Hemlock Page 3

  He was calling her other-worldly? Pot, kettle, black. With effort, Martha bit back the barrage of vicious retorts forming on her lips and resumed her seat, glowering in silence at the fire. Not as satisfying as punching him would be, but the way this day was going, she’d probably break her hand on his flinty face.

  He picked up her coat from where he’d dropped it. “You would do better to wear a cloak,” he said, as if nothing had happened.

  Martha forced herself to look at him, pretending she was over the phone incident. “And end up looking look like an over-stuffed sofa? No thanks. I’ll hang on to my fashion sense for a while longer, if that’s all right with you.”

  Vadim shook his head, giving her a superior ‘man look’—the kind she’d received a thousand times before. However odd he was, he was all male.

  “Fashion has no place beyond the borders of Court, and certainly not here in the foothills.”

  Before she could quiz him on this, a rogue gust of wind entered the cave. As it hit the fire, it sent a great plume of plastic-tinged smoke straight at her face.

  Martha set off coughing like a hardened smoker. The cave amplified her hacking barks until it sounded like a seal colony. She dry-heaved, tears coursing down her cheeks.

  “Here.” He thrust a soft leather bladder into her hand. “Water.” It was already uncorked.

  Gasping for breath, she took a little sip, somehow managing to swallow the liquid and not cough-spurt it into Vadim’s face.

  He moved behind her and patted her back, saying nothing until the coughing fit subsided into fish-out-of-water gasps. “Better?” He handed her a piece of cloth.

  Nodding, Martha swiped the material over her teary face. Her lungs and throat ached as if they’d been savaged by a grater.

  Vadim took off his cloak and swung it over her shoulders. “This will preserve your modesty better than the blanket, I think.”

  It landed with a heaviness that made her shoulders sag. Suddenly, she was basking in a super-heated cloud of man-scent and leather. Bliss to her icy skin. Curiously disturbing to her senses.

  What on earth was he looking at now? Following his gaze down, she discovered the wretched blanket had come loose, treating Vadim to another eyeful of her cleavage—and the dodgy bra that failed to properly contain it.

  “Oh, for f—” With an irritated little huff, Martha dragged the edges of the cloak together, trying to ignore his laughing eyes.

  Now that the show was over, Vadim turned away to drape her clothes over a couple of large rocks at the opposite side of the fire. While he was occupied, Martha checked out his rear view.

  He wore a long leather tunic, and a light colored shirt beneath it. A thick belt encircled his waist. Amongst the various bits of hardware attached to it, her eye was drawn to a long leather sheath hanging by his left hip. She caught the glint of a metal handle. Was that a sword? She gulped. Just how unbalanced was this guy?

  “Tell me about the land you come from.” Vadim spun about, having finished his laundry duties. “If you are willing, I should like to hear of it.”

  Martha schooled her face into neutral. “My world? Okay.” She’d play along until morning, then she was out of here. Back to the real world, far away from Vadim’s pseudo-medieval crazy land. Until then, she’d just have to humor him.

  His barrage of questions soon had her tied up in knots. The modern world, it turned out, wasn’t an easy thing to explain.

  “So cars are a kind of horseless carriage?”

  “Basically, yes.”

  “Like carts?”

  “No.” Martha ran her hands through her tangled hair. “Cars are…well, motorised carriages, I suppose. They move by themselves. No horses required.”

  “No horses?” Vadim frowned. “Then what propels them?” He leaned forward, handing her another piece of the dry bread that comprised their supper. “Something must power them.”

  “That’d be the engine.”

  “The engine? You mean like a…siege engine?”

  Oh God, no!

  He cupped his chin in his hands, fixing her with his glittering eyes. Interest radiated from his whole being, and it was a good look for him, stripping away his veneer of stone. Unfortunately, she was about to disappoint him. Again.

  “I’m sorry, Vadim. I can’t even begin to describe the workings of a combustion engine to you. I have no idea how they work. I turn a key and the car moves. That’s about the limit of my knowledge.”

