Maids with Blades

by Glynnis Campbell

  She swayed, struggling to stay upright as the sunlight dimmed around her. Otis’s voice seemed to come from a distance, down a long tunnel.

  “There’s your advantage, my sweet. No more of Dob’s tender caresses if you tell us what we want to know.”

  Pure anger was the only thing that kept her conscious, anger at herself for not anticipating Dob’s blow. Her cheek throbbed. Though the bone hadn’t cracked, she expected there’d be a black bruise there on the morrow.

  “But for now,” Otis said with false magnanimity, “let’s set aside our grievances, eh? My gut’s as empty as a nun’s womb.”

  Helena and Colin were secured to the trunks of neighboring trees at the camp’s edge, about six feet apart, while the Englishmen built a fire and began cooking supper. Colin dozed in oblivion against the tree, but Helena’s mouth watered as the tantalizing aroma of roasting trout wafted through the clearing.

  Of course, the hostages were not to be fed. It didn’t matter that Helena had caught most of that trout. The greedy English bastards took it all for themselves. As the mercenaries huddled by the fire in the gathering darkness, their features demonic in the flicker of the flames, she watched them in sulky silence, her eyes smoldering.

  “’Twouldn’t have been good anyway,” Colin suddenly volunteered in a weak whisper. “They’re terrible cooks.”

  She snapped her head around, a smile touching the corner of her lips. Colin’s voice was feeble and breathy, but the fact that he was awake and capable of levity was a good omen. Maybe, she hoped, he was not as gravely wounded as she suspected. Still, in the fading light, she could see he was weary, his mouth tense with strain. The usual spark in his eyes was muted, like stars glimpsed through the fog.

  “What happened to your eye?” he murmured.

  She shook her head. A bruise was of little consequence. “Are you all right?”

  He sighed, and his mouth took a doleful turn. “If you mean have I been…diminished in value…nay, I don’t believe so. Yet.”

  She frowned. That wasn’t what she meant at all.

  “Or do you want to know if I’ll live long enough,” he continued, “to tell Pagan ’twasn’t your hand that killed me?”

  “Nay! I only ask, because—”

  “Quiet, wench!” Otis shouted from across the fire. “Enough conspiring. ’Tis time to consort with the enemy.” He chuckled at his own jest, and then rose to trudge over to where she sat, Dob trailing after like a loyal hound.

  Otis would expect her to name their ransomer now or suffer Dob’s pummeling. Despite the swelling beneath her eye, proof of Dob’s brutal fist, all of her instincts told her to refuse him. After all, one never gave the enemy what they wanted.

  But for once she thought before she acted.

  “Listen,” she told him, “I’ll give you what you want.”

  Otis gave her a smug smile, as if he expected as much. “That’s a good lass.”

  “But only if you grant me a favor.”

  Behind the now scowling Otis, Dob grinned and massaged his knuckles, eager to cuff her again.

  Otis’s frown turned to a sneer. “A favor? What makes ye think ye’re in a position to ask for a favor?”

  “I’ll give ye a favor,” Dob chimed in. “I’ll clout ye where it won’t show this time.”

  “Shut your jaws, Dob,” Otis said. “What’s this favor?”

  “Let me treat his wounds,” she said, nodding toward Colin. “His ransomers won’t pay for a lame warrior. Crippled, he’s no good to either of us.”

  Otis scratched his grizzled chin, glancing at Colin, who sat frowning in concern. “So I let ye tend to his wounds, and ye’ll give me what I want?”

  “Aye.”

  Colin had heard enough. Helena might be a betrayer of the worst kind. She might be selfishly motivated. She might be the most reprehensible mercenary of the lot of them. But she was still a woman, deserving of his protection. And he had the sick feeling that she was bargaining away something she might later regret.

  Bloody hell, if she’d promised to bed the bastard…

  “Wait!” he shouted, earning a twinge of pain from his thigh for his efforts. He turned to Helena. “Do not, my lady!”

  “Silence, Norman!” the leader bellowed. “’Tis between the wench and me.”

