Exactly how long she swam, she didn’t know, but when she paused again, arms aching, legs numb, and her breath coming much too hard, she was forced to face the possibility that she might die in the water, after all. The fog was swirling around her and she no longer had any idea where the shore was. The lake seemed very cold and her body piteously weak.
Trust the water. Once again she seemed to hear a voice inside her head. Trust the water. Yes, yes. She had swum here many times—since her childhood, in fact. She had challenged these dark waters on the night when Alan had lain injured in the woods and Roger had pursued her, caught her, and made sweet love to her in the same cottage where Francis had just revealed the truth about Will’s death. Roger, Roger. He was nearby. He was not in the Middle Sea, after all. If she could only manage to survive, she would see him. She would hold him in her arms. She would kiss him and touch his strong, lean body; she would inhale his musky, seductive scent; she would feel once again his clever hands, his hot, insistent mouth. The image energized her, sending new power through her aching muscles. She swam harder. But still she seemed no closer to the bank.
Treading water, she stopped again and looked around. Nothing. Nothing but cold, rough water and gray mist. What if she was swimming parallel to the shoreline? But surely she was close–so close to living. She couldn’t let herself drown!
Altering her direction slightly, she struck out again, arm over arm, legs kicking, over and over. Again. Again. It doesn’t hurt. I’m strong. Anyway, there’s the baby. Have to get ashore because of the baby. Wouldn’t mind if it were just me… but I have a child to think about, to protect. I will not let my wee one die!
Time drifted; her body grew increasingly weak. Gradually her thoughts began to change: The water’s not cold anymore…feels nice. Pleasant. Trust the water. Is there truly a sea serpent in these waters? Perhaps I’ll see him. We’ll talk, make friends. He’ll teach me the secrets of his abode, and I’ll tell him what it’s like on land, on earth, with my friends, my family, the people I love.
Oh God, Roger. The babe! Swim, move, keep afloat. There. Farther. Good, good. Again. No. No. Can’t—too tired. Arms won’t work. Rest a little; the water will buoy me up. Trust the water. Lovely water. Soft, like a pillow. Warm.
From somewhere a warning flitted through her brain that the water was not warm at all; that if she thought it was, something was wrong with her. What could be wrong? she wondered. She felt peaceful, safe. Nothing was wrong. Fool! said the Voice. You are dying.
It was true. Her body was already beginning to feel like a thing apart. She could look down upon herself from somewhere above the lake; she could see a gasping, flailing woman with sodden red hair clawing at the water as it inexorably dragged her down. She watched the woman’s struggles, marveling at her tenacity, her refusal to accept that this was the end. Why was she fighting? It was peaceful here. There was a light around her spirit, warm and bright and beckoning. There was a feeling of freedom and ecstasy more powerful than anything she had ever known. Yet even so, she felt strangely reluctant to leave her body, particularly while it was still struggling. She drifted downward again, watching, listening. Too close—her body grabbed her. She cried out as once again she felt the cold, once again fear arrowed through her. And suddenly she sensed the presence of another being, another person struggling, a smaller, younger being who was even more desirous of life than she.
Heavy with guilt, she tried to explain: Oh, my babe, I’m sorry, so sorry. We’re not going to make it after all. Forgive me. I love you, I love your father. I tried, I really tried to stay alive.
What had Francis said? “When the water enters your lungs, ‘tis said to feel euphoric. Surrender to it.” Mmm. Euphoric. Surrender.
She was sinking beneath the surface when something hard scraped her bare feet. She jolted up, gasping for air, and dimly saw, through eyes that had spots dancing before them, bushes, trees, rocks, and solid ground. To die when safety was so close? Impossible! With one last surge of strength she fought her way through the last few feet of water and crawled up onto the rocky shore. Shivering and coughing, she collapsed upon her belly, her mind and body numb. Can’t pass out, she warned herself. Too cold—you’ll die if you pass out. But her eyes fluttered shut anyway. You fool, Alexandra, it’s cold and raining, thunder crashing—you’ll die! Go to hell, she told the Voice. I’ve done enough; it’s not in my hands anymore.
