by Faris, Fiona
Gilbert paced the solar like a caged beast. The space was too small to contain his energy. He was a man of action; he itched to be out, scouring the country for his missing ward, and not confined to that small room, speculating on her possible whereabouts with his lieutenants and steward.
“She stole away in the night, Margaret,” he chided. “She did not leave for an innocent little afternoon stroll. I wat she’s more likely to be lying in the arms of that devil, Comyn, than lying murdered behind a dike with the corbies pecking at her eyes.”
“Oh, don’t!” Margaret wailed. “I cannot bear the thought that something dreadful has happened to her, that she has come to some harm.”
“Mark my words,” Gilbert fumed, “she will have gone to that man. Find him, and we’ll find her.” He kicked a log by the fireplace, and it skittered across the floor to collide with James Robertson’s boot. “Let us pray that we can apprehend the cur before he is over the hills and far away.”
“If he is still in the country, he will be lying low until he gets peace to travel freely,” Matthew Fitt observed. “Personally, I doubt he is already away. It has been well over a week since he eluded us at the fisherman’s hovel. If he had any sense, he would not have stopped running until he was over the Grampians.”
Gilbert considered his lieutenant’s words.
“Do you still think he fled to the west? Do you not think it more likely that he headed for one of the ports to seek passage back to his masters in exile?”
“He would not have found a boat immediately,” James observed. “That would have left him kicking his heels by the quayside. We have made inquiries at all the harbors. There are no reports of any strangers asking after Frenchmen. I agree with Matthew; it’s more likely that he has disappeared over the hills.”
Gilbert blew out his cheeks in frustration.
“Then where is Elizabeth? If he fled the country a week earlier, then she must be on her own. I have no doubt she is making her way to rendezvous with him. Perhaps the reverse strategy would be the more fruitful one: if we can find her, she may lead us to him.”
“Damnation!” Margaret suddenly screamed at him, beating the air with her fists, her face contorted with fury. “I don’t care about the Comyn. He doesn’t matter. Just find Elizabeth, damn you! The Comyn can go to hell, as far as I’m concerned.”
Gilbert crouched down and grabbed her wrists.
“Margaret… Margaret…” he said firmly, to bring her back to her senses. “We will find Elizabeth and bring her home safe to you. But we cannot let this Comyn go. He is a traitor and a threat to the realm.”
“My arse!” Margaret’s eyes were wide in disbelief. “I cannot believe what I am hearing,” she continued in a more measured tone. “A traitor, yes, but… a ‘threat to the realm’? Really? You are attaching him too much importance. He came to raise a rebellion but found he could not even raise the stour in a bonnet laird’s parlor. So, now he’s away back over the hills or over the water with his tail between his legs, with not even the clothes he had on his back when he came here. A ‘threat’, indeed! I fear for the realm if its Lord High Constable sees a ‘threat’ in every hapless loun that stirs an empty beehive.”
Sanderson stepped forward timorously, raising his hand to seek leave to speak.
“If I may be so bold, my Lord,” he said.
Gilbert turned on him with irritation.
“Aye, what is it, Sanderson?”
“I would try again up at the old shieling on the fell…”
“We’ve searched up there a number of times,” James pointed out. “There are no signs.”
“Yes, Maister Robertson,” Sanderson replied. “But that was before the Lady Elisabeth disappeared. The old shieling was a favorite trysting place for them. I wat she went up there in the hope of meeting him. Perhaps they even arranged to rendezvous there.”
Margaret fixed him with a murderous stare.
“You knew they were meeting there, yet you did not say?”
Sanderson shuffled uncomfortably, dropping his eyes to the floor.
“I did not want to get the lass into any trouble,” he lied. “I did speak to her about it, advised her against having anything to do with the rascal, as a friend, like… But… well, it is evident that she spurned my counsel.”
“You should have come to me right away with your intelligence.”
“Aye, ma’am, in hindsight I should, and I wish to hell that I had.” Sanderson frowned. “I will never be able to forgive myself if any harm has befallen the lass.”
“I will have your ears if there has,” Gilbert warned. He turned to James and Matthew. “Have the grooms saddle our horses. We will ride up there immediately and take a look. Even if the Comyn has fled the country, Elizabeth may be waiting for him there.”
“Make haste, my darling,” Margaret implored. “Pray God that you are right, Sanderson, though we will have more to say on this matter later.”
“I will come with you, my Lord,” Sanderson said.
“You will do no such thing,” Gilbert replied curtly. “You will bide here and be well out of my way. We will take six men-at-arms and scour the country around the shieling. There are so many glens and corries she could be hiding in…”
“If she is there at all,” James added.
“Aye, if she is there at all,” Gilbert acknowledged grimly. “You had better pray that we find her, Sanderson, or I shall be looking for another steward.”
