Chapter Eight

Another day and night passed, not any different from the previous one save that some of Austin Merrick's vitality seemed to have departed. He sat as quietly as Fiona for most of the day and had said little even as they'd camped overnight, though he did offer the same shelter of warmth and security in his arms, which Fiona was not foolish enough to refuse.

Thus the next morning, once the wagons had set out again, drawing ever closer to York and their fate, Fiona commented on his reduced demeanor as they sat side-by-side once more, "Ye have grown quiet. Have ye finally accepted that few if any chances of escape will avail themselves to us?"

She caught sight of a sudden scowl behind the metal of his helm.

"Have ye?" He replied with his own question, which was a wee clipped in tone. "Given up?"

Fiona shrugged. "I would nae say I've given up, but then I dinna ken that I was ever imbued with the same certainty as ye, that we would be able to escape."

"We will," he confirmed, briefly returned to the self-confident Austin Merrick she'd first met. He glanced straight ahead, which put in his line of sight at least half the English and the vast landscape, farther away everyday from where they wanted to be, from where their armies were. "I dinna care for idleness. Certainly I dinna like it foisted on me."

"Too much time to think?" She guessed.

As he seemed rather melancholy, she was surprised by the grin that came.

"Ye may ken this about me already, but I dinna often second-guess myself. But aye, too much time alone with my thoughts and I am angry with myself, for my own carelessness. I dinna confirm anything that Urry said, dinna send out my own scouts to verify what his had determined. I should have—"

"That seems a dangerous road to travel," Fiona suggested, cutting him off as his voice had grown more sour the more he'd revealed of his thoughts. "And it dinna matter what we did or dinna do, as there's little to be done about it now. Save that we might—if we survive—ken better next time."

"Ye ken the god that rides at yer side is having fits now? Believing ye lost?" He asked.

Fiona had thought often of just this. "I'm sure he's quite upset and that breaks my heart, to imagine his grief. He's been more of a father to me"—she paused, finding it curious that he'd not used Fraser's name but that she knew who he was talking about. A peculiar grin attached itself to her. "Do ye ken, I'd never given it much thought, but he does rather resemble what I'd been led to believe God looks like? Mayhap I've seen images, inside the kirk or in Father Stephen's teaching—he always carried a stack of bibles and different tomes with him, some of them richly illustrated."

Though she took no serious offense to it, she did briefly imagine there was something blasphemous or inherently wrong with comparing Fraser to God's image. That is, until she realized that small considerations such as that paled in comparison to the larger, more urgent matter of her fate.

"Why was this God on earth more a father to ye than yer own?" Austin wanted to know.

Fiona wasn't sure she was interested in discussing that heartbreak. She said succinctly, "I had three older brothers. For obvious reasons, they received the lion's share of my father's affect—attention."

Ignoring her tone, which he clearly should have judged as her not wanting to talk about it, Austin pressed on. "Jesu, but that explains so much—everything, mayhap."

Fiona turned a frown on him. "What do ye mean?"

"Yer want to be trained," he answered, "to learn the sword, the bow, the dagger." He slanted a narrow gaze at her, the depths of it unfathomable. "Did ye suffer his neglect in silence, wishing and praying? Or did ye make yerself known? Ye and yer ambitions?" Closing one eye, he pretended to measure her more thoroughly. "My guess: ye dinna let a day go by where ye dinna hound him, hoping for any wee scrap of attention."

"Ye dinna ken me," she accused tightly, irritated that he thought he did.

"Nae, I dinna." Shrugging, he tipped his head and removed his gaze from her. "I dinna ken anything about ye, save that whether ye ever did receive any notice from yer sire or nae, at least all the training has proven its worth."

Even as she imagined that was almost—nearly—a compliment, Fiona bristled at his assumptions, mostly for how close to the truth they were.

Before she might have turned it all around on him, asking about his own upbringing and how he'd become so fantastically arrogant when he'd admitted he hadn't in his youth aspired to much, the wagon came to a stop. Startled, Fiona glanced around, just as Austin did as well.

The entire army, the bulk of which was ahead of them and thus behind them as they sat on the end of the wagon, had stopped moving.

