Come the Morning (26 page)

She didn't know how to tell him that yes, there would have been a tremendous difference. She wanted to live her own life, but she knew that he was a powerful, compelling man, the king's man, and he wouldn't hurt her unless forced to do so, while with the other man …

She had felt something that was mean, frightening. Evil.

“Aye, it would have been different,” she said wearily. “I never tried to kill you.”

“No? Not even when you struck me with the oar?”

“I've been fighting for my own life. I don't wish death on anyone.”

“Really. What an enlightening thing to learn about you. But when you left Stirling with Daro, didn't you imagine the two of us engaged in mortal combat, swords clashing, cries of vengeance on our lips?”

“Nay, I did not!” she swore.

His sniff in the darkness was insulting, but she had no chance to tell him so because she heard movement from behind him.

“Waryk …” she warned in a whisper.

He was instantly up. He didn't seek to help her to rise because he had moved forward to use his body as a shield for hers. She leapt to her own feet, not knowing who came now, but aware that there had been enough of the enemy for her to want to take care for her own life. Inching backwards toward the wall, she found her sword. Just as her fingers closed around it, the first man burst into the cave, a deadly battle-ax swinging. She was amazed to see Waryk's deftness as he ducked the swinging death, swinging his sword around to catch the man in his midsection while his own impetus with the ax brought him inexorably upon the deadly sword, where he was impaled.

Two men followed the first, and as Waryk withdrew his heavy weapon from the dead man, she surged forward, meeting a sword thrust meant for Waryk's throat.

“Get out of here!” Waryk bellowed to her.

“‘Thank you, m'lady,' might have been appropriate!” she cried in return, but the man she fought was lifting his broadsword and striding toward her, forcing her backwards. She would soon be pinned to the wall …

A blow to the fellow's back turned him, and Waryk was fighting both men, his sword clanging again and again as he met every thrust of steel. The enemy were not fools; they braced to strike together, and despite his strength, Waryk's sword was tossed into the air by the strength of the blows. Mellyora stepped quickly forward crying out to him, “Here, Waryk, my blade …”

He caught her sword midair and turned, taking the unwary attacker on his left midsection and ripping him to his throat. He spun again, and his second attacker was split through the center. Both men had fallen.

“By God, damn you!” he swore, unreasoningly, Mellyora thought, to the dead men. She was shaking; the carnage was horrible. But she hadn't wanted to die herself. She had done nothing to them, and they had meant to torture and kill her.

“Why—” she began, but she suddenly heard her uncle's voice from beyond the cavern's entrance.

“Waryk?”

He was silent for a moment. She couldn't see his eyes, but she felt him staring at her, as if he could see her.

“Here, Daro, I've found her!”

“Alone?”

“Aye, she's alone now!” He reached out to Mellyora. She was shaking so badly that she couldn't have taken his hand if she'd been able to see it. He caught her hand, and drew her to him, and she was still trembling so wildly that she had to lean against him.

Impatient, he swept her up into his arms, striding the distance to the cavern entrance.

“You're shaking now—when you stepped by me to attack those men?”

“Aye, well, at the time, it seemed expedient to do so!”

Moonlight touched the entrance, and she saw that her uncle and Waryk were both covered in blood.

“Daro!” she gasped, afraid that he might have suffered some mortal wound. Waryk let her down, and she rushed to her uncle. He set his arms around her.

“You're injured!” she said.

“A few scratches,” Daro assured her.

“A few scratches, nothing more. Yet there are many dead men down by the loch,” Waryk said.

She felt dizzy, uncertain, afraid. She didn't know who the men were. She was truly relieved that Daro and Waryk weren't killing one another, and she didn't want her answers to cause an argument to break out.

“Dead men,” she whispered.

“Aye, who are they? Who brought you here?” Waryk demanded. “How did they get you here? Willingly?”

Her lips were trembling. “The man—the man I thought to be coming after me again—said that he came for me at my uncle's command. He and his men were to slip me away while the two of you engaged in negotiations. But when I didn't see a guard, I knew something was wrong. He said—”

“He—one man spoke to you all the time?” Waryk demanded sharply.