  “Very well. Then tell me something else.”

  She’d always imagined that people from the present day were somehow superior in intelligence from their Dark Age ancestors. But as she talked to Vadim, she saw things in a whole new light.

  This whole charade might be just a silly game, but she suddenly realized that those long-dead people had been just as smart, and equally as stupid, as their modern-day counterparts. They simply had a different set of life-skills.

  And right now, Martha was the one feeling stupid.

  “Wait a moment.” She smiled, holding up her hand to ward off Vadim’s eager questions. “Can I ask you something this time?”

  He inclined his head slightly. “Certainly.”

  Careful now. Don’t sound too eager. “Where did you find me?”

  “Down by the river where the rowan tree grows. Close to the passing place. Why?” He raked back his hair one-handed, studying her intently. “Do you have some memory of it?”

  “Not exactly, no.” Excitement thrummed in her veins. The passing place must be the stepping stones. It had to be. “Is it, er, very far from here?” she asked, being careful to ensure her interest sounded casual.

  “Not at all, though the terrain can be arduous in certain weather.” As he spoke, Vadim gestured with his hand, unintentionally giving her a rough idea of the direction in which she should walk.

  “Oh.” Martha let the subject drop in case he became suspicious. “Okay, how about I have another go at explaining electricity for you?” she asked brightly.

  ***

  The hour grew late. The strange woman slumbered on the bedroll, sheltered beneath his cloak. From his place by the fire, Vadim watched the steady rise and fall of her chest. Her occasional snores reminded him of one of his father’s prized sows and of the contented sounds the piglets made when their bellies were full.

  The old man…

  Vadim took a deep puff on his pipe and exhaled slowly. Smoke spiraled about his face in a fragrant cloud. Why was he thinking of Father again when his family had been dust for so many years? With effort, he turned his thoughts from their bleak wanderings. The past was dead. The future did not exist. This moment was the only reality.

  The fire burned low. He stretched out and threw another log onto the embers. Gentle flames caressed it, licking at the wood, coaxing it to become part of the blaze. The wood popped and hissed in protest but ultimately surrendered to its fate.

  What fate had led him to Martha?

  The chances of anybody finding her out there in that exposed place were slim. It was fortunate for her he had been out checking his snares today. When he saw her lying beside the old river, he had at first believed her dead. She was unconscious, her skin tinged blue. Perhaps it would have been wiser to leave her there. Death would have surely taken her during the night.

  Never had he encountered anyone of adult age so ill-equipped for survival. Nor so strangely dressed. Was she as innocent as her eyes declared, or was she an agent of the enemy? Where was she from? Where were her family? How could she have wandered so far on her own without being pursued by her men-folk?

  Was she a witch?

  He glanced over to where she slept, lost in her dreams. His questions would have to keep for another day.

  Bedraggled as she was, Martha was certainly no peasant. Her smooth, white hands bore no calluses. Even her chestnut curls, mussed as they were, showed signs of regular maintenance.

  And then there was the scent of her skin. Whilst removing her wet things, he had detect
ed the faint sweetness of rose petals. Who but nobility had the time, silver, or inclination for luxurious bathing these days?

  The soft, rounded curves of her body were most telling of all. Vadim shifted uncomfortably on his seat and took another long suck on his pipe. When they had arrived back at the cave, Martha’s lips had been blue with cold. Although he needed to go out and gather firewood, he feared she would die if he left her. So, against his better judgement, he had crawled beneath the blanket with her and held her in his arms, warming her with his own body.

  Even now, his skin recalled the sensation of the soft curves pressed against it. She was certainly well nourished. Only the nobles of these lands ate so well these days. The low-born frequently starved. No matter how bountiful the harvest, there was always a rich thief waiting to snatch the food from their mouths.

  Martha’s speech was neither noble nor peasant. He could only guess at the meaning of some of her words. Well-traveled as he was, he could not guess at her accent. In fact, he had never encountered anyone like her.

