The Bloody Quarrel (The Complete Edition) (28 page)

The children were having a great time but it was a different story for the adults. And as the sun began to sink and the time for their escape grew closer, even the little ones began to laugh less, picking up on the tension.

Bridgit had ordered everyone to eat and drink as much as they could manage but she had to force herself to swallow even the fruit, let alone the meat and bread and grains. Not that she had much time for eating. Everyone had to be organized, small groups of men assigned to watch larger groups of women and children. That way, if guards attacked any part of the column of Gaelish, there would be people ready to fight back. The men all had to be given at least some sort of weapon, even if most of them were sharpened chair legs. Still, as she had shown the first time she had crept out into the city, even those could take a life.

The men who had worked in the docks the day before quickly sketched out where the ships were and the most likely ones for them to take. Prince Kemal’s ship had arrived the night before and the men reported all of the surrounding vessels had been cleaned and their water barrels refilled. And food had been stockpiled on the docks, as if they were planning to feed an army.

“It is almost as if they want to head out to sea again immediately,” Ahearn said.

“Who cares what they want to do? It works in our favor,” Bridgit said. She had been trying not to think about Prince Kemal demanding to see her that day but had reassured herself that surely she was low on his list of priorities after arriving back in the country.

Every so often she glanced up at the sky, scared that she had lost track of time and they had missed their chance. Escaping was going to take perfect timing. They had to act just before evening prayers, so they had that opportunity to get as far away as possible. Too early and the city was still busy, too late and they would run into all the guards arriving to take the slaves away. To everyone else she had to be the calm center, reassuring the worriers and pretending to be completely confident. Inside she was as bad as any of them but she just couldn’t show it. It felt like being back with Kerrin, which just made her more determined to get home.

The women had been offering drugged drinks to the guards outside all day and now the soldiers were all sitting down and looking as though they were ready for sleep.

For the past few days, they had been using a stick propped upright in the courtyard to mark when prayers would be called. It cast a shadow that moved along with the sun. A line had been drawn on the ground to show when the call went out around the city and, just before the shadow touched that, they needed to act.

“Now is the time,” she told Riona. “Give the younger children those drinks. Once they start to take effect, we shall strike.”

“Get ready,” she told Carrick and Blaine, the two foolish cousins from Killarney. She did not like them and certainly did not trust them but they were the biggest men she had and they were a vital part of the plan. She just hoped that the lure of escape – and the fear of punishment – would keep them from doing anything stupid.

The younger children gratefully accepted the fresh fruit juice, with the rest going out to the guards in the hands of the prettiest of the wives.

“Invite them inside for something to eat, tell them we have all this extra food and it will all go to waste if they do not join us,” she advised.

“But they don’t speak the King’s Gaelish,” one of the women protested.

Bridgit sighed. Did she have to think of everything herself? “Find Ely and get her to translate,” she said.

But a quick search failed to find her in the building.

“Where is she? Look again, she’s probably hiding under a bed somewhere or with a pack of small children,” Bridgit said urgently.

She joined in this time, going through each room, yet Ely was nowhere in sight.

“Who remembers seeing her?” Bridgit demanded.

A couple of the wives who had been serving drinks to the guards volunteered that Ely had been there for the last round of drugged juice.

“And is that the last anyone saw of her? It must be a turn of the hourglass ago at least!” Bridgit asked, appalled. She had told the girl everything and had been determined to watch her like a hawk – except she had lost track of Ely during the craziness of the afternoon’s preparation for escape.

She took one look at the shadow creeping over the garden and came to a decision. Either Ely had run away, hoping to save herself in the event of them being captured or she had gone to Gokmen with news they planned to escape. She prayed that was not the case.

“Has she betrayed us?” Ahearn asked the question they were all wondering.

