“Stellan? I just saw him an hour ago.”
Mariota wanted to kick herself. She should not have said anything. “I mean Anders.”
He shook his head. “Nay, ye didna. So the lads are up to their old tricks.” He chuckled for a moment, then frowned. “The laird willna be happy.”
“I willna tell him. Will ye?”
“Nay, but the lads will. And they’ll bear whatever punishment he deems suitable. They may be too clever for their own good, but they’re honorable lads.”
Mariota thought back over all Stellan had done for her since she’d stumbled into his camp. Honorable, indeed. Anders, too, in his own, more playful way. But it was Stellan she cared about. Stellan she loved.
Where was he?
“Ye look as though ye had best go inside,” Ian told her. “Get some food and have a rest. The lads will be along soon.”
“I’m sure ye have the right of it,” Mariota told him with a smile. “How can I ever thank ye for taking such good care of Valkyrie?”
“Naught needed, lass. Yer hawk and I are old friends, now, are we no’, lassie?” He said, turning to her hawk. “I’ll see her fed and will fetch the healer if she shows signs of being in pain. Go get some rest, lass.”
Mariota nodded, and on impulse, reached forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank ye,” she said again and headed out into the bailey. The lads were still dealing with the horses, so Mariota grabbed her pack from hers and thanked the stable lad for his care of her mount, then went inside. Ian had given her good advice. She tossed her pack onto the nearest bench and sat beside it, waiting patiently until a serving lass brought her something to eat and asked, “Would ye like ale or cider?”
“Cider, please, and some bread to go with Cook’s wonderful stew, if ye please,” Mariota told her.
“Are ye well, milady? Is there anything else ye need?”
Mariota realized she must look worse than she knew. “Just tired, thank ye. I’ll be fine after I eat.”
“I’ll hurry back to ye, then,” the lass said and rushed away.
People at Sutherland were so nice to her, it brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them away. She must be more tired, more shaken by Alber’s attack, than she’d realized. The scent of the stew, when it arrived, made her mouth water. She reached first for the cup of cider and downed it, then tore of a chunk of bread and dunked it in the stew. She’d taken only a bite or two when her benefactor returned with a pitcher and replenished her cider. “I thought ye might need more than one cup,” the lass told her.
“Ye are wise beyond yer years,” Mariota said with a tired smile. “I’m Mariota. What’s yer name?”
“I’m Anna,” the lass told her.
“Pleased to meet ye,” Mariota told her, stopping with stew-soaked bread in her fingers long enough to speak.
“I’ll leave ye to eat in peace. Tell me if ye need aught.”
“Thank ye, Anna,” Mariota said, once again grateful for the treatment she received here, so different from how she was regarded at home. Nay,at MacKay. This was now her home. That made her smile again, and she dug into her meal.
She finished and started to wonder how long she’d been sitting here. Was Stellan back? Surely she would have seen him enter the great hall, probably to report to his da in the laird’s solar. And he would have seen her and come to her. But the hall bustled with people coming and going, none of whom were Stellan or Anders. Where were the twins?
Anders sometimes had an uncanny sense of what his brother was doing. She could use his reassurance right now. But first,she’d take her things upstairs, come back and ask if anyone had seen either of them.
In her chamber, her bed— and Ian’s advice to rest —called to her, but she left her pack and went back downstairs. Anna, the first person she approached, knew nothing, nor did the healer when she ventured back to the herbal.
“Check with the lads in the stable. They ken everything,” the healer advised.
Mariota had to laugh. “Of course. Stellan would leave his horse there when he arrived. If he was back, they’d know, and might know where he’d gone. She could follow her instincts to the laird’s solar, but she feared interrupting their da at work, and worse, winding up explaining why one of his sons was missing— assuming she could keep from him which son it was. Nay, she’d rather not betray Stellan and Anders’ duplicity. Ian said they’d confess to their da, so she must keep silent.
She was in the stable when thunderous hoofbeats shook the ground and made her run for the entrance. So many horses galloped through the keep’s gates, she couldn’t count them all for the dust they kicked up. But one caught her eye and stopped her heart. Anders, holding his bloody twin slumped before him, rode at the fore. Or was it Stellan holding Anders? And why were they together when Anders had been left behind in Dunrobin?
She knew better than to rush out into the bailey in the middle of the melee, so she gripped the stable’s doorframe and waited until all the riders had their beasts under control, then ran to the twins. “Stellan?”
“Hurt, but he’ll be right once the healer sees to him,” Anders told her, confirming her worst fear.
“Dear God, what happened?”
