Page 6 of Down and Dirty

“Sister Bernice will return. She no doubt went to visit her family in Nottingham.”

Britta shrugged. She was not so sure.

“And for you, pray, my child. God may yet have a religious vocation in mind for you.”

The next day, a driverless, mule-drawn cart pulled into the abbey courtyard carrying Sister Bernice. So brutally tortured had the young nun been that there was a communal horror and a vast wailing inside the convent walls.

After the funeral, Britta approached Mother Edwina again. “Can you see now that I must leave?”

Mother Edwina nodded reluctantly. “If there is no other way, I suppose your plan could work.”

For the next few sennights, Britta did indeed convince more than a few nuns, a lusty priest, and several passing travelers that she had gone barmy from her confinement in a nunnery. Spouting a gibberish sort of language that she made up. Pulling at her hair. Dancing with Sister Serena’s broom. Bursting out in ribald song in the midst of Mass. Even walking naked in the moonlight.

So, when the day came for her “demise,” her sanity was indeed in question. The only problem was, she needed some fortification as she and Sister Margaret wended their way slowly toward Jorvik. And what better fortification than Margaret’s mead?

By the time Britta stood at the edge of the cliff, she and Sister Margaret were both a bit drukkinn. As a result, she nigh killed herself climbing down the steep incline to place the bloody scraps of fabric. Instead of helping her or urging caution, Sister Margaret sat in the grass singing a song about farm maids and randy soldiers.

“Well, that should suffice,” Britta called back to Sister Margaret. “We can be off now.”

“Are you sure?”

Britta started, not realizing that Sister Margaret had come up behind her. Sister Margaret screamed as Britta teetered on the edge, vainly attempting to get her balance. She slipped and fell head over tail, desperately managing to grab the branch of a bush sticking out of the cliff side. Her hands were bleeding, as were various other parts of her scratched body, but she was alive, thank the gods. At least she was no longer under the influence of mead, the fall having shocked the fumes from her brain.

“Have a caution,” Sister Margaret yelled, peeking carefully over the lip of the cliff. “Are you all right?”

Odin’s breath! Is she blind as well as drukkinn? “Nay, I am not all right.” Her hands had a firm grip on the bush about three body lengths from the cliff edge, but her arms and shoulders burned with the strain.

“Should I pray?”

Oh, that will help! “Can you pray and throw me a rope at the same time?” Britta tried to get purchase with her booted feet, to no avail.

“Yea, I can.” Sister Margaret disappeared, then soon returned with a coil of thick rope, then disappeared again.

Britta peered upward carefully but could see nothing. Presumably, Sister Margaret was tying the rope to a rock or a tree.

“Catch,” the good nun said then, tossing out the heavy coil of rope. Unfortunately, the coil of rope did not immediately uncoil. As a result, it knocked Britta in the head, tearing her loose from her hold on the branch. “Yiiiiiiikes!” She went careening downward once again.

Britta screamed her outrage to her father, Sister Margaret, and the pretty man who’d caused the chain of events that led to this final catastrophe. For some reason, though, she blamed the pretty man most of all. Unfair? Possibly. But who could care about fairness now? If the lout had not laid a burden on her heart and loins, she would still be at The Sanctuary, safe and sound.

“’Tis all your fault, you loathsommmmmmmmme… ”

Chapter 2

My punishment will be… WHAT?…

Zach had been back in the USA for two weeks, but this was the first time he’d been summoned to discuss his “problem” in detail since the original, not-too-pleasant debriefing, which had been more like a “Chew Floyd’s Ass” session. He pushed open the office door in the training compound, knowing full well that he was late.

Lieutenant Commander Ian MacLean ran his fingers through his receding hair, which had been recently trimmed into the traditional military high and tight, and glared with disbelief at him. “I swear, you would arrive late for your own funeral. Do you have any clue what kind of trouble you’re in, Lieutenant Floyd?”

“Yes, Commander, sir,” Zach answered, standing at attention before the commander’s desk. “But there was an accident involving my… uh, babysitter, and—”

“Lieutenant Floyd!” the commander interrupted.

Protocol required his speaking to a higher ranking officer only in response to questions or when given permission to speak freely. “Sorry, Commander, sir.”

MacLean breathed in and out, clearly trying to calm his temper, which Zach knew was formidable. MacLean had been his BUD/S instructor, and he hadn’t been known as Lean Mean for nothing. “At ease, Lieutenant.”

Zach relaxed his stance and folded his hands behind his back.