Page 34 of Come the Morning

“But you haven’t—”

“Killed you? No, my lady, I have not.”

“I see,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to return me to King David dead or bruised.”

She could see him gritting his teeth together as he shook his head in wonderment. “Well, m’lady MacAdin, you’re right. I don’t want you dead, maimed, or bruised. You do know something about fighting, and I grant you this, you’re very brave, or incredibly stupid.”

“I almost killed you,” she reminded him.

“Nay, lady, you did not.”

“You were gone a very long time—”

“I watched, my lady.”

“Just as you disappeared last night—”

“Again, I watched, my lady.”

“All that time?”

“Nay, not all that time. But much of it. You barely made it last night. You were too tired for the swim. And too cold to go on.”

“You watched me …”

“Aye, that I did. Shivering in that little hut, taking to the water again—”

“Why, you bastard—”

“Careful, I might think that you’re not fond of me, lady.”

“I pray you’ll die on the spot!”

“My lady, with your ways, you are far more likely to die.”

She fell silent for a moment, then told him softly, “I just want to be free.”

He stared at her in return. “Don’t we all?” he queried after a moment. He rowed with his words, rowed hard. They were soon back to the shore where they had first begun their journey in the little boat the previous night.

Taking no chances, he lifted her from the vessel as they beached. He set her upon the shore, and watching her, whistled. She was startled as the huge horse she had seen grazing the night before slowly trotted down to them from the trees by the roadside above the embankment. She assessed the animal. It was a warhorse. Huge, well tended, a scar here and there. An animal in its prime, but one which had seen action. Wide-set eyes, broad shoulders, sturdy haunches. Powerful limbs. It could carry the weight of a man in armor and still race into the fray with good speed.

The horse nuzzled the man, and she found herself studying her far too familiar stranger with greater unease. Who was he? “Ah, Mercury, you are a good fellow!” he told the animal.

“Would Mercury happen to have a bit of bread in his saddlebags?” she asked, surprised herself that she managed to do so.

He probably wouldn’t share food with her if he carried any with him. She had tried to kill him.

But he shrugged. “Maybe,” he told her, and he flipped up the leather flap on a saddlebag. Inside, wrapped in a small linen square, was not just bread, but cheese and a portion of dried meat. He offered her all the food, and she was surprised. He watched her balance the lot of it, then indicated a dry spot beneath a sapling oak. She walked to the oak and sat, biting into the bread with hunger and feeling, despite her wretched position, a sense of fulfillment and pleasure as the food began to take away the hunger pangs that had assailed her.

She stared out on the water, eating. In a few minutes, she was filled, but she pretended her hunger still, taking tiny bites of food as she watched him. He didn’t sit by her, but waited, eyes broodingly upon the river.

“You came back, and just watched me all night?” she inquired.

“If you wanted to sleep in a small mud hovel rather than the warmth of the king’s hospitality, I felt it wasn’t proper to disturb you.”

“Ah, well, you’ve disturbed me now.”

He shrugged. “The morning was nearly gone when you made your move, my lady. Wearily, so it seemed, at that. I didn’t want to bring you back drowned.”