A Warrior’s Heart by Misty M. Beller
7
Lying around like this should make Evan feel better, not worse. He flinched as another knife of pain plunged through his gut. His insides gurgled loudly enough for the guard across the room to hear.
Gerald, a man he’d not yet seen over the past two days, scowled at Evan. “Food will be here soon.” This fellow didn’t seem as amiable as the other guards. “Not that we should be wasting a meal on a good-for-nothing like you. Don’t know why the council didn’t put you out of your misery first thing. They’ll see your real colors soon enough, though.”
Evan clamped hard on his jaw, but the guard’s words were merely buzzing gnats compared to the chaos within him. His insides wielded bayonets and clubs, plunging and hacking until he could think of nothing except the agony. He rolled onto his side, curling his legs to ease the pressure within. Had they fed him something tainted? This guard might have led the effort.
Maybe they were poisoning him to make him tell his secrets. Surely she wasn’t lacing her delectables with arsenic. Audrey’s food tasted better than anything he’d eaten since Sophia had employed a cook. He played through the symptoms he’d learned during his training to be a spy. Stomach pain, muscle cramping, vomiting. He had the first two, but not the latter.
Yet.
Should he refuse to eat? The way he felt, his body would refuse the meal for him.
Another pain plunged in, and this time the bile rose up into his throat. His stomach convulsed. He was going to lose his insides. There was no way to hold it back this time.
He pushed up to his hands and knees, but as he worked to gain his feet, another spasm struck, and he stumbled down to his knees again. He tried to crawl forward, but the leather binding his ankles kept him from moving more than a handbreadth. They’d left his hands unbound after Audrey cut him free, but no one had loosed his feet.
His stomach revolted, and the meat pie from his midday meal spewed up his throat and out his mouth.
He barely heard the guard’s yelp through the rushing in his ears. Wave after wave of regurgitated food forced its way out of him. Maybe now his belly would finally settle.
The guard was murmuring something in French as Evan finally sank back to sit on the fur. “Sorry,” he mumbled. The word graveled out through his raw throat. He’d made a mess of the place. Would they make him clean it?
Probably not, for they didn’t seem inclined to let him leave the fur, except to occasionally shuffle to the patch of dirt in the corner. Even the dogs must be given more freedom than this. The night guard had replaced that pile of dirt a couple times now, and Evan hated watching the man clean up after him. If only he could be free to take care of things like that himself, he could lighten the work for them all.
But just now, his limbs barely had the strength to hold him in a sitting position. He sank down to lay on the hide as the guard stepped around the mess to reach the wooden door.
The man bellowed down the hallway, and the way his voice echoed off the walls, the corridor must be long and made of stone the entire way. How deep into the mountain were they?
The guard stood still, silence hanging in the air as he waited for a response. The man murmured more things under his breath, and Evan didn’t even try to translate. With the stench rising in the room, the words were probably just as foul.
The man sent him a glare, then stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him. The clank of what must be a metal or stone bar blocking the door shut was the only sound. Then quiet.
Evan’s pulse leapt. This was his chance. The first time he’d been left alone since the moment he’d been struck with Brielle’s arrow.
He pushed himself up to sitting and eyed the door. He’d studied every inch of the walls, floor, and ceiling these past two days, and that partition was the only way out. The hinge must be on the outside, so if that truly was a metal bar he’d heard slipping into place, his only option would be to break the wood.
Did he have time? He strained for the sound of footsteps, but he’d not even heard the guard walk away. Was the man outside, even now, listening? Testing Evan? The fellow had looked rattled. Surely he’d gone for help.
But even if Evan made his way into the hall, he had no idea how he would get out of this compound of caves. The guards would know every dark corner to find him. He couldn’t risk losing their trust after he was working so hard to gain it.
And he was so weak. He perhaps could muster the strength to sneak out, but if forced into a match of fists with one of these brawny men, he wasn’t sure he could win. He’d better wait for a more opportune chance.
He’d likely only have one shot at escape.
Voices outside the door made his heart skip a beat, and he smoothed his face into a bland expression. That same clang sounded again, then the partition opened. Brielle was the first to enter, followed by Audrey, then the other guard whose name he still didn’t know.
Brielle paused inside the doorway and scanned the mess. Something about her seemed different . . . softer. As her head turned, the light from a torch glimmered off the dark of her hair, revealing the kind of muss that came from leaning back against something—like a bed. Had they awakened her? How late was it, anyway? He’d been trying to keep track of time by the meals they served and the changing of their guard, and he was fairly certain this was late afternoon.
Brielle was speaking to Audrey in a low voice, her melodious French much more pleasing to the ear than what the guard had bellowed down the hall.
Audrey nodded and spoke back to her, pointing at the far edges of the room. Then Audrey turned her kind eyes on Evan and sympathy warmed them even more than usual. “You’re ill? Has my food done this to you?”
As much as he hated to dim the kindness in her gaze, he had to speak the truth. “I don’t know.”
Brielle turned to the guard. “Go with Audrey and bring whatever she needs. I’ll begin my watch.” She’d switched back to English. Was it her goal to keep him on his toes with the language shifts? Or maybe she meant to always speak English and forgot at times. That seemed highly unlikely. As far as he could tell, this woman never did anything without a purpose. At first, he’d assumed the things they said in the other languages were intended to be kept from him.