She nodded her head, looking at her uncle. “Aye, one man. I'd not seen him before, and I—I wouldn't know him now. He wore a helmet. I'd know his voice—or his eyes.”

“Traitors amongst my men!” Daro swore. “Living among my people.”

Waryk was watching him, and Mellyora wondered if the king's man believed her uncle, or if he thought that this had been a trick played on him by the Vikings.

She inhaled on a sudden gasp, staring at Waryk. “He—wanted vengeance against
you,”
she said. She felt a strange, hot tremor snake down her spine as she looked at him in the moonlight. Towering in height, spattered with the blood of his opponent, his eyes hard and bright upon hers, he seemed as indomitable as the rock around them. She tore her eyes from his and looked at her uncle. “I fought with him. And I cut him, and he said that Laird Lion wouldn't have his prize, that he would … that he would torment me until nothing was left of me. He wanted the two of you to go to battle and cut one another down.”

“After you fought …?” Waryk asked.

She looked at the blood covering them both. “I eluded him. I thought that he'd found me again … You fought men by the loch—”

“Aye, but we've more horses left than men dead,” Daro said.

“Some have escaped, on foot. Someone knows the truth of what has happened here,” Waryk said.

“In these rocks, we could search forever,” Daro said.

“Let's get down the cliffs, back to Daro's camp,” Waryk suggested.

She felt cold, and still afraid in a way that she hadn't before. “What of the other men?” she whispered.

“They are gone by now, Mellyora. We'd have found them, between the two of us and Angus if they were not,” Waryk said.

She was still unnerved. “So they are free somewhere. But who were they? They had to have known your camp well—”

“Aye,” Daro interrupted angrily, “bands of warriors sometimes come and go from loose alliances such as the Vikings who fight with me, but I've never known of such a treachery. I don't know any of the men we killed, though they certainly may have been at the camp. I'll send men to retrieve the bodies. Perhaps someone will know more about them.”

Mellyora was still shaking. She was afraid to look at Waryk, though she felt his eyes, watching her, studying her, probing her soul. Determining that she and Daro were both liars?

She realized then that she'd been rescued by the man she'd been trying to escape. She'd also tried to stab him, and must surely have come close to his jugular. She had tried to beat him away with an oar, and she'd drawn his own claymore against him. Not that much else she'd done since they'd met could be construed as nonviolent.

He'd formed a friendship with her uncle, and she was glad that they hadn't gone to battle, that they hadn't killed one another, or that her uncle hadn't died for her honor.

But she was very afraid that Daro had agreed to trade her for some boon from the king. He wouldn't do so! she told herself passionately.

But her uncle and Waryk had ridden together after her.

“Fine, let's go down,” she said nervously. She turned away from the men and started to descend, hurrying with greater speed as the downward trail brought her closer and closer to the level ground below.

She was fast, but Waryk moved with equal speed. He didn't speak, and she didn't intend to, but finally, as they neared the ground and the loch, she could bear it no longer. “Have you traded Anne for me?” she queried bitterly.

“Hardly an even trade,” he murmured.

“She hasn't vast lands.”

“She hasn't a knife for a tongue,” he returned sharply.

“Did you make a trade?”

“No.”

“Then where is Anne?” she demanded.

“At your uncle's camp.”

“Then you're lying, you did trade—”

“Nay, lady, I did not. Anne and Daro have nothing to do with you.”

“Oh?”

“We can speak later,” he told her, seeing Angus before him with the horses.

“Thank God, the lady is safe!” Angus called.

“Aye,” Waryk agreed briefly, turning to Mellyora. “Can you ride?”

“Of course.”

Could she? She walked to the horse she had ridden, but before she could mount, Waryk was at her side. “Let's not take any chances, shall we? Ride with me.”

She lowered her head, then took a deep breath and spoke in a whisper without looking at him. “I don't intend to run again. I'm exhausted, and there's nowhere left to go. And you would only run me down again.”

