Foul Tide's Turning by Stephen Hunt Page B

dark branches iced with snow. The maid touched the pocket of her coat to make sure she still had the envelope given to her by Willow Landor. Of course it was there. She’d hidden it inside her room in the manor house until the end of the day came and then retrieved it. Calling on the church for help and succour, or at least calling on the old dog-grizzled pastor? Well, it was probably marginally more fruitful than sending for the constables in the old town. The High Sheriff of Northhaven might not be related to Benner Landor by blood, but he knew which side his bread was buttered on, that much was certain. Eleanor comforted herself with the fact that the pastor’s son was genuinely in love with Willow … for reasons that didn’t have anything to do with the fortune she stood to inherit – not that there’d be any money for either of them if Willow defied her old man. Eleanor rubbed her stomach with her gloves. Not until they had some grandchildren to soften him up a bit. Then, the old fool wouldn’t much care if Willow Landor was married to the pastor’s son or the Grand Duke of Dedovo.
    Eleanor reached the frozen river and picked up a stone from the bank that hadn’t been concealed by the snow; bring it cracking down hard on the surface. Good. Strong enough to have gone ice skating under the bright full moon if she’d brought a pair of wooden blades. Tentatively, Eleanor tried to keep her footing on the ice as she edged across towards the opposite bank. She was perhaps a quarter of the way across when she heard an odd humming at her rear. ‘ Keep a little songbird, feed a little songbird .’ She glanced behind her. Eleanor started at the sight of the mistress’s short, ugly manservant, lurking under the weeping willows. What in the name of the saints was he doing all the way at the grounds’ borders … ice fishing in the dark?
    ‘I was heading to my father-in-law’s farm. It’s quicker this way,’ spluttered Eleanor.
    ‘You want to be careful, petal. That river ice is mighty thin.’
    ‘In a midwinter freeze?’ said Eleanor. ‘It’s as thick as the walls of the house.’
    Nocks leaned forward and she saw what he had been hiding behind his back. A heavy short sabre. What was the devil’s intent – did he meant to give her a poke, or worse, skewer her?
    ‘ Please , I’m carrying my husband’s child.’
    ‘Are you sure that’s all?’ Nocks had the blade out in a second, driving it’s sharp point manically into the river’s frozen surface, the scar cleaving his features throbbing as vividly as a devil’s vein as he laid into the ice. Eleanor stumbled desperately for the safety of the opposite riverbank, trying to stay upright, but cracks in the ice rippled out, flowing below her boots, and suddenly she wasn’t standing on a solid surface anymore, but falling through a bobbing tear of crumbling ice shards, the shock of the freezing water so intense it was like slamming into a wall. The water here on the bend was shallow, hardly higher than her hips, but the current trapped below was dragging at her with the full force of a train of horses. She clawed with her fingers at the remaining ice sheet, desperately struggling for enough purchase to resist the force of water trying to drag her under. Nocks reached out and for a fleeting moment Eleanor thought he was trying to help her escape, but he merely tapped his blade against the sheet, as though measuring the distance between her and the river bank. ‘You see, petal, when I was listening at the door, I swear I heard you agreeing to carry something to Jacob Carnehan and his young buck.’
    ‘Help me! Don’t let me freeze!’
    ‘Bit late for that,’ grinned Nocks. ‘But don’t worry; you’ll drown long before the cold finishes you off. And I think Miss Haughty back at the house is due a proper lesson in submission. You’re the first part of it. The second part will be a lot more fun. At least, I plan to make it fun for me.’
    Eleanor tried