“Stop fighting, you fool,” he snapped, and clamped a large hand over my mouth, turning me on my back and pulling me shoreward. I bit him. He swore, using a word I had heard but once before, for the language he used was that of the Britons. His grip loosened enough for me to slip beneath the water again, and I tried to swim away, evade him somehow, but my nostrils filled with water, and I felt it painfully in my chest, and then he grabbed my hair and I felt myself inexorably towed to shore, held in a grip too strong to break. I was weeping and my nose was running, and I was so scared, this time, that I truly wished I had drowned.

We reached the bank, where he slung me over his shoulder unceremoniously, like some prize of the hunt. “Fool,” remarked his companion. The two of them began walking up among the bushes, away from the water. I noticed he was carrying my bag in his hand. Both of them had knives in their belts. I thought I would snatch one when they stopped to put me down. Before I let them do anything to me, I would kill myself. For why else would men like these bother rescuing me, but to make use of my body then throw me aside? What else could they want with a wretched girl, half starved, half drowned? But I would not let them have me, not this time. I would stop them by whatever means there were.

But when we reached shelter under a rock wall, and I saw that there was a third man waiting there for them in the darkness, I had no strength left to protect myself, and I lay there helpless where he dropped me. They had dimmed the lantern, but I could see they were Britons, and dressed for fast and silent travel across country.

“We’ll have to light a fire.” This was the voice of my rescuer.

“You’re mad,” said the other one, him with the lantern. “What about Redbeard and his men? They can’t be far behind us.”

“You heard him. Light a fire.” That was the third man, who sounded somewhat older than the others. I dared not open my eyes further than a slit. “A small fire. This storm will keep our pursuers away until dawn. We should be well clear by then.”

I heard someone fiddling with the lantern, and after a while a gentle crackling. A little glow spread out, casting its orange light over their grim faces. They spoke quietly among themselves, and after a while I managed to put names to them. The older one was John; the man who had carried the lantern, young, golden-haired, was called Ben. As for the tall man, who had fished me out of the river, his name seemed to be Red, unlikely though that sounded. Now he was going through my bag. I shut my eyes and tried to stop shivering.