Deirdre (9 page)

“Oh, milady—”

“Tis madness, fey as a swineherd, I still say,” Scanlan fretted.

“Tis a leap of faith, Scanlan.” Deirdre was sorry instantly for her snapped response. She knew the priest objected out of concern. “I absolve you of responsibility. Orna, see that you make that plain to my father.”

Orna looked as pale and frightened as Deirdre should have, except that something about the danger and thought of outwitting Alric of Galstead filled Deirdre with an excitement as heady as strong wine. “Now remember, lass, if I do not return by the first hint of light, go without me.”

After their meal, she pretended to have second thoughts about remaining with Scanlan after dwelling more on the captain’s warning. She told the mate that she would leave at daybreak with the fisherman’s party, after all. He heartily agreed with her decision.

It was crazy. A second thought began to nibble like a worm at the grain of her confidence. Everything had to go just right …

“Father, I would pray before I leave.”

This was the first thing Deirdre had asked the young priest that he was willing to do without reservation. She knelt with her companions in the stern of the grounded vessel and reached for their hands, as if she might draw strength and courage from their fellowship as well as from her Maker.

“Father of all heaven and earth, we beg that You surround Princess Deirdre with angels, that her mission be accomplished by Thy will and
in Thy name and to Thy glory; that she and Orna escape the bonds of the heathen’s slavery; that there be no blood shed, innocent or nay …”

Deirdre had never taken a life. Would she be able to spill blood rather than the stuffing of a practice dummy or hack flesh rather than the bark of the sparring poles?

At the end of the prayer, Deirdre’s “Amen” came from the depths of her being.

Then, drawing to her feet, she scanned her surroundings one last time. Wimmer was asleep by the gangway. The
Wulfshead’
s guards helped themselves to a wineskin.

Across the moonlit span of water, the
Mell
rocked in the cradle of the moving tide. Its watchmen were talking to someone who’d happened down the dock. They gestured wildly, as if to reenact a battle—most likely the very one that had led to this moment.

“Godspeed, child,” Scanlan whispered as she climbed on the rail and viewed the distance between her and where the lap of the tide inched upon the sand. If she dangled first from the rail and then dropped beyond the water’s edge, she stood a chance of going undetected and relatively unharmed by the steep jump.

“Do be careful,” Orna whispered.

Deirdre managed a smiling nod over her shoulder and then twisted to ease her legs over the outer side. She arched her lower body away from the gentle curve of the side of the ship, swinging farther away each time as she counted to three. She let go, dropping hard to a crouched position, the sand muffling her fall. Holding her breath, she stayed low and waited, listening for any sign that she’d been found out.

There was no change in the cay’s lullaby of nightbird song accompanied by the gentle slap of the tide and the hushed whistle of the breeze in the lines strung from the masts. She licked her dry lips. They tasted of the salt of life. Never had she felt so alive.

With a bracing breath, Deirdre crawled into the water until she could make her way just below the surface, stopping only to refill her lungs. Faith, it was cold. Her skin surely shriveled around her quivering bones, but the chill spurred her on.

Reaching the
Mell
, she treaded water on its harbor side, her discomfort
no longer a concern. Climbing up its slick, tarred-leather side was. Fortunately, someone had dropped a trap of some sort into the water, for eel or some other sea delicacy. Perhaps one of God’s angels had arranged it for her in answer to her prayer, for it certainly reduced the risk of her being seen by the ship’s watch. All she needed to do was climb up the rope and pull herself over the side.

“Thank You, Father,” she whispered, testing the rope one more time before starting up.

Deirdre had always thought of herself as slender, but her arms felt as if she carried the owner of her dripping clothing on her back as well as herself. With each successive handhold, she considered letting go, for not only were her hands tender and raw, but her muscles felt as if glowing coals were burning her alive from the inside out.

At last at the top, she rested, securing a foothold in the length of line below her. Even the night air scorched her aching lungs. Staring at the rail, her last hurdle, she fought against the despair hammering her resolve. She never dreamed it would be this hard. Her brother shot up a rope light as a jongleur’s monkey.

