She looked up at him and he wasn’t sure if she’d actually understood him. He struggled with himself, trying to decide what to do next. Should he explain again, or should he simply take her with him, not giving her any choice in the matter? In which case, wouldn’t he be as frightening and uncaring as everybody else?
She spoke again. “If we go now, we’ll miss the sailors coming back.”
He raised a brow. He hadn’t thought she’d understood. She had done more than that – she was actually thinking of arrangements. He swallowed hard.
“Thanks, lass,” he said.
She looked into his eyes and he felt the strangest sensation. Once, when he had first started working on board ship, he’d fallen off the deck and felt the cold sea close over his head, the weight of his doublet and trousers dragging him downward. He felt that same way now. A weighty pull, almost irresistible, dragging him downwards.
She parted her lips, as if about to say something. He felt the present moment rush back into focus as his body responded, painfully, to the expression. He realized he was standing in the middle of nowhere, his arms at his sides, staring at her. He felt his cheeks redden with embarrassment, and gave a little cough.
“Um…I reckon we should go,” he said awkwardly. “If we want to get there in time. You’re right.”
She nodded. Again, there was a moment of awkward silence between them. Then she turned and followed him down the bank towards the town. He was acutely conscious of her walking beside him. She had a swaying walk, and once or twice her skirt brushed against his leg. He drew in a breath like a man tortured every time the contact happened.
They walked silently. Arthur racked his brains, trying to think of something to say.
“It looks like rain,” he commented. The sky was gray. He felt completely foolish the instant he said it. In September at the docks here, it almost always rained, at least for an hour or two. It had rained this morning and it would certainly rain again.
He risked a sideways glance, just to check that she wasn’t mocking him. To his pleasant surprise she was smiling. It didn’t look like a mocking smile, though.
“It’s been raining all week,” she observed.
“Aye,” he said, cracking his finger joints. “I reckon it must have been.”
She looked up at him, a quizzical frown on her brow. “Where were you this week?”
“A week ago, I was in Franconia.”
“Where’s that?” she asked. She sounded curious. It occurred to him that a lass from the Highlands had no reason to have heard of the place. It made him feel like perhaps he had something to offer her – after all, he had spent the whole morning fighting off his longings for her – if he at least had knowledge to contribute, he’d feel qualified to be here.
“Franconia’s across the sea,” he said. “Not the North Sea…away across the Channel. Near France.”
“France?” she squinted up at him. France, at least, she’d heard of. He suppressed a satisfied smile. France had been a word on everyone’s lips at the time King Alexander had wed a French Princess and, again, when Baliol, the new King of Scotland, had invoked the Old Alliance. The countries had always had allegiance against a common enemy, England. Now, Arthur thought, with his heart sinking dolefully, England has struck. It seemed they were alone also.
“Aye. France,” he nodded. He paused. He wanted to ask her what had happened here. How many English troops had ridden to Stirling, did she know? Yet, he reckoned, a Highland lass would have no cause to know anything about the disaster that had displaced her. All she would know was that something bad had happened.
“France should help us.”
He stared at her. He couldn’t have been more surprised. Not knowing how to respond to that observation, he simply nodded. “Aye,” he said. “They should, and all.”
They trudged on. The sound and smell of the town hit them as they went up a hill. Arthur hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings.
“The English came to Berwick in the morning. We didn’t know anything about it.”
Arthur turned to stare at Bonnie and tried not to look surprised. He held his breath. He had been desperate to hear more about the war and what had happened here in the years since he’d left. He hadn’t thought he’d get to find out from her.
“They defeated the castle, but that wasn’t enough for them.” Her voice was bitter. Arthur slowed his pace so that he could walk beside her. He didn’t know what to say – he knew that prompting her would make her hide away, but saying nothing seemed as if he wasn’t heeding her.
“I see,” he said.
