Amanda Scott (44 page)

Urging the palfrey on, Sorcha kicked hard again, and it broke into a lope as Adela cried, “Mercy, he’s getting up! He’s following us. Oh, Sorcha, he’s going to catch us.” Then, with a gasp, “Oh! He’s fallen. He’s… he’s got a knife in his back, and he hasn’t stirred. I… I recognize him, Sorcha. He’s one of his lordship’s men.”

“Who’s his lordship?”

“Waldron, of course. I don’t know why I called him that again.”

“Too bad it wasn’t Waldron himself,” Sorcha said, sure the knife was Einar’s.

“You should not say such a thing! You don’t know him as I do.”

“I’d think you would be glad you needn’t know him any longer,” Sorcha said tartly. “He is an evil man, and the countess means to evict him from Edgelaw.”

“He said he feared she might,” Adela said. “But, truly, although he can be cruel, he is only a man doing what he believes is right.”

Sorcha wanted to insist that Waldron was pure evil, a lunatic. But increased tension in Adela’s voice stopped her, and she held her peace.

“Another man is following us!” Adela cried.

Sorcha looked back, saw Einar pull his knife from the
fallen man’s back and drag him off the track. She reined the palfrey to an even slower pace.

“Mercy, what are you doing?”

“That is Sir Hugo’s man, the one who spoke to us earlier from the bushes,” Sorcha said. “We’re well into the glen now. I expect he’ll soon tell us we’re safe.”

She glanced back again just as, to her horror, Einar fell flat on his face with an arrow in his back.

Jerking the reins, she flung her right leg over the palfrey’s neck and snapped, “Hold these, Adela,” as she jumped to the ground. “If aught happens to me, kick hard and ride for the castle. It can’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes ahead now. Just don’t let the palfrey slacken its pace, and you will make it safely.”

“But Sorcha—”

Sorcha paid no heed but snatched up her skirts and ran as fast as she could run the short distance back to Einar.

“Please don’t be dead,” she said, flinging herself down beside him.

“I’m no dead yet, but he’ll be on us in a trice,” he muttered. “D’ye see yon great beech tree ahead o’ us, where the track curves?”

“Aye, but I cannot leave you here.”

“Ye can, and ye must, or the master will flay me an he finds out. So, heed me well. Ride on to that beech. Then dismount, the pair o’ ye, and smack that beast gey hard three times on its rump. It’ll head for its stable then. When it does, dive into the bushes beyond that great tree and push your way through as best ye can. Dinna let yourselves be seen from the track, though! Soon ye’ll come to yon cliffside.”

“Einar, if he’s coming…”

“He’s well back o’ us in a tree, and he’s got nae horse. It’ll take him five minutes to reach us, mayhap a bit less,” he added, wincing. “Enough to give ye a head start, so he’ll follow the horse’s tracks. D’ye recall the cave, lass?”

Shocked that he would mention it, but recalling the voice she had thought might be his, she nodded, realized his eyes had closed again, and said, “I do.”

“When ye come to the cliff, ye’ll see a scrub tree sticking out from its face. Just north o’ that tree, ahind some thick myrtle bushes, be an entrance to the cave. Ye’ll find it easily. But go now, and dinna make a sound once you’re away from the track. If ye canna trust the lady Adela, send her on wi’ the horse.”

“Einar, I’ve got to get you hidden before we can leave.”

“Ye’re no to fret about me. I’ll do for myself when I ken fine that ye’re well away. It’ll do me nae good to survive this day if ye do not. Now, away wi’ ye!”

Sorcha went, but tears streamed down her face, because she was sure he had just sacrificed his life for her and for Adela. Even so, she could not heed his advice to send Adela with the palfrey. She did not believe Adela could betray her, and she was nearly as certain as she could be that if Adela tried to ride on to Roslin without her, she would not get there alive.

Accordingly, Sorcha ran back to the palfrey, and without trying to mount it, grabbed the reins from Adela, told her to kick hard, and then ran ahead to the curve in the track, past the beech tree. Once she could no longer see Einar, she ordered Adela to jump down, smacked the palfrey, and grabbing Adela by the hand, pulled her into the
bushes, saying, “Not a word, for we must be as quiet as we can. But we must also move as quickly as we can to that cliff ahead of us.”

“But why? I thought we were going to Roslin.”

“Sakes, Adela, someone just shot Hugo’s man who was guarding us with an arrow from a tree that he says is nigh onto five minutes behind us as a man runs. That man, to make that bowshot, has to be an extraordinary archer.”

Adela gasped. “Waldron! It must be he. We cannot escape him, Sorcha. It is no use trying. Oh, I knew it!”

“If you cannot say anything sensible, hold your tongue,” Sorcha snapped. “I won’t leave you, so if he captures you, he will also get me.”

“Oh, no!”

“Then come on! And try not to break any branches that he can see from the track. We want him to follow the palfrey.”

Adela shook her head as if at a foolish child, but she made no more objections and moved as Sorcha told her to move until they were well away from the track. Had the cliff before them not been so high, they would not have been able to see where they were going any more than they could now see the track behind them.

When Sorcha spied the shrub Einar had described growing out of the cliff, they increased their pace.

“Look for tall, thick myrtle bushes near the cliff face,” she whispered.

“I don’t know myrtle, and all this shrubbery is thick,” Adela said in a normal tone. When Sorcha gave her an angry look, she lowered it to add, “But why must we whisper? We’re too far away now for anyone to hear.”

