“You like to fight, do you? Well, if that’s what you want, girl, I’ll give it to you that way-” he panted, covering her with his naked body; his breath was hot and sour.
Romilly’s qualms were gone. She managed to draw away just a little, then shot out her foot in the hardest kick she had ever given. It landed directly on target, and Rory, with a howl of pain, rolled off the bed, shrieking with fury and outrage, his hands clutched spasmodically between his legs.
“Augh! Augh! Hellcat, tiger, bitch! Augh!”
She heard Dame Mhari’s voice anxiously crying out in question; but Romilly scrambled from the bed, clutching her cloak about her, pulling on her tunic with hasty fingers as she fled. She shoved the door open and was in the kitchen, snatching up the remnants of the loaf and the roast meat, grabbing Rory’s boots and breeches and her own in an untidy armful, hastily fumbling at the lock of the byre. Behind her Rory was still howling, wordless screams of agony and wrath; they beat out at her, almost immobilizing her, but she fought for breath, thrusting her way into the byre. With her dagger she slashed through the knots which tied Rory’s riding-chervine and slapped the animal hard on the rump, driving it with a yell into the courtyard; slashed at her horse’s reins and fumbled to thrust on the bridle. Rory’s howls and Dame Mhari’s voice raised in querulous complaint – she did not know what had happened and Rory was not yet able to be articulate – blended in a terrifying duet, it seemed that Rory’s agony throbbed painfully in her own body, but that was laran, she thought dimly that it was a small price to pay for that avenging blow.
He would have killed me, he – would have ravished me – I need feel no guilt for him!
She was about to fling his boots and breeches out in the snow; she fastened her tunic carefully against the cold, bent to pick up Rory’s boots, then had a better thought. She flung open the door of the small outhouse and thrust them, with a savage movement, down into the privy, thrust the breeches down on top of them. Now let him find them and clean them before he can follow me, she thought, flung herself on her horse, snatched up the hastily bundled provisions, and dug her heels, with a yell, into her horse’s side. The horse plunged away into the woods and she took the steep path downward, giving her horse his head in her haste to get away. She had to cling to the horse’s neck, so steep was the road, but there was no horse alive to whose back she could not stick if she must, and she knew she would not fall. She remembered Dame Mhari’s words, you should have taken the left-hand fork at the bottom of the mountain. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly hear the sharp clatter of her horse on the path under her feet.
She was free, and for a little time at least, Rory could not pursue her. No matter that she was abroad on a dark night, with rain falling underfoot, and with scant provision and no money except for the few coins in a cloth between her breasts; she was at least out of the hands of Rory and the old woman.
Now I am free. Now I must decide what to do with my freedom. She pondered, briefly, returning to Falconsward – but that would be taken, by her father, as a sign of abject surrender. Dom Garris might give her a slavery more comfortable that she would find with Rory in the woods; but she had not used all her ingenuity to get free of them, to go back to imprisonment.
No; she would seek the Tower, and training of her laran. She told herself, all the old tales of heroism and quests always begin with the hero having to overcome many trials. Now I am the hero – why is a hero always a man? – of my own quest, and I have passed the first trial.