Squire's Honor Page 19

  And there was also the still-lingering, ever-dark notion of actually employing the brigand to make Marigween vanish.

  But what if Montague wouldn’t do it? Yes, she’d be assured he was a changed man—but what if he went to Christopher and mentioned the plan to him? Then Christopher would distort her own sincere intentions to help. He would see her presence as merely an assurance of Marigween’s death. He would think of her as a cruel, conniving, selfish, devilish woman. Everything would be ruined.

  No, she couldn’t go through with it. She shouldn’t tell Montague about the plan. She fretted over what to tell him now. She’d set him up and now she’d have to deliver. What more could he do for her that would make her forgive him?

  “Still thinking of things I can do?” he asked, his tone slightly higher and a trace playful.

  “I had something in mind,” she admitted, “but it won’t work.”

  Once again, the line edged forward, and its movement must have reminded the fat man of his first offer. “I can still get us to the head of this line.”

  Brenna thought it over. It was a very thin olive branch, but one nonetheless. By taking the offer she was opening herself to him, only a little to be sure, yet it would be a first tiny step toward granting him absolu­tion. It was hard to realize she was actually thinking about forgiving him when only a moment ago she had thought that that would be impossible, a fact driven home by the brigand’s own words. To harbor resent­ment was wrong. She wasn’t going to absolve him by the next moon, but there was no reason why she shouldn’t let him do little things for her—at least for the time being.

  She nodded her assent, and they shuffled out of line and headed toward the west side of the building, where Montague said there was another door.

  “If you want my forgiveness,” Brenna said, “you’ll have to earn it. And that might take more than your life­ time.”

  “All I can do is try,” he replied in earnest.

  Brenna paused. “I still hate you,” she told him, but knew her tone and expression spoke only weakly of the fact.

  5

  Marigween sat numb and bare on the cabin floor, surrounded by three damp, ale-breathed members of the deck crew. A three-foot plank with holes drilled in each end was forced between her ankles. Ropes were threaded through the holes and coiled around her legs to hold the wood in place. Another rope was fastened to the plank’s center, pulled taut, looped into a slipknot, and dropped over her head. Her wrists were tied together and a long length of rope snaked away from the bindings. One man slung that rope over a ceiling beam. The others gathered around, and Marigween felt her arms lift suddenly over her head as they heaved her into the air until she was three feet above the deck. They fastened the rope to another beam and then left under the barking of the captain.

  It was excruciatingly hard to keep her legs up—but she had to—for if she were to let them fall toward the deck the rope fastened to the plank between her legs would choke her. She guessed she had only several moments worth of strength to main­tain this position. The captain knew that and hurried out of his clothes, even as the last sailor sealed the hatch above him. He hastened to the bed and dragged it under her. He slid onto the mattress and began to massage himself, resting only inches below her groin. Marigween turned slowly. Her body was a single tensed muscle that trembled with a failing exertion. Her ankles edged down a bit, and the rope tightened its grip around her neck. She gasped, then swore to herself over her failure to keep the vow she’d taken to stay detached. To connect with the black moment would put her into it.

  The captain let out a loud moan as he entered her, then, after thrusting in and out a few times, he left him­ self deep inside her. He reached up to Marigween’s thigh and pushed her. As she rotated around his shaft, she closed her eyes.

  It was worse this time, far worse than the first occa­sion he’d raped her. That night she had tried to stop him, but he had hit her and then screamed, and then he had pulled out his dagger and put it to her throat. She’d never felt that alone, that hurt, that violated, that help­ less. She’d blamed herself for what had happened, and now kept telling herself over and over that she could have stopped him, that she should have stopped him, that there was no reason for it to have happened. She was a princess. She was strong. He should not have had his way with her.

  But these were just ineffectual thoughts.

  She imagined what Christopher would think if he saw her now. He would not love her the way he had. He would look upon her as he would a whore—with dis­dain. It was all her fault. She had wanted to leave the cave; no one had forced her. She’d risked her own life and the life of their child. Now Baines was gone, and she spun above a grunting, smelly creature.

