Hawkmistress! (18 page)

“Here; for the soup, girl. For our wedding supper,” he said, and stooped to enfold her in an awkward embrace, landing a damp kiss on the back of her neck. She gritted her teeth and did not draw away, and he took her quiet endurance for consent, pulled her round and mashed another kiss against her mouth.

“Tomorrow you will not be so shy, heh, my fine lady - well, Granny, has she taken care of you properly? If she hasn’t, I’ll teach her.” He flung off his own rough cloak and took up hers, slinging it around his shoulders with strutting pride.

“I’ll have this; you’ll have no need to further out of doors than the outhouse, not till the spring-thaw, and then you’ll not need it,” he said, and went out again. Romilly swallowed her rage at seeing her brother’s well-made, fur-lined cape over his shoulders. Well, if she found a chance to escape, then, she must snatch up Rory’s cape; coarse as it was, it was warm enough to shelter her. The few coins in the purse tied at her waist, those she must have too, few as they were, for when she reached Nevarsin. Pitifully small the hoard was- The MacAran was generous with his daughters and his wife, buying them whatever they wished, but he felt they could have small need for ready money, and gave them only a few small silver bits now and again to spend at a fair. But to Rory, she knew, they would seem more; so she found a moment to conceal herself from Dame Mhari’s eyes behind the clothes-press and transfer the little hoard of coins from the pocket tied at her waist, into a folded cloth hidden between her breasts; surely, soon or late, he would take the pocket from her, and she left one or two small pieces in it to satisfy his greed - maybe he would seek no further.

As dark closed down from the short gloomy day, she sat with them at the crude table to eat the soup she had made and the bread she had baked. Rory grumbled - the bread was not very good - was this all the skill she had at cooking? But Dame Mhari said peaceably that the girl was young, she would learn, and the bread, however heavy, was at least a good change from nut-porridge! When bedtime came he said sharply, looking away from her, that tonight she might sleep in the box-bed with Dame Mhar’, and that he would wait four days, no more, for her return to health.

Now she knew the limits of her time. But if she had had any idea that she might escape while they slept, it vanished when Dame Mhari said, “Let you sleep on the inside of the bed, my girl; do you think I don’t know you would run away if you could? You don’t know when you are well off; but when you are Rory’s wife you will not wish to run away.”

Oh, won’t I? Romilly thought, gritting her teeth, and lay down fully resolved to try for an escape as soon as the old woman slept. But she was weary from a day of heavy and unaccustomed work, and fell asleep the moment she laid her head on the pillow; and when she woke in the night, whenever she stirred, she saw by firelight the old woman’s eyes, wide awake and beady as a hawk’s, watching her.

Three days passed in much the same way. She cooked coarse meals, washed the old woman’s sheets and gowns, found a little time to wash her own clothes, including the torn-up petticoat she had put to use … fortunately she was not too closely observed at the wash-kettle, so she had a chance to dry the cloths and fold them and hide them under her tunic.

If she was ever to pass herself off as a boy - and she was more resolved than ever that she would not travel as a woman in these mountains - she must find some better way of concealing this personal necessity. She had heard gossip about the woman soldiers, the Sisterhood of the Sword, who were pledged never to wear women’s gowns nor to let their hair grow. She had never seen one, only heard gossip, but it was rumored that they knew of a herb which would keep women from bleeding at their cycles, and she wished she knew their secret! She had learned something of herb-lore for doctoring animals, and she knew of herb-medicines which would bring a cow or bitch - or, for that matter - a woman into the fertile cycles, but none to suppress it, though there was a drug which would keep a bitch, briefly, from going into heat when it was inconvenient to breed her. Was that what they used? Maybe she could try it, but she was not a dog, and a dog’s cycle of heat was very different from the female human’s. It was all theoretical speculation at the moment anyhow, for she had no access to the herb, and would not know how to recognize it in the wild state anyhow, but only when prepared for use by a beast-healer.

