“Did you see that?” a woman wailed as he approached. “They almost killed poor Richie and they didn’t even slow down.”
“A dark-haired woman in a cart driven by a big brute, you mean?” he asked, assuming that was what the man called Godstan looked like. He’d certainly sounded as if he’d been selected for his size rather than for his intelligence. The comments about his lover’s tits had not been in the best taste.
“Aye, they set off at a mad pace and cared not what or who was in their way.”
“Did you see which direction they took?”
The woman blinked. “That way, they went toward the North gate.”
The gate. Damnation, of course. With night falling, the town gates would be closing down soon. How had he forgotten aboutthat? Would he be stuck inside the walls, unable to set off in pursuit?
“Why, are you going after them, young man?”
He didn’t answer, as he’d already launched his horse into a canter by then, but yes, he was definitely going after them. As he rounded the bend, Gulltoppr’s hooves skidding in the fresh snow, he heard an ominous creaking, the very sound he didn’t want to hear.
“No!” he shouted, thundering toward the gate. He couldn’t get locked in, not now. “Hold it, I’m coming through!”
The men who were pushing the big wooden doors shouted and jostled out of the way. Sven flew past them, shooting out of the walls like an arrow let loose by a mighty archer. A moment later he was racing through the snow-covered fields. As he’d hoped, it was easy to follow the track leading to the cart. At the speed he was traveling, it shouldn’t take him long to reach it, even if they didn’t stop.
Except… Once he entered the forest, the traces disappeared. Under the cover of the trees, the layer of snow was too thin to show anything and there were many paths they could have taken to exit the dense woods. Had they carried on straight or veered off North at the earliest opportunity? Had they decided to get out of the woods and use the moon to light their way? It would take him days to explore all the possible options. And then, as if that were not enough, he saw through an opening in the trees that it had started to snow. The tracks, out on the fields, would disappear in no time.
Sven looked around, despair seeping into his bones.
This time it was over. He’d lost them.
17
After what felt like an eternity of jostling, the cart came to a stop. Eahlswith waited, hoping to be freed from her bonds now that they were out of the town. Surely her captors didn’t think she would run, alone in the wilderness, in the snow and at night? Even she had the presence of mind to understand that it would be useless. Then she heard Ealawynne and Godstan argue from their place on the driver’s seat.
“Why did you stop?” Her sister sounded more than a little annoyed.
“Why do you think? In this snowstorm I can’t see where I’m going,” was the equally curt reply. “I’m not risking breaking my neck when we fall into a ditch or worse. A little delay will not hurt. No one will find out your sister is gone before the morning and when they do, they will have no idea where she went or that she was abducted. They will simply think she’s gone out of town for a day or two. I say there is no rush, so we might as well sleep under the cover of the trees instead of getting back out in the open fields.”
Eahlswith closed her eyes, relieved beyond words. The longer it took them to reach their destination, the better. Wrapped asshe was, she had not noticed that it had started to snow but indeed, she agreed with the man. No sense in risking their lives if the conditions were treacherous.
Besides, he was right. No one would worry about her disappearance for days, if not weeks, instead assuming she had gone to the Norseman village to see Cwenthryth. Even if the cart had been seen leaving her house, people would remember seeing “her” in the driver’s seat with a friend, just like she had been seen the other day with Magnus and Agnes. There would be no cause for concern.
A moment later, she felt someone, Godstan judging from the strength of his grip, lift her into a sitting position and then remove the cloth covering her head. Meeting his gaze, she nodded and looked down, hoping to make him understand she wanted him to untie the cloth that was digging most uncomfortably into the sides of her mouth.
“I think she wants us to remove the gag,” he told her sister, who was climbing down the cart in turn. “I say ’tis quite safe to do so.”
Ealawynne made a sort of grunt that could have passed as an agreement and a moment later, Eahlswith’s mouth was freed from the tight bond. The relief was indescribable. She moved her tongue gingerly, tried to close her mouth and found that everything hurt.
“How did you know where to find me?” she asked, her throat so dry that her voice came out like a croak. It was all she had been able to think about as they’d traveled and yet she had not been able to come up with a suitable explanation.
“You thought you were quite safe, didn’t you? Well, you’re not as clever as you think.” Her sister smirked, not even trying to hide her satisfaction. “A few years ago a man from our village was asked to deliver a message to you by a dying traveler, I believe?”
Eahlswith’s blood froze in her veins. Edwin. Of course. How had she not thought of this? Indeed, as he lay dying he’d asked the villager who’d discovered him, the priest’s nephew, to go tell her about his death. How had she not thought it meant that someone knew where she had gone to live?
“That man is one of Godstan’s closest friends,” Ealawynne carried on, clearly enjoying herself. “Last month during an innocuous conversation, he let slip that he’d last seen you in a distant town once, when he delivered the dying man’s message. That’s what finally allowed me to put my plan into action. I got the idea to use you to feign my death months ago, but I didn’t know where you had disappeared off to. Thanks to Cuthbert’s innocent comment, I was able to find you.”
What a stroke of bad luck. Eahlswith gritted her teeth, refusing to cry, when it would serve no purpose. She had to find a way out of this mess instead.
“Give me something to eat and drink,” she begged. She was thirsty but that was not the only reason for the request. If they untied her hands, she might be able to loosen the ties on her ankles while they were not looking. Then when they retied her hands, she would wait for an opportunity to flee. Even with tied hands, she could run.
Ealawynne laughed, the sound jarring. “Do you think we have food to spare on a dying woman? You can have a few handfuls of snow and be happy about it.” She turned to the man who was tethering the horse to a nearby sapling. “Godstan, bring her some snow.”
Snow… The memory of the day she had eaten snow with Sven assaulted Eahlswith and this time tears did roll down her cheeks. Where was he now? Had he heard what was in store for her? Had he managed to free himself? Very few people visited her at home. The ones who did would not insist and leave when they knocked on the door and she didn’t open. Would he die of thirstin her storeroom, when he could not get out of the rope she’d used?
