So what made this woman different?
He wasn’t sure, but something did.
And now she was trying to kill herself.
He was just setting foot on the rocky shore of the river when he saw her abruptly go under water. He was in mail, with his broadsword around his waist, and he knew jumping into the river with all of that weight would sink him right to the bottom, so he began yanking off his sword and anything else that might weigh him down, including his mail. By the time he ripped the coat over his head, several long seconds had passed and he raced to the river’s side and dove in.
It was like ice.
Murky, dirty water greeted him. He was a good swimmer and went right to the spot where he’d seen her head go under and dove down, grabbing around, trying to catch hold of her somehow. He was trying not to panic, but he swam in circles, flailing about, trying to find some scrap of her. She couldn’t have gone too far, but maybe she’d gone just far enough that he wouldn’t be able to find her in time.
The seconds ticked away.
His lungs were screaming for air.
And then, he touched something.
It was hair.
Andreas grabbed a handful and pulled, surfacing on the water and pulling the woman up with him. She was unconscious and he swam desperately until he could find his footing. Hauling her into his arms, he carried her to the bank and lay her onto the rocky shore.
She wasn’t breathing so he turned her on her side, slapping her on the back, trying to evacuate the water from her lungs. He ended up rolling her onto her stomach, pressing her back firmly, trying to get her to breath. After several pumping tries, she suddenly vomited up brackish river water, coughing violently as water sprayed from her lungs.
Andreas thumped on her back, helping her expel it, as her body shook with cough. Once she’d managed to evacuate what water there was, she just lay there, eyes closed, breathing painfully and sounding as if she were dying.
He bent over her.
“My lady?” he said, dripping water on her. “Can you hear me?”
She grunted softly but she didn’t say anything. He rubbed her back, trying to stimulate her. “My lady?” he said again. “Can you speak?”
She drew in a long, agonizing breath before coughing fitfully again. But the coughing eventually faded and he heard her grunt again.
“It’s you,” she muttered. Then, she burst into tears. “Why can you not leave me alone?”
He wasn’t going to argue with her. He was freezing, she was freezing, and they were both going to catch their deaths if they didn’t get out of the wet clothing. Without another word, he went over to collect the things he had tossed off before diving into the water. Once he had them back on, over his wet clothing, he returned to the lady who was still laying there on the shore.
Bending over, he swept her into his arms, carrying her back up to the street level and heading back the way they had come.
But she didn’t put up a fight.
Maybe the fight had finally gone out of her.
They were back at the tavern.
This time, Gavriella was too exhausted to run from him. She was soaking wet and nearly catatonic by the time he carried her into the small bedchamber that he had rented for what remained of the night. She could hear the tavernkeeper as he rushed to awaken his wife, who helped him lug in a large copper pot used for bathing. Hearths were stoked and hot water began to fill the tub as she lay against the man called Wolf, as limp as a wet rag. Literally.
She could feel him shivering as he held her.
But she didn’t care.
She’d given up.
A fire and hot water and food was brought in. She could smell it, but she was so tired that she drifted off to sleep even as the bustle went on around her. When next she realized, he was setting her on the bed and the tavernkeeper’s wife was pulling the wet red silk off her. The water had made it run, so there were puddles of red water on the floor. Gavriella noted that it was just her and the tavernkeeper’s wife in the chamber. The door was shut and the man called Wolf was nowhere to be found.
They were alone.
The tavernkeeper’s wife managed to get the dress off of her, the shift, her hose and shoes. She’d lost the hat somewhere along the way. Once she was stripped down, the old woman plopped her into the copper pot that was big enough for two people.
The heat from the water was searing. Gavriella closed her eyes, relishing the heat. But her brief moment of peace and comfort was brutally interrupted when the old woman grabbed a horsehair brush, and a bar of lumpy white soap, and began to scrub her from head to toe.
Gavriella had to hold on to the sides of the pot as she was buffeted back and forth by the force of the old woman’s scrubbing. The woman didn’t have a light touch, unfortunately, and she scrubbed so hard that Gavriella was certain she had scrubbed some skin off. She even scrubbed under her toenails and her fingernails, thorough as she was. When she was finished, she poured buckets of water over Gavriella’s head and when she was certain her young charge was completely waterlogged, she used that slimy white soap to lather up her hair.
Gavriella was too tired and too weak to resist at that point, so she simply let the woman have her way. Her hair was scrubbed cleaner than it had probably been in her entire life and the woman finished her washing by pouring several more buckets of water over her head to rinse out the slimy white froth.
In truth, it was a little strange to have the woman bathe her, as Gavriella had been bathing alone since she had been a girl. She had a maid who served her at her father’s castle, but the woman never really helped her bathe. That was always something Gavriella did on her own. Even now, she wasn’t entirely comfortable with a strange woman bathing her, but it was too late to do anything about that, so she simply went along with it. When she had been scrubbed and scraped and rinsed from the top of her blonde head to the soles of her small feet, the old woman pulled her out of the pot and wrapped her up in a big coverlet.
Gavriella took no active role in anything that the old woman was imposing upon her. If the woman wanted her dry, then Gavriella sat there while the woman dried her. When it came to combing out her wet hair, she made no effort to take the comb from the old woman and do it herself. She simply let the woman do it for her, combing the tangles out of her hair as the heat of the chamber began to dry it.
With her hair partially dry and her body completely dry underneath the coverlet, the old woman loaned her some of her own clothing because the red dress was completely ruined. The red dye had been affected by the water, leaving big patches of white where it had washed out of the fabric. Gavriella knew that Aurelia was going to be extremely upset at the ruined dress, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it now.
In truth, she didn’t care.
At the moment, she didn’t care about anything.
The tavernkeeper’s wife pulled a shift over her head, made from wool and surprisingly clean. Over that went a heavy broadcloth surcoat that was tied at the waistline. It was too long, and a little too loose, but it was clean and comfortable. As Gavriella sat on the bed, quiet and exhausted, the old woman continued to comb through her hair before finally braiding it into a long, thick braid.
But all of the grooming had taken time and the food that had been brought into the room was cooling now. Still, Gavriella could smell it and, cool or not, she was going to eat it. The lure of bread and butter was enough to get her up off the bed. As she took a seat at the small table in front of the hearth, the old woman gathered up the damp linens and opened the door, hissing at her husband. He rushed in to help her remove the copper pot that was now heavy with lukewarm water. They lugged it out together, sloshing it on to the floor. As they departed, an enormous figure took their place.