  “’Tisn’t worth it,” he told her. “You’ll only regret—”

  The rest of his words were cut off by a sudden buffet to his chin, delivered by Dob. His head knocked painfully against the tree trunk, and bright bursts exploded against the dark night.

  “Go on, wench,” the leader urged.

  “Nay!” Colin cried, his head throbbing.

  “You’ll let me dress his wound?” Helena asked.

  “Nay!”

  “Aye,” the leader agreed.

  She nodded in assent. But she didn’t disrobe, as Colin had feared. Instead, her voice as clear as a cathedral bell, she replied, “Rivenloch. Those who would ransom him are at Rivenloch.”

  For a moment, Colin was speechless. Helena hadn’t bargained away her body after all. She’d supplied the English with the name of the ransomers.

  Lord, she’d supplied them with the name of Rivenloch! She hadn’t even bothered lying. She was leading the enemy to the gates.

  The best that Colin could do was to try to muddle her response by shouting, “Macintosh!”

  She glared at him. “Rivenloch.”

  “You must tell him the truth,” Colin told her, trying to confuse their captors. “Otherwise, we’ll never be ransomed. ’Tis Macintosh, my lord. Macintosh.”

  Her eyes flared with incredulity. “What the bloody hell are you trying to—”

  “Macintosh,” he repeated. “’Tis north of here about twenty miles. In the Highlands.”

  “Macin-…” She shook her head, wanting no part of his deception. “He’s lying, Otis. The ransomers dwell at Rivenloch, some ten miles south.”

  Colin ground his teeth. If his hands had been free, he might have throttled the cursed Scots wench. How could she be so careless? She’d revealed the one location where the English might have leverage. Pagan never negotiated with enemy mercenaries, even when it came to his own men, and the Knights of Cameliard understood well his position and their duty. But Helena’s people were another matter. They might well surrender the keep for the safe return of Lord Gellir’s daughter. Which would be an intolerable sacrifice, as well as a failure for Cameliard and the King.

  And for what? So she could see to his wound and maybe preserve his value as a hostage, her hostage.

  He frowned. It would never happen. Now that the English knew the name and location of their ransomers, they’d go there with all haste. And once they beheld the extent of Rivenloch’s wealth, the mercenaries would surely not be satisfied until they received an enormous ransom for Helena. As for Colin, he’d be lucky if he escaped with his life. That is, if Helena’s ministrations didn’t kill him first.

  Chapter 9

  Helena hoped she wasn’t doing more harm than good. She’d rinsed out Colin’s wound with fresh water, pulling away the cloth that was stuck to the cut. He hadn’t said a word, but she could tell by his occasional quick intake of breath that it was painful for him.

  She’d treated numerous of her own wounds over the years, so she knew all about stitching and bandaging, using shepherd’s purse to stop bleeding, sprinkling dill seed and yarrow into an open cut to speed its healing. But restoring a foreigner might be a different task altogether. What cured a Scotswoman might poison a Norman.

  For better or worse, none of the Englishmen knew hemlock from hellebore, nor were they interested in searching for herbs in the dark of night. So all she had to work with was water, a rag, a bit of ale, and a needle and thread one of the mercenaries carried to mend tabards.

  “Here,” she said when she’d threaded the needle, handing the aleskin to Colin.

  He took a hearty drink, bracing himself, then returned the ale.

  She took a swig. Th
en another. Then a third.

  “Is that wise?” Colin asked in concern, eyeing the needle winking cruelly in the firelight.

  She swallowed. “Oh, aye.” She wiped her mouth with the back of a shaky hand, and then tossed her head, steeling herself. “You aren’t going to faint on me, are you?”

  “Nay.”

  “You won’t sob and carry on?”

  He shook his head.

  “Or scream?”

  “I don’t scream.”

  She hesitated. “If you lash out, kick me with your foot or—”

  “God’s eyes! Have mercy, wench. Get on with it.”

  Somehow she managed to do it. She tried to imagine it was only a bit of mending. It helped that Colin spoke not a word the entire time. His breathing was ragged, and sweat poured from him, but he didn’t flinch once, despite what must have been pure torment.