  The woman sleeping beneath his cloak was a mystery. He disliked the unknown; it troubled him. His life did not require any more uncertainty.

  Where were the places she spoke of, foreign places with names that did not exist? And what of the thin black box he had destroyed, and the other things she had tried explaining to him? Carts without horses, indeed!

  Yet there she lay, asleep on his bed, her strange clothes drying by the fire, and the peculiarity of her speech still echoing in his mind. In the absence of any logical explanation, Martha’s version of truth was all that remained. Whether she came from this world or another one, his problem remained the same.

  What should he do with her now?

  CHAPTER THREE

  When Martha woke, Vadim was gone.

  It must be morning, but the light filtering through the cave entrance was weak and sullen, as though it resented another day here as much as she did. Martha grimaced and sat up. A night on the bedroll had done nothing for her back. She might as well have slept directly on the stony floor. Her spine popped and creaked as she stretched. Better. She could move again.

  Where had he taken himself off to?

  Last night’s fire was now nothing more than a pile of glowing embers. As she stared at the faint red light, a sudden rush of longing to be home overwhelmed her. The fire shimmered before her teary eyes. The nightmare was real. All of it. What wouldn’t she give to hear Aunt Lulu’s voice calling her down to breakfast? Anything to rouse her from this awful dream. Instead, she was lost—only God knew where—and alone. Even the hot caveman had abandoned her.

  Maybe he’d gone to fetch coffee? Ridiculous thought. Even so, she smiled, dashing away her tears as she pictured Vadim ordering two skinny lattes to go, while dressed in that insane outfit of his. Ooh, a steaming hot coffee would be heaven right about now. Her dry mouth desperately craved its regular morning fix.

  There was one upside to her current situation. This was the longest she’d gone in weeks without obsessing over Tony. Being stuck out here in the wilds was grim, but at least she wasn’t mooching around at home, weeping along to all the dreadful love ballads stored on her MP3 player. She even kept the songs in a special folder tagged “Mood Enhancement”, of all things. Ugh.

  Tony certainly didn’t deserve her tears. For the first time, she was open to the possibility that wounded pride might be responsible for much of her previous misery. If she’d really loved Tony, would she have spent so much of the previous night ogling another man?

  Vadim! Her stomach flipped. Handsome though he was, she had no intention of getting dragged into whatever twisted fantasy he was living out here. She had enough problems of her own. Pity, though. With the right medication regime, he might have potential.

  Kicking off his cloak, she scrambled from the lumpy bed. As she did so, her knee gave a brief twinge of protest. She stood up, gingerly stamping her foot to test it. Nothing too serious, thank God.

  Her clothes and boots were dry and toasty warm. Keeping one eye on the cave entrance, she dropped her blanket and dressed, her hands trembling and clumsy in their haste. Once fully clothed, she felt almost human again. It was amazing the difference her own clothes made, filthy though they were.

  Her teeth had an unpleasant furriness about them, but she had no time to go looking for water. Fearing Vadim would return and force her to permanently inhabit the medieval dream world he had going on, she hurried out of the cave.

  Daylight revealed in detail everything the previous night had hinted at. The alien landscape brooded beneath a gray and miserable sky. Absently twirling a long strand of her hair about her finger, Martha looked around. She still didn’t recognise anything. This must be another valley, close to the place where she’d been walking, somewhere she hadn’t visited before.

  That’s not very likely, said the voice inside her head, You’ve lived here your whole life, Bigalow. You’re really going to go with the Lost Valley theory?

  “Shut. Up.” She growled through gritted teeth. Now, which way to the river? Closing her eyes, she replayed last night’s conversation in her head. The Vadim of her memory obligingly waved his arm in the river’s approximate location. Martha smiled and opened her eyes. Grabbing a sturdy stick from where it stood propped up against the cave wall, she set off walking.

  Bye, Vadim. She cast a final glance at the cave. Thanks for last night. It was…interesting.

