Page 17 of My Warrior
The hound bayed again.
Out of options, she loped forward, ignoring the thistles catching at her shift, gasping as the spines cut her bare feet.
The mongrel caught up to her in no time, snapping at her heels, and she stumbled to the earth. Wincing in pain, she tried to scramble away from its eager jaws.
Just as she felt the hound’s dank breath on her skin, the black-bearded man spoke sharply to the animal, calling it back. He tethered it with a heavy chain, and then tossed it a scrap of meat. The hound tore into its supper ravenously.
Cambria swallowed dryly, frozen with terror on the ground, her cheek pressed against the weeds, her breath coming in short, burning gulps.
“Take her, Myles,” Roger ordered smugly.
A young knight dismounted and bent to help her to her feet. Her strength was nearly spent, but she still struggled against his kindness. Undaunted by her resistance, he gallantly removed his cloak and wrapped it about her naked shoulders, regarding her with sympathetic gray eyes.
It was more than her weakened spirit could stand. To her horror, her eyes welled with moisture. Mortified, she twisted out of the young knight’s grasp and turned on him, casting the cloak away.
“Your garment stinks of England!” she cried. “I’d rather die from the Scottish cold!”
Displeasure flitted across the man’s face as he retrieved his cloak. Stiffly, he listed her onto his steed and then mounted up behind her. The four horses turned back through the trees.
At first she sat bolt upright, vigilant lest any part of her come into contact with her captor. But as they rode mile upon mile, her exhausted body betrayed her. Slouching wearily in the saddle, she faded in and out of sleep until she finally slumped against her guard’s chest.
Hours later, she awoke to the rude pawing of her bare thigh. Roger. She jerked away in surprise, reaching for the dagger she always carried in her belt and nearly unhorsing both herself and Myles, who reined his steed away in irritation.
Roger only chuckled and gave her a mocking bow. Then he gestured toward the moss-grown thatched inn tucked into the shadowy wood where they’d stopped. A reed-thin old man emerged from the dark doorway, followed by a wrinkled crone fidgeting with her dirty surcoat. Disoriented, it took Cambria a moment to realize that this was to be their lodging for the night.
The old man came forward to collect coin from Roger. His stooped wife, wary of the knights, muttered nervously and motioned for Cambria to come with her.
The inn was warm and redolent with the comfortable smells of mutton and ale. The woman guided Cambria to a table. She sank gratefully down onto the worn bench, ignoring the stares of the other patrons in the room.
The flickering fire felt like a balm upon her face, warming her through to her bones. When the woman returned with a trencher of pottage and a tankard of ale, she feasted ravenously, unmindful that the greasy fare might turn her stomach later.
No sooner had she gulped down the last morsel of her meal than Roger directed the woman to have a hot bath prepared for Cambria upstairs, grumbling all the while about the cost of Lord Holden’s whims.
For once, Cambria didn’t mind complying with the Englishman’s instructions. Slipping out of her ragged, filthy shift and into the soothing water of the wooden tub, she relaxed for the first time in days. She soaked the myriad cuts on her body and scrubbed her head vigorously with the scraps of scented soap until her hair shone like a silk robe.
But eventually the water cooled. And as her sweet languor faded, she plotted her escape.
“Have ye finished then?” the innkeeper’s wife demanded as she entered, startling Cambria from her thoughts.
“Oh! Aye.” Cambria took the coarse linen towel from the woman and stepped from the tub. As she briskly rubbed herself dry, she glanced sideways at the old crone.
Mimicking her mother’s timidity, she whispered, “They hold me against my will, you know.”
The woman dried her hands anxiously on her grubby apron. “’Tis no business o’ mine, mistress.”
“But they killed my father!” Cambria snapped, and then continued more softly, “And they may kill me as well.”
“Oh, miss.” The woman shook her head. “I’d like to help ye, but I’d be puttin’ a rope around my own neck.”
“Please,” Cambria pleaded. “You wouldn’t have to help me. You could but leave a door open, a shutter ajar…”
The withered old beldame was firm. “I’ll give ye balm for yer hurts, and I’ll give ye a kirtle to wear, but I’ll not call upon the wrath o’ those swordsmen below.”
Cambria pursed her lips in frustration, and then forced herself to smile at the woman. She accepted the balm and the rough kirtle with thanks.
After the woman had the tub taken away, Cambria hastily dressed, then plaited her wet hair into a thick braid. She scanned the room, reviewing the possibilities for escape. She studied the shutters of the room. They were nailed closed.
As she rose to investigate, her stomach churned in protest, reluctant to digest the heavy stew she’d eaten earlier. She cursed under her breath, as much at her poor judgment in wolfing down her meal as at the fact the shutters were nailed tight. She needed something to pry them open. Damn, she decided, clutching her belly as a wave of nausea swelled in her, she needed a concoction for her stomach first or she wouldn’t be able to think clearly.