Bonnie glanced up at him, but said nothing. He felt his hands clench in frustration. Just as he thought he had heard all that he was going to hear about the battle, she cleared her throat.
“The lord of the castle surrendered to the king. The soldiers had fought all day, up on the walls. I didn’t see them, but Blaire did, and she said that they were all gray – ranks and ranks of men in gray armor, under a cloudy sky.”
Arthur let her fill in the images for him, listening to her voice as much as to the words. He could picture the knights, waiting in silence on those walls, the clouds dark behind.
Bonnie continued. “In the crofts, we thought…well…we thought they would win through.” Her voice was low. “The knights were defeated, and our lord surrendered the fortress. So many lords and knights were ridden away, to be ransomed or killed. Blaire said that there were many slain. And…and then they started destroying the village.” Her voice was flat and toneless. Arthur, glancing at her face, could see the pain in every line of her.
He didn’t know what to say. In his imagination, the horror was all too great. He could see the men descending on the town, the flash of swords and the clang of weapons on armor. He could smell the smoke.
“Women…children. They didn’t care.” She was crying, but her voice didn’t wobble. Tears ran down her cheeks, silent and unobserved. “They killed everyone. The old, the sick, the weak. I ran, but…” she shook her head.
Arthur nodded. He had an imagination, and he was no stranger to what soldiers did to women when they plundered towns. He felt a low rumble of rage in his body at the thought of what he’d like to do to anyone who harmed this helpless lass.
“I got away again,” Bonnie said. Her voice was hard, defiant. “And then, well…I fell in with the other refugees, and I came here.”
Arthur nodded. They had reached the outskirts of Dunbar. The town crept up on him and he paused, drawing a breath and wondering if he felt ready to go back in there.
He was surprised by that reaction. It had been many years since he’d been home, and he wasn’t used to it anymore. The rush and bustle preyed on him, and the fact that, everywhere, he could understand what everyone said. German was foreign enough to ignore the talk in the streets unless he wished to hear it. Here, every town crier and every fishmonger and tinker bawling in the roadway harried his nerves.
He jumped as something pressed against his arm. He looked down, amazed to see a slim hand at his elbow. She had touched his arm. Her eyes scanned his face, black and searching.
“Are you ready?” she asked him.
He swallowed, then nodded. “Aye, lass.” His voice was gruff. He felt something run down his cheek, and he realized, belatedly, that he had let loose a tear. He cuffed at his face, feeling ridiculous.
I cannae help it. Her trust is a rare, bonny thing.
He shook his head at himself. He was being ridiculous. He was Arthur Radley, a man who’d run away to sea in the moment he was old enough to get to the coast on his own. Why was he reacting like this to a slip of a lass, one he barely knew?
I dinnae even ken her name, he thought with a sudden sense of surprise. He considered asking her what it was, but decided against it. He wasn’t going to make her feel any more frightened or under threat than she already did.
“Let’s go,” he said softly.
They went down towards the town.
; A path appeared on their left – a line of trampled down grass leading to a crack in the wall. It was a big gap, easily wide enough for an adult to walk through comfortably, and it seemed to be the main entrance used by a number of people. A noxious smell drifted over to them, leaving them in no doubt that the patch behind the wall must be a latrine of sorts.
Arthur glanced at the lass. Her face was pale and drawn, but no more than it had been. She walked ahead of him, heading straight through the crack. Not wanting to seem scared beside her, he followed her in.
Arthur flinched as the sound crashed down over his ears. The street they were on was narrow, more like an alley, but it led to a crowded square that gave on to inns and taverns. A thousand voices seemed to be talking all at once. Two men brawled under a window. A woman shouted at a thief in the street. A captain berated sailors on the quay. Some drunks laughed as they left the tavern. Arthur leaned against a house wall, catching his breath. Beside him, he felt a small hand slip into the bend of his arm again.
“I know, lass,” he whispered, feeling as if he himself felt a tenth part of her horror. “It’s not a good place, aye?”