  A thin ray of sunlight poked out from between the clouds as she picked her way downhill through the treacherous tangle of crunchy bracken and camouflaged rocks. The sun’s brief appearance highlighted a twinkling ribbon of water in the next valley. Pausing, Martha shielded her eyes to look at it. The river. The sight of it lightened her heart.

  The sun vanished, and Martha hurried on, ignoring the throbbing in her knee. Even if she couldn’t find the stepping stones, it hardly mattered. All she had to do was follow the river. It would lead her to civilisation eventually. She might even end up at one of the big tourist lakes if she was really lucky.

  At this rate, she’d be home by lunchtime.

  Some time later, Martha wasn’t quite so confident. Despite her best efforts, the river remained frustratingly out of reach. The trip-wire bracken and the steep gradient of the slope severely hampered her progress. Not wanting to add a broken ankle to her current tally of injuries, she’d slowed her pace to a crawl. Added to that, she’d somehow managed to get herself lost in the mini forest that clung to the hillside.

  If there was an easier way down, she’d missed it.

  Her growling stomach eventually forced her to take a break. Sitting on a flat-topped rock beside a gurgling stream, she rummaged in the deep pockets of her coat, hoping to find a boiled sweet or two. She hit the jackpot in the form of an old Snickers bar. It was flat and completely melted out of shape, but might still be edible. She tore off the wrapper and took a bite. Immediately, an explosion of sweet chocolate oozed over her tongue. It was so good, her eyes rolled back in ecstasy as she savored every wicked calorific moment.

  On second thoughts, perhaps she ought to ration her meager supplies. Getting home was taking longer than anticipated. Reluctantly, after eating half the bar, she refolded the wrapper and stuffed the remainder back in her pocket. Just in case.

  After many more endlessly toiling footsteps, she finally reached the river; and it wasn’t the triumphant moment she’d imagined. Her knee throbbed to its own rhythm, and her face stung with the scratches of a hundred groping tree branches. Pausing to catch her breath, she leaned on her stick and smoothed back her hair. It felt like she had a woolly, leaf-infested beehive sitting on top of her head. Thank God Vadim wasn’t around to see her now. She must look utterly vile.

  Frowning, she looked up and down the deserted river bank. Which way should she go? Left or right? The scientific approach usually worked best. Eeney, meney, miney, moe. That way.

  As she rounded a curve in the river, she finally caught a break. A lone tree lean
ed out over the slow-moving river. Was that the rowan tree Vadim had mentioned? She hurried toward it.

  Only a few orange leaves and withered red berries remained, but it was enough to help her to identify the tree. Definitely a rowan. So where were the— “Oh!” Her heart skipped a beat.

  A little farther on, the shapes of six flat stones protruded from the river’s dark surface, rather like the heads of breeching whales. This couldn’t be right. She frowned and glanced in every direction. Why didn’t she recognise anything?

  A small inner voice whispered the secret dread of her heart: What if Vadim was telling the truth? A small frisson of fear trickled along her spine.

  Impossible.

  Tripping and stumbling over clumps of tussocky grass, she hurried towards the stepping stones. The dirt path leading from the height of the bank to the water’s edge proved treacherous, and she surfed the greater part of the descent on her butt. With a muttered curse, she scrambled to her feet and limped over the crunchy pebble shingle of the fore-shore and hopped up onto the first stepping stone.

  This couldn’t be! She covered her mouth with her hands, eyes wide with disbelief. But the stones were the same. Exactly the same, right down to the distinctive grooves on their surface, marks made over many years by countless passing feet. She’d known these stones her whole life, played on them as a child. How…how…

  The now familiar—unfamiliar—hills looked back at her. Frustrated and afraid, she jumped up and down on the first stepping stone. “Take me back. For God’s sake, take me home!” She hadn’t really expected anything to happen, but she repeated the process on all six stones, just to make sure. Zilch. The river gurgled and lapped over the top of the stones as if mocking her foolishness.