On the fourth day, when he rose, Rory said, smirking, “Tonight you shall sleep with me in the inner room. We have shared meal and fireside; it needs only now to bed you, to make the marriage legal in all ways.”

And in the mountains, she had heard, a law would return a runaway wife to her husband. No matter that she had been wedded without her consent, a woman had small recourse in law; so if she escaped after Rory had bedded her, there would be two people seeking her, her father and her husband; would a Tower even take her in under those circumstances?

Well, she would ride that colt when it was grown to bear a saddle. But she would try very hard to find a way of escape today.

All day, as she went about the drudgery of the household, she pondered a variety of options. It was possible that she could wait till he had taken her … then slip away when he slept afterward, as she had heard that men were likely to do. Certainly the old woman could not follow her - but she might rouse Rory from sleep. Somehow, one way or other, she must manage to prevent Rory from following her….

And if she did that, she might as well have let him take her on that first night. Her throat closed in revulsion at the thought of being a passive victim, letting him take her unchallenged.

Possibly, when they undressed for bed, she might somehow contrive to hide his boots and his leather breeches, so that he could not at once follow her; barefoot and unbreeched, would even he manage to chase her, afoot - for she would also cut loose his riding-chervine and drive it into the woods. By the time he found boots and breeches, and rounded up his chervine, she and her horse would be well on the way to Nevarsin.

But she would have to submit to him first….

And then she thought; when we are undressed for bed, a well-placed knee in the groin would cripple him long enough to evade pursuit, certainly. Only she must have the courage

to kick hard; and hit her target at the first touch; otherwise, he would certainly half kill her when he caught her, and would never trust her again. She remembered what her own mother had taught her when she and Ruyven were very small, that she must never hit or kick him there even in play, because a relatively light blow to that area would cause serious and possibly permanent damage; if the parts were ruptured, even death. And that made her stop and think.

Was she prepared to kill, if she must, to prevent him from taking her?

After all, he had first tried to kill her; if she had truly been a boy, or if her tunic had not torn, revealing her as a woman, he would have cut her throat for her horse and her cloak. Yes, he had been kind to her after his own fashion when he discovered she was a woman, but that was because he thought that rather than a corpse, he would prefer to have a slave … for surely that was what her life with him would be, drudging daylong at heavy work and waiting on the whims of the old woman; he could get more from her, that way, and have horse and fine cloak too. No, she would not scruple.

In early afternoon, Rory came in where she was listlessly kneading bread, and dumped the carcass of a rabbithorn on the table.

“I have it cleaned and skinned,” he said. “Roast a haunch of it for dinner tonight - I have not tasted meat this ten-day - and tomorrow we will salt the rest; for tonight, hang it in the stables, well out of reach of vermin.”

“As you wish, Rory,” she said, and inwardly she gloated. The meat, frozen as it would certainly be, would keep her for some time if she could manage to take it with her on her way out. She would be careful to hang it near to her own saddle.

The roast meat soon began to fill the hut with a good smell; Romilly was hungry, but even after she had fed the old woman, wiped her chin and settled her for the night, she found that she could not chew and swallow without choking.

I must be ready. I must be ready. It is tonight or never. She lingered at the table, sipping nervously at a hot cup of bark-tea, until Rory came and wound his arms around her from behind.

“I have built a fire on the hearth in the inner room, so we will not be cold, come, Calinda.” She supposed the old woman had told him her assumed name. Certainly she had not. Well, it was upon her; she could delay no longer. Her knees felt weak and wobbly, and for a minute she wondered if she could ever have the courage to carry out her resolve.

She let him lead her into the inner room and close the door and fasten it with a hook from inside. Not good. If she was to make her escape at all, she must have a clear way outside. “Must you lock the door?” she asked. “Certainly Gran-Dame Mhari cannot enter our room at any awkward time, for she cannot walk at all.”

“I thought we would be more private this way,” he said, smirking again, and she said “But suppose-suppose-” she fumbled a moment, then said, “But suppose Dame Mhari has need of me in the night, and I do not hear her? Leave the door part way open so she can call me if she has a pain or wants me to shift her to her other side.”