  All she had to do was drop her legs, let the rope have its way with her. She would stop breathing and go to the castle of heaven, where she would join her father and mother. She imagined white, white edged in silver, and shadows made of wool that glided and floated and spread their wings and carried her toward the sun. It was beautiful, and there was no rise and fall of the ship, no sounds of the waves pounding against the hull, no moaning from the poison-breathed Saxon.

  There was singing. Joyous singing. And it came from a chorus of little girls dressed in white robes. She felt their voices direct her to be with them in a place that was everywhere and nowhere, a perfect expanse of blue. Then a bloodcurdling cry cut off the image, and Marigween opened her eyes.

  Seaver stood over Jobark. The short man gripped the hilt of a dagger that was buried in the coughing cap­tain’s heart. Marigween’s legs collided with Seaver, and he ceased her rotation. Then he yanked the dagger from the captain’s chest and used it to saw at the rope fastened to the plank and her neck. It took several cuts before the rope finally snapped.

  “What are you doing?” she asked weakly, thinking that he probably wanted her body now.

  “You want to die, don’t you?” he asked affirmatively. “Yes.” She wanted to add something, but thoughts wouldn’t collect into words. The pain was terrific in her wrists, and the muscles under her arms felt as if they had been tom to shreds. She just wanted to make it stop, all of it, all of the hurt inside and out.

  “I need you alive,” he said, then he stepped around the bed, hopped up onto it, and began to cut into the rope that suspended her.

  Marigween’s gaze found the bleeding captain. His wound was small, a simple slot in his hairy chest out­ lined in blood. There was not a lot of blood, but enough to catch the eye. More grotesque was the blood spat­tered about his mouth and neck, the blood he’d coughed up just before he’d died. He looked as if he’d sat down to a meal of raw meat with his hands tied behind his back.

  As Seaver continued to saw into the rope, Marigween felt the captain’s shaft slip out of her groin. She shud­dered with the idea that a dead man had been inside her. She felt a gag come on which she swallowed back. She felt the rope give way, then fell onto the captain’s legs, the plank between her legs smashing into the dead sailor’s throat. She was no longer suspended, but her legs and wrists were still bound. She tensed with the hope that Seaver would free her. She might be able to steal his dagger.

  “I’m going to explain something to you,” Seaver began, shifting around the bed to regard her with a stem expression that reminded her of her father. “Now that Jobark is dead, the crew’s going to run free. Houge, the first mate, will assume command—but these sailors won’t listen to him.” He leaned toward her. “Do not for­ get you’re the only woman on board.”

  He didn’t have to clarify his last statement. She hadn’t had the chance to count, but she presumed there were at least a dozen hands on board. “Let me die. Please. Don’t keep me like this,” she begged, then blinked back tears.

  “We’re getting off this ship at the next port,” he said. “But to make it there you’re going to be the captain and he”—he looked to the corpse of Jobark—“is going to be you.” She didn’t understand. He read that and added, “This eve you’r
e going to don the garb of the captain, and you and I are going to dump his body overboard. I’ll tell the crew the body is you. I’m sure it won’t be the first time a woman was disposed of this way.”

  “And then what?” Marigween asked. “How long do you think I can pose as the captain?” She snickered. “We’ll be lucky if any of this works. And why should I go along with it? How do I know you’re not lying?” Then, without realizing that her frustration had increased the volume of her words, she shouted, “What is all of this”?

  He slapped a palm on her mouth and said, “You’ve got no one left but me. I don’t want you to die. And your being Christopher’s bride doesn’t change that. Now, you’re going to go along with my plan because you don’t have a choice. I could tum you over to the crew. Jobark’s little amusement here is nothing compared to what they’d do to you.”

  Slowly, he lifted his hand from her mouth. She breathed deeply, then said, “Don’t you think the crew will recognize me even with the captain’s clothes on”?

  “You’ll don a cap to hide all that hair,” he explained. “Once we’ve gotten rid of his body, you’ll be sick in your quarters for the rest of the ride. I’ll guard the door myself.”

