Chapter Four
Elspeth’s soft snore simply reminded Margriet that she was not asleep. Turning to her side away from the woman next to her, she barely stifled a groan as the hard ground revealed another place injured by the hours on horseback. Her hip spasmed and she tried to stretch her leg to ease it. Tempted though she was to try to walk some of the cramping away, the loud snore just outside the small tent spoke of the impossibility of doing just that. When her back joined in with its own aches, Margriet decided to try.
Since the tent was meant to give them a small measure of privacy, it stood only a few feet tall and two paces wide. Trying not to disturb Elspeth, she crawled out from under the blankets they shared and shimmied to the flap of the tent. Since they slept in their clothes, dressing was not a problem, but her hair would be.
Margriet suspected that her vanity over her hair would unravel her disguise, especially since the men and their leader had seen it when she panicked and ran from the convent with it uncovered. Women taking their vows cut off their hair before donning the veils and the presence of hers raised a suspicion about her truthfulness. And that was dangerous. After she braided and wrapped her hair, she reached into her bag and took out a woolen shawl. Draping it over her head, she peeked outside.
The man guarding the tent slept so close that she would have to step over him to get out. His loud snore, now alternating with Elspeth’s gentler one, covered her movements. Her back and hips and legs screamed in pain as she crept over him and took a faltering step away…and into the one called Sven. Luckily, he grabbed her hands and helped her to stand up before she landed on the ground.
“Sister, are you well?” he asked in a soft voice. He glanced at the tent and then back to her. “It is the middle of the night and you should rest while you can.”
At least he seemed to understand how inexperienced and uncomfortable she was on this journey. Not like the brute that led their group. He drove them on and on with a single-mindedness that shocked her. She was used to being in charge and the change in her circumstances was most likely the cause for her troubled state of mind. It was also the condition that kept thoughts tumbling around inside her mind and kept any hope of sleep at bay.
Sven cleared his throat, catching her attention, or rather her inattention, and she nodded her head.
“I need to walk a bit to work out some of the stiffness in my legs, if that is permitted?” she whispered back, trying to assume a meekness she did not feel. Men, she’d learned, liked women to act as though they had not a thought or plan in their heads.
Sven glanced across the camp and then back again. Their leader, Rurik, slept sitting up, wrapped in a dark cloak with his back against a tree. If Sven had not looked in that direction, Margriet certainly would never have spied him there.
Probably his intention.
When Sven held out his hand, she suspected Rurik had given some unseen signal granting his permission. Margriet leaned on Sven’s muscular arm as she let him guide her away from the tent. At first, they said nothing, but as they walked a short distance from the sleeping men, she could not contain her curiosity.
“Your leader does not seem happy about taking me back to Kirkvaw,” she began.
Sven snorted and then answered. “Rurik is not happy about going back to Kirkvaw.”
“What do you mean, sir? Will he not be rewarded for carrying out this task for my father?”
“Aye, he will be rewarded, but not by your father.” Sven leaned in closer as though to share some confidence with her, but his disclosure was halted by a voice from the dark.
“Sven, you should not speak of such personal matters with Gunnar’s daughter.”
Margriet jumped at both the softness and the menace in his voice. Sven merely smiled and nodded at Rurik…and walked away as though silently ordered to do so.
Leaving Margriet in the company of the one person she would rather avoid.
He held out his arm and she placed her hand there. Without a word, he led her in a circle around their camp. Each step seemed easier than the last and finally the cramping in her back and hips ceased. Rurik did not stop guiding her until she drew to a halt when they passed her tent for the third time.
“My thanks, sir,” she offered quietly as they stood next to the sleeping guard. She wondered why he did not rouse or reprimand the man for sleeping through her “escape.” He must read thoughts, for he answered the question she did not speak aloud.
“He is there for your comfort, not your safety. If I thought there was true danger in this area, none would sleep.”
“My comfort?”
“Aye. If you have need of anything, you should tell him.” ’Twas then she noticed that the man did not sleep, but watched her and Rurik from his place on the ground. But the tone of his voice drew her gaze back up to Rurik’s face.
The moon’s light was bright that night, making it easy to see his expression, but that did not make it easy to understand it. Margriet would be willing to swear that he jested, but nothing she’d seen so far in his company spoke of a temperament familiar with anything less than complete seriousness.
“So, I should not step over him the next time I need to walk in the night?” The guard listened to their every word, but said nothing himself.
“Nay, Sister.” He shook his head. “The next time you should wake him to say farewell.” The guard now made a grunt that sounded much like a stifled laugh.
Perplexed by this change in his attitude and more curious than she’d like to admit, she decided to risk asking him the same question she’d ask Sven before he interrupted.
“So, ’tis true then? You do not wish to return to Kirkvaw?”
Actually, this was only her first question—she had many, many more about him and Kirkvaw and her father. This was only the beginning.
“I would ask you the same thing, Sister. Why do you not wish to return to Kirkvaw?”