"Why are we stopping?" Fiona asked, even as she knew there could be a hundred reasons to do so.

Austin, sitting taller than she, and with a marginally better vantage point, answered, "I dinna ken, but something goes on. There's a large grouping in the vanguard, a cluster of mounted men."

"They see something? Or suspect something?" She wondered. "We are still deep in Scotland." She glanced all around, wondering if the Roses and the Merricks had finally realized that she and Austin were no longer inside Wick. Sadly, none of the trees or outcroppings of huge rock or the gentle knoll to the east revealed any friendly face come to save them.

"Aye, we are," he replied. "But nae, they dinna seem too anxious." Another moment passed before Austin said, "Jesu, they're breaking away."

Fiona turned around again but could see very little. She tugged on Austin's sleeve. "Who is breaking away?"

"Sheffield and his army, "Austin answered, lengthening his spine yet more to see even better. "Aye, they are. There they go." He turned a wide smile onto Fiona. "God's bluid, lass, but our chances increase starting today," he remarked with high excitement, his smile a wondrous thing. "We've still a fortnight or thereabouts to make our escape. I expected we'd have to waste at least half those days, still in Sheffield's company. But nae, we stand a better chance now with he and his army gone." He nodded, pleased with this news. "Already the day looks brighter."

"Are ye sure they are nae only sending out scouts or...?"

"Nae, "Austin confirmed. "Taking the wayns and everything, all the footmen, too."

Knowing that they would still be surrounded by possibly several dozen of de Montague's men, who might regularly transport prisoners and were not green in that regard, Fiona didn't quite share in Austin's optimism. She was, however, greatly encouraged by his revived spirits. He seemed to sit a little straighter when they moved a quarter hour later.

"We need to start working on that iron bar and the shackle attached to it," Austin said when the wagon bumped along beneath them once more, "before we get any further from Wick and our armies."

"And how do ye propose we do that?"

Austin tipped his face to the sky. For three days it had threatened to rain but had not. Today, she might guess, would be no different. The sky was overcast, the clouds low and dark with rain, but as of yet, not even one drop had fallen.

Austin thought differently. "Today the rain will come," he predicted. "And when it does, we'll use my breacan as a tarp overhead and around us. I'll hold ye close, under the guise of protecting ye from the rain and I'll work on pulling the bar free from the wagon."

"And then what?" Fiona asked, raising a brow.

"It's all about timing, lass," he said, returned fully to the man of exceptional confidence. "We wait until an opportunity presents itself."

"And if it doesn't rain?" She persisted.

"Then ye'll have to break out those tears, lass," he said, slanting a wry glance at her, "And make them believable."

In spite of her conflicting feelings for Austin Merrick—he remained a Merrick, the enemy, and had proven himself nearly despicable, but then she couldn't say she wasn't gratified in some regard to be a prisoner with him; aside from Fraser, she wasn't sure she'd have known so little fear as she did if not for Austin's unwavering certainty that they would free themselves—Fiona really wanted him to be right about the rain. The idea of either feigning or forcing tears did not sit well with her, and not only because she didn't imagine that she could make it believable. She hadn't cried in quite some time, not even when her last brother, Malcolm, had lost his life at the Mackintosh fortress.

The mere thought of pretending to cry felt like a betrayal to her own strength, what she'd worked so hard for so long to adopt as her truth. Tears were a sign of vulnerability she couldn't afford to show, especially not to an enemy, even if he was her only hope for escape. She swallowed hard, very afraid that once she started—if she could—she might not be able to stop.

When another half hour had passed and those damn clouds proved they were naught but frauds, not spilling one drop of water, Austin decided it was time for her to act.

"I've nae ever feigned tears in all my life," she resisted still, glancing with some desperation at the stupid sky. "Nae one will believe they're real."

