so he let the skiff drift while he shut his eyes and hoped for the best.

“Father God, I know I haven’t thought about You much over the years, but You must have seen how well my friend Alain honors You. I ask—no, I beg for Your help. Not for my sake, but for the sake of Your faithful servant Alain and the lady he loves. Please deliver them from their ordeal.”

As he added a gruff “amen,” a thought occurred that he hoped would ensure his petition’s success. “And if it should please You, Lord, to deliver me from this infernal swamp, I promise to be more faithful in worship henceforth!”

“DEAR GOD, no!”

Kendra dropped the poker as the familiar figure crumpled at her feet.

The poker and the body hit with loud thuds. He wasn’t dead—his ragged breaths attested to that fact—although he would be soon if she didn’t stop the bleeding from that nasty gash in his side.

Too bad her aim hadn’t been lucky enough to cauterize the wound.

But since he was already unconscious, one more burn couldn’t make any difference to him, and it could make all the difference in his survival.

She snatched up the poker and hurried over to the hearth. While the iron heated, she dragged him the rest of the way into the room, shut the door, blocked it with a heavy chest, and set about collecting pillows and coverlets to make him comfortable.

Once he was arranged to her satisfaction, she studied his attire. The jerkin, unevenly tanned and slashed in myriad places, appeared to be too tight to remove without risking further injury to him. She drew her dagger and sliced away enough of the leather to expose the wounds.

The scrapes and scratches had long since stopped bleeding, but blood welled from the deadliest gash. She found one of Dragon’s clean undertunics, tore off several strips, and pressed the thick wad firmly into place. He groaned and writhed but didn’t wake. After repeating the process with two more wads and tossing them aside, she was relieved to note that the flow had become a slow oozing. That, however, could change with any abrupt movement he might make. She applied another strip.

Stroking his limp hand, she glanced at the glowing poker while debating her plan. She despised the idea of having to hurt him again, but his condition left her with little choice.

When she couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer, she stood, retrieved the poker by its wooden handle, and returned to his side. She removed the last bandage wad, pulled the ravaged flesh together as best she could and, grimacing, applied the heat.

His agonized moans wrenched her heart. To say nothing of the wretched sight and even more wretched stench of his charred flesh. Fortunately, he remained unconscious. She laid the poker on the hearth, moistened a clean cloth with water from the basin, and swabbed his sweat-beaded face, unsure of what to do next.

To heal the pain, you must endure the thorn.

She gave her head an impatient shake, rocking back on her heels. That, again. Why now, of all times? This was Glastonbury, true, but the Tor could still be crawling with outlaws, and she stood a better chance of flying to the moon than obtaining the legendary plant.