Beside him, the lass had gone tense. He could see how wide her eyes were, her red lips set in a thin line. He found himself resting a hand on her shoulder. She jumped, and he instantly regretted the act. Why would she trust him any more than she trusted the other townsfolk?
“Let’s find the bakery,” he said gently.
She looked around at him, her eyes wild. He leaned against the wall, trying to make himself shorter and less dangerous looking. She seemed to relax a little as he cleared his throat, a grin twisting his lips.
“Let’s get three loaves. One for each of us tae eat now, and one for taking on the road, eh?”
She nodded, and cleared her throat. “The north road’s blocked by patrols.”
Again, the astuteness of her observations and the flat, neutral tone with which she delivered them, surprised him. What had happened to her, on her travels? He thought again of the fact that she’d found her way here all on her own, and closed his eyes a moment, not wanting to contemplate the horrors she might have faced.
“Aye,” he murmured in reply. “Well, if that’s so, we’ll have tae go to the east, aye?”
“My home’s in the north.”
Well, Arthur thought, she isn’t lying about that fact. She was directly from the Highlands and there was no arguing the matter. From the defiant tilt of her head to the lilt of her words, she was a Highlander from her head to the tips of her toes. He also wanted to make sure she got to her home.
“Come on, lass,” he said gently, and this time when he reached out a hand to her, she didn’t turn away from him. “Let’s go and find a meal.”
He walked with her up the street and felt his heart soar as he looked down and saw her walking beside him.
Finding Firm Land
Bonnie walked next to the man who seemed to have, for some reason unknown to her, attached himself to her. She shuddered as she heard a woman yelling at a thief, cringing back from the hard words. She had seen too much of violence lately, and much of it directed at her. The sound of raised voices beat down on her like fists, making her heart race. She felt the tall man’s presence beside her and it steadied her.
At least the people here seem scared of him.
The man’s fearsome appearance was seemingly working in her favor. She glanced up at him from the corner of her eye, looking at his long, grim face.
He’s not ugly.
He wasn’t, she thought with some surprise, bad to look at. He had a long face with a firm jaw, curling hair of a pale color that seemed more Saxon than Scots, and dark eyes. He had a grim expression now, and she thought that he must smile only rarely. All the same, the one or two times that she had seen him smile, it had transformed his face into a thing of striking beauty.
She wondered what manner of man he was. He didn’t look like a brigand, for all his grim appearance. She thought he might be a soldier. If he were, he was different from the men who patrolled the streets here – hard men seemingly intent either on killing Englishmen or subduing the Scots themselves. He was a mercenary, working on the Continent, she decided. It explained things.
Why else had he arrived here so suddenly from…where was it? Franconia. She must find out where that was – it might help her to understand more about him.
At the moment, he was an unknown quantity. Those, in Bonnie’s experience, were dangers.
“I reckon this must be it, aye?” the man said, distracting her from the thoughts that had been milling around her mind.
She looked up. There was a shop ahead of them, a light burning warmly beyond the windows. It had a crooked sign hanging outside. The sign portrayed sheaves of wheat, and she couldn’t read the inscription written there, but the scent wafting out through the door was unmistakable. Fresh bread.
Bonnie felt her stomach cramp in pain. She had ceased to feel hungry a while ago, but the smell made her body react, even if her mind had dangerously lost touch with her body’s needs. She winced with the pain and felt the man’s hand on her shoulder.
“Easy, lass,” he whispered.
She shook her shoulder, feeling the hand unwelcome at this moment. Her body cried out for food, and at the same time she felt a sort of mute horror, like they might never actually get any. She couldn’t imagine that the mercenary soldier had enough money to buy whatever wonderful things were in there. She couldn’t see any sign of the crowds letting up long enough for them to be able to steal anything, either.
“We’re not going…” she began to say, switching in the last moment to a language he would understand. He took her hand and gently led her forward into the warm, scented space.