Besides, she did not think she would die. She was in her body. In it. With her babe. The light, the vision of unearthly peace, was gone. Her time had not yet come.
Closing her eyes, she let seductive unconsciousness take her.
*
On the far side of the lake, Francis Lacklin jammed the bottom of the rowboat against a rock until the bottom seams split. His strength was superhuman, born of anger, born of grief. He wedged the half-sunken boat in between two rocks, where it would appear to have been flung up by the storm that was now spitting lightning and emptying a flood from the black clouds above his head. The entire force of the storm seemed to be directed at him. Nature enraged; God’s judgment. Or Alexandra’s spirit taunting him.
He sagged against a boulder and let a sob tear at him, then another and another. She was dead. He’d tried to save her—no sooner had he thrown her in than he knew he couldn’t do it after all. Not to her. She’d saved his life. She’d known his feelings for Roger yet had never once condemned him. She was intelligent and brave and bright; a candle in the dark, as Roger called her. She was the only woman for whom he had ever felt a flicker of affection.
He’d held out the oar and shouted at her to grab it, but she must have thought he was trying to strike her with it. He’d seen the expression of fear and horror on her face. She’d believed he was trying to make certain of her death. Of course she believed it. He’d just tried to drown her, hadn’t he?
Sick at heart, he’d dived in after her, but she was already going down. He couldn’t find her. Over and over he dived. Deeper and deeper, until he had barely had the strength to pull himself back to the surface. He called for her, screamed her name, but there had been no answer. Silence. Mist and rain, condemning him. No red hair, no intelligent green eyes… never again, except in his dreams. She was dead, and he was damned.
Francis lay against the boulder in the driving rain and fog, expecting each moment that a lightning bolt would send him sizzling to hell. Surely a just God would not let him live after the foul crime he had committed. Forgive him, Father. She had prayed for him. She had even offered him a remedy for his cough!
He sobbed again, his big shoulders heaving against the rock. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried. Not even the tragic error of Will’s death had made him cry. It had made him desperate, aye, but he had shed no tears.
Father, forgive him. But there was no forgiveness. There was no justice. Indeed, it occurred to him for the first time in his life that perhaps there was no God.
He stayed there until the storm was spent, never noticing the rain or the cold, hardly feeling alive. You’re not just killing my babe and me; you’re killing yourself as well.
Killing himself. Francis sat up and slowly drew the dagger from his sword belt. He stared at its blade, turning it over and over in his hands. He remembered the serenity he had felt on the riverbank when he had believed—indeed, been convinced—that he was about to die. Why hadn’t he died that night? Roger would have remembered him with love; Alexandra would have survived. And her child. Was there really a child? Alix and Roger would have lived together in love and joy, producing children of charm and wit, bright, laughing children, red-haired, dark-haired, with expressive brown eyes, dancing green eyes.
His mind was wandering, he realized.
He stared at the dagger again, debating. Could he continue to live with this sin upon his conscience, or was it better to end his miserable life now? He thought back briefly to that dreadful scene in the cave at Thorncroft Overhang when he stalked the halfwit Ned to his lair and strangled him. T
he boy had died pathetically, in terror, struggling futilely against Francis’ superior strength. He’d killed men before, but cleanly, with his sword. That first murder had sickened him, and after it was done he’d considered suicide. He had even walked to the edge of the cliff where Roger’s mother had ended her life, and debated the merits of throwing himself over. He had thought then that he would not be able to live with the guilt.
But he had lived with it. He’d even succeeded in forgetting about it, for days, weeks at a time. He stared out over the fog-misted lake. No doubt he would forget about this too.
Francis thrust his dagger back into his belt. He was about to leave the bank of the lake when he heard a woman’s voice cry out nearby. For an instant his heart raced with hope: she was not dead, after all. Then he heard the cry as “Alexandra, Alexandra?” and knew it was Merwynna the witch, searching for her young friend. He could not see her through the fog, but he could hear her coming closer and closer. She sounded alarmed, and Francis wondered if the old woman had been hiding nearby… if she had seen… if she had heard.
