She kicked him first in the knee and again between the legs.
With a loud “Offffff!” he doubled over.
She snatched away her arm, cut his purse from his sword belt and ran, weaving in and out of the crowd, crawling under displays and leaping past anyone who got in her way, leaving a path of overturned carts and tables and spilt goods, screaming merchants and utter chaos. Scrambling on hands and knees, shecrawled away from the center of the market, under a rack hung with tunics and braies, (she grabbed one of each and a handful of crossgarters, tucking them in her trouse) and scurried around a table stacked high with bolts of wool and linen. Over and behind the booths and carts she went, weaving like a frightened hare.
Creeping along behind a line of tailors’ displays, she managed to pull a dark woolen cape from a corner hook undetected, before she ran on and snatched a green feathered hat with two more just like it from a plumer who had turned away to watch the commotion. For protection, she sliced open a large sack of his down and sent a cloud of feathers into the air, before ducking, tucking up her hair under the hat, pulling closed the cloak, and within moments she had made her escape.
The north end of the market was already chaotic with the business of cattle and horses being bartered by raucous copers, and men racing swift and agile Arab and Barb-blooded mounts for betting stakes. Losing herself amongst the crowd, she slowed to catch her breath, staying in the thick of them, and she wove her way north, away from the main market cross.
She reached the high end of the market at the tinker’s corner and heard a horrific, angry shout.
“Cait! Caaaait!”
She swung around as a tall nobleman in a red tunic plowed through the crowd and leapt over one tinker’s booth before knocking down a stack of copper pots. His intended path was straight towards her, hands out, and he looked as if he were preparing to go straight for her throat.
“Bugger!” She took off northward, heart pounding in her ears, crossing the road and ducking down an alleyway, running for all she was worth. She took another side path then slipped into recessed doorway and pressed back against the door, holding her breath as she heard the thunder of more than one person's bootsteps running down the alleyway, coming nearer…then past.
“You men! Get your mounts and ride to the town gates. She will not escape again!” came the man’s angry shouts.
Panting in time to her beating heart, she closed her eyes. She knew the man who was coming for her. His overly handsome and striking face was memorable, although she recalled him more clearly with his bare chest…and bare arse. He was the drunken lord whose horse she had stolen, the first man she had left naked in the road.
Who was Lady Caitrin? Whoever she was Glenna pitied her, surrounded by men who bellowed at her, handsome, naked, or no.
She counted slowly and waited, listening in case it was a trick, then counted again before she stepped away from the door and edged back toward the alleyway, back pressed against the stone wall of a carpenter’s shop—she could hear the sudden pounding of a hammer, and when she felt safe, she doubled back and made her way to the alewife’s stables, sought out the woman and used some of the knight’s coin to pay for the feed and shelter.
Inside, Fergus spotted her and sat up, tail wagging, a look of adoration on his silly face. “Hullo, Fergus.” She fell onto a pile of hay, drew up her knees, slipped her arms around him and laid her head against his warm fur when she realized she felt lost and a little alone. She grabbed Fergus’s floppy jowls and shook his head a little. “But I am not truly alone. I have you, do I not?” she said to him, putting her face up to his. He still smelled like the abbey soap. Suddenly she could hear the memory of her own laughter echoing in her head, as if she were back there again.
For that one single moment, while bathing Fergus, there had been nothing on her mind but the joy of her laughter and a natural warm bond with Montrose, the kind she’d had with Al and El—a rare occasion in her life now, when she wasn’t worried about what she had to do next and how they were going to go on.
Why did that make her belly churn and her chest ache, as if she had lost everything all over again? One breath more and tears burned in her eyes and she sniffled, wiping her nose withthe back of her hand. She lifted her tunic and pulled the spare clothes she'd stolen from her belt then added the knight’s coin purse on the pile next to her.
Staring at her plunder, she felt nothing good. They were not hers, she thought, in a rare bout of conscience. Stealing was no lark, held no happiness for her, anymore than being alone was any kind of lark or pleasure. Being alone was just that…alone. Empty. For the first time she could ever remember, she was truly afraid to go out into the world. She was afraid to leave the hay she was sitting upon. Al and El were no longer part of her life. They did not ride at her back or laugh at her jests or hug her just because she was their little sister.
A long and quiet time passed before she looked at her situation without self-pity. She had spare clothing and more than plenty of coin. She dumped out her boot and removed the money she’d carried inside her chest bindings. But she had no supplies. Her plump bag of apples and turnips were back at the mercer’s booth, and she dared not return to the market, now being unmasked and a woman.
To stay in town was no longer safe for her. All was ruined. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, searching for some of that infamous courage in the blood of kings. Perhaps Montrose and Alastair had lied about her father, she thought, having no great surge of some magical, instinctive feeling that made her want to rush out and face warriors, naked noblemen, or her unknown future.
She got to her feet, picked up her saddle and readied Skye, cinching the belly strap, tying on her possessions, moving by rote. She left the stables, Fergus following and looking none the worse for wear after his encounter with Montrose’s spiked beer, but she did not head for the western walls where those men were looking for someone named Lady Caitrin. To the east stood the castle on its great crag, and to the south was the wide stretch of the River Ness--another ferry crossing--which she dared not chance, and that was the only way to the southern side.
Instead she moved past the alehouse and into an alleyway that circled to the northeastern edges of town, heading swiftly towards the old northern gate. Seldom used since the treaty with the Norse rendered the town no longer a target, the back gate was forgotten--a place where she and Al had crept into town once before--and where she now left Inverness and rode into the slough marshes, through the reeds and peaty black water that dirtied Fergus’ clean paws and belly hair, out over the Great Beyond, heading westward across the northern lowlands and towards all the places she was supposed to avoid, because she had no other choice.
16
Lyall quickly stepped back into the shadows when he heard the clamor of men and horses, then eased deeper into the depths of the alley where he knew he was out of sight and moved over to the opposite wall for a better view. Across the way, a tall, copper-haired nobleman came out of a tavern to join a troop of men-at-arms waiting in the narrow dirt street. Lyall recognized the badges and the Douglas device.
“The alewife says she paid for boarding her horse and hound,” the man told Finngal Douglas, tall and mounted at the head of his guards on a fine piece of Barb-blooded horseflesh that shifted spiritedly, hooves dancing in the dirt.
“What hound?” Douglas asked, frowning. “Cait has no hound.”
“Based upon her history for trouble, Finn, she could have most easily found herself a hound…no doubt one that once guarded the River Styx.”
“Aye. Do not remind me of her propensity for trouble. She is my curse for every wrong I've ever committed.“
"Was like trying to cull coin from that alewife’s purse to get her to tell me what little she did spill. Seems she took a fancy to the poor laddie.”
“The poor laddie, my bride,” Douglas said, shaking his head.
“The puir wee laddie who stole my purse.”
