Come the Morning (24 page)

Ragnar offered Anne a hand. She cast Daro a last dazzling smile and departed with the huge warrior. “Laird Waryk?” Daro said, and bowed, indicating his hall.

Waryk entered ahead of Daro, aware that his back was exposed, but also that Angus and his men waited behind Daro. If there were any treachery here, they might die because of the overwhelming numbers, but they'd bring down a dozen or more of the enemy before they did so.

But Daro entered behind him and strode by him, pouring wine. “You'll pardon me?” he said, sipping from the wine. “I wouldn't want you to fear that we were trying to poison you.”

“Not the Viking way,” Waryk said dryly, accepting the chalice from Daro. “But I thank you for the assurance. You had promised my safety. I wasn't afraid of your men, or your wine.”

“I didn't want the least suspicion to mar your enjoyment of my hospitality,” Daro said. He drank from a chalice of wine he then poured for himself, watching Waryk. “What you have done is truly extraordinary, generous, and merciful.”

Waryk grinned. “Not so, merely logical. I understand the king's fear regarding Vikings, since invaders do upon occasion continue to come from the Nordic countries, and create mayhem here from our own islands. But I don't see outsiders as our real enemy now. With the English schism creating so much bloodshed there, keeping our borders strong against Norman invasion seems the expedient course. And if David trusted Adin, then he should trust his brother.”

“Ah, but he wanted you on my brother's property because he was afraid of it becoming a Viking stronghold.”

“Your brother's property became very important with your brother's death. Vikings have too often ruled too many islands—they still do. David doesn't intend to lose Blue Isle. Its positioning is far too strategic. He needs it.”

Daro nodded. “If the king had told Mellyora that she'd be removed if she didn't agree to the wedding, she'd never have tried to escape the arrangement. You might have been saved a great deal of aggravation.”

“Have you told her yet?”

Daro shook his head. “But I will do so, now that you are here. She hadn't slept much for days, and last night—before I had received your message—I had herbs put in her wine to allow her to rest. But I will get her now, and explain the situation before she meets you.”

“Inga!” he called, walking to the opening. A middle-aged woman with long braids entered at his bidding. “You must waken Lady Mellyora now and tell her that I'm coming in to speak with her.”

Inga went to do as bidden.

“I'm curious,” Daro said. “After all Mellyora has put you through, you might have chosen to have her set aside. I had, in fact, heard rumor that you were to marry the widow of a border lord.”

“If I take the property without your niece, Daro, we both know that some men will revolt, and I'll have to kill them. I don't wish to kill people for their loyalty.”

Daro nodded, and lifted his wineglass. “Well, Laird Waryk, I welcome you then, I thank you for your intervention in my life, and I pray that you'll remember, I do love my niece. And I hope that you won't want to kill
her
either.”

Waryk hid a grin. “I intend no violence,” he assured Daro, then added, “other than in self-defense.”

Daro shook his head. “You don't know Mellyora.”

“I feel that I am beginning to know her very well.”

“Aye, well, she can be headstrong. But once she realizes her position, her home will mean more to her than anything. You'll see. Ah, there's Inga now. Is Mellyora ready to see me?”

The woman was obviously distressed. She glanced at Waryk, and spoke in her Norwegian tongue. “Mellyora is not there.”

“Not there?” Daro said, frowning.

Was it a trick? Waryk wondered. Daro looked completely surprised and confused, but that could be part of an act.

“What do you mean, not there?” Daro demanded then. He didn't wait for the woman to respond, but walked across the hall, throwing open a partition to a smaller room with the personal trappings of a woman's sleeping quarters. Following behind Daro, Waryk saw that the side room was empty. He felt a curious tightening within him. An ivory-handled brush lay on a dressing table along with two dragon-headed, hammered-gold bracelets. He could almost breathe in her scent; the bedding was disturbed, as if she had just risen. He hunched down and touched the furs and linen sheeting on the bed. Still warm.

“Perhaps she has gone … to see Anne, maybe she heard you arrive, went for a walk around the camp,” Daro said with lame confusion.

