Leda

Chapter Thirty: On Fire

"Get under the nets," Oræl said, pushing out her boat. "And keep quiet!"

Leda nodded, wriggling beneath the foul smelling heap of ropes and fishing lines that Oræl threw into the prow. They rocked queasily for a few moments as the fisherwoman climbed in. Leda glimpsed up at the sky through a mesh of twine. She shivered, drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, trying not to sneeze. Her muscles ached and her body was stiff with cold. She had spent a night of fitful sleep in an abandoned shepherd's bothy high above the lake. Its roof was a mouldy mess of thatch and broken beams allowing rain to seep in; soaking the sacking under which she'd lain. Waking, she'd peered down from the moorland above the village to witness the imperial guards row for land. She'd moaned with misery. They would not stop, she realised ˗ not until they'd hunted her down, taken her back to Colvé and demanded that she wed that monster of a man who'd split her family apart, turning her and her parents into fugitives.

But that girl on the shore of Brennac seemed a promise of hope ˗ a gift from the spirits themselves. Leda hadn't even known for certain it was Oræl. The fisherwoman stood facing the lake in cut-off breeches, a buckskin jacket and linen shirt. Her body was lean, strong and weather-worked; her long sandy hair bound away from her tanned face. But as soon as Leda ran to the shore she felt certain that if she called Oræl's name this person would turn and give her aid. Not because Leda was ruler of Dal Reniac, but because they were both, in their own ways, running from the world and its traps, its threats and dangers. She'd thought of her parents, and how much they'd risked for freedom ˗ and now she understood. There was no price she wouldn't pay.

Now Oræl tugged at the ropes which bound the sails. They billowed out, catching the winds breathing across Brennac, and they were away! They were skimming, gliding, flying ˗ or so it felt - with grace and speed. The boat tipped up to the sky, down to the water, Oræl working the tiller as if it were an extension of her own body ˗ moving, shifting as the wind demanded. Leda gazed up at her in wonder from beneath the nets. The girl's eyes were focussed, clear; she chewed on her lower lip in concentration. The muscles of her forearms flexed as she worked the sheets, her bare feet groped for balance. Oræl was an acrobat on water, Leda thought with sudden joy ˗ a child of the lake, not the land. And then, as suddenly as her heart had soared, it fell. She struggled free of the nets, sitting bolt upright in alarm. For an arrow had pierced the sails ˗ an arrow laden with fire.

"No!" Oræl's face creased with misery. "My boat!"

Leda stared upwards as a leaf of canvas smouldered, shrivelled and broke free of the sail, tumbling onto the deck, hissing as it hit the water in the bottom of the boat. And then another...and another...a hole burning outwards like a red, blinking eye in the very middle of the sail.

Castor's men must have seen them as they left the shore ˗ they must have veered from the village, and now they rowed with power, with might and fury. And Oræl's boat, the wind sapped from its sail, now slowed; the boom flapping uselessly as she let the sheets slip from her hand. Another arrow soared, plummeting into the pile of nets. Leda yelped and flung herself into the stern, the boat lurching drunkenly from side to side.

"I should have known," Oræl said, her face twisted with anger and fear.

"Known what?"

"Not to help you. To mind my own business. Now look. The boat's all I have."

"I'll get you another one," Leda breathed, desperate.

"Really? Another one? Just like that? Doesn't sound like you're going to be handing out rewards any time soon, Miss Lady of Dal Reniac."

Another fire arrow hit the boat's side. Leda smelt the wood burn, and with it went her hopes.

"Anyway," Oræl jerked her thumb back at Castor's men. "It's you they want, not me. So...you're on your own now." And with that she rose, dived and disappeared. Leda watched, desperate. Castor's men were mere yards behind, screaming at her to stay in the boat. There was no sign of Oræl ˗ Brennac's waters had swallowed her whole. High above, the mast wavered as fire licked at ropes and wood. Then with a groan and a creak it split, the top half plummeting and hitting the water with an angry hiss, the sail now a mass of flames.

She looked at the water, remembering the sensation of drowning, of her lungs filling, her clothes dragging her down to meet weeds and the stony base of the lake. Leda peeled off her dress, screwed it tight to her chest, and then jumped naked into the water.

Cold clamped around her body; she gasped and spluttered, rose for air and then dived back down, her head freezing as she kicked her way forwards. Then she rose again. The world tilted and she could make out the shore and Oræl standing there shielding her eyes, anxiously scanning the lake. Leda dived and kicked again, her frozen limbs seizing up. If she didn't make it to the bank soon, the lake would take her ˗ this time, forever. She swam with a final, violent urge and felt her feet touch sand and stones. Fronds of weeds ensnared her ankles. She shook herself free. Then shingle grazed her belly and she crawled her way out to the relative warmth of an autumn morning ˗ to its rain, its wind ˗ and lay sucking in breath, her body shaking with cold.

"Get dressed!" Oræl was above her. She slipped off her jacket, wrapping it around Leda's shoulders. "Quickly!"

Leda sat upright, spat out water and watched as the remains of Oræl's boat drifted on fire: ropes, hull and sails slowly extinguished as they sank beneath the surface.

"Leda, you must run. Now!"

She tried to rise, but her legs shook and crumpled beneath her. The hull of the guards' scull loomed monstrously in the water, driving hard onto the shore.

"Leda!" Oræl dragged her to her feet. The cold bit her naked stomach and chest. She clung to Oræl's arm and turned, but it was too late. Boots crushed over pebbles, crunching their way towards her. Hands seized Oræl who kicked and lashed out until they had her pinned, face down on the ground. She stared up at the guard. He held a sword in his hand, and his smile tight. "The Emperor wants a word."

She refused to look at him, focussing instead on the empty stretch of water where, mere moments before, Oræl's boat had drifted. "I'm sure he does."