Seize the Fire (26 page)

What Sheridan was doing, where he was going—the question had faded to dim insignificance in the face of her ongoing battle with the waves. The threat of Buckhorse seemed distant and trivial, the hope of warmth and comfort so far away that she could not imagine what either felt like anymore.

She'd asked Sheridan once, hours ago, how he could tell his heading, and he'd answered that he couldn't.

But she kept bailing. When her mind would have given up, her body kept on.

"There,"
he said suddenly, the first word he'd spoken for endless lifetimes, and then shook with a fit of coughing. The pinnace took a wave as he lost control of the tiller for an instant.

Olympia cried out, but he caught the handle back. The boat steadied. She bailed, anxious to rid them of the watery weight that made the pinnace wallow sluggishly. Behind her, Sheridan made a sound like a dying groan, but when she looked around in dread, he was only fighting to unlash one of the oars and keep hold of the tiller at the same time.

"I'll do it," Olympia said.

He gave her a glance, then dropped back with a grunt and a nod. "Breakers to windward. Free a pair, but hang onto 'em until I can—"

"I know how to handle an oar," she snapped. "Do you want them shipped?"

He looked at her, a speculative stare against the wind. It was like being gauged by an iceberg.

"All right," he said at last. "Ship the oars, Your Highness."

Olympia worked her numbed hands, turning to squint across the sea as they rose on a wave. She saw the line of breakers, dim white below a faint dark smudge in the teeth of the wind. The idea of rowing for that made her heart sink.

"Current's in our favor," Sheridan said from behind her, as if he read her thoughts.

She began to work at the lashings. It was one thing to row a small punt on the wind-rippled surface of the fens and canals of Norfolk—she was an expert at that—but another entirely to handle the long oars of a seagoing ship's boat amid the tossing waves. There were ten sets lashed along the bottom of the pinnace, indication enough of how many men it usually took to handle the boat.

She faced the stern and slotted the oars into the center locks. The handles lurched and fought her, cutting into the waves and out again.

"Get down," he ordered. "I'm going to take in sail. Try to keep us steady on."

As soon as he let go of the tiller, everything seemed to become mayhem; the boat spun in the grip of the sea, dropping into a trough broadside to an oncoming swell. Olympia dug in frantically with the starboard oar, backing foam and water with the other. The pinnace swung, riding up stern-first over the wave.

Sheridan was working just as furiously to contain the sail and lash it down; he dragged the trailing canvas aboard with a sheet of freezing water, stumbling hard against Olympia's shoulder. She said something, only realizing after he'd given her a startled glance and pushed away that it had been a word worthy of the most foul-mouthed sea dog. Sheridan made the last rope fast and went down on his knees on the seat in front of her.

"I'll take 'em. Keep me on my heading."

His hands covered hers on the oars, twice as large and twice as cold. The grip hurt. Olympia slid her fingers from underneath. He took a long pull on both oars, his mouth pressing into a grimace as he put his weight into it.

"Damn," he muttered, and then flashed her a pained grin. "As we better-mannered sailors say."

Olympia rubbed her aching hands together and ignored him.

Just outside the roaring lines of surf, Sheridan lay on the oars, taking great heaving breaths and staring through the vapor. The huge incoming swell rode them up and down.

"God." He stared at the surf. "I don't know if we can do this."

Olympia was too numb to react to the comment. She sat by the tiller, shivering.

"Can you steer?" he asked.

She nodded.

"All right. We're going to wait for a big one. When the stem lifts, I'll try to get her on it. You keep us out to the wave; don't let us broach—you know, get sideways to it—or we're dead. Straight in. When we hit the beach, I'll try to drag her up with the wave."

Olympia looked at him apprehensively, recalling the grunts and grimaces of pain. "Can you do that?"

"Are you volunteering?"

"I only thought—you might be too badly hurt."

"I am. That's what I get for being a hero on your behalf."

He was so calm, even smiling a little, as if it were a joke. Beneath the woolen cap, his dark brows were stark against his face. She wondered if he was afraid.

Olympia was.
I can't, I can't, I can't,
her mind ranted as the swell lifted them and dropped.

