Page 53

Moving to the shed, she leaned towards the door. “Andor!” she whispered loudly. “Andor! Are you there?”

Nothing came. Oh no, they couldn’t have executed him already, could they?

“Andor!” she cried louder than she wanted.

She heard some shuffling, then a surprised “Cathy?”

Relief flooded her, and she released the air from her lungs in a shaky breath.

“I came to free you, but I don’t know where the key is. Are you all right?”

“Go away.” His voice sounded weak, and her stomach sank. “Go to Jorvik. They will kill you if they catch you.”

“I’m not leaving without you. I even got us a getaway wagon. Just need the key.”

“Hey!” someone said, and she spun around to see the tall guard who had walked away. “What the f—”

She launched at him before she could allow herself to get scared and run away. He only just managed to unsheathe his sword in time to deflect her attack. One part of her terrified, her training took over and she kept her cool. Even though it was a cheap move, she kicked him in the balls, and he doubled up with a pained yelp and fell to the ground. With a now-familiar movement, she hit him in the temple. She didn’t want to kill people any more than Brother Baldwin did, if she could help it.

He fell next to the other man. Breathing heavily, Cathy looked around to see if anyone had heard them, but so far she could see no one. Where was that damned key?

She turned back to the door and saw the key hanging above it. Cursing, she took it and quickly opened the lock.

Andor sat in a corner of a hay shed, his face bloody, one eye swollen and the eyebrow above cut.

“Oh, Andor,” she whispered and flew to him. “Are you badly hurt?” She cut the ropes binding his arms and legs and helped him stand up. She wrapped her arm around him, got one shoulder under his armpit, and helped him walk to the door.

“I am fine. How did you—” his voice faltered as he saw two armed men lying outside the door.

Cathy bent and picked up both swords, handing them to Andor.

“We must hurry. I sure hope Baldwin got his kitchen waste.”

“What?”

The quiet screeching of wheels approached as they rounded the corner. Baldwin’s cart was now heaped with vegetable peels and what looked like animal intestines.

From the driver’s seat, the old monk glanced at them. “They are having a feast tonight, and she did not have time to throw out the waste from two days ago yet. You are in luck. There is just space for one of you, though. I suggest the Norseman. You, boy, can ride with me. You look Saxon enough. Get in.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

January 26, 878 AD

“You should not have done that,” Andor said.

He was washing the rotting vegetables and intestines off himself, standing up to his chest in the icy water of the lake they had encountered in the early morning.

“What?” Cathy said.

She stood on the shoreline and watched him with a guilty expression. Small mercy at least.

“You should not have come for me,” he said through his teeth, barely containing his anger. It was good that he was in the cool water.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Andor. I’d never have left you. They wanted to execute you.”

“Maybe they should have.” He rubbed the beetroot peels off his biceps with water.

She paled. “What?”