“If she wanted to betray us, she would have told the guards outside,” Bridgit said briskly, hoping that was true. “They would have taken us away and we wouldn’t be having this talk now. She was scared of being caught trying to escape. Unlike us, she doesn’t have anything to go home for. She’s probably just hidden herself somewhere in the city and will hope to lie her way out of trouble tomorrow.”

“It is an awful risk,” Nola said worriedly.

“No more than the risk we already faced. We go anyway. Give it a count of two hundred to let the drugged drinks work and then we make our move. Go when I strike one of the guards,” Bridgit said. “To your places. You all know what must be done.”

She watched them hurry away and prayed she was right.

*

Kemal rubbed sleep from his eyes. Once back in Adana he had slept for a night and most of a day, waking only at the insistence of his servants.

“There is a girl here to see you – she displays your token, high one,” they said, bowing low.

“Send her in. And get me something fresh to eat. As much fruit as you can find,” he said, his stomach growling. He had enjoyed the best of the food on board the ship but there was little fresh to be had in Gaelland, with spices needed to disguise the taste of their salted beef and lamb.

He was wiping juice off his beard when she came in, bowing low. “Ely,” he greeted. “And what brings you here like this? I thought you were to report to me only when I gave the signal?”

“My apologies, high one. But I have urgent news,” she said. “As you ordered me to, I have gained the confidence of their leader Bridgit and she has included me in her plans.”

He snapped his fingers. “Then speak. I do not have much time.”

She straightened up. “High one, they are planning an escape. They will try to steal a ship this night and sail back to their country.”

Kemal leaned back, trying to get his tired mind to think. His first instinct was to call for the guards but perhaps that was a mistake. He needed to get them back to Gaelland anyway and maybe this was a way to get that past his father. Freeing the slaves would outrage the Emperor – as would a slave escape – but at least if they escaped, the blame would fall on the likes of Gokmen. He could protect the man and gain an ally who would be pathetically grateful to him, as well as have the perfect excuse to take a large force back to Gaelland. He congratulated himself on the foresight that had led him to make Ely the translator for the Gaelish while he was away. She had been tutor to Feray, Asil and Orhan, as well as to himself, teaching them all the Gaelish tongue so they would be ready to take up their duties in the new land.

He had made her duties plain to Ely. She was to win their confidence and report back to him. Do her job well and she, her mother and her sister would be freed. Anger him and she would pray for death. She had been shown her expected fate and he had known she would not dare to fail. She would be forced to watch her sister and mother die horribly before joining them. He grimaced at the thought. Just a moon ago, the thought of using someone’s family as a threat to make them do what you wanted was perfectly normal. Now it did not seem such an easy thing to do.

Kemal quickly considered his options. Letting them escape could help but what if some of them were killed? A death or two would normally not mean too much but what if one of those killed were the wives or children of Fallon’s lieutenants? What would that cost him? He swiftly came to a decision.

“You stay with me,” he ordered Ely. “But first, get me the captain of my guards. We have much to do.”

*

Bridgit cursed Ely. Just at the point when she needed someone with a good command of Kottermani to talk to the guards, the girl had run off in fear. She also cursed herself. She should have stayed with the girl, kept a close watch on her. Ely had been trying to tell her something before. If only she had listened better then, perhaps they would not be facing this problem now.

Half of the guards were inside, while half were still outside. She needed to get them in somehow. Trying to attack a dozen men in the streets was doomed to failure. In desperation she grabbed Ena and another of the younger, prettier wives and took them into a side room, where others could not see them. There she took a knife and crudely cut at their skirts, ripping the hem until it exposed half their thighs.

“What are you doing, Bridgit?” demanded Ena. She had wide eyes and pale skin, even with the time she had spent working in the sun. Bridgit had seen how the guards always watched her.

By way of an answer, Bridgit took the knife to the loose top she wore, ripping down around the neckline.

“Is this some kind of jest?” Ena continued. “Answer me, for Aroaril’s sake!”