Now he didn’t know what to think. His head ached from the force of the convulsions. His muscles had regained some of their strength, but his belly roiled again. He had a feeling that might not be the only time he cast up his accounts.
As Audrey turned to go with the man, Evan raised a hand to catch her attention. “It might be good to bring a bucket or bowl or something.” She was looking at him with her head cocked, and heat flooded his ears. “Just in case.”
Understanding shifted her expression, and she nodded. “Oui.”
When the two closed the door behind them, Brielle made her way to the guard’s place against the wall, then turned to survey the mess from the new angle. Her brow furrowed, a look he didn’t often see on her stoic features. “You’re feeling better?” She swung her focus to him.
The part of him where his ego resided wanted to say yes. Of course, he was better. He was strong and strapping and every bit the capable man he’d been before she shot him in the gut. He hated to appear a weakling in front of anyone, especially this tough woman. But if he used bravado here, he had a feeling his body would prove him a liar. Perhaps it would be best to give them a little warning so they could prepare.
And if this sickness was a result of their poison, what did it matter if they knew their potion was working?
He pressed a hand to his stomach and scrunched his nose. “A little better than before.” Maybe that wasn’t completely honest. She would read between the lines and plan for the worst.
For a long moment, she studied him.
At first, he didn’t respond. Didn’t meet her gaze. But the longer she stood immobile, her focus penetrating, the more her stare raised his hackles. He finally turned to meet her look.
Her eyes were dark. “We’re not poisoning you.”
As much as he tried, he couldn’t keep from raising his brows. She was blunt, especially for a woman.
One side of her mouth twitched, the only hint that she noticed his reaction. “I’m sure that question crossed your mind.”
He let his smile ease out, although the effort reminded him he still wasn’t as strong as he should be. “I had wondered.”
Her brow lowered again, as though debating whether to say whatever was pressing in her mind. At this point, he couldn’t even imagine what that might be.
“We don’t intend to hurt you. As long as you don’t intend to hurt us.” Her eyes bore into him. “We’re keeping you until we can be certain of your intentions.”
Now they were coming down to the bedrock, the core of the matter, unencumbered by casual conversation or bushes to beat around.
He didn’t shirk from the intensity of her gaze, letting her see deep inside him to the truth in his words. “I mean no harm to you or your people. You have my word.” He couldn’t confirm that the United States government wouldn’t do them harm if he found what he sought here. And with the markings he’d seen on the southern side of this mountain, he had a feeling he’d find pitchblende somewhere nearby—likely deep inside a mountain, according to the army’s source.
“Then what is your reason for being here?” Her stare had lost none of its intensity.
Letting her see so far inside him was starting to burn his chest now, especially with this question. “Like I said, I’m exploring. Few from the east have ever been to this land, and very few descriptions of the area are recorded.”
Except for the journal entries he’d memorized, ones written by a trapper over a century ago. Those few pages where he’d remarked on the curious copper stone that sparked a small explosion in his fire had been the catalyst to the army’s research. The man had been intrigued by the rock enough to save a sample with his journals. And the army had been able to reproduce the explosion with the tiny stone. Thus the purpose for his mission.
“Why are you interested in our land?”
Please, Lord. Make her stop asking questions. Was God testing him? Had the Almighty decided his time had come and planned to take him out at the hands of this she-warrior?
He wouldn’t lie, but he’d also sworn an oath on a Bible that he would keep the details of this mission secret at any cost. If she pressed harder, he’d have to hedge.
But her intuition would probably realize he wasn’t being forthright. What would she do then? Kill him outright, or let him die a slow wasting death in this cell?
He pushed back the thoughts and focused on his answer. “I’m looking for things I’ve never seen before.”
“Like what?”
Was she trying to benefit from his weakness by pushing so hard? Maybe they really had poisoned him, and she was pressing the advantage. Twisting the blade, so to speak.
He could only die with honor. And truth. He forced his muddled mind to find an answer that would be both honest and hide his mission. “Things I’ve never seen before. Things that can’t be found where I live. Like caribou.” He tried for a smile, but it had no effect on her. As he knew it wouldn’t.
“Anything in particular you’re looking for?”
It was as though she knew of his mission and was trying to force his confession. Could that be possible? Did they have another spy in the war department? The way General Benedict Arnold had turned, anything was possible.
Maybe someone from the States had heard of his mission and ridden ahead to find the mineral first.
He studied Brielle from that new perspective, trying to align what little she’d said and done with that possibility. If a stranger had come to this village ahead of him, the man likely would have received the same treatment, would have been locked away in this dungeon for days.
Unless . . . they were only doing this to Evan because they knew what he sought and were trying to hold him back.
Perhaps it was time to turn the questioning on her. “Do you treat all your visitors as you have me?” He nodded toward the door. “Lock them away and assault them with endless questions and no daylight until they nearly lose their senses? Poison them until they’re so weak they’ll admit to any crime, no matter whether they performed the act or not?”
Her eyes flared and her back stiffened. “We did not poison you. Not other than the sleeping potion on the arrowhead. And if you committed a crime, or plan to commit one here, you can be certain I will hold you responsible. No Englishman will enter Laurent and hurt my people. Never again.”
Never again?The lethal tone of her voice spoke even more than her revealing words.