  Marigween wondered if sometime during the whole intended affair she might be able to break free. She’d wondered that many times before. But now she came to a conclusion she should have come to much earlier:

  Once free, where would she run?

  She could jump ship, but she’d never be able to swim home. The cog had no dinghy, so that wasn’t even an option. The only path toward true freedom would be to kill every man on board and pilot the ship herself. Marigween had been stripped of a lot, but she still pos­sessed the wisdom to differentiate the possible from the impossible. She’d closed many mental doors in the recent hours, and had strayed toward the remaining open door of death. Seaver had come along and unlatched a new passage of opportunity, one which would at least get her off of the cog. The prison of water would be gone, and she would only have to contend with him.

  But she still couldn’t shake off the desire to die and the oppressive idea that she was tainted and would be unwanted by Christopher. Even in freedom she would still wear the wounds of her rape, wounds that ran deep and would probably never heal.

  And what if she grew with child? What then? Would she carry around the baby of a dead Saxon sailor for nine moons? Could she cope with that burden?

  Marigween felt her hands come free. She hadn’t been aware that Seaver had been untying her. He moved to the bindings on her legs, saying, “Were I you, Marigween, I’d follow orders. That is, if you want to stay alive.”

  Indeed, that was the question that consumed her thoughts. She felt her stomach lurch as the bow of the cog was lifted by a wave.

  Seaver hadn’t planned on killing Jobark. As he untied the Celt girl’s legs, he thought about how he might have done things differently, but he kept reaching the same conclusion: the murder of the captain. When they had been up on the forecastle, the captain’s tone had angered Seaver, but he’d kept his emotions in check. No rage had festered, and no quest for revenge had tunneled his sight. It was a new plan for the future which had made the stabbing come together. First, he’d decided that it was Woden’s will that he kill Christopher. Then he had realized that without either the Celt girl or the squire’s child, Woden’s wishes would remain unfulfilled. Woden’s wishes were much more important than the petty desires of Jobark. And at once Seaver had viewed the captain as a mere obstacle.

  He looked down to Jobark’s body. She’s mine now,old friend. He finished untying the girl and handed her his dagger, which she took almost apprehensively from him. “There’s my trust in you—right in your hand. We’re both prisoners, and I’ll get us off of this ship.”

  She turned the point of the dagger toward her heart. He was about to lurch forward to stop her, but the knife fell from her trembling hand. She closed her eyes and bowed her head.

  For a moment, Seaver sympathized with her. He’d thought of taking his own life after Christopher and his friends had escaped from the castle. The feeling had been a hunger never satisfied, a large hole in his being in which everything had passed through. He’d been turned into a man of nothingness. And he’d thought that if he was nothing, what did it matter to go on?

  That was how Marigween felt. And she should. She was caught in the middle of a private war, a pawn—as the Celts would say—in the higher orchestration of Woden. Seaver looked upon her, and truly, he felt her pain. It had once been his own, and still, even now, it lurked in the shallow water of his heart, threatening to surface at any time. Yes; he was a great leader of men. What was he now? If he asked himself that again, per­ haps he’d use the dagger on himself.

  Someone pounded on the ceiling hatch. Seaver slipped the remaining rope from the Celt girl’s ankles. “I’ll see to that,” he said, turning away toward the lad­ der. “Be silent.”

  Orvin wanted to throttle the cocky captain of the Pict cog. He thought of how he had nearly stran­gled Merlin, and figured this time he’d see the act through to its life-taking finale. Yes, it would be no problem at all to kill the man right where he stood on the wharf, right before his boat and his crew.

  “Can you repeat that?” Doyle asked the young, blond, woman named Jennifer.

  “He says,” she answered slowly, “that he has no desire to take on any passengers.”

  Christopher frowned. “You told him we’ll pay him, right?”

  Jennifer nodded. “He doesn’t seem to care how much we’re willing to pay. He says he has a schedule to keep and every bit of weight aboard his ship has to be accounted for. Our extra weight will slow him down.”