She opened her mouth to argue, but the answer she would give and the one she should give were different and not something she wished to discuss with him. And her words would reveal, she worried, more than she wished anyone to know. Again, as though he read her thoughts, he replied before she could.
“Just so, Sister. Just so.”
All Margriet could do was grit her teeth to keep from saying something, and she knew that whatever she said, ’twould not be good. Accepting defeat for the moment, she skirted around the guard, who had not moved, and crept back into the tent. When she adjusted the flap, she could see Rurik still standing outside, arms crossed over his chest, with his long cloak flowing over his broad shoulders and nearly reaching the ground.
In a low voice—one too soft for her to hear all the words exchanged—he spoke to the guard, who now did more than grunt. He spoke in the Norn of the common folk of the Orkneys and she struggled to understand. Although the lands around the convent had come under the rule of the Scottish lord Alexander de L’Ard a few years ago, Earl Erengisl was the primary sponsor of this and several other convents in Caithness. And people at his court spoke in the formal Norse of the royal court. Mother Ingrid, herself with origins from some other part of Scotland, had instructed her in the Gaelic tongue spoken here, but Margriet’s talents lay in numbers and organization and not in skills with other tongues.
Rurik’s words were calm and without anger and ended with a short, shared laugh, which she suspected was at her expense. When she leaned forward enough that he noticed her, Rurik, with an upward nod of his head, directed her back inside the tent. She blamed on her weariness that she did not argue or hesitate, but slipped back inside and lay down. This time her bones creaked but did not scream and she settled under the blankets as Elspeth slept on.
The sun rose earlier than it should have the next morning, or so it seemed to her, for she had only just closed her eyes when the order to break camp was shouted outside. At least she’d had the presence of mind to take the herbs she needed in the morning from her bag and place them within reach before she’d falle
n asleep. Chewing them and drinking a sip of water as soon as she awakened helped calm her stomach from the ills that struck in the morn.
With no time for a lay-a-bed, Margriet prayed her stomach would settle and wished that it not repeat the occurrence of yestermorn as she folded the blankets. Taking slow, deep breaths as Cook had advised, she focused on her task and on her steps as she fought the waves of sickness welling and ebbing inside of her. If Elspeth noticed, she said nothing as they watched their tent being dismantled and packed. When handed a bowl of some kind of porridge by the man who guarded them through the night, her stomach rebelled.
Elspeth stayed close behind, thankfully waving off the men who followed, and warning in stronger a manner than she expected of the girl of the sisters’ need to attend their personal needs. But when Margriet fell to her knees and emptied the meager contents of her stomach, she fell alone. The heaving continued even after its purpose was completed and it was several minutes before she sank back to sit on her heels and caught her breath.
Wiping her mouth, Margriet shuddered as the tremors calmed. The crackling of brush and leaves behind her alerted her to Elspeth’s approach. Pushing up onto her feet, she turned to thank the girl for her assistance and instead found Rurik watching her from a few paces away. The hard lines of his face could have been carved from stone as he stared at her. His gaze moved over her and she could not move under his scrutiny.
“Sir?” Elspeth’s voice shook, much as Margriet knew hers would if she attempted to speak at this moment.
She struggled against the strange hold she felt, one that made it difficult to breathe or to even look away from him. She reached up to make certain her wimple and veil were in place, for she feared she stood naked there in the light of day.
“Sir?” the girl asked again.
This time whatever spell had ensorcelled them dissipated and they both turned toward Elspeth…and Sven…and several of the others. Margriet took a deep breath and pulled her wits about her. Pushing past Rurik, she walked back toward the camp. When the others did not move to follow, she faced them and tried, with firm words, to distract them from the truth of the situation.
“Pray forgive my behavior, but I had great need of privacy.”
Believing that the less said, the less chance of being tripped by an untruth, she turned back to the path through the trees. Silence still reigned behind her, but she continued hoping that it would be forgotten.
“And pardon us for intruding on that privacy, Sister.”
Margriet nodded without turning, accepting his apology and trying to ignore the whispers that grew in loudness until she could make out a few of their words. ’Twas, however, Rurik’s voice again that stopped her in her place.
“Your retching could be heard back in the camp, Sister. We feared for your well-being.”
How should she handle this? His words gave her pause and the undercurrent of sarcasm confused her. Did she answer him now or should she wait until they could speak privately? Ignoring his challenge—and aye, it was one—could only cause more trouble. But what to say?
“My thanks, good sirs, for your concern and your assistance,” she said as she met each of their gazes, with his being last. “I fear I have not traveled often nor do I travel well and ’twould seem that my body rebels against it.”
He allowed her explanation to go without comment, for he was not yet certain what bothered him most about it—the need for it because of some condition of hers he knew not of, or that he thought it all a lie. Her hasty run from the camp, the sounds of retching that disturbed the quiet of the forest or the way her eyes took on a hazy look when she met his gaze. His gut liked none of those things, but the possibility that she lied intrigued him in a way he did not expect.