He ought to finish her too. For several seconds he considered it, and then he remembered his promise to Alexandra. A great relief swept through him. He was thankful for the excuse to avoid committing yet another murder.
He melted into the trees as the witch came toward him, searching the bank of the lake as if she knew exactly what had happened. Canny old besom! Francis unconsciously made the sign against evil as he stealthily left the scene of his vilest crime.
Chapter 36
Roger Trevor arrived at Westmor Abbey feeling cold, wet, and bad-tempered. He was shown into the library by an awed-looking servant who obviously recognized him. Lucy Douglas, Alexandra’s mother, looked up from the table where she was adding a column of figures and glared at him with unconcealed dislike. “You! I ought to have expected it. Like a crooked penny, you keep returning to the purse.”
“I want your daughter,” he said without preamble.
“You’ve had her, apparently,” she retorted, adding several scathing epithets detailing her opinion of the male sex in general and her daughter’s seducer in particular. “Her honor is destroyed beyond repair, her body bruised, her heart broken—”
“Where is she?”
“That’s naught to do with you, Roger Trevor. You’ve treated her full badly. But she’s left you and there’s an end to the matter. You’ll never see her again, that I vow!”
“Lady, I warn you, I’ve just arrived, I’ve had a long and tiring journey, and I’m not in the mood to be trifled with. Send for your daughter at once or I’ll search the manor chamber by chamber until I find her.”
“You’ll need an army at your back for that. And you haven’t got one, have you? Not even a retainer, as far as I can see. How the mighty are fallen. You’re an outlaw, Trevor, with no more authority than a mongrel dog. Get out of my home before I have my men-at-arms arrest you for treason and send you to the queen.”
Frustrated beyond words, Roger drew his sword upon his hostess. “You set any men-at-arms at me, madam, and they will die.”
Uncowed, she stared directly into his eyes. “Better them—or me—than my daughter,” she said calmly.
“I mean her no harm.” So this was where Alix got her courage—from her mother. Not to mention her stubbornness. He slowly lowered his weapon. “I love her.”
“You raped her.”
“Did she tell you that?”
For the first time Lady Douglas looked uncertain. “No,” she admitted with the same honesty he prized so highly in Alexandra. “She said you didn’t, as a matter of fact, but she’s always defended you from the time you were children. Why, I’ll never know. You were a hellion then and you’re a hellion now. Why didn’t you wed her if you love her so much? The way things are, you’ve ruined her. Your actions are the scandal of London.”
“Our marriage was being arranged when she fled. If she had remained with me for two more days, she would have been my wife.”
“Why, then, did she leave you?”
He stared at her. “You mean you do not know?”
“I know only that you used her as a plaything for several weeks upon your ship. I assumed that for you, at least, the novelty must have worn off. What could she offer a libertine of your experience? She is untutored in the arts of pleasing men.”
“By God, you think worse of me than I deserve. She was pressured into leaving by none other than your husband. He sent Alan after us with a warrant for my father’s arrest. If I did not surrender Alexandra, the Baron of Whitcombe would be tried for heresy before the ecclesiastical courts and burned at the stake.”
“Your father has not been arrested.” Lucy was obviously surprised. “Indeed, ‘twould be cruel if he were, since he has had another heart seizure. He is bedridden, and far too ill to be prattling on about the virtues of the Protestant reformation.”
“Nonetheless, that was your husband’s threat. I doubted it myself, but Alix believed it. That is why she left. She could not stomach the idea of buying joy at the expense of my father’s life.”
“Such qualms, I take it, did not trouble you?”
It was true—they all did think worse of him than he deserved. Christ! What had he done to make himself hated so? Never mind. Alix was all that mattered. “Where is she, Lady Douglas? I’m thirsting for the sight of her, and that’s the truth.”