“You have a good heart, girl,” Rory said, and pushed the door open a crack, then sat heavily on the edge of the bed and began to draw off his boots.

“Here, let me help you,” she said, and came to draw them off, then deliberately wrinkled her nose.

“Faugh, how they stink, you must have stepped in the manure pile! Give them to me, my husband,” she used the word deliberately, “and I will clean them before you rise in the morning. You might as well give me your leather breeches too.” and she stopped, had she gone too far? But Rory suspected nothing.

“Aye, and I will have a clean shirt for the morning if you have one cleaned and dried,” he said, and piled his clothes into her arms. “Take them out to the washpot to wait for morning, if they smell of manure they will be better there than in our bridal chamber.”

Better and better! But he could still be after her in a flash if he suspected; lingering by the wash pot, half ready to make a dash for freedom then-naked, he could not chase her very far - she heard his suspicious call. “Calinda! I am waiting for you! Get in here!” “I am coming,” she called, raising her voice, and went back to him. Fate had decided it for her, then. She went back into the bedroom and drew off her own shoes and stockings, her outer tunic and breeches.

He turned back the covers of the bed and got into it. He reached for her as she came and sat on the edge of the bed, and his hand closed on her breast in what was meant, she supposed, for a caress, but his hand was so heavy that she cried out in pain. He twisted his mouth down over hers and wrestled her own on the bed.

“You like to fight, do you? Well, if that’s what you want, girl, I’ll give it to you that way-” he panted, covering her with his naked body; his breath was hot and sour.

Romilly’s qualms were gone. She managed to draw away just a little, then shot out her foot in the hardest kick she had ever given. It landed directly on target, and Rory, with a howl of pain, rolled off the bed, shrieking with fury and outrage, his hands clutched spasmodically between his legs.

“Augh! Augh! Hellcat, tiger, bitch! Augh!”

She heard Dame Mhari’s voice anxiously crying out in question; but Romilly scrambled from the bed, clutching her cloak about her, pulling on her tunic with hasty fingers as she fled. She shoved the door open and was in the kitchen, snatching up the remnants of the loaf and the roast meat, grabbing Rory’s boots and breeches and her own in an untidy armful, hastily fumbling at the lock of the byre. Behind her Rory was still howling, wordless screams of agony and wrath; they beat out at her, almost immobilizing her, but she fought for breath, thrusting her way into the byre. With her dagger she slashed through the knots which tied Rory’s riding-chervine and slapped the animal hard on the rump, driving it with a yell into the courtyard; slashed at her horse’s reins and fumbled to thrust on the bridle. Rory’s howls and Dame Mhari’s voice raised in querulous complaint - she did not know what had happened and Rory was not yet able to be articulate - blended in a terrifying duet, it seemed that Rory’s agony throbbed painfully in her own body, but that was laran, she thought dimly that it was a small price to pay for that avenging blow.

He would have killed me, he - would have ravished me - I need feel no guilt for him!

She was about to fling his boots and breeches out in the snow; she fastened her tunic carefully against the cold, bent to pick up Rory’s boots, then had a better thought. She flung open the door of the small outhouse and thrust them, with a savage movement, down into the privy, thrust the breeches down on top of them. Now let him find them and clean them before he can follow me, she thought, flung herself on her horse, snatched up the hastily bundled provisions, and dug her heels, with a yell, into her horse’s side. The horse plunged away into the woods and she took the steep path downward, giving her horse his head in her haste to get away. She had to cling to the horse’s neck, so steep was the road, but there was no horse alive to whose back she could not stick if she must, and she knew she would not fall. She remembered Dame Mhari’s words, you should have taken the left-hand fork at the bottom of the mountain. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly hear the sharp clatter of her horse on the path under her feet.

She was free, and for a little time at least, Rory could not pursue her. No matter that she was abroad on a dark night, with rain falling underfoot, and with scant provision and no money except for the few coins in a cloth between her breasts; she was at least out of the hands of Rory and the old woman.