A few guards walked out the gates and stood on the hillside for interminably long moments. Had they seen her? She dared not move. Perhaps she should have waited longer.
Certainly she’d had plenty of close calls, the last one when she’d barely managed to cross the peaty slough to the north of Inverness and escape into the shadows of the trees before himself, Sir Naked-in-the-Road and his troop thundered past, heading like fire for the northeast. A few heartbeats less or had she merely made one stop to rest and she would have been crossing the meadow and out in the open as they came around a hill, stirring up red dust like a wind spout.
She tucked the money pouch into her tunic and then froze. One of the manor’s guards shouted to a dog.
Oh lud!Would they send a dog or pack of hunting dogs to search outside? A nobleman’s trained hound could easily catch her scent, bark and give her away, or worse yet, follow her.
The racing shadow of a large hound scurried around the guards in playful circles and then disappeared inside the gates chasing the stick, while the guards laughed and followed it inside, stopping to stand just inside the wall.
Rain began to splatter down in huge, hard drops and glimpses of silvery moonlight snaked downward through holes in the thick, roiling night clouds. A gust of wind swirled and curled by. Still talking, the guards moved back inside, so she crouched up and scurried to the closest fruit tree, grabbed some low-hanging plums and quickly slipped back down the damp hillside, disappearing into the great wide forests that ran between the lowland glens and high granite crags.
She followed the deep path she had taken earlier into thefecund depths of trees, where fallen leaves and mulched ground swallowed the sound of her footsteps, and the air carried the thick taste of dark, dank moss and fallen needles. Overhead, light shot down as the moon came out from the clouds as big and bright as a silver coin, but she could still hear the patter of the rain hitting the ground behind her and, as she moved deeper, a slim scattering of raindrops hitting the sky-high crowns of the forest trees.
The small clearing was dark, but Skye stood contentedly tied to a tree and turned her big eyes on Glenna as she came through the bushes and flung the bag on her saddle. She turned, frowning. “Fergus?”
He was not by the tree where she’d left him.
Squinting slightly, she scoured the area, hoping with a suddenly wan heart that he was only a few feet away. “Fergus!” she whispered harshly.
Oh, no! Glenna untied Skye and pulled her along as she half ran back towards the edges of the forest. Before she ever reached the rim, her worst fears were realized when chaos sounded from the manor. Chickens loudly squawking and sounding worse than a cockfight. Men shouting.
The moon was bright now and the clouds and rain had moved passed, carried away on the high whipping wind. Grasses swayed slightly and took on a new color as their dew and dampness glowed slivery in the moonlight. There were few shadows for hiding, just the light illuminating the land and gardens and trees, even the faces of the guards at the manor.
Just then, Fergus came racing out of the manor, squawking chicken in his mouth as he sped down the slope low and as if his tail were on fire. Her heart sank when a man came out on the heels of her dog, carrying a torch in one hand and a raised sword in the other, followed by another guard, and a bowman, too, as dark arrows began to shoot down from just outside the manor’s wall.
She heard the men shouting orders into the wind in what hadbeen a silent, quiet night. Her eyes stayed with her dog. She dared not step into the open to be seen so easily and he was headed too far west. Quickly she mounted, then turned Skye westward, leaned low over the saddle, ready to run, and she gave a single, sharp, piercing whistle.
Fergus changed directions in a heartbeat, scampering towards her. She waited until he was close and she kicked Skye forward and out of the thick trees, where she was free to run hard, Fergus at their heels, and she rode like the wind along the dark line of the forest.
An arrow shot past her shoulder to hit the trunk of a nearby tree with a singing sound. Another whizzed by her ear. And another.
She spotted a clearing between some of the forest trees and headed straight for it, disappearing into the dark trees, slowing to a canter as she heard another arrow hit nearby and another to the east of her. She all but lay on the horse’s neck, snapping her fingers to keep Fergus at her side and still riding hard as the trees grew thicker and more protected and the skies overhead were black from the hidden moon.
Fergus yelped.
She turned in the saddle, looking back.
He was still with her, but his lope was slowing, chicken dead and hanging limply from his mouth and a trail of moulting feathers drifting to the ground behind him, and a deadly looking arrow was sticking out of his bloody side.
17
Above the pinewoods, high up along a wild and rocky ridge with a wide, dark corrie set into its ribs, horses’ hooves clopped along the narrow ridgeline above the Great Forest. Sharp pairs of eyes searched the moonlit treetops for signs of who they sought deep amidst the thick pine trees and in the hazel and birch woods that edged the lower elevations of the forest. They spoke only when they must and communicated with merely a look. Their mission was personal.
There was a broad meadow below and beyond, and in the distance, a manor house with small croft cluster and sheep scattered across dark and rolling hillsides. A snaking river skirted a sprawl of oak trees in the distant glen toward a mill, where silver arcs of wheelwater caught the moonlight. Below, flicks of torchlight circled the wide glade as men scoured the grasses and riders disappeared into the forest.
At the same time, opposite the high rock ridge, across the forest and meadow and glen, a single rider came over the top of a northeastern hillside and reined in, wrapping his cloak more tightly around him. When he saw the torches and action below he moved deeper into a copse of birch trees, hidden andwatching intently, knowing instinctively that what he saw was trouble.
And from the southeast, some distance away from all the fray, where a wide glen rolled for leagues and leagues and the River Beauly made its way from the inlet at Inverness, a troop of heavily armed men wearing Ramsey badges left Inverness and followed another trail, one that led to where the cloaked rider was now hiding.
The shepherd’shut deep in the wooded hills smelled of old, wet wool and mud, but it gave Glenna cover from the hard wind as she added more sticks to a small fire and talked softly to Fergus, lying on his side next to her with his terrible wound. Around the arrow, the blood was thick. It had stopped seeping out bright red. Every so often he would whimper and his legs would quiver in pain. But if she dared to touch the arrow, he would yelp and snap at her.
She placed some more tree moss around the wound and had used a small pot to make some willow bark tea, like Brother Leviticus had done for her. She didn’t know if it would help, but willows and hazels were scattered through the woods, a godsend. “If only I had some of that red bloodbane, sweeting, or even some ale for you,” she said to Fergus as she stroked his neck and one floppy ear. She leaned closer and plucked a few more red chicken feathers from the corner of his mouth, tossing them into the fire where the culprit chicken itself slowly cooked on a spit she had made of slim branches.
Whenever she turned the bird, the juices spilt and spat in the fire and Fergus had lifted he head and wiggled his nose. A good sign, she believed, that in spite of his horrible wound he was still hungry. Perhaps the meat would help him. She felt helpless, as if her hands were bound by her doubts and a lack of a way to fix this. She did not know what to do for him.
At some point, she must remove the arrow. But she was afraid she was not strong enough to hold him down securely and use her knife to pry loose the arrow.
“You foolish, foolish dog, you. Chickens have always been trouble for you. ” Her voice cracked and she covered her mouth with her hand, unable to look away and scared he was going to take his last breath there before her eyes. His body moved slowly as he took shallow breaths and his big wide eyes looked at her beseechingly. Just watching him broke her heart.
