He was not a man used to loneliness. From time to time he’d had companions, male and female alike, but he’d spent long stretches of his life fundamentally alone, and he’d never felt the lack of company. His family, like Loch Arach, was something to return to every so often, but he’d never wanted to stay there, nor with any of them, for very long.
It was passing strange to feel an absence where he’d never even known there was a presence. He gave the carved figure two slim hands, clasped about a goblet with unknown contents, and wondered what Sophia would think of it.
The sun was sinking behind the hills as Cathal finished the carving’s hands, and his own hands went still, along with the rest of him, when he heard men approaching along the nearby road. More than one came, he could tell, and their pace was too regular for peasants out hunting. These were soldiers. Quickly, he pulled himself upward to a branch that would give him more cover and still hold his weight, and then listened as three of the men came closer, until he could hear their voices over the light rain.
“Damn well better have kept it up, if they know what’s best for them.”
“And if they weren’t lazy buggers, they’d be here with us. Doesn’t matter. What matters is I don’t want his lordship coming down that road and getting stuck behind a deadfall…or his carriage overturning on account of a hole. And neither do you, if you like your skin.”
“Then we take the road around.”
“That’s not orders. Orders are we take this one, get back three days quicker, unless there’s reason to do anything else. Which meansyourorders are to scout ahead, smart-like, and let me know what’s in the way. Or I can tell the captain about that nice set of jewels you’ve got hidden in your saddlebags…Sucha shame the house caught fire before we could loot it proper, aye?”
Curses in several languages followed. The scout didn’t sound like an educated man, but he was a worldly one. His footsteps went forward down the road. The others stayed behind, and Cathal swore in a few languages himself, if only in the back of his head.
Sophia hadn’t even been gone half the allotted time. She was quick, but he doubted she could find what she needed in two days. She was subtle, but Cathal didn’t like to think of her spending any more time in Valerius’s proximity if he could prevent it.
The hours between sunset and full dark felt very long. He watched the glow of campfires a distance down the road, heard drinking songs and brawls begin, and then slipped down out of the tree, thanking God that the night was cloudy again. He stayed human for a while nonetheless, pushing himself to run for four hours into the forest—double that time for a mortal man on foot—before he changed and took to the sky, skimming low atop the trees.
Before long he picked out the spot where he and Sophia had arranged to meet: midway toward the castle, about half a day’s journey for a lone man on foot, twice that for a group of soldiers—and who knew how long Valerius’s carriage and possessions would take? The village was still an hour or two off; the scout on the road ahead of him, making sure all was in readiness.
Cathal folded his wings, dropped, and waited in the darkness, watching through slit eyelids so that even that light wouldn’t give his presence away. He saw the scout in the distance: a tall, skinny man with the hardened look of a man who’d killed a few times for pay—a look that, for the first time, it was disconcerting to recognize on himself.
He grew old, perhaps.
The man reached the edge of the village, turned, and headed back, unable to run but still keeping up a good pace. Cathal watched him round a bend in the road, then crept out and began the first part of his plan.
Large as he was, and wet as the road was, it was no great challenge to scoop out a hole. Feeling a bit like a boy playing in the mud, he made it big enough and deep enough to truly ruin a rider’s day, then dragged branches close to it and smoothed down the nearby dirt. Valerius’s men would likely notice before the hole did any serious damage, but it did no harm to try.
Sneaking away, he crept further back toward the castle, found an old tree, and gave it a shove—more of a determined lean, really, for that was all it needed. It crashed most satisfactorily to the ground. Sitting back and surveying it, Cathal was confident that no horse and none but the skinniest of men would be able to get around it.
The soldiers could shift the log and fill the hole. That would take time, though—more perhaps than the three days of the longer road, if they ran afoul of either obstacle—and if Valerius had any magical means of travel, Cathal doubted he’d have subjected himself to a spring journey by road, even if it was in a carriage. Both obstacles could have come about naturally; the earth was wet, the trees were old, and one man on foot might miss a hole that would cripple a horse or break a carriage.
Knowing Valerius even as little as he did, Cathal did wince for the scout and his likely fate—but that was war. He’d done worse, and more directly, to men a thousand times over in his life. Nobody lived forever, not even the MacAlasdairs. He’d bought Sophia half a week free of Valerius and his men, possibly more than that.
That was, if she stayed so long in the village. She’d likely used the same road. If she came back early to their meeting place, she was likely to walk right into the arms of Valerius’s men.
Cathal hissed, breath steaming in the night air. Going back further would mean crossing paths with Valerius himself, and Douglas might be right—the wizard might well be able to sense Cathal’s presence and to have planned for just such an occasion.
Yet Cathal couldn’t stand by and wait any longer. He’d been resigned to Douglas’s instructions when the original plan held, in part because Sophia had seconded them. Plans changed when the enemy made contact. Any soldier knew that.
He folded himself back into human shape and started running again—toward the castle this time, and at an angle away from the road.
He had no idea where Sophia had ended up; nor was there a man or woman in this blighted land that he’d trust to send a message. He’d have to rely on his own senses—and hope he got to Sophia before Valerius’s men did.
Thirty-three
The human body was truly amazing. Sophia had thought she’d been used to working with her hands, and yet she’d gotten blisters after three days with Harry and Gilleis. Her arms and back ached too, but she’d expected that. While she’d done her fair share of sweeping and lifting in her youth, it had been a long time since.
She’d slipped into the castle proper a few times and even made her way, under the pretense of being lost, to the upper floors, but she’d found nothing there that she could use. The man’s bedchamber was anonymous, his trunks contained only clothing, and he had no books, or had left none, other than household ledgers. What questions she’d managed to ask of the maids and men—though she’d left the soldiers alone as much as she could—had been met only with silence: tight lips, white faces.
Much was wrong here. Sophia couldn’t see how to make it right.
Harry had made good on his offers. She’d not lacked for food or safety, and the smithy was warm and clean at night. Sophia had left on as many errands as she could regardless, seeking to learn more about the castle, but by the evening of the third day she’d almost given up. When Harry sent Gilleis to the kitchens instead of her—“They know her better, and the cook’s got a soft spot for her”—Sophia barely had the will to protest.
Sitting on the bench, she opened a small jar of salve that she’d brought with her and began to smear it on her blisters. Her mind was more numb than her hands. Tomorrow she would consider the next path to take, but just then she couldn’t face the effort. She listened to Harry moving about, to the sloshing of water and the clanking of iron tools.
All of a sudden there was silence, and when she looked up, it was into his solemn face. “You’re here for a purpose.”