Father, help me now. I don’t think I can make it.
She heard the beating of wings and pictured two strapping angels descending to take her up and over the sides, but none materialized. Instead, it was a heron making away with an ill-fated fish.

She rolled her forehead from side to side against the side of the ship. This close to Cairell’s freedom and she was giving up? It wasn’t her way to give up. Her father, and all of Gleannmara, counted on her to win her brother’s freedom. Cairell had risked his life without hesitation to protect the church from Ecfrith’s raid and had been taken. How could she save her own skin and not his?

Love for Cairell spurred her on. Recollections of her older brother carrying her on his shoulders, taking time to spar with her on the training field, making her a little wooden sword that looked like Kieran’s, complete with painted gems …

“Father, with Your grace, I can do this,” she said, clenching her jaw with determination.

With superhuman effort, Deirdre untangled her feet, taking the
weight upon her arms again, and swung a long leg up, catching her foot on the edge of the ship’s rail. With sheer determination, she hauled herself up until she lay lengthwise, panting shallow. If she was found now, she could not lift a cry for help, much less a finger to defend herself.

But God’s grace was with her. The guards were still engaged in conversation with the stranger who’d wandered down to the dock earlier. The rest of the crew had gone ashore and were either drunk or working on it. With a silent groan, Deirdre slid off the rail and crouched in its shadow. Once certain all was clear, she crept to the grate and lifted it. The rough wood bit into her hands and the weight taxed her weary arms, but she managed to slip beneath it and find a rung on the ladder leading to the hold.

It was blacker than sin below deck. What little light the moon and the mast lantern afforded identified the location of the hatch from above but was of little use in her surroundings. Blindly, Deirdre oriented herself. The treasure chest had been straight ahead, but the kegs of wine were to her right. Feeling her way into the pitch darkness, she found some barrels of the right size, but something was wrong. They were stacked only two high, instead of taking up the span between the floor and the deck overhead. The Saxons had moved the cargo around maybe even unloading some of it.

Backing up till the ladder stopped her, Deirdre closed her eyes, crushed. There was no point in wasting more time. With a light, she’d have a hard enough time finding the right keg—

Something skittered across her bare foot. Clamping a hand over her nose and mouth, she stifled a scream.
Don’t even
think
about rats …

A sudden recollection stiffened her spine with renewed hope. She had rolled the keg between the beams supporting the upper deck, so chances were it had not been disturbed. If she crawled over the keg tops, she might find it lying on its side against the ribs of the ship. Rallying, Deirdre crawled on her belly on the top of the two layers of kegs, then wriggled toward the bulkhead. Ahead of her, she heard the scramble of her unsavory companions and shuddered but pressed on. If she could just—

Above her, the loud commotion of footsteps, laughter, and singing in that harsh Saxon tongue froze her in place even as her brain screamed for her to run. She breathed deeply, forcing herself to calmness and rational thought. Raucous feminine laughter provided the reason for the early return of the crew. Their celebration was in full blow and growing more debauched by the hour. Deirdre wrinkled her nose as one of the men grumbled, slurring the general sharpness of his foreign speech.

“Don’t talk to me in that tongue, derling love,” the female chided.

“He’s lucky he can talk at all.”

That voice. It couldn’t be! What was Alric doing here? Deirdre refused to ponder the possibilities. The man was simply perverted.

“What I wish with you, my derling …” The other man paused. “What is your name again?”

“Raeda,” Alric told him. “Our beautiful Raeda.”

“Red will do,” the woman said.

The wench must have red hair, Deirdre surmised inconsequentially. And she was likely of British stock, given her reluctance to use the Saxon language—a slave perhaps, sold to a brothel.
Father, deliver us from such a fate.

“What I want has nothing to do with talking,” the other man announced, eliciting a squeal of delight.

“Not here, silly boy I’d not have the eyes of your men watching us.”

“Go on, Gunnar,” Alric conceded. “Take the cover. All I need is a blanket of stars and the moonlight for my pillow.” Now that the Saxon prince waxed poetic, Deirdre knew the captain’s friend was not the only one with an ale-sodden tongue.

They stumbled over the grate, shadows fluttering like Deirdre’s chest through the light above. Someone fell with a loud thud.