"It's the best way to divert their attention," Austin maintained. "As impossible as it seems, I dinna ken ye realize how much regular scrutiny ye are under. They watch ye all day long, beguiled and I'm sure teeming with some fairly ugly ideas. They're already looking, but we dinna want them noticing what I'm doing. And because they do study ye intensely, it has to be believable, lest they suspect something else is afoot. "

She was aware of the constant regard, but she assumed much of that was on account of her unkempt countenance and the fact that she was dressed as a man. In truth, she imagined some of those stares might be filled with pity, for a woman going to the gallows. The thought of those being lecherous stares—she hadn't maintained eye contact with any to know for sure—rather irked her. It was one thing to be noticed for her prowess in battle, but quite another to be ogled and objectified in captivity. Eejits.

"I'm only asking ye to be clever, lass," Austin continued, drawing Fiona's increased annoyance to him, for the way his tone suggested that she was not. "Mayhap dig into the spirit of that broken child, the one who, nae matter what she did, could nae earn even the slightest attention from her sire. Did yer sire ken ye were nae clever?"

Fiona's eyes narrowed, her jaw tightening. "Ye overstep, Merrick."

Austin leaned closer, his voice lowering to a harsh whisper. "Do I? Or do I speak the truth ye've been hiding from? Yer father dinna regard ye the way he did yer brothers—ye said so yerself. All yer efforts, all yer training, and for what? To be invisible in his eyes?"

A flush of anger crept up Fiona's neck, but she swallowed it down, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her truly upset. "Enough," she hissed, her voice trembling with controlled rage.

"Enough?" he echoed mockingly. "Ye think this is enough? Surely a few harsh words from me dinna compare to a lifetime of being overlooked, dismissed. Did ye cry when yer brothers died? Or did ye hate them, for being the recipient of yer father's love when he gave ye nothing? Bluidy saints, but that's got to hurt, knowing that nae matter what, ye were never guid enough in his eyes. Nae as good as yer brothers, at any rate."

Fiona's breath hitched, a wave of old grief mingling with fresh anger. Her hands clenched into fists, nails biting into her palms. "Shut up, Merrick," she warned, but her voice wavered.

Austin pressed on relentlessly. "Christ, but it just dawned on me, why ye wanted to die on Wick's battlements." He laughed ruthlessly. "Poor wee lass, wanting to die with sword in hand to prove herself worthy to a man who saw nothing in her, nae ever. Did ye imagine ye'd meet him in death and he would—what? Reward ye for yer paltry effort?"

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew what he was doing and why but that did not negate the sting of his words, nor how deeply they cut. Her vision blurred as memories of her father's indifference resurfaced, cutting her to the bone. The pain was raw, unfiltered, and suddenly overwhelming.

Austin's eyes flickered, his lip curled in a scornful sneer as Fiona's eyes filled with tears.

"Ye'll nae ever be guid enough, Fiona," he said cruelly. At the same time, he draped his plaid and his arm around her.

Fiona shoved at him, his touch causing her to shudder. "Dinna touch me," she hissed.

"I will," he said, pulling her rigid form against him. "Yer sire likely welcomed his sons with open arms, praising every move they made in life after he was gone, all the guid and even their missteps."

Fiona's eyes filled with tears, the dam finally breaking. The weight of her sorrow and anger spilled over, tears streaming down her cheeks. She keened softly, brokenly, a sound full of years of pent-up frustration and grief. But still she resisted Austin's efforts to draw her near.

"Put yer head into my chest, dammit," he growled. "Let the tears fall on me so that I can get to work."

To any observers and likely there were a few, as she and Austin had mostly maintained a quiet existence in the back of the wagon until now, it might only seem that her brother was scolding her for crying in the first place. She despised him for how he'd made it happen, for using the meager information she'd shared about herself against her now.

"I hate ye," she grumbled, twisting her fingers into his side, quite agitated that there was hardly any spare flesh to pinch. She fisted her fingers into his tunic while he brought his plaid fully around them, concealing both his hands.

"Aye, and so ye should," he said, sliding his hand down her back to reach the iron cuff and the bar attached to the wood. "But keep crying, lass."

Of course the kiss he placed on top of her head as she melted into him, with real tears falling, was overdone or possibly unrealistic, she thought, not sure of its purpose.

"I'm sorry, lass. But let it out, Fiona," he urged softly, his voice taking on a gentler tone, almost apologetic. "Use it. Cry, damn it. Cry for all the times ye could nae."

