Then he knew he would not survive his king’s second failed attempt to oust the resistance.
He removed the weapon from its sheath and tossed it at her feet. “Take that and go east. And though you may wish to return to Ely, do not.”
Also the same as Herba advised.
“King William has lost this day, but it is only a setback. As ever, he will prevail, and it will go worse for those who thwarted him.”
She swallowed. “Why do you care what happens to me?”
He pressed a hand against his wound. “My repentance was genuine, and more it is felt now the soil of England shall embrace me rather than that of Normandy. As I cannot right my wrongs against you and yours, I seek to keep other wrongs from you. Now take the dagger and…” He bent forward, groaned. “I will rest here with this Saxon who made it possible for you to escape, and whose sacrifice you dishonor if you do not go now.”
Then he had seen their fall from the tower, she realized as he dropped to his knees alongside Herba.
Vilda retrieved the dagger, then began moving east as advised. And came back around. “I thank you, Sir Roul, and more fervently I shall pray for aid in forgiving you.”
He sank back on his heels. “Just get away, Lady. That is enough.”
She turned and, moving as quickly as the chain permitted, made it to the river’s edge and the reeds which had escaped fire. As much as possible, they would hide her, and the cool water into which she sank her lower body after tying the mantle around her waist provided further cover by silencing her bindings.
Crying softly as she tried not to think on Herba and other horrors here, she smeared mud over her face and neck as done the night she accompanied Hereward to work ill on the Norman camp. Then keeping to the shoreline—mud beneath her feet, water about her waist, reeds brushing shoulders and face—she began trudging east.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The witch not a witch was dead.
“God rest your soul,” Guy rasped.
The unrepentant turned repentant was dead.
“God rest your soul.”
Vilda lived.
“Much gratitude, Herba and Roul,” he said, then closed the eyes of the latter and straightened.
To stay out of the path of fleeing Normans pursued by rebels and fire, it had been necessary to go wide around the camp. From that vantage, Guy had seen the collapse of the farthest western tower and glimpsed the two atop the last one standing that was also afire.
How he had prayed! Then evading half a dozen rebels heading west, he had lost sight of the women. When he resumed his trek, no longer were they atop the tower, and the fire shooting up its lower half was moving toward its upper.
Guessing they had jumped, Guy had feared he would find both dead or broken. Instead, one was dead and Sir Roul nearly so where he lay near Herba. Though the man yet had enough blood and breath in him to give answer, he had been close-mouthed when asked what became of Vilda—until Guy grabbed him by his tunic and shook him.
That loosed a cry of pain which loosened his tongue, though with words unexpected. Roul had demanded to know if it was true what was said of Guy—that much he concerned himself with Hereward’s cousin.
Guy had not known how to respond, certain if he answered wrong he would gain naught. Deciding to believe the best about the man whose regret for the ill done Vilda and her people had seemed sincere, he had said it was true and he but wished to aid her.
The chevalier had made him vow he would do just that, then revealed what happened atop the tower and after Herba’s sacrifice that saved Vilda. That would have been the end of his revelation had Guy not shaken him again.
Now, providing he spoke true, the direction Vilda had gone was known. Since she remained chained and had a ten minute lead at best, he should be able to overtake her—if she, more conversant with this marshland, did not go to ground like others of the resistance or found herself in the path of the pursued or pursuers.
If…
Shaking, Vilda assured herself that which slid across the calf of one leg and the ankle of the other was a fish.
Stay the water, she told herself. Better an eel—even a snake—than blunder into the path of those who move beyond the shore.
Still, the temptation to drag her soaked self out of the river was great, not only to escape unseen things whose domain she trespassed upon, but more quickly traverse the shore to the nearest natural underwater causeway known only to the most trusted of the resistance.
Though the bed of mud, silt, and rocks was winding, uneven, and disjointed, forcing one to cross it in depths of water from the hips up to the neck and swim gaps when the causeway fell away, in the absence of a boat it was one of two ways to cross to the isle with the least amount of effort. And with the kick of Vilda’s legs severely restricted, requiring she stroke from the breast, she needed as little effort as possible.
When the clouds slid apart and the moon shone on her, she lurched nearer an embankment choked with reeds and sank to her shoulders to peer at the land across which movement could be heard.
The source of it invisible to the eye in the absence of fires earlier seen in the distance and despite moonlight, she could not know if the sounds were of men or animals. Since either could be predators, she counseled patience as she waited for clouds to once more provide cover.
They were not long in doing so. The moment they swept away moonlight, she pushed back through the reeds into deeper water and continued east with the promise that in a quarter hour—a half at most—she would