“Perhaps it is a trick?” Waryk suggested very softly.

Daro paused, his mouth pursed, as if trying to decide whether to draw his sword, or deny the accusation.

He opted for the latter, though his teeth gritted between words as he spoke.

“I swear to you, as I gave you my word, that it is good. I have not sent Mellyora away, and I am not hiding her. To what avail? You will gain your riches with or without her, and the death of a few men may be regrettable to you, but it will not change the fact that the king has given you the estate.”

He was telling the truth, Waryk determined, even if the slightest suspicion still plagued the back of his mind.

“Ragnar!” Daro called.

The Viking's man quickly entered the hall. “Mellyora is missing.”

“Missing?” Ragnar seemed as perplexed, as if he didn't comprehend the word.

“Aye, gone!” Daro said. “Search the camp, find out who has seen her, or any activity, she cannot have simply disappeared.”

Angus had entered behind Ragnar. Waryk bowed his head just slightly, indicating that Angus and the others should follow the Vikings, and ascertain if the search was real.

Daro stared at Waryk. “I did not do this,” he said. “Perhaps she heard talking … maybe she awoke when I didn't know it and heard people saying that I had invited you here. She may have thought that I was simply trading her to you for Anne, though that was a suggestion she had given to me. She's proud and reckless herself, but she never meant to put me at war with the king. She said that she wanted no bloodshed.”

Waryk made no comment. He was of the opinion that Mellyora would have loved to see Daro shed a great deal of his blood, slicing and dicing him to pieces.

“If she ran within your camp, surely your men would have seen her. And from here, where would she go?”

“I don't know,” Daro said quietly, and he sounded more concerned than he had before. “It would not be like her to run from me.”

“Umm,” Waryk murmured.

But at that moment, Ragnar came into the hall, heavily burdened by the bulk of the bleeding man he carried. Waryk and Daro quickly made way, and Ragnar laid the man down before the fire. He had been run through with a sword, and was bleeding profusely and was barely conscious.

“It's Oso, who was guarding the gates,” Ragnar told Daro quickly. “He was attacked earlier.”

“By whom?” Daro demanded.

Ragnar shook his head. “He couldn't say. The men were helmeted, and he was taken so quickly, he didn't recognize any emblems on the helms, cloaks, or shields, or surcoats.”

Oso inhaled in great, gasping breaths. He clutched Daro's arm. “Men … many men. Rode … south. Heard … the crags at the loch. From there … want to reach the … border.”

The man's eyes closed. He lay back, ready to die with his message told. Waryk could see the fierce loyalty the man had given Daro.

“Inga! Staunch his wounds, call for help. Ragnar, guard the camp.” Daro was quickly on his feet. “Laird Waryk, we ride,” he said.

Waryk was already striding out, whistling for Mercury. Damn her. He didn't like the fear he felt. Had she gone willingly with a pack of fools pretending to be her uncle's men?

Had she known that they were false?

And had it mattered?

“Waryk, we'll find her,” Daro said.

“Aye,” Waryk said, mounting his horse, his eyes on Daro. “We ride together.”

“I've ordered men to follow—”

“Aye, but we've little time. My men will follow as well, but we'll ride now, immediately, you, Angus, and I.”

“Aye, we'll waste no time.”

Was she in trouble, or simply creating more mayhem? Waryk didn't know. But if he got his hands on Mellyora this time, he was going to see to it that she didn't escape again if it meant chaining her hand and foot and casting her into the deepest dungeon.

The moon was high in the sky when they finally slowed their wild rush across the hilly countryside. Mellyora saw that they had come to very rocky countryside where great crags and boulders rose above a small, shimmering loch. The cliffs and caverns here, she thought, offered a natural protection against attack and a maze of hiding places.

“See to the horses,” Mellyora's rescuer ordered, dismounting from the horse and reaching up to her. “My lady?”

“Don't touch me.”

“Get down.” He reached for her despite her protest, bringing her to the ground. Her instinct was to run. There were perhaps twelve men surrounding her. Now was not the time.

