She thinks this life will make me well off; so long as I have a man for husband, I need ask no better than to drudge about barn and byre and kitchen, waiting hand and foot on a bedridden old woman, so long as 1 have the name of wife. She shivered as she thought, perhaps some women would truly think themselves well off – a home of their own and a hardworking man, one who was kind to his old grandmother. She settled the woman in the bed again and went to empty the chamberpot. She was used to working with her hands about animals, and the work itself did not disgust her, but she was frightened of Rory.
I did not refuse Dom Garris to be married by force to a woodsman, however honest or good. And now I have won myself a few days time. I will pretend to be meek and mild and biddable, and soon or late, they must let me out of their sight.
When the old woman was washed and dressed in a fresh gown, Romilly went to the pump in the yard to draw water, placing the great kettle over the fire to heat for the washing of linens, then, guided by directions from Dame Mhari, set about mixing and baking a loaf of bread with small lumps of sliced blackfruit in the dough. When the bread was baking in the covered pot in the ashes by the hearth, and Dame Mhari dozing in her box-bed, she sat down on one of the benches to rest for a moment, and think.
She had gained time. A swift visit to the outhouse showed her that her horse had been unsaddled again and tied with hard knots; well, if a moment served to escape, she must somehow have her dagger ready to cut the knots and flee; choose a moment, perhaps, when Rory had his boots off, and hopefully his breeches too. Her pack she could abandon if she must – the food was gone and she could live without the other things – but her warm cloak she must have, her boots and her saddle . . . though she could ride bareback better than many women could ride saddled. Food, too, she must somehow have; it would not be stealing, she had worked hard and cared for the old woman well, it was but her just due.
Perhaps tonight, when they were all asleep, she thought, and, hauling her weary body up from the bench, set about washing the musty linens from the old woman’s bed, and the sheets from the bed in the inner room, which had been long unused – Dame Mhari said that when the weather was warm, Rory slept in there, and only in chilly weather did he sleep on the pallet before the fire. Well, that was something – if she must bed that wretched animal of a man, at least it would not be under the peering eyes of the old grandmother, as it might have been in a poorer cottage with only one room. She shuddered suddenly – was this how folk lived, away from the Great Houses?
Should I give up, flee back to my family, exchange my freedom then for the protected life I would live as the wife of Dom Garris? And for a moment, shivering at the thought of what must lie before her, even if she escaped from Rory and his grandmother, she was halfway tempted.
Like a hawk on a block, chained, hooded and dumb, in exchange for being fed and cherished, guarded preciously as a prize possession….
Oh, Preciosa, and that was what I would have brought to you. . . . she thought, and was fiercely glad she had freed the hawk. At least she would never be Darren’s possession. She could have kept it clear with her conscience to keep Preciosa herself – the hawk had returned to her of its free will, out of love, after being allowed to fly free. She would never return to Darren.
She is free, she belongs to no man. Nor shall I. Rory might take her – once – as the price of making him think her beaten and submissive. But she would never belong to him; he could not enslave her. Like a hawk badly trained, the moment she was tested in free flight, she would be away into the sky…