Beneath the cover, his hands worked tirelessly on the iron bar, his movements hidden by the folds of the fabric. Fiona's sobs, though genuine, served their purpose, drawing the guards' attention away from his efforts. While it appeared that he was turned and bent solicitously toward her, he did not comfort her at all, but worked tirelessly on making them free. Sometimes he would go rigid against her, using all the strength of one hand in an attempt to unmoor the fitting. Several times, Fiona smacked her hand against his chest, upon which her cheek lay, angry and embattled, while tears continued to fall.

After several minutes, Austin paused, his hands going still while he cast a quick look ahead and behind them.

"Shite," he muttered, his chin poised atop Fiona's head. "We're heading up the Cairnstone Hills."

Blinking to disperse her tears and befuddled by the grief he'd so cruelly manipulated from her, Fiona lifted her face and scanned the surroundings. Though it did register that they had begun to climb uphill, and that the English army were now compelled to ride and walk only two abreast along the twisting trail that snaked around the side of the mountain, she was slow to comprehend the significance of their location or Austin's gritted-teeth excitement over it.

Austin's gaze met hers, his blue-gray eyes bright with renewed hope. He paused, though, his expression arrested and then softening. Fiona felt exposed under his regard as his eyes traced over every inch of her face, acutely aware that her face no doubt showed every detail of the emotional turmoil he'd forced her to experience. Angrily, she swiped at her tears and raised her chin.

Recalled to what had invigorated him, and saying nothing about her tear-streaked, surely red-nosed face, Austin said, "Fiona, ?tis the perfect place from which to jump."

Fiona's eyes widened in disbelief. Sweet Mother of God, but what next from this man!

"Jump? Are ye mad?"

Austin's jaw clenched with determination. "Trust me, lass. I ken it's risky, but it's our best chance at getting away from these bastards. We've got to free ourselves from this wagon before we climb too high. Keep an eye on them," he suggested vaguely.

With renewed determination, Austin redoubled his efforts to break free from their shackles. Every muscle in his body strained against the iron bonds.

"I canna do it with only one hand."

"Can we pull together?" she wondered.

"Nae, ye dinna have enough leverage and we canna both be bent over it. I need to lean across ye and use both hands. I ken it's loosened a bit from all the tugging."

Fiona straightened, allowing Austin to stretch both arms across her front, which brought her right arm sharply to her left side, where sat the iron anchor. The side of Austin's head was directly in front of her face. She spared him only a glance, noting how his hair spilled out from beneath the side of the helm and hung over his shoulder before she lifted her gaze over him to make sure none had taken note of their curious posture.

Though his position was awkward and might arouse suspicion, what he was doing was concealed yet by the length of his breacan. Her tears and trauma forgotten for the moment, though she felt drained inside, she kept her gaze fixed on the soldiers following behind them. She scanned their faces, watching for any sign that they might notice Austin's less-than-furtive efforts to free them.

To her relief, she found that most of the soldiers were preoccupied with the perilous curving path along the outside of the mountain, their attention consumed by the sheer drop and narrowness of the trail. None of them seemed to be paying any heed to Austin and Fiona now, their focus entirely consumed by the treacherous terrain ahead.

The climb up the steep mountain pass was indeed arduous, the narrow path eventually forcing the soldiers to proceed in a single file. The contingent, heavily armed and clad in chainmail, moved slowly and cautiously. Horses, burdened with supplies, struggled to maintain their footing on the uneven terrain. The wagon wheels creaked and groaned with each jolt, sometimes swaying precariously at particularly treacherous turns. The clinking of armor and the occasional neigh of a horse ricocheted off the rocky walls, reverberating through the otherwise silent wilderness.

Lifting her chin higher above Austin's broad head and shoulders, her gaze searched the edge of the narrow ledge and the sheer drop below. Though she could see little, she imagined a dizzying drop that likely plummeted into an abyss of jagged rocks and dense foliage far below. Her heart pounded as she calculated the risk, the height making her stomach churn.