Sheridan began pulling strongly, leaving her no time to think of more than keeping the boat stern-in toward the wave that rushed them forward. He bent into the oars with concentrated power and drew a succession of deep, urgent sweeps.

The stern mounted on a monstrous swell. The thunder of foam filled her ears. She fought with the tiller. Sheridan yelled and gave one last desperate pull as the wave picked them up. He broke the oars free, sending them outward in two pale flashes that hit the water, curved upward and disappeared into the roaring crest. The boat swept down the face of the wave like a flying horse, the swell growing larger and larger as it drove them ahead with spray sheering out from the bow in two great arcs of silver.

An underwater shape swept by just inches from the boat; she recognized it as a rock after it was gone, looked ahead, saw another, and then that was past, too, and the beach was in front of her as the wave behind curled over and thundered down, shooting them up on the sand amid a freezing confusion of breaker and spray.

Before she could move, Sheridan was waist-deep in water, hauling the boat on the boiling destruction of the wave. He stumbled and went down in the surf to his chin. The boat thumped on solid ground, tilting wildly as water poured in on her with a shock of murdering cold. Sheridan was on his knees, the bow rope over his shoulder, the torn seams of his sodden coat gaping white as he strained against the combined forces of boat and ebbing water.

By the time she splashed out, he'd dragged the pinnace just barely above the controlling tow of the water. He stood at the bow, panting and coughing hugely, squinting past her at the sprawling threat of the next wave.

Olympia leaned on the boat, trembling. Her stomach reeled with hunger and stress. She swallowed nausea and looked around.

It was almost night; all she could see of the beach was a pale stretch studded by dark flat rock in either direction and a steep bank a good distance ahead. Snow was beginning to fall again.

"Now what?" she said.

He took a deep, rasping breath and made a shaky caricature of a bow. "If madam will point out her bandbox and trunk…?"

She crossed her arms. A shudder ran through her. "What are you talking about?" Her voice held a mournful, desperate note. "We're stuck here, aren't we? Wet to the skin. Freezing. As good as dead, with no fire or food or shelter."

He made a face. "It would be my luck, wouldn't it? To be stranded on a desert island with a person of gloomy intensity."

"It's getting dark."

"I see that."

"It's going to get colder. We'll have frostbite before morning if we don't do something."

He regarded her with resignation. "It must be the revolutionary temperament. All that brooding about injustice."

She leaned against the boat, fighting tears. "All I'm brooding about now," she whispered, "is staying alive."

"There." He smiled—a faint, grim curve. His eyes caught the lingering gray light, "That's more the thing. You
are
alive, after all—you can tell by how wretched you feel. Don't be in such a damned hurry to kill yourself off." He touched her under the chin, his finger cold and clumsy. "You know—you're a jolly good helmsman, Your Highness."

Olympia pulled away, too fired and miserable to be actively hateful toward the enemy, but still refusing to look into his face.

He caught her left arm. "You've cut yourself."

Olympia looked down at her hand. There was a bright smear across her palm, staining her cuff. She spread her fingers and saw the cut, a deep gash between her thumb and forefinger.

"I can't feel it." She bit her lip. Foolish tears welled. "I'm so cold I c-can't even f-feel it."

"Fine. Then it won't hurt to have it cleaned."

He pulled her firmly toward the water and made her hold out her hand while he poured freezing seawater over it from the bucket. Then he took off his coat, wincing, and unbuttoned his shirt.

Olympia sucked in her breath at the sight of his chest as he stripped off his shirt. "Dear God. You're black-and-blue."

"Disgusting, ain't it? I suppose it comes of being the sort of person in whom distressed princesses confide their secrets."

She didn't care for the twinge of feeling that touched her. "It comes," she said meanly, "of being a monstrous, contemptible thief."

"Here." He ripped at his shirtsleeve, tearing it loose at the seam. "Being utterly devoid of all human decency, I'll selfishly bandage you with a piece of my own scant attire so that you may keep yours. I wouldn't want you to live through the night, would I?" He wrapped her palm and tied off the bandage, none too gently.

