As soon as he saw the woman tumbling into the water, Gowan began to race towards her. He was two hundred yards away, and it took him a full minute to cross the distance between them. He knew that every second’s delay was a second closer to her death, so he pushed himself as hard as he could, and was relieved to see, when he reached the edge of the loch, that she had not floated too far away. Moreover, she was still moving, her arms and legs flailing about in the water.
He threw off his cloak and dived in, swam underneath her and hoisted her upward out of the water. It took all his strength and willpower, and his arms and back were straining and shuddering with the effort, but he clenched his teeth and persevered. At one point he thought he might be forced to give up, but somehow, with an almighty surge of energy and determination, Gowan managed to lift Minna onto solid ground again.
He clambered out of the loch and rested for a moment, then he looked across at the woman he had just rescued. She was trying to breathe while spitting out the water in her lungs and coughing at the same time; she was in a bad way, but at least she was alive.
Gowan was by no means an expert in dealing with emergencies, so he took what he thought was the best course of action. He rolled the young woman over on her side and knelt behind her to make sure she did not roll back again, then reached over for his cloak, which he draped over her before hefting her into his arms. It was a long walk back to his cabin, and although Minna was not a big woman, his arms felt as though they would break if he held her weight a moment longer.
When he put her on the ground, Gowan sighed deeply and rubbed his aching arms, then looked closely at his new guest. Even with her face plastered with mud, and her hair slick with dirty water, she was beautiful. He checked the pulse at her throat and made sure that she was breathing, and was rewarded by feeling a strong, steady pulse. He sighed with relief.
However, now he had other things to worry about. Both he and the woman he had rescued were sopping wet, and he knew that he had to warm her up, and quickly, if her condition were not to become worse.
Accordingly, he lit a fire in the small grate, then shut the door firmly and shuttered the window. He stripped off his wet clothing and hung it up to dry, wrapping one of his linen towels around his hips just in case his visitor regained consciousness. She was breathing steadily now, although her breaths had a wheezing, rattling sound, but he was confident that nothing was seriously wrong with her.
Gowan took a deep breath then began to strip the woman of her sodden garments, noting with great surprise that she was wearing men’s clothes instead of women’s. He methodically stripped them off her, however, trying to ignore his healthy male body’s instant reaction to her soft flesh.
He had not seen a woman’s body for a very long time, and had forgotten how pliant and soft her skin was, how delicate her features were compared to his own. She was cold to the touch, and his first instinct was to lie down beside her and wrap them both in a blanket, but he knew that was dangerous, and he would never take advantage of a helpless woman in that way. His mother and father had not raised him to be that kind of man.
A fleeting image of his mother’s face flashed across Gowan’s mind for a moment, and a dart of sadness pierced his heart. Even after all this time he still missed her, but now he had other things to worry about, so he forced his mind back to the task in hand and began to dry the woman he was tending.
He had removed all her clothing except for the thin camisole under her shirt, trying not to think of what was underneath it. He dried her face, neck, and arms, then passed the towel over her feet, the slender, shapely columns of her legs, and up over her thighs but paused when he reached the edge of the camisole. He was going into dangerous, territory.
After a few seconds of hesitation he decided to leave the thin garment where it was, reasoning that it would dry quickly as the room heated up. Even so, he could see the shape of her breasts underneath the sheer fabric, round and full topped by rose pink buds that were now puckered with the coldness of the air.
Gowan hastily dried her breasts as best he could over the camisole, looking away as he passed the towel over the mound of her sex. He wrapped her up snugly in a woolen blanket, partly to warm her up, but mostly to hide her luscious body from his sight, because it was far too tempting. He had too much respect for her to sit and stare at her naked body when she was so vulnerable.
He picked up all their wet clothes, which he had strewn all over the place, and hung them up to dry, then he realized that he was ravenous, and he had had nothing to eat since that morning. He quickly made himself a meal by scrambling some eggs with wild mushroom. He followed it with a cup of ale and some blackberries, then he lay down to rest for a while. It was only midafternoon, but his arms were aching, as was his back, and he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and seek oblivion. Fortunately, he was so exhausted that oblivion came quickly.