Twice, she shoved at Austin and murmured for him to halt when English eyes settled upon him. He did so, straightening away from her, feigning interest in what lie over the edge of the path.

When eyes were removed from them and he resumed his attempt to unmoor the anchor to which they were attached, the wagon hit a particularly rough patch, causing it to lurch violently. Fiona lifted her free hand from her lap and gripped tightly at Austin's chest from underneath, her knuckles white as she clung to his tunic and tried to prevent him for falling out of the wagon.

"I've almost got it," he muttered. "It's verra loose now. Just. One. Guid. Pull."

Having giving it all his strength, he was jolted backward when the iron bracket finally came loose. He recovered quickly, righting himself as Fiona released his tunic, believing the sound of the bolts being wrenched from the wood was carried away by the wind, or lost in the noise of the struggling horses and the murmurs of the soldiers, who were quickly growing fatigued.

"Hold the bracket in yer lap now," he suggested. "Dinna let it dangle. ?Tis nae much weight but it will slow ye down if it's left to flop and flail."

She did so, cradling what she considered a decent weight in her hand, the chain briefly clanking as she gathered all the connected parts in her lap. Beneath the breacan, Austin slowly drew out each of the four bolts that were still connected to the bracket and discarded them by shoving them under the straw behind him.

After another cursory glance at the rugged edge of the cliff, Austin turned to Fiona, peering at her intently through the open visor of his helm.

"It's now or never," he said softly. "We need to do this while their attention is elsewhere."

Fiona's eyes darted over the faces of the soldiers closest to the rear of the wagon. Indeed, the soldiers were more focused on the difficulty of their climb, what lay over the edge of the cliff, and maintaining their balance than on their prisoners.

She nodded grimly, steeling herself for what was to come, dreading how awful she expected it to be.

Swiveling his wrist inside the remaining iron cuff, Austin took her hand in his.

"Nae," he said when she returned his hold. "Thread yer fingers in mine," he instructed. "It'll go further toward keeping us attached without having our hands severed at the wrists."

Fiona's eyes widened.

"Ye ken this is our chance?" He confirmed. "Mayhap the best one we'll have?"

She nodded and swallowed and followed Austin's lead when he moved gradually to position himself closer to the edge of the wagon.

"Ready?" Austin whispered urgently, his eyes locking onto hers.

"Ready," Fiona replied, her voice trembling but resolute.

Just as the wagon reached the narrowest part of the path, where the cliffside seemed to drop away into nothingness, Austin gave the signal. "Now!" he hissed.

With a collective effort, they leapt from the wagon, the chain between their wrists clinking loudly as they landed on their feet. Austin pulled her unrelentingly toward the edge, both of them using long strides, the last of which touched only air as they jumped off the ledge.

Time seemed to slow as they floated through the air, both their legs still churning in a run, the world spinning around them in a blur of sky and brush and rock.

Austin landed a split second before Fiona did, thankfully mostly upon a cushion of vegetation. The impact was still jarring, and they rolled immediately off it, Fiona bouncing on top of Austin, cutting off the grunt prompted by his landing. They continued to roll uncontrollably down the steep incline, battered by rocks and underbrush, the pain sharp but the slope too steep to stop themselves. Her body was banged, and her face was scratched. The helm was gone, lost upon her fourth or fifth bounce or tumble. Finally, close to the bottom of the beinn where the gradient was more gradual, thick foliage broke their fall, hiding them from the view of the path above.

Fiona gasped for breath, almost every inch of her body aching.

At her side, Austin panted and croaked, "Are ye all right, lass?"

"Aye," was all she could manage, not sure if it were actually discernable, vaguely aware of shouts from far above.

Austin grunted again, loudly, as he pushed himself up to sit. "We need to move quickly. I dinna ken that they will give chase," he said in between labored breaths, "but if they do, we may nae have more than a quarter hour to get away, out of sight."

Her chest heaving, half of her troubled breathing wrought by fright, Fiona struggled to sit up.

"When this is done," she said raggedly, staring into Austin Merricks beautiful blue-gray eyes, "I want ye to go to hell."

He smiled disarmingly. "Nae need, lass. We just tumbled end over end through it."