"You are supporting Bruce's attack against my father from the sea," she said, guessing at his purpose.
He shrugged evasively. "Now, tell me, Lady Anna, why I find you running through the forest."
"I need to return to the castle."
"Why?"
She bit her lip, debating what to tell them. But she knew she didn't have much time. They'd delayed her too long already. She'd be hard pressed to make it back to the castle before her brother caught up with her. Perhaps they would give her a ride?
"Do you have horses nearby?" she asked.
MacRuairi frowned. "Aye."
She exhaled. "Good. I shall need your help to get back to the castle. I need to make sure Arthur is all right." None of the men reacted. Nor should they, she supposed. They didn't know she knew the truth. "I believe you call him Ranger."
MacRuairi swore. "He told you?"
She shook her head. "It's a long story. I figured out the truth. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one. My father knows as well."
He swore again, this oath a vile expletive that even her father rarely used. "Then he's dead."
"Nay," she said, taken aback by his vehemence. "Imprisoned. My father is questioning him."
MacRuairi spat, a look of raw hatred coming over his dark features. "Then he'll wish he was."
What did he mean?
Reading her confusion, he said, "I've been on the other side of your father's 'questions' before. He has rather persuasive and inventive methods of exacting information. If Ranger isn't dead already, he soon will be."
Her stomach turned at what he was suggesting. "My father wouldn't--"
It wasn't the grim expression on his face that stopped her protest, but the memory of the partial conversation she'd heard upon entering her father's solar. A conversation that now made sense.Get me what I want. Whatever it takes.
Oh God. Anna nearly buckled over, feeling as if she were going to be ill. Her father was torturing him. She knew such things happened, of course, but it was an ugly side of war that she didn't like to think about. Nor did she like to think of her father being involved in such cruelty.
"We need to help him," she said frantically, tears pricking her eyes.
Her heart slammed in her chest when she heard a shout go out a short distance away. "Anna!"
She looked at the three men in panic. "They're calling for me--we have to gonow."
MacRuairi shook his head. "There's no need for you to come. We'll take care of it."
"But--"
He cut off her protest. "If you come with us, they'll follow. It will be easier for us to help him if they don't suspect anything. Return to your brother and continue on your journey."
"But you might need my help." And she wanted to see him for herself. "How will you get in the castle? How will you find him?"
MacRuairi's mouth was set in a grim line. "I know where he is." She shivered, knowing from the way he said it that he'd been there himself. But it was the haunted look in his eyes that chilled her blood.
God, what had her father done to him? And what was he doing to Arthur?
"You've done enough," he said. "If Ranger is alive, he'll have you to thank for it."
If he's alive. Anna bit back her tears and nodded, knowing they were right. The best way for her to help Arthur was to let them go without her. But it didn't make watching them disappear into the trees any easier. She wanted to go with them.
He's alive, she told herself. He had to be. She'd know if he wasn't. A part of her would have died as well.
