Seize the Fire (33 page)

"This isn't going to work." He yanked the knife over his head and tossed it aside.

"I was afraid it wouldn't," Olympia said, retrieving the loop and sheath and laying them on a boulder. "I'll make it another way."

"Do that."

He went back to digging, having delivered this suggestion in biting tones. Olympia ducked her head to hide a smile. The design had been his suggestion, carried out with a sail needle and twine by Olympia after a spirited argument over the various merits of several other ideas she'd proposed to protect the single most vital item they possessed. Her pocket scissors were of use in some situations, but nothing would replace the strong, curved blade of Sheridan's big Malayan parang, which chopped driftwood and cut peat and whittled delicately through whalebone with equal facility.

She held her hair back against the wind and tilted her head, looking at the rhythmic rise and fall of his shoulders, thinking of the night before: his face in the firelight, his chest and arms, the way his muscles moved and his throat worked in ecstasy as he pleasured her and himself. The things he taught her brought heat to her cheeks; it was as if she became someone else when he touched her, someone without shame or inhibitions. It was impossible to be guilty and abashed with him; he simply said he had no patience with silly missishness and kissed her until she could not think.

He was rather good at that.

And he minced no words: her education had included some clear and very physical instruction on female matters. He explained the meaning of her monthly cycles, the token barrier that kept her a virgin; he gave her warnings, told her what was natural and what to do to any chap who had the insolence to suggest she participate in what wasn't; he lectured her on the signs of pregnancy and demonstrated—with masculine pleasure—several methods to protect her.

In a week, she'd become as worldly-wise as any professional streetwalker—as he'd informed her with a dry grin. When she'd frowned at that, his look changed to complete innocence and he added that he'd understood her to say streetwalking was her ambition in life.

She never knew what to make of him.

A sudden squawk and flutter made her glance aside. She squealed in dismay, scrambling up and lunging toward the pair of rooks fighting over the glittering handle of the parang.

Both birds retreated in haste, but amid the thrashing takeoff, the sealskin loop tangled and caught in a claw. The bird rose, wings beating powerfully, carrying the knife just out of Olympia's frantic reach.

Sheridan bellowed. A rock went hurling over her head, but it missed as the thief tilted and rode the harsh wind upward, knife and sheath dangling. The bird circled, heading down the coast. Sheridan outdistanced Olympia instantly in the chase, leaving her to hike her skirts and run awkwardly after. Her heart rose when the rook landed, but it took off again as soon as Sheridan came close, the knife still twisting and bobbing in midair.

She fell farther behind, and finally came to a panting walk after losing sight of both Sheridan and the rook. She sat down, staring toward the steep headland that marked the end of their beach. A long time after she'd regained her breath, she finally saw him again—a silhouette at the top of the headland. She watched anxiously. When he leaned out over the edge of the steep cliff, looking down at the sea below, she bit her lip. Then he moved back, making a vicious heave toward the sky with his arm, and walked out of sight.

Olympia closed her eyes against the cold wind and wondered how they would survive without the knife. She could think of a hundred things that she'd taken for granted—cutting tussock grass, fashioning utensils, prying limpets from the rocks for the crucial nourishment that kept them alive when all their other luck was out. Even something as apparently inconsequential as Sheridan's stubborn insistence on shaving, which she'd begun to suspect was critical for him to maintain his steady morale—and therefore hers—depended on the razor-sharp blade of the parang.

She covered her eyes in despair. Such a small thing, such a silly thing: a villainous bird and a moment of inattention, and suddenly life became more precarious than ever.

Sheridan returned, striding with his jaw set. He didn't even stop when he saw her, but just snapped, "Come along. I need you," as he passed.

She jumped up and followed him. "Is it gone?"

"Likely."

His tone discouraged further questions. Olympia felt a flood of guilt. She should have been watching the knife. She should have put it safely inside the moment he took it off. It was her fault.

At the hut, he gathered all the rope they had from the rigging on the pinnace. She watched, a dismaying suspicion growing in her mind. It strengthened and flourished as she followed him back the way he'd come, all the way down the coast and up the rocky slope of the headland.

