Someone near me began to mumble. “Almost done now. All this time, almost done.”
Father, help me. Please. Not now. Not this way.
I cleared my throat. “Begging your pardon m’lord—”
“You! You hush you—you—you wretch.”
Grunt. Splash.
“I assure you, good sir, I’m no wretch. If I’ve offended you in some way, I am deeply sorry.”
Grunt. Splash.
“You transgressed against me when you ran out on the King, His Majesty.”
I blinked in the darkness of my burlap prison, but it did no good. I’d been laying down, so I struggled to sit up. The little boat lurched with my movement.
“Be still, damn you!”
“Is there still a bounty on my head?”
Grunt. But the splash didn’t follow. “How did you know about that?” He laughed a nasal, snorty laugh.
So familiar. “Please, I beg you—” At once, his face popped into my mind. The plumed English courtier! He’d dined at my home, directed us from Queen Catherine’s execution, and lorded over us at that wretched dinner façade. I recalled his fat belly and the way he favored his left leg—not as mightily as King Henry favored his—but he sported a definite limp. “You were so kind to me, sir. Surely you haven’t bred hatred in your heart for me since we last met.”
Splash. We were moving again.
“I know there was an invasion of French soldiers in England. I am glad you weren’t hurt.”
Something in his voice softened as he continued his struggle to row us across the water. “Aye, yes. Many were killed, including that bastard headsman. Jean St. Bromaine.”
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. Still, I refused to take the bait and incriminate my beloved. “You know, Lady Bridget, I had my suspicions about the pair of you from the beginning. What with that display at Queen Catherine’s execution, and then the pair of you running out under the cover of night. However—”
Grunt. Splash.
“It was my pleasure to dispatch him. Venomous traitor that he was.”
Anger boiled up within me.
“M’lord, is it the King’s pleasure that I be returned to him blinded by his servant?”
“As a matter of fact, no. His Majesty says you are to come to him whole and alive.”
My heart picked up speed and slapped against the inside of my chest. “Then, might you be able to adjust the blindfold? The knot is in my eye.”
“Blindfold? There is no blindfold.”
“Something is pressing into my eye!” I feigned a growing hysteria. “Please! Help me! I cannot feel my hands!”
With a great grunt, he started my way across the wooden boat. Step-offstep. Step-offstep. My heart galloped within me, and I ignored the throbbing in my head.
It’s now or never.
“By Jove, you’re hands have gone black.” He slashed the tie that bound them, and they fell like dead weight against the wooden boards of the floor of the boat.
I tried to ignore the pain that seized them.
“Here now, let’s see your eye.” He leaned and began to tug at the bag. “Well, perhaps if I loosen it just a bit here—” The moment I saw a glint of daylight, I ducked my head from under the bag.
“What the—”
I squinted against the piercing rays of the sun and kicked out with both legs. Right into his paunchy gut. “Oomph!”
Father, please be with me.
I struck again, this time aiming all my attention at his bad knee. He fell heavily to the bottom of the boat. We lurched and a swell of nausea burned the back of my throat. I grabbed the side with my almost-worthless hands and vomited into the frothy water below.
From behind me, I heard him stagger to his feet. I got to mine first.
Using the momentum of the boat as it rocked, dipping so low that water sloshed over the edges, I charged. He was still wavering, in a fruitless attempt to regain his balance, when my shoulder struck him squarely in the chest. We both stumbled toward the side. His foot hit an obscure oar, and he tittered only a moment before falling into the freezing water with a noble splash.
I managed to catch myself on the side of the boat and watched as he bobbed like an elegantly tufted cork. The roasted peacock with the gilded beak came to mind, though I wasn’t sure why.
His watery cries met my ears as he swirled further from the boat. “I—cannot—”
Sputtering broke his pleas into jagged fragments.
“Swim!”