“You don’t know that,” Sorcha muttered. “Now hush.”

She had to feel through several bushes for an opening before she found one. Then she had to pull Adela with her to get near it. Up close, it seemed no more than a tall slab of rock with a narrow crevice behind, and for a moment, she feared she had mistaken some other oddity in the rock face for the entrance they sought. She was sure no adult male could slip through such a space—not Hugo, Michael, or Sir Edward, and certainly not her father, who enjoyed robust proportions.

But when she grabbed hold of the slab to try to squeeze into the space, the slab moved, and she saw that it was similar to the doors of the other tunnel entrances she had seen. Inside, the passage was wide enough for two to stand side by side, but when she tried to pull the door shut, it would go no farther than before.

“We cannot stay here,” she said. “Any noise we made would easily reach anyone nearby. We must move farther inside.”

“But what is this place?” Adela hissed.

“ ’Tis naught but a cave,” Sorcha said, knowing Adela would ask more questions and trying to think what she could say. She did not want to lie but neither could she answer honestly without betraying her promise to Hugo. Then a memory provided her the words she needed. “Wallace once hid here. Or mayhap ’twas the Bruce. I forget which, but it is well known in these parts and should keep us safe.”

“But if it is well known—”

“Just that it exists, Adela, not where it is. It is on Sinclair property, after all.”

“But it’s dreadfully dark. How long must we stay?”

“Until someone comes for us,” Sorcha said, feeling more at risk with every word. Recalling the many hiding places in the cavern, she weighed the chance of Adela’s later remembering where they were against the probability of Waldron’s finding them if they stayed near the entrance. Even if she could persuade Adela to be silent, she was not sure she could trust her to remain so if he called to her.

But if she could not hear him…

“I’ve heard they leave torches not far inside,” she said. “If we can find one, mayhap I can light it if they also thought to provide a tinderbox and flint.”

Adela was clearly unhappy about the cave, but she was just as clearly more afraid of staying behind in the dark than of going with Sorcha. So they felt their way until Sorcha found the torches, flint, and tinderbox that she had felt certain would be there. Giving an unlit torch to Adela, and keeping one for herself, she made her sister keep walking until they could no longer see even a glimmer of light from the tunnel opening before she lit her own torch.

“Now, hurry,” she said. “We don’t want anyone seeing torchlight from outside.” The more she thought about it, the odder it seemed that the slab had refused to shut behind them and lock the way the two tunnel doors had. Perhaps it had caught on something. She ought to have looked more carefully.

The great cavern loomed head of them, and although its size swallowed most of the light, Adela gasped. “Merciful heaven, is that water ahead?”

“Aye, there is a l-lake,” Sorcha said, her voice stumbling when she held the torch higher and its light fell upon two good-sized brassbound chests, one at the
water’s edge not far away and the other sitting some yards from it, next to the dais.

“Faith, it’s the treasure!” Adela exclaimed. “He’ll come now. I know he will!”

Hugo urged Black Thunder to his fastest pace, fearing with every stride the great horse took that they would be too late. No whistle had sounded, or if it had, the lass had been too far away for him to hear it. He had known it would not carry beyond the walls of the glen, but the greatest danger had existed when she was near the peel tower, and he had wanted her to have it then.

Michael had taken command of the men after a neat maneuver in which Hugo had turned the horse he was riding through the men behind him, where he and Michael had easily traded mounts in fair certainty that the exchange would not be noted from the castle.

Not only did Waldron not know Black Thunder, because the horse was Hector’s, but even if his men had seen Hugo riding the black on the road, there had been more than one black in their string, and Hugo had changed horses regularly on the way. Furthermore, he knew that anyone who watched the Roslin men from the castle now would be more concerned about the several who had ridden forward to make another circuit of it than about anyone riding away.

When three had ridden away, one on a black horse, the other two on bays, all looking like ordinary soldiers, he was sure word had gone round inside that he was sending to Roslin for reinforcements.

He and Michael had not exchanged helmets, but Michael now wore a black one with a white Sinclair cock on it. From the castle, it would look like Hugo’s lion.

He had easily outdistanced the other two, who knew only that he was heading into the glen. Every instinct told him that Waldron was ahead of him.

Hugo believed his cousin would not kill Sorcha, because Waldron wanted her as a hostage to trade for information about the treasure. However, he feared that if Waldron decided he had no more use for Adela, he might kill her.

Hugo knew he could not let that happen, because Sorcha would never forgive him or herself if Adela died. That she still insisted he marry Adela was another matter. He could only hope Adela did not want the marriage any more than he did. But, whether she did or not, her life was in his hands now, and he could not fail her.

Sorcha stared at Adela. “What makes you think those chests hold treasure?”

“You said this is Sinclair land, so it must be the treasure they took from the Holy Kirk, the one Waldron seeks. What else could it be in a place such as this?”

“Sakes, I don’t know,” Sorcha said. “But you cannot go around talking of treasure. Men will think you are mad or else abduct you again in hopes of finding such a thing. Hold out your torch, for I mean to light it and put them in those two holders on the wall. We will be a deal more comfortable if we need not carry them.”

“Aye, lass, give her the torch,” a voice said, startling
both of them. “We want to light this place up, so we can see what is in those chests.”

Sorcha whirled as Adela exclaimed, “I knew you would come!”

Waldron stood at the opening of the tunnel they had just come through, his hand on his sword.

His gaze shifted to Adela as he said, “Is anyone else here?”