She was huffing by the time they reached the top, where the lumpy tussock grass gave way to a windswept table of black rock. Sheridan led the way to the edge and took her elbow. "Have a look."

She peered over the brink. Far below, amid huge fallen boulders, waves crashed in green-and-white glory. She squinted against the sharp wind, searching—and then saw it. A third of the way down the rugged face, the knife hung on a protruding rock, still sheathed, twisting and swaying in the air.

She pulled back, holding onto his arm with a tight grip.

"Now," he said over the sound of the surf, "we have to go get it."

She wet her lips. "On that rope?"

"Unless you've got wings." He shifted the coils off his shoulder. "I just hope to God there's enough."

She frowned at the flat surface they stood on. "There's nothing to tie it to."

He looked at her, his eyes steady, deep with gray shadows. "One of us anchors it. One of us goes down."

"But that won't do," she exclaimed. "I can't support your weight!"

He shrugged and smiled dryly. "On the other hand, I'm confident that I can handle yours."

"Oh, God," she said weakly.

He just stood looking at her, a faint lift to one dark eyebrow.

Olympia drew in a desperate breath. Hate rose suddenly and sharply; she wanted to curse him for his cowardice, but in the same moment reason intruded its cold facts. He was right. There was no choice. One of them had to go, and there was no hope that she could play the part of anchor with Sheridan on the other end.

She closed her eyes, breathing rapidly. "I can't do it," she said. "I can't do it. I know I can't."

He said nothing, no arguments, no advice or encouragement. When she opened her eyes, he was still watching her steadily.

"I'm afraid," she said in a trembling voice.

He waited.

"There must be some other—" She swallowed, hearing the pleading in her words. "I can't. Oh, God, I have to, don't I?"

His eyes were infinitely patient.

"I have to do it," she said. "We can't live without that knife."

"I won't let you fall," he said quietly.

"I have to do it." She couldn't quite conquer the quiver in her voice. "I will."

He took her face in his hands and kissed her hard. Olympia leaned against him, twisting her fingers in his shirt as if she were holding on for life itself already.

But she was the one who broke the kiss, working free of him with sudden resolution. If she was going down there, she wanted to do it and be done with it.

Sheridan seemed to understand, for he let her go immediately and hefted the rope. Carrying it to the edge, he lowered it over to measure the distance and nodded, hauling it back up.

"Come here," he said. "Take off your cloak. I'm going to tie this end to your waist, but that's only a safety measure. You won't have to hang on it." With brisk, efficient moves, he pulled the rope around her as she stood shivering in the wind. "You can trust my bowline knot, too," he said as he pulled it tight with a little jerk. "I've had a hellish lot of practice."

Olympia giggled nervously.

He gave her a little shake. "For God's sake, you think all the wrong things are funny. Someday I'll teach you a proper sense of humor."

She heard herself titter again, as if it were someone else making that ridiculous high-pitched noise.

"Breathe," he ordered, and Olympia realized with a start that she hadn't been. She rook a deep gulp of air.

"Slow and even. That's better." He caught the rope near the other end and reached down. Olympia was too terrified to even question him when he drew up her skirt in a bundle and passed the line between her legs, around her hip, up between her breasts and over her shoulder, then down across her back, padding it with her cloak. "Now. Left hand here. Right hand here. Try it. Move away from me; let the rope slip around you as you go. See?"

She shivered, feeling goose, bumps rise on her bared legs. "Are you just going to stand there and hold it?"

"No. I'll have it tied to me and braced around my back, like this."

"You shouldn't tie it. What if I fall? I'll pull you off."

"It'll save me throwing myself after you in remorse." He touched her icy cheek. "I said I wouldn't let you fall, mouse."

She looked up into his eyes, her fingers trapped together and twisting. She wanted to lean on him, to be gathered into his arms; she wanted warmth and safety and home.

But the wanting wasn't having. There was no one else to do for her what she refused to do herself, and no one else to believe in if she wouldn't believe in him.

She closed her eyes and opened them. "You won't let me fall," she said. "You won't let me fall."

