He looked around from where he sat on a thick branch. To the east was a great pasture dotted with sheep. To the north, dozens of cottages spilled down green hills.
The Armstrongs had much. Why the hell were they such a threat to the Hetheringtons? They didn’t need to raid. Torin thought mayhap they received payment from Bennett to attack every so often just so the warden could defend the Hetheringtons.
After this, surely Braya’s father would not fight for him.
Torin watched men hurrying toward a large house west of him. He didn’t know who the leader was, but he suspected he lived in that house. He also suspected Braya was in there with him.
Knowing where to go now, Torin climbed down the tree and pulled up his hood. He went to the tavern, where he hoped to hear some gossip, something to help him get inside the house without being stopped. If their leader had just returned with a Hetherington, there would be talk of it.
“I never saw a woman fight the way she did. I tell you, at one point, I feared she might overtake John.”
Torin moved closer to the small group of men standing toward the back of the tavern. The man he’d heard was speaking of Braya, no doubt.
“I do not understand why he insists on doing Lord Bennett’s bidding and picking fights with these people,” said another man.
“It does not matter if you understand or not,” the first man argued. “He does what is best for the family.”
Torin’s ear picked up another conversation to his left. A woman’s voice.
“The new cook should have been here by now.”
Torin turned away from her and raked his gaze over the people in the tavern. He started for the door when he saw a tall, pudgy man enter. He wore a bag over his shoulder and an iron pan from his hip and looked around as if he were lost. The new cook.
Torin smiled and hurried toward him. “The cook?”
“Aye,” the man smiled. “I—”
“Come,” Torin snaked his arm around the cook’s shoulder. “Let me get you to the house.” He escorted the cook out the door, led him around to the back of the tavern and smashed him in the head with the hilt of his sword. His victim would only be out for an hour or less, plenty of time for Torin to do what needed to be done.
He unfastened the pan, adjusted his mantle to conceal his sword at his side as best he could, and carried the cooking utensil back inside. He headed toward the woman. It turned out that she was sitting with two other women at a table.
“Pardon me,” he said after he cut across the tavern in three strides and pulled down his hood. His hair fell around his face in broad streaks of different shades of gold. “I seem to be lost. I’m the new cook.”
The lasses stopped talking to one another and looked him over from the tips of his worn boots to the cooking pan dangling from his fist, upward to his broad, draped shoulders, and haloed head.
“Do you always carry your pan around in your hand?” one of the lasses asked, giggling behind her fingers.
He smiled indulgently. His eyes shone like sunlit fields of summer green, inviting and mysterious. “If I let it dangle from my hip, it gets in the way of my sword.”
All three women giggled. Two blushed.
“Do you happen to know where I should go?”
They stopped smiling instantly and remembered their duty. “Aye! Follow us back to the house,” one of them said, standing up. The others followed. “Elaine will bring you to the kitchen.”
He bowed slightly and let them pass.
“Is that a sword at your side?” one of them asked.
“Aye, Miss,” He gave her a curious look. “I mentioned it a moment ago.”
“Aye, but I thought—” Her face went scarlet. “Never mind.”
They left the tavern and headed for the large house. Torin smiled. “’Tis dangerous out there. I need to protect myself.”
They agreed and told him of the wild woman their leader had captured from her bed. She had clawed and bit and kicked half the way here until Lord John had to strike her and knock her out.
Torin’s blood boiled. He could barely keep his rage contained. His hands curled into fists at his sides.
