The mare picked up a trot, hurrying toward the castle, Ranald urging his mount to join her.
Alana turned and stared over her shoulder at Iain. There was hope. It wasn’t over yet.
* * *
ALANAWASN’TCERTAINof the reception she would get from Godfrey, and now she recalled asking Eleanor to invent the excuse for her absence that she had gone to speak with Sir Alexander. She had no wish to undo the fragile truce she had developed with Godfrey. She intended to be careful to maintain it, and not expose her deception, especially if Iain had some interest in acquiring Brodie.
The watch had identified them, and they were now passing through the castle gates. Alana stared across the courtyard, immediately alert. Several soldiers in English mail were leaving the stables. Her gaze veered to the front door of the great hall. She expected to see Godfrey come out to demand where she had been.
But the front door remained closed. Alana watched the soldiers head for the hall as they crossed the courtyard, still astride. “We have company,” she said to Ranald softly. “I have never seen those soldiers before.”
“I can find out who they are,” Ranald said with a grin.
Alana halted her mount and slid off, as did Ranald. The head stableman appeared from within, greeting her with a smile. “Mistress Alana.” He beamed. “Let me take that poor, tired mare from ye.” The groom—Seamus MacKinnon—eyed Ranald curiously.
Alana clasped the boy’s shoulder. “Thank you, Seamus. This is young Ranald, from Tor, and I have told his mother he can work here in our stables for a while. She has eight and she cannot feed them all.”
“Eight, eh?” Seamus lifted bushy gray brows. “Yer welcome here, boy, but only if ye do as I say, when I say.”
“He’s a good lad,” she said. She glanced past him into the stables, which were full. Her alarm increased. “Seamus, do we have visitors?”
“Aye, we do. The Earl of Buchan is in residence, my lady, with his brother.”
Alana stiffened.Her father was at Brodie.For one moment, she was paralyzed with disbelief.
“Are ye ill, mistress?” Seamus asked gruffly.
“I am surprised, that is all.”
“I had better feed and bed down these horses. Boy? Let’s go.”
Alana smiled at Ranald and watched him hurry off with Seamus, knowing he was in good and kind hands. Then her heart turned over hard.
She did not know what to expect when she went inside. The past twenty-four hours had been the worst of her life. She did not know if she could withstand any more conflict, or much more disappointment. And her uncle was with her father. She now feared the Earl of Buchan.
She left the stables resolutely. As she went up the front steps to the hall, Godfrey finally stepped outside, his expression grim.
Alana clutched her cloak tightly to her body. “Hello. What has happened?”
He remained unsmiling. “Did you find your father, Alana?” His eyes darkened.
So he was suspicious of her, and rightly so. “I should have told you what I meant to do, and I am sorry, but leaving to find him seemed like a good idea,” she said as evenly as possible. “But he wasn’t at Elgin—I had just missed him.”
Godfrey stared suspiciously and said, “He wasn’t at Elgin because he is here, with the earl.”
She pretended to be surprised. “Buchan isn’t flying his flag.”
“He’s at war! His presence here is a secret,” Godfrey snapped.
“Godfrey, what is wrong?’
“You should have stayed here so we could greet Buchan together. He was angry that you had left! He took it out on me—as if I can control you!” Godfrey exclaimed.
“I am sorry.”
“I am fortunate he did not send me to toil in the moat with the commoners and the foot soldiers,” Godfrey said. Then he came down the steps in a hurry and took her wrist. He lowered his voice. “They have been writing letters and sending messengers all over Scotland! They are worried about Bruce—they do not think Elgin will withstand a real attack. If Elgin falls, with Lochindorb gone in the south, we are surrounded.”
Alana trembled, thinking of what she had heard—that Bruce would march next week. But she did not know where he would go. And what of Iain’s new interest in Brodie? She no longer knew if she cared who won the war for Scotland’s crown, but she knew she must fight for Brodie, even against Iain, especially if he was awarded her sister. “Will we be given more soldiers?” she asked.