"Not while I'm tied to the other end, by God."

The hysterical giggle bubbled up again. She swallowed it and moved toward the cliff edge.

The first horrifying moments, when she had to get over the brink, almost undid her. It was easy enough to let the rope slide around her on flat ground, but when she had to put her weight into it, it tightened around her painfully, tearing her palms as she held herself against the pull.

But just at the edge, a strange sense of detachment came over her. Though the icy wind scored her legs, her body seemed to lose its shaky weakness, to grip and balance with a strength she hadn't known she possessed. She planted her feet and leaned backward, out over the water, finding security in thin air as the rope supported her.

She knew better than to look below. The last thing she saw before she inched down the rough black wall of the cliff itself was Sheridan's face, set in a grin that might have been a grimace as he braced against her burden. Then there was only black rock that passed in a long blur of cold and pain and effort.

Fifteen steps down, she reached the knife. She was afraid to let go and retrieve it, but her body seemed to have a more phlegmatic attitude, having gone to the trouble to make this trip. She opened her last two fingers and snatched at it. It swayed out of reach. She bit her lip and moaned angrily, grabbed again and caught it.

Frightened that she would drop it, she worked it under her fingers, one by one, until it hung around her arm. She called out to Sheridan to pull her up. Nothing happened. She hung there, and suddenly became aware of the pounding sound of the surf far beneath her. She called again, more sharply. Panic hovered behind the strange wall of indifference.

The rope tightened on her. She took a step just in time to take advantage of the upward pull, and then another. Her heart pounded, louder than the surf. The cold air tore at her throat. Two, three, four…she lost count, wanting to stop and rest, but she dared not fail to respond to the rhythm of the lifting pull. One more step, and one more, and one more, and abruptly she could see Sheridan over the top. He was really grimacing now, angled on his heels and sliding the rope around his braced back, hauling in time with her steps. She pushed her knee over the edge and fell forward, clinging to the knife as she scrambled onto the flat.

"I did it," she cried. "I did it!"

He dropped the loose rope and reached her, falling onto his knees and enveloping her in a choking embrace. He was heaving for breath.

"I did it," she mumbled against him.

"Did it…" he gasped, squeezing her. "And…jolly damned…splendid…it was."

He kissed her ear, and all she could hear was his heavy panting; all she could feel was his arm pressed hard across her back as he held her. She leaned into his shoulder and noticed it was trembling, just before the world went fuzzy and darkness came up to cradle her.

Wind screamed around the hut, the voice of winter in mid-July, hissing in the roof and sucking smoke up the chimney into the howling dark. Olympia stirred at the watery contents of the bucket—seaweed and mussels, seaweed and limpets, seaweed and clams—seaweed and goose when she could catch it, which wasn't often. The main flock had fled the winter weeks ago. She stared at the fire, worded and restless.

Napoleon rustled, preening, and then waddled sleepily across the hut to settle himself on his tummy next to her.

"Yes, I know," she crooned, for something to fill the windy silence. "Aren't you a handsome fellow?"

Napoleon gurgled in soft agreement. The penguin had molted at last, his soft silver down falling out in bedraggled patches, until a most elegant black suit with a white waistcoat had emerged, enhanced by a stylish topknot of long red-and-yellow feathers. He graciously divided his patronage between Olympia and Sheridan, accepting a limpet or a small fish from either with enthusiastic cries and dips and bobs of his ornamented head. When they left each day, he followed a few yards, crying, slogging along in his determined waddle with his flippers outspread for balance. Nothing deterred him; he climbed over rocks in his path instead of skirting them, hopping and skidding down the other side on his knobby pink feet. Then, as if suddenly resigned to abandonment, he would stop, turn around and sit down to await their return at the door of the hut, where he could dive beneath the canvas to escape the rapacious rooks.

She smiled at him, glad of the company as he settled against her skirt. The night was black and lonely, and worry was beginning to turn to fear.

Outside, there was a faint sound above the wind. Olympia lifted her head sharply. She closed her eyes with a sigh of relief and joyful anticipation when the noise resolved into the crunch of footsteps on snow-covered sand.