Chapter Four

      Black Otter stood watching as the woman lifted the heavy ring of keys into the light. Strange, his own people had lived from the dawn of time without benefit of locks and keys. But here, in this alien world, keys seemed to control everything.

      His heart dropped as he realized there were more keys on the ring than there were fingers on his two hands—large and small keys, in a bewildering mix of shapes and metals. He had thought one key would open any lock. Only now did it strike him how wrong he had been. Keys appeared to be as diverse as people, each fitting inside its own lock as a man would fit inside the woman he loved; and the chance that one of these keys would fit the shackles from the great boat were small indeed.

      Fumbling with her key ring, the tall woman selected a large key and extended it toward the lock that held the iron around his wrist. Black Otter’s eyes flickered from the lock to the key, which was far too large for the tiny opening. Couldn’t she see that it wouldn’t fit? What was she trying to do?

      Feigning perplexity, she tried to force the end of the key into the lock. Questions swirled in Black Otter’s mind. What sort of game was she playing? Did she really think he was foolish enough to be taken in?

      From the top of the stairs, Black Otter could hear the muffled shouts of the old chief and the pounding of his fists against the door. Why had the ancient one been shut out of this dark place, and why had a mere woman risked her life to enter his prison? So many questions—and no answers.

      The musky fragrance of her hair crept into Black Otter’s nostrils as she leaned close. He had come to loath the odor of white men. It was sharper and more pungent than the familiar smell of his own people. But the scent of this woman was lighter, richer in a way that made his loins stir. He steeled himself against her nearness as she selected yet another key, this one also far too large. She was only playing for time, he realized, his spirits darkening. None of her keys would unlock his terrible bonds.

      Her hand brushed his skin, its touch cool and soft. Black Otter checked the impulse to tear his arm away and rebuke her. Let her finish this silly game. He had nowhere to go. And she had given him a much better hostage than the blubbering coward he had set free. Her menfolk would do a great deal to rescue such a woman as this.

      “What is your name?” Her feline eyes glittered up at him as she spoke. Black Otter understood the phrase but chose not to answer. To tell her his name would be to give her a part of himself—a power she could use against him if she chose.

      “My name is Rowena,” she said, touching the hollow of her throat with her free hand. “Ro-we-na.” She paused as if expecting him to mimic the three syllables. Black Otter gazed impassively over her head toward the door of his cell, willing himself to ignore her. But his mind was not so easily conquered, nor was his body.

      He remembered touching her in the night, the exotic scent of her flesh, the smoothness of her skin and the slender curve of waist and hip beneath his seeking hand. He remembered the sharp intake of breath, the quickening of her heartbeat. Yes, for all her pallid face and golden eyes, she was a woman like any other.

      “Rowena.” She repeated the name again as if he were a backward child. “I am your friend.”

      The last phrase was one Black Otter did not understand. He had heard nothing like it from the men on the great boat. The words intrigued him. But this was no time to learn more of a language he had come to despise.

      “Open!” He growled the word, shaking his manacled hand in her startled face. “Open it!”

      Fear flashed in her tawny eyes, but she stood her ground. Outside the cell Black Otter could see the two men, one pressed against the bars, the other still collapsed on a heap of barrels—cowards, both of them. Only the woman faced him with a warrior’s courage. For that she had earned his grudging respect.

      But he was growing tired of her game. Key or no key, there had to be a way to end the torment of the chafing iron bands and dragging chains. The men would have to find it if they wanted their woman to live.

      With the speed of a striking puma he caught her waist. His manacled hand whipped her around and jerked her hard against him so that he was holding her from behind with the chain at her throat, exactly as he had held the trembling fool before her.

      “Open it!” he thundered, shaking his free fist at the two men who stared, dumbfounded, through the bars. “Open it…I kill…kill!”

      Rowena kept perfectly still, willing herself to not show fear. The savage’s sudden move had caught her off guard, but it came as no great surprise. She had hoped to calm him with kind words and a gentle touch. But she should have known better—and she should have realized she could not deceive him by stalling with her keys.

      Would he really kill her? Reason argued against it. She was of no worth to him dead. But her own fear whispered otherwise. How could she expect civilized—or even reasonable—behavior from a man with the reflexes of a wild animal?

      “Mistress, what shall we do?” Thomas’s terror-filled eyes pled with her through the bars.

      Rowena’s eyes flickered obliquely to the manacled wrist that lay along her shoulder. In the hellish glow of the torchlight the flesh lay swollen and suppurating beneath the crusted iron rim. Infection had already set in. Gangrene would be next, and the savage would die in agony. Yes, the shackles had to come off at once.

      “We have an anvil and some blacksmith tools in the stable,” she said, thinking fast. “Fetch them at once!”

      Thomas hesitated, then shook his shaggy head. “Nay, mistress, I’ll not leave you alone with the creature. Your father would have me drawn and quartered.”

      “Then send poor Dickon if his legs will carry him!” She strained to speak against the chain that pressed her throat. “Hurry!”

      She held her breath as Dickon staggered toward the stairs. “You’ve naught to fear,” she whispered to the savage as if he could understand. “We mean you no harm in this place, but if you want to live, you must stop fighting—”

      The chain tightened against her throat as the savage muttered something harsh and guttural in her ear. Rowena could feel the hard length of his torso against her back and the rib-crushing grip of his arm beneath her breast. Each taut, shallow breath stirred tendrils of hair at her temple. She had never been this close to any man—least of all a bare-skinned primitive who could kill her with a mere jerk of his wrist. By all rights she should have been swooning in terror. Instead, the fear that gushed through her veins was as heady as a dive into a churning ocean wave. Her senses were exquisitely heightened. Every nerve in her body seemed to be tingling, alive….

      “You think you can