An Auctioned Bride (Highland Heartbeats #4)(4)
The following morning, he would ride east toward the coast, toward the small village that he remembered from his and his brother's stay. The village was named something like Argyll or Agryl. He would load up on supplies and perhaps even stay long enough to enjoy an ale or two.
Maybe, he would even ask around, see if anybody had heard of his brother. Unlikely, as he remembered that the village was very small. But, it was situated on the coast and enjoyed a small harbor, and news and gossip traveled fast in sea towns.
It was one of the reasons why he'd come. Maybe he would be able to find his brother, but if he couldn't, well, he would have to be satisfied that he'd tried.
3
No! This couldn't be happening!
It must have been the hundredth, maybe even the thousandth time, that Dalla had told herself that from the moment it had happened, but every day brought something new—some new anxiety, a new fear, a new heart-pounding dread.
A rope tied four or five of them together, she wasn't sure how many exactly, the short distance between each keeping them clustered together. Blindfolded, her hands were tied behind her back with another, shorter piece of rope, much like the others. Her wrists were chaffed, blistered, and throbbed with pain. Since they’d disembarked a ship earlier in the morning, she and her unfortunate companions had been kept in a storeroom of some type of small business. It sounded like a tavern.
The room smelled like ale, mold, and rotten straw, which she felt on the floor through her thin, soft-soled shoes made of leather.
Several of the women in the room wept softly, their voices ravaged from their screams, wails of protest until they had no voices left.
Dalla was afraid as well, but tried not to allow herself to give in to her growing anxiety. If she started crying or screaming, she feared she would never stop.
The smell of dead and rotting fish, accompanied by the shouts and ear-blistering curses of sailors, and the odor of the brackish sea invaded her nostrils. They had come by sea, kept locked in a small, nearly airless room in the keel of a ship as it rode the rugged seas of her beloved homeland of Norway and made its way toward the Scottish coastline. The room had soon grown vile with the stench of human waste, urine, and vomit.
Despite her fear of the coming hours and days, she had heaved a sigh of relief when they'd been released from the ship's hold and allowed topside. Even the ill odors wafting upward from the harbor waters were a blessed relief from the stench of their holding cell.
From the deck of the ship, they had been led up a cobblestoned path to a wooden structure. She smelled the damp wood, felt the rough-hewn boards scrape against her arm as they'd been roughly shoved into a door from what she thought was an alley. At least it smelled like an alley, not much better than the hold of the ship where they'd spent the last several days.
A little while ago, a man who smelled even worse than the storeroom in which they were held had come to get them. They emerged from the structure and into the warm sunshine.
Oh, how good it felt on her face! Never again would she take the sunshine for granted.
All about them, she heard the sounds of activity; carts pulled across cobblestones, the scruff of boots on boardwalks, the hoots, hollers, and more than a few vulgar suggestions shouted in their direction.
Bloody Scots!
Her heart pounded, and she stumbled, wincing as her toe caught the edge of a stone beneath her foot, but she held back a wince and concentrated on maintaining her balance. If she or one of the other women fell, they would take the others with them.
How long had it been? It seemed like forever, but she knew it was just days ago that she had been kidnapped. She constantly worried about her companion Megan, and prayed that she was safe. It still seemed impossible that this had happened, but she had to accept it.
Hands tied behind her back, that dirty, smelly rag tied around her eyes, she stumbled along with a number of other young women, probably looking much the same as they; faces pale, dresses dirty and smudged, perhaps even torn. Her hair was probably as tangled his theirs, but she bit her lip to prevent it from trembling with fear.
Every second since that awful moment when she had been grabbed, slugged across the jaw, and tossed over the shoulder of some big brute of a man, pounding ineffectually on his back, she had gone through the incident in her mind over and over again.
Since that moment, her eyes had been covered, but she still had her ears. She listened, desperate to learn why this had happened… why had she been kidnapped.
She strained to recognize a sound, a voice that would provide her with some clue. She sought to distinguish the smells of the men around her, their captors.
She and her companion had been attacked just before twilight, walking along one of the many meandering paths that wound their way through the massive gardens of her family's estate in southwestern Norway.
She had never, not once, worried about her safety on their estate, not as a member of the royal family. Her mother’s side was linked to the royal lineage, not terribly close to the throne, but enough so that she could be considered part of the inner circle, though she preferred to stay on the outside of that circle.
She only attended court when her presence was demanded, perhaps twice, maybe thrice a year. She thrived in the rural environment, not particularly comfortable, nor content with how those closer to the throne spent their days, dealing with politics, making bargains, and on more than one occasion, betrayal.