12
When Minna opened her eyes her mind was a complete blank. She was staring into darkness broken only by the light of a small wood fire flickering a few feet away from her. She realized that she was lying on something coarse but yielding, which felt like a straw pallet, and was wrapped in a woolen blanket. A feeling of warmth and peace stole over her, and she smiled into the darkness.
Then she pushed the blanket away to yawn and stretch, wondering why her throat was sore and her breathing was so wheezy and labored. That was when she discovered that she was naked. She gave a strangled squeak, because she could not speak.
Then, all of a sudden, everything came rushing back - her imprisonment in the bedroom the night before, the argument with Jamie, and him pushing her into the loch. She remembered the feeling of her body hitting the water with a great slapping sound, the pain in her back from the impact, and the horrible sensation of the water closing over her head.
She felt herself flailing and thrashing around trying to reach the surface that was so tantalizingly close yet so far away. Then there was the sheer terror when she drew in a breath, only to inhale water instead of air, the burning in her lungs and the horror when she realized that she was about to die. The sense of desperation was almost unbearable.
Abruptly, Minna sat up and tried to scream, but nothing came out of her throat but a croak, and the resulting fiery pain brought tears to her eyes. She began to cough again, unable to stop, and the more she hacked, the worse the agony in her throat became. She needed air, but she could get none.
Suddenly a shape rose from the floor. In the near-blackness it looked like a dark, sinister shadow, and terror, pure and hot, scorched through her. Minna’s first instinct was to scream in fright, but she could only make a feeble croak, and she instinctively scrambled backwards on her elbows.
She was so desperate to escape that she did not realize that she had pulled the blanket off and was wearing only a sheer, almost transparent undergarment. It was the camisole she wore under her shirt. She tried to get to her feet, but a heavy hand came down on her shoulder, forcing her downwards.
She stilled, and realized that she was entirely at the mercy of whoever was keeping her in this strange place, and she knew that it would be futile to fight. Whatever it was, it was much stronger than she was. Then she remembered all of a sudden that she was almost unclothed and bared to the creature’s eyes. This must be the demon from the woods, she thought. What was it going to do to her?
Minna reached for the blanket that had been covering her, having felt that it was down by her waist, but was astonished to find that the blanket had been pulled up and draped over her. Then hastily, she dragged it up to her chin.
“Wh-who are you?” she asked fearfully. Her voice was so hoarse it came out as a feeble whisper, even as tears of terror sprang to her eyes. “Are you the devil?”
The shape chuckled, a deep sonorous sound like a bass drum, but softer. “You don’t need to know that,” it replied. “You are in my house now and I ask the questions. Understand?” The voice was deep, gravelly and unmistakably male, but it did not sound at all like what Minna had expected the devil to sound like.
She had always expected the devil to hiss, and the devil would definitely not help her to cover herself! If anything, he would strip her naked and leer at her. Minna nodded frantically then realized she could not be seen. “Yes,” she croaked, beginning another bout of coughing that caused her eyes to stream.
The creature moved away from her and she heard the sound of a door being unlocked. A moment later it opened a crack and a tiny sliver of daylight crept in, enough to briefly illuminate a tall, hooded figure. His face could not be seen at all, and resembled nothing more than a dark hole in his head. Minna shivered and looked around herself curiously.
She was in a small cottage with a thatched roof and a fireplace at one end. The only furniture was one chair, which was obviously homemade, since it looked as though the wood had just been hacked from the tree. There was a similarly constructed table, and a roughly made sleeping mat. The floor was covered in fir leaves. A stack of wooden cooking instruments and plates sat in one corner, and next to it was a pile of firewood. The cottages of the villagers were in much better shape than this one, she reasoned. Who was this strange man who chose to live like this?
Did the devil eat or drink? It looked as if this creature did. Or did he feed on the souls of human beings? She was trembling with fear as these thoughts passed through her mind, even though she had always thought such notions were fanciful before. Then she began to question that belief. Surely if so many folk believed in the devil then he must be real? She thrust the thought away, telling herself how foolish she was. If she was in the hands of the devil it was pointless to worry about it. There was nothing she could do.