The Last Quarrel (The Complete Edition) (32 page)

He dropped, landing heavily again and cursing as his left ankle turned. He pushed himself up and hobbled on, adrenaline covering the sharp pain for now. He was beginning to feel a mixture of relief and triumph as well. There were people all around and all he had to do was find enough guards and watchmen to stop Eamon and he was safe.

He limped and hobbled along, attracting plenty of curious glances and whispers. It gave him a little reassurance, knowing that Swane would never be able to cover up his death now. But that was cold comfort indeed and he struggled onwards, hoping he would find Kelty or at least one of his officers down there. He stopped for a moment, consumed by the fear that Swane’s deception did not end with Eamon. Had he bought Kelty and the other guards as well? Would he and his father order men in to arrest Swane, only to have them turn?

A cry of pain behind him made him spin, to see Eamon and a knot of guards shoving roughly past dock workers.

Cavan redoubled his pace, teeth gritted against the pain in his ankle. At the entrance to a massive warehouse, he spotted one of the city’s leading merchants, a plump man who had bored him to tears at a recent banquet. But now he saw him as a shining savior.

“Dylan! Please, help me!” he shouted, his voice ragged from all the running he had been doing.

The merchant turned in surprise and hurried to his side. “Your highness! Aroaril, what has happened to you?” he asked worriedly.

Cavan could only guess what he must look like, after a day of clambering over filthy roofs and then his desperate pursuit through the alleyways. “I’m being hunted. They are agents of some enemy to the Crown. If you help me you shall receive my everlasting gratitude and all the gold you can carry,” he said hurriedly.

Dylan’s eyes lit up with avarice at the thought and he signaled to the guards on his warehouse. “Protect the Prince!” he ordered.

Eight of them hurried out of the warehouse, all burly, tough-looking men armed with staves and long knives, veterans of a score of dockyard brawls and battles with thieves. Cavan felt much better as he saw them form a line between him and Eamon’s guards.

“Do you know where the harbor master and his men are?” he asked.

“At this time of the day, they should be in their office, about one hundred yards that way.” Dylan pointed.

“As a final favor, can I have one of those staves to help me? My ankle is agony.” Cavan held out his hand towards one of the long, thick staves. They looked to be the classic Gaelish shillelagh, the ends stiffened with iron, the center polished smooth by years of use. The thickness of a man’s wrist and the length of a leg, they were a wicked weapon in skilled hands. Cavan had more use for it, however, as a tool to help him hobble along.

“You heard the Crown Prince. Hand it over,” Dylan ordered and one of his men reluctantly handed over his hefty staff, drawing his long knife instead.

“This will not be forgotten,” Cavan promised. “Now where is the harbor master’s office again?”

Dylan pointed and Cavan hurried off in that direction, while Dylan took up position behind his men. Cavan looked over his shoulder as he went, making much better progress now with the aid of the staff. He saw with pleasure that his former guards were all slowing down at the sight of the burly warehousemen.

“Stop right there!” Dylan ordered, made bold by the fact he was being watched by a score of people, as well as the Crown Prince, while he had a muscular wall between himself and the advancing guards.

But Eamon did not check his stride for even an instant. He charged into Dylan’s men, sword flashing in the last of the day’s sunlight. A warehouseman tried to block him with his shillelagh but Eamon reversed his swing with deadly skill and flicked the sword back, ripping open the man’s throat in a spray of blood.

The other guards rushed in as well, hacking and cutting. A warehouseman screamed as his arm was cut off at the elbow, while another’s howl of agony was abruptly cut off as a sword first tore open his stomach and then took his head.

That was enough for Dylan’s men and they scattered, while Dylan fled for the dubious safety of his warehouse, ignored by Eamon and the other guards, who only had eyes for Cavan.

The wounded warehouseman cried out as a sword finished him off then Eamon was striding through the puddles of blood, sword held high.

The crowd around needed no further evidence and scattered to the winds, leaving Cavan feeling very alone on the docks. He pushed his pace along to a run again, although it was an ungainly thing and he could feel Eamon and the rest of his guards gaining on him with every step. Even with the help of the staff he could not make much speed: his ankle was stiffening with every pace. Just to put weight on it was agony now. He had tried to stay fit but all those late-night banquets and particularly the last few days of enforced inactivity were coming back to haunt him now. His legs were shaking while his lungs felt like they were filled with stone. Just to drag in a fresh breath was exhausting. He hawked and spat and that seemed to clear his throat a little but what he really wanted to do was sink down and catch his breath.