Bridgit stopped tearing at her loose shirt. “We have to get the others inside,” she said. “I need the pair of you to dance like it was your marriage night.”

“Like this?” Ena asked indignantly. “Murphy would be shocked!”

“Well, he’s not going to get the chance unless we do something fast,” Bridgit said, moving on to the other woman and cutting away her skirt. “If you can think of a surer way to get those guards in here and not watching what the rest of us are doing, say so now!”

As she had expected, neither had an answer.

“Look, I would do this myself but we all know that won’t get the guards so eager for an eyeful that they leave their posts and get in here. You are our best hope.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” the other woman, Clare, asked. Bridgit did not know her as well, for she was from Killarney, but like Ena she had red hair and pale skin.

“Drop your clothes on the floor and keep dancing. If there’s a man out there who can stay at his post while that’s happening instead of rushing in to watch, then we will just have to kill him, because he would have to be made of stone,” Bridgit said shortly. She inspected the two women critically and nodded.

“Good. Now let’s get moving. They will call for prayers at any moment and our chance will be lost.”

*

Bridgit led the way, clapping her hands, while around her others took up the rhythm and formed a circle in the front room. The guards who were already inside came along, swept up by the others, and they swiftly joined the Gaelish in cheering as the scantily clad women gyrated around the circle.

“Give them more! As if you were dancing for Murphy!” Bridgit told Ena as she danced closer. “Do it for the children!”

She could see neither woman was happy or comfortable with what she was doing but they danced on, spinning and stretching, and the guards in the circle began to call out to their comrades outside.

Bridgit glanced over her shoulder and saw heads appear around the door then, as she hoped, the guards outside began to hurry in. In a city where the women went covered from head to toe to protect themselves from the sun, the chance to see bare limbs flashing pale skin at every turn was enough to get any man away from his post.

They had been dulled by the drinks they had taken, but she could see their eyes locked onto the dancing women.

Bridgit signaled to Ahearn, and to Carrick and Blaine, and men eased through the crowd to stand near the guards.

“Now!” Bridgit cried, jumping into the circle herself.

The guards all looked at her – then they were overpowered a moment later, struck and stunned or dragged down and choked. Half-asleep thanks to all the drugged drinks, none even put up a fight. Pieces of the makeshift rope she had used to get in and out of the house were used to truss them up, while their weapons were swiftly taken. Ahearn handed Bridgit a long knife, its blade gently curved, and she hurriedly slipped it into her belted robe.

“Get the children and get ready,” Bridgit said, quickly embracing a puffing Eva and Clare.

Nola and Riona handed them cloaks and they all quickly lined up, watched by battered, bruised and dazed guards, whose eyes promised murder even though their mouths were gagged and hands tied.

“What if one of them escapes and raises the alarm? Would we not be better off silencing them?” Carrick asked.

Bridgit had considered that herself but the thought of killing helpless men turned her stomach. Besides, the soldiers’ bonds had been secured by Ahearn’s crew of fishermen.

“They will not get free in a hurry. By the time they do, we shall be long gone,” she said firmly.

The children were brought out, the babies and toddlers sleeping gently in the arms of their mothers or older siblings. A cry at the wrong moment could bring them undone so she had been careful to make sure only those who could be trusted – and were strong enough – would run with the adults. Each of these children had a pair and they were all to watch out for each other. The only ones who did not have a small child to carry or a younger to hold hands with were the dozen older boys and girls with slings.

“Good. All ready?” She smiled at them, tousling hair or brushing the cheek of one of her many favorites. “When we hear the call of prayers you start to run and you don’t stop until we are on a ship.”

She left them, feeling confident, and turned back to the front door to hear strange noises going on. “Keep quiet until we get the signal!” she snapped, then saw it was not her own people who were making noise.

Instead it was the surviving guards, as Carrick and Blaine used borrowed swords to kill them.

“What are you doing?” she raged. “I gave orders that they were not to be harmed!”