Sanderson blanched and swallowed.
“And I will make damned sure you will never find a position in another household in the whole of Scotland. Now, go and see to our mounts.”
Sanderson needed no second asking. He scurried immediately from the room.
* * *
A party of nine men rode out over the drawbridge that crossed the ditch. They rode on small, swift ponies, rather than on heavy warhorses, and were lightly armored in mail shirts and steel bonnets and armed with short lances and swords. They reminded Margaret of the Border reivers, as she watched their departure from the battlements above the gatehouse.
Sanderson was skulking in his quarters in the gatehouse itself, in disgrace.
They walked their horses over the springy turf of the outer ward. Out on the edge of the open moorland, a stiff breeze swept in off the sea, bringing the faint salty tang of the ocean to the horses’ nostrils. The mounts were flighty, eager to be stretching their legs over the wide, open space after their confinement in the castle stables, and Gilbert and his men had to keep them on a tight rein to prevent them from taking off. Their ears twitched in the wind, and their nostrils flared as their free spirits rose in them, causing them to fret against bridle and bit.
They joined the clifftop path at the neck of the headland. At the top of the path, where the drove road struck out across the moor, Gilbert called a halt. He gathered his lieutenants around him.
“Matthew, I want you to take two of the men in a wide arc to the north and come in from behind. James, you take two and do the same to the south. I’ll take the remaining two and follow the drove road. That way, if she takes to the fells, there will be nowhere for her to hide. We will have her circled.”
“Aye, sir,” James confirmed, signaling to two of the men before galloping off across the moor.
Matthew followed his example, while Gilbert and his two men set off along the drove road at an easier pace, to give his two lieutenants time to take up position beyond the shieling.
If Elizabeth had flown to hers and Comyn’s old trysting place, she would surely be caught like a bird in their closing net.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Old Shieling
Duncan hurried in through the door.
“Hurry,” he said to Elizabeth, who was cleaning a brace of brown trout she had guddled from the burn that morning. “Three horsemen are approaching. Clear away all the signs that we have been here.”
He grabbed his bundle, in which he kept all his gear packed, and headed back to the
door.
“Hurry, now,” he implored her.
She cleared the fish guts away, cleaned her knife on a handful of grass, and dropped everything into the sack in which she had brought the food the previous night. She lifted her cloak from their sleeping place, and standing, swirled it around her shoulders. She pulled on her hood and joined Duncan by the door.
Duncan swept his eyes over the room. It looked as if no one had been there.
“Ready?” he asked, and when she nodded, he took her hand and led her out of the hut.
They skirted the shieling and headed down the slope at the rear of the biggin towards a small burn. Jumping over the burn, they scrambled up the brae on the other side and ran along the crest of the rise, before plunging down into a shallow hollow. The hollow led to a narrow defile in a rocky outcrop, which dog-legged into a deeper corrie whose floor was littered with rocks and shale. Slipping on the shale that shifted treacherously beneath their feet, they picked their way along the corrie to where another burn tumbled down a rocky crevice from a spring, hidden from the corrie below by large nodding ferns.
Duncan pulled Elizabeth down beneath the ferns, and they lay, catching their breaths, beside the small well where the spring water pooled as it trickled from the rock. Water skaters skittered across the water’s surface, while water boatmen pulled away to hide under the overhanging grass.
“We should be safe here,” Duncan whispered, placing a warning finger against his lips. “Just keep quiet. They will look around awhile, then go.”
They lay still, with Elizabeth enveloped in Duncan’s protective arms. They strained their ears to listen for any movement, but all they could hear was the trickle of the spring and the distant sough of the wind…
Then, suddenly, the snicker of a horse and clatter of some stones being dislodged nearby.
“Shhh!” Duncan breathed.
A horse snorted just above their heads.
“Where did they go?” came a voice.
“I don’t know, Maister Fitt. They just disappeared,” came another.
There was a loud piercing whistle.
“Jamesie!” the first voice shouted. “Over here. We saw them. They’re somewhere between here and yon bluff. They came over the bluff and then disappeared.”
A third voice sounded, farther off.
“Form a circle and start beating the bracken, working in to the center. We’ll flush them out.”
There was the sound of blades being unsheathed and the swish of metal cutting through air.
Duncan slowly and carefully drew his dirk from his bundle. Elizabeth’s eyes grew wide with horror, and she let out a strangled whimper. Duncan clamped a strong hand over her mouth.
“I love you, Elizabeth,” he whispered, then he slowly stood up, dragging her with him.
They emerged from their cover, just a few yards from where Matthew Fitt stood above the spring. Duncan clamped Elizabeth against his chest with his arm, the point of his dirk pressing against her throat.
“Stand back!” he cried. “If any man meddles with me, the lassie dies.”