Rurik waved most of the men back to their duties, but he motioned to Sven and Magnus to remain. The lady’s well-being must be a concern and her illness two days in a row did not bode well for their journey. They—he—could not arrive at Gunnar’s house with his daughter in a cart, nearly dead from the trip. If she was to survive the journey and he to complete his task successfully, he must take her condition under consideration.
“Get your maps and meet me back in camp,” he said. “I think our plans are too ambitious for Gunnar’s daughter.”
“At least your boots were not the target this morn,” Magnus offered. “If Sister Margriet is this bad on land, how will she be during our sea voyage to the islands?”
Rurik looked one to the other and found the same grimace on both Sven and Magnus that he knew his own face wore. Still, he could recognize the problem here and forcing the woman at too quick a pace would simply lead to failure. In spite of his own delays at getting to this task, Rurik knew there was still plenty of good traveling weather before the winter’s winds and storms made the sea over which they would travel nearly impassible. So, a slower journey, a few more days on the road to accommodate the most important one in their group, would not be of significance.
“Get your maps.”
It took little time to review their planned path and decide how and where to break up their traveling. The convent was built at the southwestern edge of Caithness, in a place where the border shifted with each new lord. Initially, they were heading east to the coast, just south of where Caithness lands began, for the road, truly no more than a dirt path, would lead them past several small villages where they could replenish their provisions.
The northernmost Caithness lands, just before they reached the edge of the northern sea, was empty moorland, no forests to shelter beasts or plants that could feed them, so following the rivers or coast made more sense. It would take them several days more by that route, but it was still safer than traveling by sea along that section of the north coast. Fish and fowl would be available to them in and along the rivers they would follow, and more than make up for the additional days in their journey. At least, the land would be flat and not the arduous climbing needed to get out of these mountains that surrounded the convent.
After sending the men off to finish preparations for their day’s journey, Rurik glanced over to see the two women sitting on a fallen tree. Although both wore the same clothing, the same garb marking them as part of a religious community, he still could not picture Margriet as living there. The flash in her eyes, when challenged or angry, was certainly not the patient acceptance he would expect in someone who had taken vows of obedience. And the way her hips swayed as she walked. Or the waves of raven hair that he knew still tumbled around her shoulders and down her back did not speak to him of someone who would live willingly under a vow of celibacy.
Turning to look at the men around him, Rurik realized that he seemed the only one affected by her in this manner. The others spoke to her in respectful voices, never meeting her gaze for more than a moment or two, never reaching out to touch her hand, and never staring at her the way he did. All treated both of them with the respect deserved and owed to women of the cloth.
Except him.
Regardless of his efforts to accept the situation as presented to him, he saw only a vibrant young woman who was wasted on the church. But, accept it he must, for his task was simply to return her to her father and be done with her. There were plans even now being made for his future and he doubted they would include the daughter of Gunnar, even though he was the High Counselor.
Aye, and if truth be told, plans were in place for the lady as well. Not royalty, her father was a rich and powerful man in his own right and he also served the Earl of the Orkneys and, in his name, ruled there when Erengisl was at his other properties or on some mission for the king.
From what he could glean from Sven’s and Magnus’s words and tales, Erengisl would be leaving the Orkneys for more important things, situations within the kingdom that needed his political insight and power, and he wished to leave one of his sons in Kirkvaw, and to place the other in charge of several of their properties in the Viipuri province and their family seat in Näsby.
Watching a
s Margriet reached out her hand in a graceful motion and accepted a cup of ale from one of the men, he realized that their fathers were the same—neither from royal blood but both had amassed wealth and power by serving those who were. And Rurik knew that they were much the same as well, for they would both be a pawn in their fathers’ larger plan. For all his ruminations he almost missed her actions at just that moment. He stepped back nearer to the trees so that his presence would not alert her that he was watching her.
Very discreetly, she reached into a pocket in her tunic and then put whatever was there in her mouth. He could almost feel her holding her breath as she chewed on something. And when she thought no one was looking, she poured most of the ale in her cup into Sister Elspeth’s. Then, she took a small cloth square and wrapped the chunk of bread and wedge of cheese given her to break her fast in it. She covered her furtive movement by hiding the bundle in her pocket with her motion rising from her seat.
Rurik thought it interesting. She did not eat the food he provided, but hid it away for…what? Later? For someone else? Sister Elspeth ate her food, slowly and steadily, but every morsel and drop given her was consumed. She asked not for more, so he would think her contented by it. Sven called to him across their encampment and he strode over to him, pushing the questions aside to handle the more pressing needs of his duties.
A short time later, he glanced over to see the women being helped onto their horses and he caught a glimpse of the joy on her face when she noticed the extra blankets folded as padding to soften the effects of riding long hours. Her gaze moved to his without a moment’s delay and he found himself once more contemplating the womanly curves of the one beneath the garb.
And as the corners of her mouth tilted up in a gentle smile, his breath stopped in his chest. But when she licked her lips and mouthed the words many thanks, his body shuddered and hardened so quickly he thought he’d been struck by Thor’s Hammer.
Surrender to the Highlander Page 4