Of course there was no chance to rest and he forced himself on towards where Dylan had indicated the harbor master’s office and sanctuary waited. He tried not to think about arriving there to find it empty.

Footsteps on the cobbles behind him made him spin to see a pair of guards sprinting at him, obviously aiming to slow him down enough for Eamon and the others to catch up. Or maybe they planned to kill him – both held swords and looked eager to use them, as both were bloodied from the slaughter of Dylan’s warehousemen.

As they got closer, Cavan swung around, spinning the staff in a furious circle. The guards feinted at him, jabbing with their swords. He used the staff to deflect one blow and skipped aside from another, although that move left his ankle protesting furiously.

One darted in and Cavan jabbed the staff at his face, catching him on the nose with a solid blow that sent him reeling away.

There was no time for congratulating himself, however, as Eamon and the others were only paces away now. In desperation he turned from the main docks and down one of the wharves, past silent ships, hoping against hope that there would be someone down there to help him. But although his mind was full of fantasies about a crew full of loyal men, or even an inspection by the harbor master and a company of his men, there seemed to be no one about. The odd watchman vanished back on board as soon as he saw the armed men approaching.

On and on he went, until he reached the end of the wharf and discovered there was nowhere else to run.

“It has been a good chase but it is over now. Stop, highness. There is no point in jumping into the water. Much better to die like a man on a sword than be forced under and drowned like a rat, which is what we shall do if you go in,” Eamon said, his breathing ragged but nothing like Cavan’s desperate gasps.

He hated his former bodyguard for that alone.

Eamon looked calm and in control as he strode down the last few paces of the wharf, his guards at his shoulder, their faces set and hard.

“I did not expect you to be this resourceful. It goes to show that you cannot judge a man until you place him in a life or death situation,” Eamon said. “But it is over now.”

“Give me a sword at least and a chance to fight for my life,” Cavan challenged, tightening his grip on the stave.

Eamon laughed. “Why would I do that? This is not some bedtime story. I have to kill you.”

“Why?” Cavan asked, hoping to keep him talking. Surely someone would have found the harbor master and brought him down here by now!

“You would not listen to me. You had to go and set a trap for your brother. And if you had only let me out of the rooms to deliver a warning, we could have gone home to a hot meal and a cold drink, none the wiser.” Eamon shrugged.

“What did it take to make you betray me, traitor?” Cavan spat.

Eamon did not answer; instead he leaped to the attack.

Cavan swung his staff furiously, viciously, but Eamon blocked one blow then twisted his wrist and the staff was wrenched out of Cavan’s hand to land behind him.

“Time’s up, your highness,” Eamon said, then drew back his arm for the final thrust.

Cavan braced himself for the blow, then Eamon staggered backwards, his face twisting in shock.

“You?” he cried out. “But how is this possible?”

Bridgit stared around their makeshift prison and wondered what in Aroaril’s name she was going to do now.

The children had devoured the flatbread, but that had not been the end of the problems.

Not long after, the women began to wake up and that was when everything started.

They cradled and fed their babies, hugged their children, wept for lost husbands, lost homes, missing children and for fear of what was happening.

“Where are we?” Devlin’s wife Riona had been the first to ask. “What has happened to us?”

“Is it selkies? Are we all to be eaten? Where is everybody else?” Brendan’s wife Nola cried.

Bridgit had been trying to think of a way to answer when all the children looked to her.

“She knows. They took her out and she came back with bread,” Will said.

Bridgit took a deep breath. This was not going to be easy. “We have been taken by the Kottermanis. They are going to sell us as slaves.”

The shouting and sobbing drowned out everyone’s attempts to speak. Seeing all the adults so upset just made the children worse. The ones without mothers were almost inconsolable. Despite her words with the Kottermani Prince and the deal she had been forced into, Bridgit did not want to be responsible for everyone. Of course she would help but she was not a leader. People did not listen to her – they listened to Fallon. She was just a wife and a mother. Yet now she could not sit back and listen to this. Before she thought about it – and stopped herself – she jumped to her feet and strode down through the cabin.

