‘Took it,’ he stuttered. ‘’Tis also missing.’
Busby took a ferocious step forward. He desperately wanted to wrap his hands again on the messenger’s throat and squeeze until he could release some of the raging frustration he felt, but instead, he turned his anger inward, let it cool. Only one person deserved his full wrath and he had every intention of delivering it to Gaira of Clan Colquhoun.
* * *
Pain throbbing through his temple woke Robert from blackness. He opened his eyes and saw shafts of moonlight through wisps of a burnt roof. He started to sit up.
‘Move too fast, English dede-doer, and I’ll throw this dagger at your loopie nobill part!’
He stilled. The voice came from the corner of the hut. A woman took a step forward.
Highlighted from the moon above her, she stood dressed in a tunic and leggings too large even for her tall and thin frame. Her hair was plaited in sections and swung like tiny ropes over her breasts. Her stance was wide-legged and crouched and she waved a dagger in front of her. He peered closer. His dagger.
‘You threw a cauldron at me,’ he accused in Gaelic.
‘Swung it, more like, and I reckon you deserve a lot more than that! You had your sword drawn and you stink like an English knight.’
Moving his arms, he felt the ties of rope around his wrists, but his legs were free and, using them as leverage, he sat up. The grip on her dagger tightened and he moved slower. He knew from his battles that those afraid were just as dangerous as those angry. From the pain ringing in his head, he knew she was both.
‘The hut was dark. It would have been foolish not to have my sword drawn.’
‘That’s supposed to make me feel better?’ she scoffed.
The conversation was not going well.
She was angry, a Scot and a woman. He was English and in a Scottish village that Englishmen had massacred. She held a dagger and his wrists were tied. The odds were not in his favour.
As far as he could tell, it was only she and he, and she could not make him stay on the floor for ever. But if she was a villager, how had she survived?
‘I mean you nae harm,’ he continued in Gaelic. ‘What do you do here?’
‘Now, that should be a question I should be asking you.’
‘I am but a traveller.’
‘An English one despite your trying to use our language you’re mangling,’ she pointed out. ‘What is your name?’ she asked in English.
She spoke the King’s English. If she was a villager, she was no simple one. ‘I’m called Robert of Dent and there’s hardly a crime to being English.’
‘There is when we stand in a village where my kin were killed.’
She straightened; the dagger did not waver. His hands were still tied, although he was fast loosening the rope. ‘I have just recently come. I had no play in this. What do they call you?’
She ignored his question. ‘How am I to know you had nae hand in their deaths?’
He was surprised by her response. ‘So are you not one of the villagers?’
Even in the dim light, he could see her features pale, then darken with anger. ‘Nae, you weedy outwale! How’m I to be a villager? I’m alive, I am.’ She stopped. Tears sparkled, when she continued, ‘You must have seen what happened to the villagers when you passed this way.’
He didn’t understand. ‘You escaped.’
‘Nae, I’m a traveller, too, and came too late.’
Her reply was too careful and his wrists were now free. ‘You are more than a traveller, you said you had kin here,’ he replied. ‘Did your kin perish?’
Her body jerked at his question. ‘You just be passing by?’ she asked.
She ignored his question. Given their surroundings she had a right to be suspicious of him.
‘Aye,’ he lied.
‘Hah! You with a sword drawn and a fine dagger, I’m to believe you?’
He could tell this wouldn’t be easy. ‘Pray—’
Running footsteps behind them!
‘Auntie Gaira, there’s a horse at the top of the hill. Auntie Gaira, it smells and I can’t see anything. Are you all right? I’ve come to warn you!’
The woman’s attention flew to the door. It was all the diversion he needed. Dropping the rope, he sprang to his feet and caught the boy entering the hut.
‘Put him down!’ she shouted. ‘He’s done nothing to you! Put him down, I say!’
The boy, absorbing the woman’s panic, wriggled and fought in earnest. Robert grunted when sharp teeth chomped into his side. Yanking the boy free, he held him out in front of him. ‘Seems I’ve got something of yours.’
‘He’s innocent, I tell you.’
‘He may be, but it seems we’re even now. You’ve got the dagger, but I’ve got your boy. I’ll guess you’ll not throw that dagger any time now.’
The woman looked defiant and he tensed, ready to dodge if the dagger flew. Regardless of what he said, he had no intention of the boy getting hurt.
She threw the dagger at his feet. ‘You may do what you wish of me, but I beg you to leave the boy be. He has seen enough.’
He took the dagger and the boy flew into the woman’s arms. The darkness would not allow him to discern her features, but he sensed her relief and something else.
‘Can the boy leave the hut before we begin?’ she asked.
Her voice was uneasy. It was so different from before that he didn’t comprehend her words, but then he understood. She thought he’d rape her. What horrors had she known before he arrived? He’d been here only moments, but seen charred ruins and shallow graves.
It had been two days since the attack. From the rancid smell, he knew some had died of sword wounds, but many more had been burned. She’d been here longer than him and seen too many horrors.
‘I’ll not be harming you or the boy. I may be English, but I meant it when I said I came in peace.’
‘We are beyond your peace.’
Guilt. An inconvenient feeling along with his need to protect, but he suddenly felt both. It had to be the woman.
Her arms were around the child. She was vulnerable, yet she still challenged him. She was brave, but through the filtered moonlight, he could see the exhaustion in her limbs and hear the grief in her voice.
He lowered his eyes. Her ankle was