She surveyed her surroundings in the night. Caverns opened to the rocky shore of the loch. Men, and even horses, could disappear within the wild terrain of rock and crevice.

“Come,” her unknown captor told her, reaching out a hand to her, “there's a place I know you'll be safe from the king's lackey.”

“Where will I be safe from you?” she asked.

He smiled. “You don't know the Norman, do you?”

“I don't want a war. Who are you?”

“Your uncle's men, my lady.”

“You're lying.”

“Come with me.”

He reached out, grasped her arm, and thrust her forward. She felt her sword against her thigh, covered by the enveloping cloak she'd been forced to wear. She didn't draw it now; it wasn't the time.

He prodded her along the bank of the shore to a rough path that led upward along a rugged crag. In the darkness, it was an eerie place, but she was accustomed to such wild outcroppings; the landscape could be very similar along the ocean where she lived. She knew this kind of crag. The rock could be jagged and then smooth; the formation might be riddled with little caves, some barely large enough for a fox, some wide and never-ending. A cool wind was whipping around her, and the clouds covered the moon. The sense of her own peril filled her, along with dismay that she had been so easily duped into helping with her own abduction.

“My uncle had nothing to do with this.”

“Again, I tell you, you didn't want to marry the Norman lackey.”

“You are trying to force a war,” she said.

“There is always a war,” he told her. “Take care, the going is getting rougher. Here, give me your hand. We can move more swiftly—we wouldn't want you to fall.”

She pulled back, trying to stare at him, but his head was covered by his helm, and she realized that she would not know him if she were to see him again.

“No, I'm going no farther. Who are you? What are you trying to do? If my uncle is hurt or held responsible for anything in this, I swear, you'll die—”

“Ah, so speaks great Adin's daughter! But Adin is dead, my lady, and you are a girl, at my mercy.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don't make mistakes. I am my father's daughter!”

She was instantly aware that she should have thought more carefully. He pulled his sword, setting the point of it against her throat.

“I think, my lady, you will do as I say.”

What a fool she'd been, believing in a man she'd never seen, and so furtive an escape from her uncle's camp. Who was he indeed, and did he dare kill her? Was she a pawn he needed for his own game?

“You're going to kill me?” she inquired, fighting her fear and speaking contemptuously.

“If you force me, my lady.”

“Well, I don't wish to die, so I'll move on,” she said impatiently, pushing the sword aside. She gathered the skirt of her gown and swept quickly on, her heart pounding ferociously. The ground was precarious here, but he might not be prepared for the fact that she was as surefooted as a goat and could manage the terrain—given half a chance.

She quickly kept going, up, searching the cliff. There were numerous trails surrounding it, some going higher, some lower. The rock formation stretched like a trail of giant boulders cast down from the sky. They lay in the shadowed streaks of moonlight like strange white, jagged teardrops.

“Are you even a Viking?” she asked sharply.

“Ah, well, yes and no, lady. Viking, Norman, Scotsman, what difference? I am my own man, first and foremost.”

“You are a coward, stealing a woman, leaving Daro to take the blame.”

“What difference does it make? He is betraying you, that is true enough.”

“How?”

“Laird Waryk had arrived for you, my lady. That is the truth. Your uncle intended to hand you over in exchange for Anne MacInnish.”

“He wouldn't make such a trade. If Waryk had come—”

“At your uncle's invitation.”

“Then there was a reason.”

“It doesn't matter. The lion may roar forever. You are one prize he will not be seizing. God knows, lady, he may be dead already. He comes for you in good faith, and you are gone. A Viking trick. Accusations fly, swords are drawn! Perhaps I've done you a greater service than you will do me. Ah! I can see it in my mind's eye, a wondrous picture. The great Waryk arriving with his part of the bargain, Anne, as promised. But alas, the Lady Mellyora is gone—vanished once again. A treachery, played out by Daro! Two such great warriors! Daro the Viking, Waryk, the Scottish king's great champion. A sword will be pulled in anger, they will each accuse one another of deceit and treachery and … one will lie dead. The Scotsman must surely die, even if he slays your uncle first. Because if he kills Daro, Daro's men will kill him.”