Olympia watched him rebutton the mutilated shirt and shrug into his wet coat.
Thank you
stuck in her throat. If not for him, she wouldn't be here. She would be warm and well fed in…

Wisbeach? Oriens? Rome?

She didn't know. She didn't care. Anything was better than this misery.

"I'm hungry," she said.

"So am I." He looked around at the empty beach. "Any ideas?"

"No."

"Well, then, I expect we'll just have to lie down and die. Perhaps you'll go first, and I can dine on leg of princess."

In the gathering darkness, his features were harshly etched: that strange inhuman beauty of his, compelling even here. Especially here, where it echoed the stark grandeur of the beach and the sea. He seemed a part of the surroundings. The cold was her adversary, the falling night was her terror, but he seemed to integrate with it like a lonely spirit blended with the gray mist of evening.

He held out the bucket. "Find us some fresh water before dark. I'll do what I can for shelter."

Olympia turned away, blinking against the snow. It was falling thickly now, dusting the ground. She trudged along between the island and the sea, looking aside to find a way up the bank. Her skirt had begun to freeze; it dragged and crackled around her legs. Her clothes were soaked through, even under the cloak. The wind seemed to cut right through them to her skin.

With each step it became harder and harder for her to move her cold limbs. She stumbled on a piece of wood, climbed painfully to her feet and staggered on. When finally she reached a low point in the bank, she stood staring at it through the dimness, trying to remember what she was to do. A fit of violent shivering rattled her body until she could hardly stand.

After a long time, she attempted to grab a dark tussock of overhanging grass at the top. Her fingers would not open. She pulled back and looked down at them, shaking all over. The snow seemed to fly into her eyes on purpose. She reached up to wipe it away and ran her fist into her nose. She could not feel them, her fingers or her nose or her ears, not even when she touched them together. That seemed to have some frightening significance, but her mind was becoming too sluggish to focus on it.

The wind howled past her. She could hear the sea, a dim and constant roar that seemed to recede and come closer. On hands and knees, she scrambled and heaved and clambered up onto the bank, her frozen clothing rubbing raw places on her skin. At the top, she was surrounded by the dark bulk of the huge tussocks. The night had come down, but the dust of snow and clouds seemed to glow with their own light. She shoved between the mounds of grass.

With a crunching sound, she found herself sitting down, the breath knocked out of her by the fall. An instant later her right hand began to burn and ache. She looked down and found it buried beneath an inch of broken ice and freezing water. She whimpered and drew the wet hand into her lap, bending over.

She ought to get up. But her body had lost the ability, and her mind could not summon the will. Her head ached. Tears spilled over and froze on her cheeks and lashes. She listened to the wind cry mournfully above her.

She was sleepy. Her lids drooped and her lashes tangled. Cold. It was so cold. Sheridan would be angry; he would be expecting her back with water, but she couldn't make it. They were going to die here anyway. Sleep seemed the best thing. She would sleep, and then maybe it would seem warmer.

For a while. Just for a little while.

Even with the footprints to follow in the light powder of snow, he almost stumbled past her, thinking she was just another mound of grass in the gloom.

He fell on his knees beside the huddle of frozen cloak. Ice broke under him as he grabbed her. "Princess." His voice cracked with sudden fear. "Christ—wake up—" His fingers dug into her shoulders. He shook her frantically. "Open your eyes—oh, Jesus,
wake up."

She stirred with a little moan. "Sleep…" she whimpered.

Sheridan felt something terrible release within his chest at the sound of life. "Bird-witted female," he muttered, closing his eyes for an instant. "Oh, God. Oh, God."

He tilted her head back and shook her again. Without waiting for a response, he got an arm around her and dragged her back into the shelter of two huge tussocks. Her cloak and skirt rattled stiffly. Sheridan stood up, cast about and began tearing at the dead-grass base of a nearby tussock. The long leaves came free, along with handfuls of a dry, lightweight kind of turf from the center. The whole tussock was taller than his head; he peeled it down and then attacked another, piling the straw and crumbled sod into a deep bed under the windbreak.

He stripped her of the frozen clothes. She whimpered and muttered feebly while he worked at her buttons. "So cold…" she whispered. "Going…to die…"