Gilbert stood twenty yards away, on the edge of the corrie, his sword in his hand.
“Let the lassie go,” he commanded. “There is no escape this time.”
Duncan gave Elizabeth a reassuring squeeze.
“The lassie means nothing to me,” he spat.
“And if you kill her, what then?” Matthew asked. “We shall be free to fall upon you. And believe me, if any harm befalls the lady, your death shall not be a merciful one.”
The point of Duncan’s dirk pressed closer into the soft spot at the base of Elizabeth’s throat. A bead of blood trickled down towards her breast. Everyone stood tense and silent while Duncan considered.
“And what guarantee will I have that you will not kill me anyway, once I release her?”
“You have my word as High Constable of Scotland,” Gilbert declared in a loud, clear voice, tipping his head back as if making an announcement to the world. “I have been entrusted by the king to ensure justice in his realm. You will be taken prisoner and tried fairly for treason.”
“And hanged…!”
“Only if you are found to be guilty,” Gilbert responded, then heaved a sigh. “There is no escape, Comyn, lad. You will face justice whether you kill the lass or no. We can stand here all day if you wish. You are not going anywhere.”
“I have your word?”
“You have my word. Unless you harm the girl or try to escape, you will be taken into custody, and the charge of treason against you will be tried in a king’s court. Now, be sensible, Comyn.”
Duncan seemed to consider his position for a few moments longer, bringing his lips close to Elizabeth’s ears.
“Remember, I kept you here against your will, intending to use you as a hostage to secure safe passage abroad. Be free, my darling.”
He threw the dirk from him and released her. She stumbled forward, and three of Gilbert’s men hurried forward and twisted Duncan’s arms up behind his back, cuffing his wrists with a length of rope.
“Do not harm him,” Gilbert commanded. “I have given him my word. Bind him fast, but do not misuse him in any way.” He turned to another of his men, Archie. “You, man! Ride back to Slains and have Sanderson make ready to receive the prisoner. And let the Countess know that Lady Elizabeth is unharmed and will be back home shortly.”
The warrior returned to his mount and set off at a canter back down the old drove road.
“Tether him to the back of my horse,” Gilbert ordered the men who were holding Duncan. “Matthew,” he said, turning to his lieutenant, “you take the Lady Elizabeth on your horse.”
The members of each party returned to where they had left their horses and convened at the shieling. A long rope was looped over Duncan’s shoulders and tightened before being tied to the horn of Gilbert’s saddle. Matthew lifted Elizabeth onto the neck of his steed and mounted after her, looping his strong arms around her to take hold of the reins. The band set off at a steady walk, Duncan tramping along behind them, flanked by two outriders.
Matthew ventured some conversation with Elizabeth, but she seemed distant. He put her reticence down to the ordeal she had lately suffered. However, Elizabeth was already distracted by thoughts of how she could rescue her beloved Duncan from his sure and certain fate on the gallows.
She knew that she would have to think fast.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Slains Castle
The troop found Slains Castle a hive of activity when they passed over the drawbridge, through the gatehouse arch, and came to a halt in the cobbled courtyard. News of the rescue of Lady Elizabeth had traveled fast through the household when Archie had galloped in with Gilbert’s message that the lady had been found safe and her abductor, the traitor Comyn, taken into custody. The Countess, Margaret, had fallen into a swoon of relief when the news was conveyed to her by her maids, and the kitchen had been busy preparing a pharmacopeia of physic with which to restore her. Sanderson had immediately rushed to clear the dungeon beneath the guardroom in the gatehouse of the tackle and gear he had accumulated there and to spread fresh straw on the floor. Grooms hurried from the stable sheds to receive the horses from the riders, two of whom led their prisoner by his tether back to the gatehouse, where Sanderson shut and locked the heavy oaken hatch on him.
Elizabeth was taken immediately to the solar by Gilbert.
As they entered the family’s living quarters, Margaret leaped from her chair and swept Elizabeth into a tearful embrace.
“Elizabeth, my pet, I have been so worried… I thought… I thought I had lost you.”
Tears of relief were flowing freely down Margaret’s face.
“I think it would be best if Elizabeth retired to her chamber,” Gilbert said sternly, turning to address her directly. “I am still not sure of your role in all of this. The Comyn is making out that you have been a victim of his mischief-making, but I am not convinced. The question is: how wil
ling a victim were you. If it turns out that you have been complicit in his traitorous acts, then it may not go well for you.”
“Gilbert!” Margaret protested. “You cannot be seriously proposing to try Elizabeth over this.”
“I am the king’s justice. I cannot be seen to be partial in this matter. Justice must perforce be blind to our personal ties.”
“But she has been, at worst, naïve, a silly wee lassie who has had her head turned by a devious schemer.”