Nicholas set Broc down and turned his back on the knight. He’d not killed anyone, but he was damn close to doing it now. Broc sniffed around for a moment, then lifted his head, ears pricked and gaze fixed on the open postern door. He trotted through, nose to the ground, tail wagging excitedly.
Nicholas started after the dog when Sir Philip dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I think you should come with me, my lord.”
Nicholas shoved him off and went after Broc. The dog was out of sight, already around the curving wall of the castle. Nicholas jogged down the path until a sharp bark from Broc snapped him into a run.
Broc was beside himself, looking over the side of the cliff. He lowered his body gingerly, as if he meant toskitter down the side. Nicholas grabbed the rope leash and wrapped it firmly around his hand.
This part of the path looked no different than any other part, and Broc’s frantic barking over the side seemed to indicate the worst. Heart sinking, Nicholas stared over the side. Dark mountains rose all around. Sunlight glinted off the river far below. Fury at fate welled up inside him, ripping painfully through his chest. He wanted to shake his fist at the capriciousness of God, that He should take her, too.
Two eagles circled below, their screaming echoing his fury. He watched them for a time, holding firmly to Broc as the dog tried desperately to leap over the side and share his mistress’s fate. Nicholas looked straight down. The cliff bulged out, so he couldn’t see the ground directly below. He strolled several paces down the path. The way it curved, he couldn’t see the cliff face, but he could see the bottom. If she’d gone over here, her body would have been broken on the sharp rocks below, for the river did not pass near the cliff this way.
He had a sudden memory from his childhood, of his father bringing him to the cliff to show him an eagle’s nest on a ledge and telling him how eagles mated for life. They’d sat together on the path and watched them mate, plummeting downward, talons locked, in a beautiful dance. They’d come back frequently to watch the single eaglet grow and finally leave the nest.
There were ledges all over the mountains. Could she have fallen to one and was still alive but unable to call out? As they’d not found her body below, that seemed plausible. Broc’s claws dug into the dirt of the path,trying to return to the place where Gillian had apparently fallen.
Nicholas needed help. Pulling the reluctant dog along with him, he hurried back up the path. When he entered the garden, Sir Philip was still there, his face set in severe lines.
“I need some rope . . . about twenty ells. And at least four men.”
Nicholas’s men-at-arms made to obey, but Philip held out a hand and they stopped, looking anxiously from Philip to Nicholas.
“My lord, if you’ll come with me—”
Blood rushed to throb in Nicholas’s temples. He advanced on the knight, muscles rigid with fury. “I’ll answer to no one but the king,Knight.You forget yourself. Now get me the God damned rope!”
His men dispersed.
If Nicholas didn’t find her, he would have to answer to the king, no mistake. But that did not concern him. All he cared about was finding his wife.
Sir Philip stepped in front of Nicholas when he tried to pass. His eyes were hard, his face set with purpose. “And so ye shall. The kingwillhear of this, my lord. I’ll be taking witnesses with me when I leave. Noble or no, ye cannot murder with impunity.”
Rage burst red behind Nicholas’s eyes, and his control snapped. He slammed his fist into the knight’s face. The next thing he knew they were rolling around on the ground, pummeling each other. Nicholas hammered mindlessly at the knight, venting all his fear and frustration with his fists. Clansmen and men-at-armsdragged them apart. Nicholas’s knuckles were skinned raw, and he saw with satisfaction that Sir Philip bled copiously from his mouth and nose. Sir Philip shrugged off the men holding his arms, and he spat, glaring at Nicholas.
Nicholas wasn’t completely unscathed. By the time his arms were released, the vision in his right eye blurred from the blood dripping into it. Someone handed him a folded handkerchief, and he pressed it against his split brow. The row had eased some of the tension coiling him tight.
“Where is the rope!” he yelled.
A man came forward with a heavy hemp rope looped over his shoulder. Nicholas looked Sir Philip up and down. He was big—bigger than all the other men currently in the garden.
“I think I know where she is,” Nicholas said. “Will you help me, or just let her die out there?”
Isobel dabbed at the blood on her husband’s face with the corner of her arisaid, but she stopped at Nicholas’s words and turned. Her eyes were full of fear and hope. “Is she alive?”
Nicholas swallowed hard. “God, I hope so.”
Philip frowned deeply at Nicholas but said nothing.
Isobel looked up at her husband. “Philip? If it’s true, youmusthelp him.”
Philip sighed and nodded reluctantly. “Aye, what do ye mean to do?”
They deemed Nicholas and Sir Philip too heavy, so they sent a smaller man over the side, rope tied securelyabout his waist. Nicholas and Philip, along with another large, red-bearded man named Fergus, paid out the rope. The wind blew strong out here, and they didn’t know how far down the ledge was—if there even was one—or if they’d be able to hear shouts from below. So they worked out a series of tugs on the rope. One tug meant to pull him back up, he’d found nothing. Two tugs meant he’d found her and was securing the rope to her, followed by a third tug when he was ready for her to be brought up.
When the first tug came, Nicholas’s heart stopped until the second one came seconds later. He didn’t realize he’d made a noise until Sir Philip gave him an odd look over his shoulder. Nicholas had not wept since he was a bairn, but he was on the verge of tears now. His eyes had been dry and burning ever since she’d disappeared, disbelief and anger his only defense against black despair, but now he didn’t know if he could control his emotions any longer. He prayed it was not a body they’d found but Gillian, alive and well.
He waited an eternity for the next tug. When it came, Nicholas had to stop himself from yanking the rope up too quickly. She was probably wounded, so they must be slow and gentle. Another man held Broc as he yipped and barked in anticipation.
He heard her agonized gasp of pain before he saw her, and it cut through him like a sword, clogging his throat with emotion.