“Quiet! That’s enough!” she roared at them.

Most of the women were so surprised that they did indeed stop and look at her, while almost all of the children were silenced by the anger in her voice.

One or two of the younger women, the nursing mothers, those she did not know so well, were still crying, rocking backwards and forwards while holding their babies. Bridgit stormed across to one of them and grabbed her by the shoulder. It took a moment or two to recall her name – Ena, married to a farmer called Murphy, although Bridgit could not have remembered her baby’s name if Kerrin’s life had depended on it.

“Enough: this is not helping!” she told the woman.

“What have they done with us? What are they going to do to us?” Ena sobbed.

Bridgit glanced down at the baby in her arms, the one she had been nursing while Ena slept.

“I know how you’re feeling,” she began gently.

“No, you don’t!”

“Really? Do you see my son anywhere around here?” Bridgit demanded.

“So? It’s not the same!”

Bridgit bit back her angry words. “You’re scaring your baby, and everyone else,” she said coldly.

“They should be scared! Our lives are over!”

Bridgit glanced over her shoulder as the noise of crying redoubled in the rough wooden cabin. Even that quick glance told her the other women were now thinking the same. This was taking too long. Sense alone was not going to quieten them down. So she slapped Ena, rocking the woman’s head back with a blow that left a red imprint on her face and silenced her instantly.

“No more,” she said, breathing heavily and stepping back to glare around the crowded cabin. “I will not hear that again. Our lives are not over unless we let them be. Now, is there anyone else who does not want to listen to me?”

The women were staring at her in shock, while even Ena had stopped her tears and was instead holding her reddened face as if she could not believe what had happened, looking at Bridgit as if she were a spring lamb that had suddenly reared up onto its hind legs and showed both claws and fangs.

“But Bridge, what are we going to do?” Riona asked in the silence.

“We are going to survive,” Bridgit said firmly. “I will tell you where the rest of the women and children are. They’re in other cabins, just like this, somewhere else on this ship. They might even be able to hear us now, we are making such a wailing and a whining. Everyone is safe; everyone is alive. They want to sell us as slaves, which means they see us as valuable property. They think they are safe, they think sacking Baltimore was their crowning achievement. But they have made a terrible mistake by taking us.”

“And what’s that?” Nola asked.

“They left the men alone. Fallon and the others will come for us.”

“What can he do? What can any of them do?” Ena demanded.

Bridgit saw how everyone, even the youngest child, was hanging on her next words, so she threw back her head and laughed. The sound stopped even the smallest sniveling from the children as they looked at her. “You don’t know him very well, do you?” she said finally. “There is nothing he won’t do. He’s bloody mad like that and he’ll drag every other man along with him. The nobles won’t lift a finger to help us because all we are is a tax number to them. A fisherman is worth so much, a farmer maybe a little more. If a whole village went, they would moan at the loss of revenue but then go back to their hunting and forget about us. But our men are different. Do you think Fallon or Brendan or Devlin are going to rest until we are found?”

“They will try. But what can they do?” Riona sighed.

“They will do what they have to. Until then, it is up to us to stay strong. What do you think they will say if they fight their way across the sea only to find we have given up and been lost?”

“But how will they even know where to come? We all thought it was selkies stealing our people,” Nola said.

Bridgit smiled. “Fallon knows it was men. And we left enough evidence behind to prove that. I made some of those bastards bleed, broke a few of their weapons as well.”

“Aye. I saw her. I remember now. It was like some warrior out of the old days,” Ena said into the silence.

Bridgit saw new respect in the way most of them looked at her and felt herself bask a little in that warmth. “We must be strong. Stronger than we thought possible,” she told them. “We have to stick together and keep the children safe. Nothing else matters. And we must hold to the hope that this will end and Fallon and the others will come for us, find a way to get us back. Until then we must not cry: we must give them nothing. We have to show them how strong we are. Now, can you do that for the children?”

“And what of the other children, the ones whose mothers are elsewhere on this ship?” Nola asked.

“I will take care of them. Although I would be grateful for a little help.” Bridgit smiled.

“And you shall have it,” Riona declared.

“Good. If I find out more from the Kottermanis, then I shall tell you more. Until then, relax and do what I say. I don’t know how far away the Kotterman Empire is but it is a long way. This trip is likely to last a half-moon or more.”

