Blinding her, apparently, was second only to his penchant for shouting at her….
The sun was not yet up and already her head ached from all his bellowing. Did the man not understand the concept of honeyed words?
“Are you deaf?”
She stopped. Her brother El would have turned and run like the Devil himself was at his back from the look she gave Montrose, but he appeared completely unaffected. The more he browbeat her, the more she felt the intense need to try to spite him.
She took her sweet time, moving as slowly as she could without being overly obvious, then she stopped, wincing. “Oh! There is a stone in my shoe.” She removed her shoe, shaking it, searching inside and taking her sweet time.
Eyes narrowed, he pinned her with a hard look that told her steam was ready to come out his ears. In a serious and deadly calm voice he said, “You would be well-served to move more swiftly.”
“With a stone in my shoe, my lord, ‘tis difficult to move at all much less more swiftly,” she said sweetly and then pretended to drop her shoe. “Oh!” She bent to pick it up and leaned against a beam for balance while she took her sweet time slipping it back on and tieing the strings.
His eyes were closed and his lips were moving as if he were praying…or counting.
“Oh. Wait,” she said. “How the devil did that happen?” She sighed hugely. “Look at this.” She pulled on a hat string. “My hat strings have come loose. How fortunate for me I caught it. We wouldn’t want my hat to fall off and reveal my cursed hair.” She fumbled for a moment, then another, and another before she set about retying them…as swiftly as an ancient blind woman.
‘Twas quite enjoyable when she was finished to look up and see his jaw clenched that tightly. She resisted the urge to whistle a jaunty melody as she sauntered over to the ladder leading above-deck. She paused at the base, hand on the ladder rails and then sweetly smiled up at him.
He was counting.
She was trying not to laugh. A cursed eye for an eye…. A cursed tooth for a tooth….
The wind pickedup shortly after dawn, and the oarsmen kicked the locks and pulled in their oars. Square sails caught the breath of wind and billowed and snapped, sending the ship cutting through the water and out into the open firth, where the waters eventually grew as wild as the skies above, and became stormy and gray...the same color, Lyall realized, as Glenna’s skin.
For most of the day the ship rolled over the growing sea, and she clung to the railing near the aft, hanging there limply, and soon her pallor was no longer gray, but greenish, as if she had eaten grass. She lay with her cheek pressed to the side of the ship, her arm flung over her head.
He placed his hand on her shoulder.
She opened her eyes and stared dully at his boots. “If you have come to bellow at me again, do not…please… just kill me and put me out of my misery.”
She looked miserable. He thought to help and tried to give her some water, but she groaned, held up her hand, and told him to leave her be.
When he offered her an oatcake a while later, she muttered curse words he had never heard come from a woman.
The waters grew, waves sloshing over the deck, sending the ship lurching over the waves, and he was worried about her. He waited longer than he was comfortable before he approached heragain and told her she should be under the canvas shelter where she was safe.
She answered him by spilling the contents of her belly at his feet, so he went to wash his boots. The crew appeared too busy to notice her, or if they did, they chose to ignore her. But Lyall stayed within sight of her, his hand on his weapon.
Overhead the clouds grew thick and thundering, and in time, blocked out everything. The only light he could see came from crackling flashes of lightning and he could not say what the time of day. The wind came on strong and wild; it began to howl like wolves and the ship pitched and rocked as the sea slapped against it.
The sky grew blacker, as did the sea, and the some of the crew scurried to take down the sail before the wind sent them keeling over. He could hear the oar master shouting commands on the oar deck. Whenever the ship rolled over a swell, the oars cut through the water in desperate rhythm to steady the course.
Though Glenna clung to the side and continued to beg him to leave her be, Lyall stood solidly behind her, worried she was no longer safe there, weak as she looked; the waters were growing into a tempest, buffeting the ship over the roiling sea.
The clouds swooped down ominously dark and low. Rain began to spit down on the decks; the swells grew higher, and a wave washed dangerously over the decks as the sharply-arched prow of the ship plummeted down the backside of the steepest wave yet.
As they plunged down the next swell and the next, Lyall saw the oars come up on the starboard side and the ship listed sharply. Men began shouting and one of the crew was the first to lash himself to the mast. Lyall tightly pinned Glenna to the strake of the ship with his whole body, his ribs protesting. Her head lolled back, her hat still on but sodden, her braid tumbled out, and she looked up at him as if she wanted someone to throw her overboard.
He took a deep breath and swept her up into his arms,planning to take her to safety despite her stubbornness, despite the pain.
She grabbed a handful of his hair in her fist and yanked hard. “No! Please…do not move. Do not move,” she moaned and her hand went to her mouth just as a wave swept over the side and sent them both crashing to the deck and sliding down as the ship listed.
Water went up his nose and in his eyes. He lost his hold on her, pain stabbed through his chest and the deck seemed to sway and rock and slip.
He heard her scream his name.
“Glenna! “ he called out but the sound was swallowed by the storm.
