in horror as he stumbled through the clutter of boxes and barrels.
“Rowena, child—” He gripped the bars, looking small and drawn and old.
“The savage has not harmed me, Father, and shall not, God willing,” Rowena said quickly. “But if you think to leave him in these festering irons another day, you may as well kill him now and be done with it!”
Sir Christopher had recovered his wits, and now he thundered at her through the bars. “Be still and listen! You should have done as you were told and left this matter to me. You could have spared us both!”
“Father?” Rowena stared, dumbfounded, as he drew a small tarnished object from a pocket in the folds of his robe. Her knees crumpled beneath her as she realized what it was.
“The key,” he snapped. “Given to me by the captain who sold me the wretched creature.” He shot Thomas a sharp glance. “Open the cell.”
The chain had gone slack against Rowena’s neck as the savage stared at the key. “Give it to me,” she insisted. “He trusts me—as much as he trusts anyone in this place.”
“So I see.” Sir Christopher glared at her. “Hold your tongue, mistress. You’ve done quite enough damage already.” He strode into the cell and halted just out of the savage’s reach. “Let…her…go,” he said, as if speaking slowly could make him understood. “Then…we…use…this.” He held up the key, letting the well-thumbed bronze catch the flaring torchlight.
The Indian’s hand flashed outward like the swipe of a cat’s paw. But Sir Christopher had anticipated this move. He stepped backward, well out of reach. “No,” he said. “You let her go. Let her go now.”
Black Otter studied the old chief cautiously—the aging body, stooped and frail beneath the somber black robe, the pale eyes squinting behind what appeared to be two transparent shells. Only a coward would harm such an ancient being. But could the old man be trusted? Black Otter had known nothing but cruelty from white men. How could he expect anything else from their chief?
But why wonder? All he really needed was a hostage, and the chief would be more valuable, even, than the woman. With the old man as his prisoner he could demand anything he wanted, even passage back to his homeland.
Slowly and cautiously Black Otter loosed his grip on Rowena’s slender body. She stumbled to one side, leaving traces of her musky warmth on his skin. The old chief’s eyes flickered toward her. He uttered a gruff command, most likely ordering her to leave. Instead she edged backward to the bars, crouching there, her skirts pooling around her. The two of them were father and daughter, he realized, glancing from one proud face to the other—a good thing to know when the time came to bargain.
The old chief approached him cautiously. Black Otter stood motionless, waiting. He had never set eyes on the key to his shackles, having been unconscious when the iron bands were clamped around his limbs. But every instinct told him this key would fit perfectly into the locks.
In the silence of the underground room he could hear the faint drip of water and feel the ripping cadence of his own pulse. He willed himself to keep rigidly still as the gnarled fingers inserted the key into the tiny opening. His breath stopped as the hidden mechanism ground, clicked, separated.
The woman gasped as the iron band parted and fell away, exposing the raw flesh of Black Otter’s wrist. With more haste now the old man thrust the key into the second lock. A quick turn, and both hands were free. Tongues of fire blazed up Black Otter’s arms as the blood gushed into long-constricted vessels. He clenched his hands into fists, biting back the urge to scream with pain. Soon he would be free. Soon…
The ancient chief glanced down at Black Otter’s legs. To unfasten the ankle bands, he would have to drop to his arthritic knees, exposing himself to treachery from above. As the old man hesitated, Black Otter’s eyes caught a flicker of movement from the corner of the cell and heard the woman’s voice.
“I’ll do it, Father.” Without waiting for a reply she snatched the key from the old man’s hand and dropped to a kneeling position on the floor. Black Otter’s ankles had suffered even more from the chafing irons than had his wrists. They were swollen with fluid and raw with infection. He waited, in silence, teeth clenched against the pain he knew would come.
Her pale hands were cool and as soft as flower petals against his tormented flesh. Rowena. Her name echoed in his mind as she worked the key into position. A liquid name, as smooth as flowing water on the tongue. No he would not kill this harmless creature. Nor would he kill the old chief who was her father. They had shown him kindness and he, as a Lenape warrior, was bound by honor. But the toad-faced cowards who had dragged him down into this black hole—yes, on them he would take a warrior’s vengeance. He would strike without—
Black Otter’s body jerked in sudden agony as the iron band fell away from his ankle and dropped with a clatter to the stone floor. The pain of flowing blood lanced up his leg into his groin, so hot and intense that only his warrior’s discipline kept his mouth clamped shut, his throat silent.
The last iron band, he knew, would be the worst. Over the three long moons of his imprisonment, the rusting iron had worked into his swollen flesh, spawning odorous poisons that seeped like snake venom into his blood—poisons he knew would kill him if the irons were not removed and the wounds treated with healing herbs—if he could but find any. But where, in this accursed land—?
In the midst of his thoughts the rusty lock parted. The rush of sensation was so searing, so unspeakably painful, that Black Otter disgraced himself with a low groan. Sweat broke out on his face, streaming in small rivulets down his temples, his cheeks, as the realization struck him.
He was free.
The urge exploded in him to run—to shove these foolish people aside, to flee up the stairs and out of this great smelly warren of a house, to find fresh air and blue sky, to find the sea…
The door to his cell was ajar. Reason fled as he ripped it open, knocked the burly man out of the way and lunged toward the stairs. Behind him, the old chief was shouting, but his voice was drowned by the roaring sound that filled Black Otter’s head, a sound like the crash of ocean waves in a mighty storm.
Above, at the side of the stairs, the reed torch flickered in its bracket on the wall. If he could reach it, he would have a weapon—a weapon he could swing like a war club or fling into the straw, setting the hateful lodge aflame.
He struggled upward, head throbbing, limbs screaming in agony. The flame of the torch filled his vision, the light haloed by unearthly rings of green and violet. He strained upward to seize it, but his arms were as heavy as tree trunks and his legs suddenly refused to support him. The roar in his head grew, and now he was sinking into it like a swimmer in a dark ocean. Deeper, deeper, he struggled until it closed over his senses, leaving nothing but blackness and silence.
Clutching her skirts, Rowena pushed past her father and raced up the stairs to where the savage lay slumped beneath the torch.
“Keep away from him, Rowena!” Her father’s voice echoed off the dank stone walls. “Leave the brute to me and to Thomas.”
“So you can throw him back in that cell to die of his wounds?” She crouched beside the dark head, gazing down at the crumpled length of the man—the bruised torso, the ropy muscles, devoid of fat, the bloodless cheeks beneath the bronze patina of his skin. Where the torchlight fell on his face she noticed, for the first time, the blue tracery of birds in flight across his forehead and the small spear-shaped