Bridgit let the other women break apart into small groups of friends and joined Riona and Nola, gathering the lost children to her as she did so.

“A good speech, my friend. But do you really believe it?” Nola asked softly.

“With all my heart. They will find a way to come for us.”

“And if they do not?”

“Then we will find a way to get back. I will get back to my son,” she vowed.

“I am pleased to see you like this but I am also surprised. I would have thought you desolate at the thought of losing Kerrin,” Riona admitted.

Bridgit looked around carefully. “This is between the three of us,” she said softly. “Kerrin was not taken. He had been having nightmares, so he and Fallon dug a hiding place underneath the tool chest. I hid him there and then went looking for these bastards with his old training sword.”

“He escaped? You are sure of this?” Nola gasped.

“Keep your voice down! Yes, the Kottermani Prince all but confirmed it. He thinks I am childless and alone.”

“Still, I thought being separated from him would have driven you crazy,” Nola said.

Bridgit nodded slowly. “As did I. But the knowledge he is safe keeps me warm inside – it is like a secret they cannot take away from me. And then when I saw the other children here it was as if they were all the ones I lost, and I was chosen to protect them.”

“Bugger the kids – what about us?” Nola said.

Bridgit grimaced. “It is only between we three but they did not know what to do with us. They thought us too old to be useful and the children too young to be worth anything. I persuaded them otherwise but we have to show them we are deserving of our place on this ship.”

“Too old?” Riona snorted.

“Look on the bright side. Looks like we won’t be called on to serve in any bedrooms,” Nola said.

“Some men like the more mature woman,” Riona said, giving her a nudge. “They go for riper flesh.”

“Let’s hope they’re the ones who are also sagging, just like us,” Nola chuckled.

“It is not something to laugh about. We all know women and young ones on this ship who will be looked on with lust by these Kottermanis,” Bridgit said sadly.

“Surely not the younger ones!” Nola said fiercely.

Riona and Bridgit exchanged a look. Riona’s eldest were both boys but Nola’s oldest daughter was fourteen summers and another was turning thirteen. As for Riona’s boys, maybe they would be safe on board but maybe not. And who knew what sort of Kottermani would buy them?

“Who knows what these Kottermanis plan?” Riona said.

Bridgit grabbed hold of Nola’s arm as she began to rise. “They will not harm them. They see them as valuable property,” she said. “They are safe for now. But if we anger them, we can’t help our people later.”

“If they hurt my girls –”

“We have to be clever if we are going to help them. Shouting at our captors only makes our families a target,” Bridgit insisted.

Nola glanced over to the door and Bridgit saw how torn she was.

“Please, trust me. I will save them. I will save us all but I need your help to do it.”

Reluctantly, Nola subsided. “Agreed. So what do we do now?”

Bridgit sighed. “We need to get organized, so some of us are looking after the children and the others are resting. Get some more food and water. And get some buckets or something in here or we’ll be in more danger from the smell than from Kottermani swords.”

“Sadly, too true,” Riona said.

Bridgit guessed word had spread among her captors that she had spoken with Prince Kemal and been shown some favor by him. She was also sure that they did not know exactly what the Prince had offered. So she decided to lie instead. At first it was hard, pretending to be confident as she demanded more food and water as well as wooden buckets for waste. At first she was too polite and they ignored her. Then she lost patience and began shouting at them.

“Take me to Prince Kemal and I shall tell him you are disobeying his orders,” she raged.

The Kottermani obviously spoke little Gaelish but he recognized his ruler’s name and when she saw the sudden fear on the man’s face, she knew she had found her leverage. Soon more food and water and two large wooden buckets had been provided and the women busied themselves setting up the cabin for what would be a long journey.

“This beef tastes good. But I thought they would keep the meat for themselves,” Riona remarked as they ate.

“That’s probably one of your cattle,’ Bridgit said. “They took everyone else’s livestock, so no doubt they took ours. They’ll eat well on the way back to Kotterman.”

Riona put down the beef rib she had been chewing. “Now that has ruined my appetite,” she complained.

Bridgit smiled in sympathy and moved on. She tried to keep herself busy, for it was only when everything was quiet that thoughts of Kerrin and Fallon filled her mind. And to think about them too much could destroy her. She just hoped they were together – and coming for her.