And it redoubled his purpose. Although he reminded himself he needed to stay safe, as ever before he felt the need, like a primal urge in the recesses of his psyche, to prove himself.
A shot fired. He was roused and ready, a kick of nervous energy making his body hot despite the brisk breeze off the river.
It was time.
Another loud crack sounded, followed by flashes of signal fire in the distance. Ormonde had set numerous flares, each using a variation of the delayed saltpeter and paper fuse that had worked for them before. The effect was that a dozen men approached, instead of Ormonde’s one.
Men shouted from the deck of the militia birlinn. Will heard distant splashes as they left their boat to investigate. The night was clear and cold, and the sound was vivid, carrying to him over the water.
There were more shouts, this time from the dock.
The diversion was working. They were abandoning their prisoner, for the moment. Will hoped they hadn’t left more than one man to guard him.
Will pulled himself up onto the bench. The chill had locked his muscles, and the movement sent shards of glass shattering from his calves up his spine. Grimacing, he flexed, inhaled deeply, and exhaled, trying to breathe out the shock of pain.
He eased his oars into the water and began to row. Boats. He glowered. Despise them.
He pulled ashore not ten yards from the birlinn. Holding onto the side of his boat, Will clambered over, using his arms to ease into water up to his thighs. He had to let go for the final drop, and stumbled when his feet hit the soft silt of the river bottom.
A spike of rage hit him, more visceral than any icy water. He gathered himself, grateful none were there to witness the clownish lack of dignity.
He heard a distant gunshot. Ormonde, doing his job. Time for Will to do his.
Bracing himself, he waded to the birlinn. He carried an old cane, carved of oak, the strongest of Scottish wood. It was more a staff than a mere cane, with a hefty crook for a handle. It would be his ticket onboard.
He stood in the shadow of the birlinn. The smooth, low hull blocked the night’s chill wind, but it also blocked the moon from his line of sight. Will waited, letting his eyes adjust, opening his ears to the activity on deck.
It was silent, but for the sounds men made. A clearing throat, a low cough. One guard then, he estimated. Two wouldn’t be able to resist talking.
He had to act fast. Until he was onboard, he’d be unacceptably vulnerable to attack from above. Reaching his cane up, Will hooked the thick crook over the lip of the vessel. He dried his palms one last time on the shoulders of his coat, and climbed fist-over-fist up the length of oak.
As silently as he could, he gripped one hand then another on the lip of the birlinn. The guard caught sight of Will just as he was shimmying over.
By the time he fell hard onto the floor of the hull, the guard was on him, pistol cocked.
“Damn,” Will muttered. He hadn’t bargained on a loaded gun. He rolled to the side. Gunpowder might trump steel, but no aim compared to a dagger’s. Rollo had his sgian dubh pulled from his sock in an instant, and he lashed, slicing just above the man’s heel.
Will felt as much as heard the hideous pop as the tendon snapped in two, and the man shrieked, crumpling to the ground.
It was quick work from there, Will driven to haste by the need to silence the man’s hysterical cries.
“Very impressive.” It was Massey’s voice, speaking in a hush from the rear of the vessel. There was a rustling, then he added, “If you’d be so kind, I have been trussed and tethered like a sheep for the shearing.”
“A moment,” Will gritted out, pulling himself to standing. He unhooked the cane from the boat, grateful that, even after all the commotion, the thing still hung there.
“Ah,” Massey exclaimed, his voice a bright little pop of sound. “You’re the cripple.”
Will hissed a response, cleaning his blade on the dead man’s sleeve.
“Rollo, is it?”
“Aye.”
“You seem quite deft with that stave of yours. I’ve heard of your exploits.” He squinted, trying to study Will’s legs in the darkness. “Good on you, to make the best of your infirmities.”
He shuffled toward Massey, his legs unsteady on the gently pitching deck. Boats. Will glowered. Loathe them.
“They say you’ve got quite the knack for cavalry fighting,” Massey continued, shaking his head in awe. “But how you manage to seat your horse. It’s a marvel.”
Will grunted, slicing through the man’s bonds, and decided to let tense silence be his response. He needed to listen for the militiamen’s return. But mostly he was finding Massey irksome.
“Well,” Massey said, rubbing his freed wrists. “I thank you—”
“Ist,” Will hushed him with an iron grip on his shoulder. He’d heard a faraway shot. “They return. We must make haste now.”
“But of course,” Massey replied in a stage whisper. “It puts me in mind of the time I escaped from the Tower. Wriggled my way up the fireplace like a damned chimney boy.” Chuckling, he followed Will up and over the side of the boat.