“Perhaps not. You'll be given a choice of what actions you may wish to take, but until then, ride with me. I am only thinking of your exhaustion, and your well-being, my lady,” he said. When his crystal gaze touched hers, she knew that he was lying. He didn't trust her. He never would.

But neither did it matter. He lifted her in his arms and set her upon his horse before mounting behind her. She was tired and unnerved, cramped, sore, and cold. She closed her eyes, and she would not admit it in a thousand years, but she was glad to rest against him, to feel his warmth and strength at her back.

They made the ride back to Daro's camp in silence, and there they were greeted warmly by Daro's men, Waryk's, and Anne. She was anxious, dying to demand of Waryk and her uncle just what was going on, but she was given no time with Anne, or her uncle or Waryk, who were both ready to bathe away the blood they wore. Mellyora realized that she was muddy and bloodied herself, sore from her fight and flight. Inga ushered her into the side room and again saw to her needs. Hot water filled the copper tub, and despite her anxiety and concern, she sank luxuriously into it. She washed her hair, and Inga helped her dry it. She was bathed and soothed, re-dressed in soft linen and warm wool, and given wine to drink.

And then he was there.

Bathed and refreshed himself, resplendent in his tightly knitted wool and sweeping cloak, he stood before her, a handsome, hardened man who seemed incredibly impatient now, and would give no quarter. “It was my choice to bring Anne here, and no part of any bargain. As to you, Mellyora MacAdin, you are not required to marry me.”

“What new taunt is this? You've pursued me mercilessly, and now we're not to marry? Are you jesting?” she inquired.

He shook his head gravely, then a slight smile curved his lip. “In fact, should you wish to marry me now, you'll have to ask me, and nicely, m'lady.”

“I will never choose to marry you,” she said, stung by his hard tone.

She didn't know if his smile became more grim, or if she imagined it “But this is the king's edict—the island and property formerly held by Adin are now to be held by me.”

“I—don't understand,” Mellyora said.

“Ah, well, m'lady, lands are held of the king—of course, a laird's might and heredity do come to play in all situations. Adin held that land
of the king
. The king now chooses that I shall hold that land. With or without you, m'lady. And my dear, precious, beauty, without you seems to be my personal preference at the moment, I do assure you. I leave in the morning. If you've anything to say to me, do so before then. A wedding is planned, but alas, God knows, many such events never occur. Good night, Lady Mellyora.”

He inclined his head and departed, dismissing her completely.

Waryk joined Daro in the hall by his fire. Daro had been seated in one of the carved chairs positioned before the fire; as Waryk joined him, he rose, offering Waryk a chalice of wine.

“You've told her.”

“Aye. The choice is hers.”

Daro nodded. “There's only one choice my niece will make. If she had only realized how far David would go …” His voice trailed away. “The bodies of the dead men were brought here to camp. My men tell me that those we killed joined our group less than a month ago. One of my men told me that he found them an odd group, that their language was slightly different.”

“You mean they were not Norwegian?”

“Perhaps not, or perhaps they had been living among the Normans or elsewhere. They spoke Norman French, our Norse, the old Gaelic, even the old Saxon, but there was an accent on their Norse, as if they were not accustomed to being among only their own kind. It's very strange.”

“Indeed,” Waryk agreed, drinking his wine. Interesting. If this were all true—if Daro and Mellyora were both completely innocent of conspiracy in her last flight, then something was strange—and dangerous. She had said that the man meant to take her—possibly kill her—to deny him a prize. Someone, perhaps, who did not realize that he would take the property with or without a bride. Few men knew that—Angus, himself, the king—and he had told only Daro, and now Mellyora.

“It's very unusual for Vikings to betray Vikings,” Daro said.

Waryk arched a brow. He'd known Vikings to take mercenary positions with the troops of numerous men.

“Not in this manner!” Daro explained. “Danes have gone to war against Norse, Norse have fought Swedes, and so on. Men have had battles over land and women. But it's unusual for Vikings to live among Vikings and betray them without a word.” He swore softly in his effort to explain. “We are warriors, our battles are open, we challenge one another with our strength, we are not men who plot and plan and undermine.”