  The oldknightgroundhis remainingmolars. “Nonsense,” he said. “If there’s one true law in this realm it’s that every man, king or beggar, has his price.” “But he’s not from our land,” Christopher pointed out.

  Orvin flipped the young saint a hard look, then pro­ceeded toward the skipper. The Pict was a head shorter than Orvin—but he didn’t seem to mind that fact as Orvin arrived before him and drew himself erect. He stared into the captain’s gray, unflinching eyes. “Jennifer, tell him we’ll pay equal the value of his entire cargo for passage.” Orvin was in awe of his voice; the words had come out with more force than he’d antici­pated.

  Even Doyle looked awed. “Are you mad, Sir Orvin? No disrespect, but how do you propose to raise such a large sum?”

  “We’ll borrow it,” Orvin said, thinking quickly, the muscularity of his tone softening. The idea was to get the captain to agree to take them and worry about payment later. The logic was faulty to be sure, but Orvin thought it best to cross this stream one stone at a time.

  Jennifer let her tongue twist and tum and flit about the Pict vocabulary, and all of it sounded like the mid­ night talk of drunken knights. When she was done, the Pict captain flashed his canine teeth which were slightly larger than they should be and lent to him a houndlike appearance.

  But whether he looked like a dog or not, he’d clearly read straight through Orvin’s bluff. Now he shook his head negatively to confirm that fact.

  Orvin spun around. “Blast!” He felt the air escape too quickly from his lungs. He coughed, coughed again, then saw the young saint approach. The boy beat a palm on Orvin’s back in a feeble but well-intended attempt at aid.

  “Don’t get yourself so upset,” Christopher told him. “It’s not worth it. There has to be another way to catch up with that cog.”

  A small group of sailors had gathered on the star­ board side of the cog to watch their captain negotiate with the Celts. Orvin could hear them laughing at him now, the captain chuckling the hardest and loudest of all as he strode back toward the gangplank.

  “How dare they mock us!” Orvin growled as he tore himself away from his young apprentice to leer at the hooting Picts. He waved a fist in the air. “Your day will come! Arthur and his army will take care of you!”

  Both Doyle and C
hristopher moved in front of him as if they suspected he was about to charge the ship and take on the crew. He felt the desire to do so, but his rea­son overpowered his temper. “It’s all right, boys,” he told them, feeling himself shrink a little. “I’m not going to do something rash.”

  “You already have,” Doyle noted sourly. “Not that I mean any—”

  “Disrespect?” Orvin asked, clipping the boy off with a tone of equal tartness, one he hoped hinted of his chal­lenge.

  “Let’s go,” Christopher suggested. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”

  Orvin recognized the wisdom in the young saint’s words. The longer he remained on the wharf, the greater the chance his temper would get the best of him again. And the next time his reason might not be able to save him. He sighed and turned toward the shoreline. Christopher, Doyle, and Jennifer joined him. With the breeze at their backs, they headed for firm ground.

  “When do you think the next Celt ship will arrive here?” Doyle posed to the group.

  “Someone at the Customs House might know. They must keep records of arrivals and departures,” Christopher said. The young saint’s voice conveyed his enthusiasm for the new idea.

  What these boys failed to realize was that even if a ship, Celt or otherwise, did drop anchor as early as the morrow, it would still be some time before it finished its business in Blytheheart and was ready to leave. Add to that the uncertainty of whether the captain would take them on as passengers, and the fact that the Saxon cog would, by that time, have reached its next port, and the idea of waiting for another ship became an exercise in stupidity and futility.

  But Orvin wouldn’t douse the young saint’s hopes. Not yet. Not until he at least checked on ship arrivals with the customs master.

  Less than half an hour later, they all left the Customs House. Their ears rang with the news that the next Celt cog would not arrive for at least another quarter moon. There was no telling when the next Pict or Saxon cog would arrive, as the foreign captains were under no obli­gation to surrender their logs. The customs master fur­ther explained that in his opinion it would be at least several days before any ship arrived, and he based that opinion on the similar schedule of the past moon.