“Three loaves,” she heard him say. “And two of those,” he added, gesturing to a pile of small rolls of bread. Bonnie felt her stomach twist with agony and held her breath, waiting for the inevitable moment when the baker realized the hadn’t cash.
She shut her eyes, and then opened them again as, to her utter amazement, the mercenary passed over two coins, and the woman behind the counter took them and even handed him some small copper coins, in change.
Still unable to take in the events, Bonnie followed the nameless mercenary out of the shop, feeling dazed. They had food!
The man paused, and she stopped with him, both of them waiting while a group of drunk men walked briskly down the street, arm in arm, singing a lewd song. When the men had gone, the man looked down at her. His eyes were kind.
“Let’s go and find somewhere quieter, eh?” he asked softly. He nodded towards the drunks and the soldiers who were, by now, moving to restrain the rowdy excess of the drunken men. Bonnie felt a smile twist her lips and realized, as she followed the tall stranger, that this was the first time she’d ever seen such behavior in an amusing light.
When they were a safe distance from the noise, he passed her the bread – the whole loaf, and one of the rolls. She looked down at it, feeling mistrustful again. Nobody had ever given her so much, without expecting something in return. Her whole life she’d eaten barely enough to survive, and now somebody was giving her a whole loaf of bread? Asking nothing in return?
She felt herself grow suspicious. Staring up at the man, she studied his dark eyes. He was not doing this for nothing, she decided. He wanted something from her, and she was sure – from her experience of life in general, and of men – that she knew what the something was. She wrapped the loaf back in the square of cloth that it came in.
“What?” he asked, as she held it out wordlessly to him.
“I’m not going to do anything for you. Or with you.” Her voice was hostile.
He stared at her. His eyes stretched, disbelievingly. She felt a flicker of doubt about her previous impression of him. The doubt seemed to be genuine, as did the hurt.
“Lass…I didn’t want to ask that of you. I wouldn’t do that. It’s bread. We can get more, if you want. Please…eat it. You look half-s
tarved.”
He said other things – words too complex and long for her to understand. However, the tone of his voice was pleading. More to the point, his eyes were gentle. The tone of his words, rather than the sense, soothed her somewhat. When he passed her the bread again, she took it.
Breaking off the end, she chewed and swallowed faster than she would have imagined possible. She was starving. His assessment was correct. Her stomach ached as she swallowed and she bent over, gasping, as the pain of it became unbearable. She ate another mouthful, knowing that the more she ate, the sooner the pain would decrease.
When she looked up, she caught his eye on her. The expression he wore was one of compassion, but his mouth was smiling. She straightened up, feeling as if she was being mocked. His mouth turned down again and she saw concern replace the humor.
“Sorry, lass,” he said. “I didn’t mean to tease. I was just…thinking I never saw anyone as hungry as you.”
She felt her own lips tilt in a smile. His eyes sparkled. She felt herself start to laugh and he laughed too. It was funny, she had to admit. She nodded, her giggles slowly subsiding. “If you had eaten what I’ve eaten in the last week, you’d be hungry too.”
He made a face. “I’m sorry, lass.” He said. He sounded sincere. “I’m sorry for what’s happened to you.”
She swallowed hard. Nobody had ever said sorry to her, either. It was a strange feeling – a new feeling. She smiled at him tentatively. An apology – even one from someone who had nothing to do with her situation – felt like warm water on her scratched, raw skin. She looked up into his eyes.
“Weren’t nothing you could do about it, sir.”
He smiled at her fondly. “Still – somebody has to say sorry. It must have been hellish.”
She looked at her feet. She wasn’t about to tell anybody about the things that had happened to her. The flight from the burned homes had been terrifying, but then all her life had been so far. She realized, standing here, that she felt something new. She felt safe. That had never happened before.
The Highlander's Honorable Savior (Iron 0f The Highlands Series Book 4) Page 3
