Savage, was she? Yes, and at this moment she felt every bit of it.
She got in a few more blows before Roisin, completely disheveled, climbed to her feet. Darlei followed.
The old woman, eyes staring and mouth a dark cave, gabbled at Roisin, who shook herself like a wet hound and directed a stare of rage at Darlei.
“Wha’ is this?” To the guard she said, “Put her back in her chamber!”
“But—” he began.
Darlei let him get no farther.
“You have near killed my maid,” she accused Roisin.
“I did no’—”
“You struck her. Will you deny it?”
“I did, aye, but—”
“She fell.”
“She did no’—”
“Struck her face, her head. Only look at her!”
Orle made a convincing picture draped over the arm of the guard, who held her rather tenderly.
“Send for the healer,” Darlei demanded of Roisin, who stood trying to catch her breath. “It will be on your head if she dies. And be certain I will tell the king. I will tell him how we have been treated here.”
The guard looked alarmed, and Roisin backed off a step. The old woman continued to babble incoherently.
“Let her die, then,” Roisin said. “Wha’ is one less savage?” But she looked worried. “Where is MacNabh?” she asked the guard.
“Dunna ken, mistress.”
“Go and find him. Put her down—there on the bench.”
The man did so, with exaggerated care.
The old woman cried another spate of words, from which Darlei caught only “stables” and “stramash.”
“What sort o’ stramash?” Roisin demanded. And to the guard, “Go and see.”
He went, and Darlei drew a breath she hoped would steady her thumping heart. The odds had just got better, in her favor. Yet she did not take Roisin for any but a formidable opponent. And if MacNabh came in…
She must act quickly, no matter her terror. They thought her a savage, did they? She would show them how strong a Caledonian woman could be.
“Sit down!” Roisin ordered her. “There, beside your maid. I will no’ ha’ ye trying any o’ your sly tricks.”
Darlei backed toward the fire. She had spotted the only thing in the room she might use as a weapon, an iron spit that had lain there so long it had half rusted away.
She snatched it up, then dropped it with a clang—it was hot. She wrapped her fingers in her skirt, seized it again, and swung it wildly.
“Back. Back!” she told Roisin, who stared in disbelief. “Orle?”
Orle sprang up, which set the old woman to babbling as if she’d seen a spirit.
Darlei screamed. It was a Caledonian yell, one she’d heard her father’s men use when at practice with one another. One she’d even heard the king employ a time or two. It burst from her lips even as she swung the spit and took Roisin in the shoulder, knocking the woman back over the bench once again.