  After she knotted up the last stitch, her fingers began to quiver in delayed reaction to the ordeal. She mopped her moist brow with her sleeve and let out a rough sigh of relief.

  Colin looked pale, even in the warm glow from the fire. His eyes were half-closed in fatigue, his jaw lax. Involuntary tears of pain had slipped silently down his cheeks, and they dried now upon his face. His chest rose and sank with rapid, shallow breaths, and his hair fell in damp tangles across his forehead. He reminded her of the hero in the Viking tale her father liked to tell, the one in which long-suffering Odin hung speared in an ash tree for nine days.

  But what Helena saw when she looked at Colin was more than the physical manifestation of suffering and more than the masculine beauty she now had to acknowledge. She perceived an inner courage, a strength in him that made her reevaluate everything she’d ever heard about Normans. Colin du Lac was no mewling, swooning, fainthearted coward. He was as brave as any of the knights of Rivenloch, maybe braver.

  She only prayed he’d live long enough to get back into fighting form.

  As she perused his weary face, she was tempted to smooth the hair back from his troubled brow, to bathe his fevered skin with a damp rag, to wipe away the stains of his tears. It was a disconcerting desire. She hardly knew this man, and certainly she bore him no great love. Before her hands could betray her, she busied them with tearing linen from her underskirt and bandaging the wound.

  When she finished, she felt his gaze upon her, hot and penetrating.

  “I know I should be grateful,” he croaked, “but I suspect you enjoyed every poke of the needle.”

  She boldly met his stare. “Then you suspect wrong.”

  Something charged the air for an instant, arcing between them like lightning. Their eyes locked, and it was as if their spirits synchronized, forging a mysterious bond as potent and eternal as the melding of steel and iron.

  Even when their gazes parted a moment later, a vestige of that union remained, an understanding and a truth so profound that Helena found it difficult to speak or look at him again.

  “On the morrow,” she finally murmured, gathering up her supplies, “I’ll need to change the bandages.”

  “Good.” Then the incorrigible Norman managed to slip in one last word of impropriety, breaking the tension with his ribald humor. “A few more days of making bandages, and you won’t have a stitch of clothing left.”

  Colin dozed fitfully. Partly because of his aching wound. Partly because his senses were fully alert, given that he slept among the enemy in the wilds of Scotland. And partly because his emotions concerning the beautiful, scheming Scots abductor dozing a few yards away roiled about in his head like boiling oil.

  Was Helena angel or demon? Did she care for his welfare, or was she only concerned with his worth? He thought he’d uncovered her true nature, that she’d aided him for purely selfish reasons. After all, if he perished, she would not only lose her hostage and thus her bartering power, but she’d also be held accountable to Pagan for his death. Naturally she’d want to treat his wound. Her own well-being depended upon it.

  But then she’d stitched him up, and though he’d been distracted by the painful trial, biting back groans of agony, blinking back the tears that leaked unbidden from his eyes, he grew dimly aware that it was an ordeal for her as well.

  And afterward, when he’d caught her gaze, when she’d denied feeling pleasure at his pain, he’d never glimpsed a face more innocent, more honest, more vulnerable. Sincerity pooled in her eyes, and he felt in that instant the same closeness of spirit he sometimes experienced when making love with a woman.

  It was absurd. Helena of Rivenloch was not to be trusted, no matter what he saw in her eyes. She was impulsive and conniving and unpredictable. And she hated Normans. She’d started this venture with treachery in mind, and though things had progressed far beyond her intentions, it was still her fault they were here. She would say anything, do anything to advance her own cause.

  Including, he thought ruefully, bewitching him with those wide green eyes of hers.

  Helena woke before the others. The ground was wet with dew, her belly ached with hunger, and her wrists were numb where they were bound behind her. She peeked over at Colin. Thank God, no wolves had devoured him in the night. He seemed to be breathing, and no blood oozed through the bandage on his leg. She hadn’t killed him with her doctoring after all.

  Arrows of sunlight shot through the pines, and she knew the mercenaries would rouse soon. Meanwhile she needed to sharpen the strategy that had been taking shape in her brain.