“Oh Lord help us,” Massey exclaimed, “this is bitter cold.” He waded behind Will in an ungainly return to the fishing boat. “The only flaw in a tidy plan, I say. I hear you’ve also helped a man escape from the Tower. Our Ormonde, in fact.”
“Our Ormonde is out there”—Rollo nodded into the night—“risking his hide for you. So I’ll ask again that you hold . . . your . . . tongue.” His tone brooked no response.
The men clambered into the small boat. It bobbed and rocked with the weight. Finally it settled, the only sound the dull slap of water against the hull.
The coast was ragged, and the plan was to shelter in a nearby cove, keeping out of the moonlight, waiting for Ormonde to return overland. Will rowed in silence, with Massey watching him all the while, a tidy, peevish smile curving his lips.
Just when Will began to wonder where Ormonde was, there was the crack of multiple gunshots. They exploded in rapid succession—too rapid to all be his friend.
Massey studied the spit of land edging the cove. “We should—” he began, then flicked his eyes to Will’s legs. It was the briefest of glances, but it didn’t go unnoticed. “I should investigate,” he amended. “Something’s amiss.”
“Go,” Will told him through clenched teeth. If Massey thought he was incapable of saving Ormonde, let him. Will would beat him to it, doubling back by boat.
His oars were in the water before Massey had even gotten his footing on land. Will pulled hard, putting his back and aching legs into it, his face grimacing with the effort.
Jamie was dead, and yet still he felt this maddening need to prove something.
With only one man’s weight on board, it was a quick return to the other side of the river. He opened his ears to the night, trying to hear beyond the heavy slap of water on the hull and the rhythmic splish of his rowing. Sensing activity on the riverbank, Will dragged his oars, slowing his boat to a stop.
A shout rose from near the dock. Then Ormonde’s voice pealed above the din, theatrically loud. “You three vagabonds, you’ll not stop me, even though I’m bound.”
Will laughed low to himself. It seemed the more perilous the situation, the more humor his friend brought to bear. But still, Ormonde’s message was clear. He was trussed, captured by three men.
Will rowed closer, pulling along the far side of the militia boat. He’d need to intervene before they got back onboard their birlinn. Somehow disable the three men and save Ormonde.
With naught but his cane and a dagger.
His eyes creased in thought. There wouldn’t be much time. He just needed to plunge in and hope a strategy made itself clear.
Will slid back into the icy water, and it was oddly warming on his cold, wet clothing. Scowling, he trudged the shallow river, casting his mind open for a plan. The silt was thick, and it fought his every step like a bog. So damnably slow, he thought. And then the idea struck.
All men move slowly in the water.
Will had been cursing it, but really, this hateful river was the great equalizer. It mattered not that he was crippled. Every man who tried to move in shallow water would be rendered a lumbering fool.
Ducking out of sight, he waited, assessing their location. Birlinns were low and light—it was what enabled them to move easily through shallow water—and this one hugged close to shore. The militiamen would need to push it back into the water, with a man at the rear to guide it.
He waited, knowing what would come, and finally he heard it. Someone approached from the rear of the boat. The man cursed low to himself, about the cold and the muck, completely unaware of what lurked for him in the water.
Will sank to his knees. Though he canted his chin up, the river swayed and splashed lazily, tasting soft and muddy at his mouth. Water seeped under his collar and sucked the heat from his chest, but focus made him immune to the cold.
He eased his cane underwater, stretching it out along the river bottom.
There was splashing, another curse, and the man came into view. Will’s sight was accustomed, but this man moved from moonlight to shadows, and it took him a moment to adjust.
Holding tight to the base of his cane, Will sucked in a breath and slipped beneath the surface. Blackness and silence engulfed him. Steadying himself, he dug one hand into the slime of the river bottom and extended the cane before him with the other. The water fought his every movement, and he flexed his wrist, fighting to keep the handle from skimming into the silt.
He swung, pushing the cane in a sluggish arc through the water. The crook struck the man’s ankle, and Will gave a quick, sharp tug.
The man fell into the water with a shout and a splash. Will came up for air, distantly aware of the change in the other men’s voices. He had but a moment to silence this one before he let out a call of alarm.
He went under again, dragging the man’s foot to him. Will grabbed the man’s thigh, pinned flailing hands beneath his feet. And then Rollo drowned him.
It seemed to take forever for him to thrash his last. The two of them struck an obscenely intimate pose, this stranger’s body writhing beneath him, the water’s resistance cho reographing a languorous dance. Will’s hand tangled in the man’s hair, holding him under while he tilted his own chin up for precious sips of air. Until finally, blessedly, the man flinched, and grew still.