“Frig’s breath, man,” Alric said. “Must I put you into bed and tuck you in?”

“Whoa, derling!” The woman giggled. “Get up now.”

“A mane of fire, this one,” Gunnar mumbled in drunken admiration of his lady friend.

“Just a few more steps, Gunnar,” Alric encouraged.

“He won’t last long,” Red observed. “Then perhaps you and I—”

“Tempting as you are, lovely Raeda, the coin I gave you is for a full night with my friend. I have given him my promise, and he shall have it … even if he sleeps it away.”

The Saxon prince dissolved into undignified amusement. Several bumps, scrapes, and grunts later, the sound of a single set of footsteps approached the grate.

Deirdre held her breath as they staggered, first forward, then back two, then forward three. All she had to do was wait. Gunnar and the woman were no threat. As for the captain, surely it was just a matter of time before the fool keeled over, senses dead to the world.

Something crashed loudly, as if the mast itself had fallen over. Deirdre gasped in spite of herself, staring overhead at the checkered openings in the grate. The fool prince had keeled over sure enough, blocking out all but a sliver of light above her—and with it, all hope of her escape.

M
ove out, you drunken sot!”

A booming voice snatched Alric from the dreamless world in which he drifted with the speed of an assassin’s blade. Towering above him, the mast with its trimmed sail loomed like one of those cloth-draped Christian crosses against the overbright sky. Frig’s mercy, was he dead?

“Is
this
the fierce hero who captured this ship to his father’s pride?” The voice boomed again, shaking the very rafters of his mind.

Whether in heaven or a heroes’ hall, no one had the right to assail him so. Alric leaped to his feet, fist clenched, and swung at the bullish intruder. “Who dares—” His fists encountered only thin air as the man danced away with a speed that belied his size and erupted in laughter a safe distance away, the blinding light of the sun obliterating his face.

Alric’s surroundings seemed to circle and close in upon him. He fought to keep his rebellious stomach down. Nay, he could not be dead, for no such agony plagued a spirit.

“Drink the tavern dry again, Brother?” another man, tall and thin compared to the robust build and paunch of the first, taunted.

Alric recognized his half brother’s voice. Ricbert. Now Alric knew he wasn’t dead. Unless this was the pit of torment Christians feared.

“’Twas well deserved,” the larger of the two countered in Alric’s defense.

And their father. Frig’s mercy, what hour was it?

“The sun’s halfway to its zenith, Son,” Lambert answered, clearly reading the confusion on Alric’s face, “and I could wait no longer to see our prize.”

“Good thing we meant no harm to you,” Ricbert observed dryly.

“The guards would have stopped you.”

Alric’s voice was strangled, as if his tongue were swollen and stuffed like a filthy stocking down his throat. He tried to swallow, but the acrid
taste of stale beer refused to budge. Staggering, he made his unsteady way to a water barrel and dunked his head in up to his neck. The shock whipped his scrambled senses into an overwhelming state of awareness. A myriad of accusing voices thundered in his brain. What had he done to himself?

With a loud growl, Alric straightened and shook his head to be rid of them. Daggers of pain threatened to explode at his temples in retaliation, nearly bringing him to his knees.

“Hah, he couldn’t even make it to his bed.” Ricbert’s chuckle was unpleasant.

Alric offered a vulgar suggestion as to what Ricbert might do to himself, almost hoping his elder might take offense. A good fight or another pitcher of ale were the only remedies for the raging revenge of the ale keg. Curse Gunnar and his red-haired companion! Alric cast a grudging glance to the canvas enclosure where his friend and the wench slept unmolested.

“This must be the richest cargo you’ve yet to capture, if the evidence of your celebration is any indication.” His father clapped him heartily on the back and roared in merciless mirth at Alric’s discomfort.

Were it any man but his father, he would be treading water by now. Alric cut a wary glance at his half brother. It was a shame the serpent mother’s spawn was too sly to strike outright.

“We’ll see,” Alric answered, his second attempt to speak easier. “If the fight they put up is any sign, ’twill do Galstead’s treasury well. There were no survivors, save a cleric’s party of three.”