Mam pressed her mouth stubbornly but then she nodded. She raised a hand and called after him, “Take care, Tav.”
Tavish turned, and in moments he was through the entry corridor and once more on the cliff path. The sky grew darker as he neared the doocot, the occasional crack of a raindrop being flung through the green canopy as he stopped to examine the blood-splotched path. He only paused a moment and then continued on to the small graveyard.
He saw the dark monk standing on the edge of the clearing, looking out over the rippling water, and although Tavish didn’t think his footsteps made any sound in the soft grass, Dubhán turned as soon as Tavish breached the first line of graves.
“Has the young woman been found?” he asked in his calm, lyrical voice.
Tavish shook his head. He looked down briefly at the fresh grave, the mounded dirt slightly higher than the riotously green grass around it, then continued toward the edge of the plot where the earth fell away in a ragged chunk; where he’d once followed the path to the cave, and where Frang Roy had succumbed to the afterlife. He looked down at the jagged rocks and wash of mud that had erased nearly all signs of the treacherous ledge that comprised the trail.
It was the only place left on Roscraig lands that hadn’t been checked.
Isn’t that what nobles do? Go on pilgrimages? I shall have to begin at once.
“I need rope, Dubhán.”
The monk blinked, his eyes wide. “I’ve no rope, laird.”
“What do you lower the coffins with?” Tavish asked.
“There have not been any coffins for some time. The man in the village who made them is dead.”
He was running out of time. Perhaps Audrey was, too.
Tavish pulled his sword from its scabbard and reached out to take hold of one of the long vines looped from a high branch. If the thick climbers could hold the bulk of the likes of Frang Roy, they could surely hold him. Tavish hacked it in two high up on one side and then replaced his sword as Dubhán strode toward him.
“Surely you cannot think to descend so dangerous a path in hopes of finding Miss Keane,” Dubhán warned soothingly. “Frang Roy could not have taken the lady to the caves without my knowledge.”
Tavish glanced over his shoulder at the monk while he took the now long, dangling vine in both hands. “Really, Dubhán? The man died on your doorstep, and yet you heard nothing. What do you know of his actions before he was hanged?” He yanked hard on the vine several times, pulling its length from the host tree until it held firm.
“I can make no defense for my lack of vigilance, laird,” he said with a bow of his head. “But Miss Keane would not have gone willingly, you must agree. Even if she was unable to cry out, the path would have been impossible for Frang Roy to navigate while carrying her.”
Tavish gave a short sigh, looked out to the Forth for a moment to compose himself. He turned his eyes back to Dubhán. “Maybe Frang Roy had nothing to do with it. Maybe she went on her own. I don’t know. But I must look. I can leave no stone unturned, Dubhán. She is my friend.”
“Is she, laird?” the monk questioned softly.
The two men stared at each other for a moment, and in the back of Tavish’s mind, he recalled Audrey introducing Vaughn Hargrave to him at his own feast.
No. He’d known Audrey since they were both children. She’d come to Roscraig with the intention of wedding him. She cared for him. In this madness, he was beginning to suspect everyone he knew of treachery.
Dubhán folded his hands together inside his sleeves. “I will watch over you, lest you fall.”
“If I should fall,” Tavish said, looking down as he stepped one foot over the side, “there will be little you can do for me. Watch over Glenna.”
The instant his other boot left the damp grass, his foot slid through the earth as if it had no more substance than cream. The vine ripped through his hands like a hot blade and Tavish fell full body against the muddy cliff face, traveling downward at least five feet before the toe of his boot caught on a buried rock. He clung to the vine, the side of his face slick with cold mud, panting as the waves washed over the rocks still far below him.
Dubhán called down, “Shall I pull you back up now, laird?”
“I’m fine, Dubhán.” Tavish spat the dirt from his mouth. He looked down and saw the mud-covered rock ledge marking the entrance to the cave some ten feet down; there was perhaps only three feet of vine left in his hands. “This vine won’t be long enough; you’ll need cut another piece to affix to the end to bring me up.”
“Aye, laird.”
A ropy root horseshoed from the cliff, and Tavish let himself slide down until his boot caught it like a stirrup. Only a foot of vine left, and the distance to the ledge was more than his height.
“Audrey!” he shouted, and his voice rang flat between the water and the mud. “Audrey, are you down there?”
Only the cry of gulls answered him.
If she were trapped, yet able to walk, she would have been shouting for help. There would be footprints in the mud.