Lucy Douglas pursed her lips and stared at him for several silent, appraising seconds. At last she said, “She’s out in the forest. Where else would she be? Running just as wild as if she’d never been at court. She’s with that witch again, no doubt. Since it’s storming, she’ll very likely take shelter with her and not return till the weather clears.”
She spoke the truth, he sensed. He shoved his sword back into its sheath. “Then I’ll be going out there after her.”
He half-expected her to protest, but she said only: “‘Tis dreary outside and you are tired. Will you take a cup of wine or something first?”
But Roger shook his head and wasted not a moment before stalking back out into the rain.
*
It was nearly dark by the time he reached Merwynna’s cottage. The worst of the rain was over, but a chilly drizzle still fell, and Roger was wet through. He dismounted from his horse and rapped sharply on the door to the dwelling where he had first caressed Alix’s sweet bare body. Receiving no answer, he went in and looked around. The cottage was empty.
He swore. Had Lucy Douglas lied? Or were Alexandra and the witch together at the bedside of some pregnant peasant’s wife?
“The Goddess be praised,” said a brittle voice from behind him. He whirled, hand on his sword, and saw the old witch herself. She was breathing hard, as if she had been running. “I have need o’ ye,” she told him, pushing past him into the cottage. She seized a blanket from the mattress on the floor and pressed it into his arms, then took up a flask of some noxious liquid. “Come with me, quickly.”
Roger was about to argue that he hadn’t come here to help the witch with her doctoring, but something in the old woman’s face stopped him. She was frightened. He caught her fear like a burning case of plague. “Alexandra?”
The wisewoman nodded. “We must hurry.”
Merwynna led him a quarter of the way around the lake that stretched out in front of her cottage. The going was rough—there were rocks and brambles waiting there in the gloom, threatening to trip them with every step—but Roger hardly noticed. He would have ripped out bushes and uprooted trees if they had prevented him from getting to his beloved.
And then he saw her. Facedown on the bank, her sodden hair flaming less brightly than usual. She was covered with a heavy black cloak with pentangles embroidered upon it—the witch’s cape, clearly. And she was cold, he discovered as he fell to his knees beside her and touched her. She was so very cold.
Terrified that she was dead, he caught up her wet body and cradled her against his chest. Her eyes were closed, her face waxen-st
ill. He put his mouth to her throat, seeking the big artery there. He felt its pulse, faintly, beneath his lips.
“She needs warmth at once, or she will die,” said the witch. “Wrap the blanket around her. Ye must carry her back to the cottage. The Goddess surely sent ye. I could not have managed alone.”
“What happened to her?” he demanded as he bundled her in the thick blanket. “Is she ill… did she fall… was she attacked… what?”
“I do not know. I found the boat, battered and broken, thrown up on the rocks on the other side of the lake. She must ha’ been out in it. I thought she’d drowned, but I kept seeing an image in my mind’s eye, of her body lying upon dry land. I searched until I found her.” She paused, then added, “I was attending childbed this day when a fear came heavy upon me. I sensed her danger. I left the birthing in my haste to find and succor her.”
“Thank God for that!” He rose with Alexandra in his arms, her cold cheek against his shoulder. Merwynna touched her hair in a fleeting gesture that made his throat ache. The old wisewoman turned to lead the way back to the cottage. “So many people love you, poppy-top,” Roger whispered. “Please don’t die.”
*
Back at the cottage, Merwynna told Roger to build up the fire while she stripped Alexandra of her wet clothes. He did so, then dragged a mattress in front of the blaze he had kindled. Together they toweled Alix’s bare body and laid her on the straw pallet, one woolen blanket beneath her and another on top.
“Take off all yer clothes and get in with her,” the witch ordered.
When Roger raised surprised eyes to hers, Merwynna snorted, “Well? ‘Tis hardly the first time. Body heat is the best way to raise the temperature of one who is so cold. Besides, ye look chilled to the bone yerself.”
Linda Barlow Page 44