  Colin had thought it was a mistake to give the English the name and location of Rivenloch, but Helena knew better. She wasn’t so foolish as to lead the enemy up to the castle walls. Still, the closer she was to allies when she overpowered her abductors, the better their chances were for survival, and the more likely a party of knights from Rivenloch could ride out afterward to hunt down the English. It was a risk, aye, but like her father, she found it nearly impossible to turn down a wager. Hopefully, her luck would run more favorably than Lord Gellir’s.

  She glanced again at Colin, whose brow furrowed in his sleep. The Norman didn’t trust her judgment. Despite all she’d done to save his leg, to say nothing of saving his neck, still he had no faith in her. It cut her to the quick.

  She sighed softly. On the other hand, perhaps it was for the best Colin didn’t comprehend her plans. At least when the time came for deception, he wouldn’t give her away.

  The rest of the camp woke gradually. The mercenaries passed out a breakfast of coarse maslin bread and watered wine to their captives, not out of kindness, but in preparation for the long journey ahead.

  It was a long journey, especially when Helena measured it in Colin’s limping gait, in the ashen pallor of his face, in the sheen of sweat that glistened upon his throat as he struggled along the makeshift path between his two captors.

  By late afternoon, it was clear she’d have to take action sooner than she expected, though they were yet miles away from Rivenloch. Colin could not endure much more travel. Already blood seeped from his wound again, staining the linen bandage. Indeed, the only good news was that the mercenaries’ southward path had brought them close to the cottage in the wood. When she did manage to secure their escape from these savages, they wouldn’t have far to go for shelter.

  “His bandage needs changing,” she told Otis, as they entered a clearing in a thick copse of sycamores. “And I need to find herbs to stop the bleeding.”

  Otis frowned. “Doesn’t look all that grave to me.”

  “If he loses much more blood, you’ll have to carry him.” As if to lend credence to her statement, Colin’s knees buckled, and only the quick reflexes of the men beside him kept him from completely collapsing.

  Otis spat, obviously irritated with the delay. “Very well,” he growled. “Dob and Hick, take her to look for her damned weeds.”

  She took her time finding the shepherd’s purse, though it grew rampant along the path. The English wouldn’t know the difference, and the delay would buy her time to put her strategy into play. After
a long while, she at last pretended to spot the plant and directed Hick to cut several pieces for her.

  When she returned to the clearing, Colin was propped against a tree, dozing, and Otis paced impatiently, eyeing the setting sun.

  “What delayed ye, wench?” he snapped. “We could have been there by now.”

  A hundred acid retorts sprang to her mind, but she bit her tongue.

  “I’m no more happy about this than you are,” she told him companionably. “I’d hoped to drain Rivenloch’s coffers by now.”

  Otis’s brows shot up. “Indeed? And why should ye wish to drain its coffers? Ye said ye belonged to Rivenloch.”

  “Aye,” she said with a snort, “I belong to Rivenloch. For years he’s kept me as a slave.” She gazed dreamily off into the distance. “This was my chance to take revenge, holding his favorite Norman hostage.” She emitted a bitter little laugh. “Now instead you’ll ransom the both of us and return me to my slavery.”

  Otis’s brows converged as he considered her words. Helena turned away then, satisfied. She’d planted the seeds of doubt. Though the deception had only begun, it was enough for now that she’d got the Englishman to thinking.

  “Will you loose me now so I can dress his wound?”

  Otis cut her free, but kept her well guarded as she changed Colin’s bandages.

  She swallowed back trepidation as she beheld her handiwork of the night before. Though her stitches had held, blood still leaked from the wound. She crushed the shepherd’s purse and pressed the leaves gently against the cut, tearing another strip of clean linen from her garment for binding. Colin was probably right. In a week, she’d have ripped all of her underskirt to make bandages for him.

  Just as she tied up the ends of the linen, Colin’s eyes fluttered open. “Water,” he grunted.

  She nodded. “Otis, do you have fresh water?”

  She saw Otis flinch at her use of his given name, but he nonetheless complied, tossing her a half-filled skin of water he’d collected earlier from the stream.