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“Alistair Munroe’s up in Scotland, last I heard. He has a great drafty castle and doesn’t go out much.”
“Because of his wounds?” Sam asked softly. They ducked into the alley that led to the house Allen had a room in. Vale hadn’t answered. Sam looked back.
Vale’s eyes held demons, and Sam had the uneasy feeling that they might mirror his own. “You saw what those savages did to him. Would you want to go out with scars like that?”
Sam looked away. It had taken almost a fortnight for the rescue party to track the Wyandot Indians back to their camp, and in that time, the captured soldiers had been tortured. Munroe’s wounds had been particularly gruesome. His hands...Sam pushed the thought aside and kept walking, keeping a keen eye on the doorways and shadows they passed. “No.”
Vale nodded. “I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Still,” Sam said. “We ought to write him a letter.”
“I’ve tried. He never writes back.” Vale quickened his steps until he was breathing down Sam’s neck. “Who are you watching for?”
Sam glanced at him. “I was followed the other day.”
“Really?” Vale sounded cheerful. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” And that fact disturbed him.
“You must’ve stirred something—or someone—up. Who had you been to see?”
Sam stopped beside a low lintel. “Ned Allen lives through here.”
Vale merely looked at him and raised his shaggy eyebrows.
“I’d talked to three soldiers,” Sam said impatiently. “Barrows and Douglas—”
“Don’t remember them.”
“You wouldn’t. They were just foot soldiers and probably spent most of the massacre cowering under one of the supply wagons. They didn’t seem to know anything. The third soldier was a pioneer in the army—”
“One of the fellows who cleared trees and such to make way for the marching column.”
“Yes.” Sam grimaced. “He described how he used his ax to decapitate one of the attacking Indians. He was quite proud of himself. He didn’t tell me much beyond that. And I’d tried to talk to Allen, but he was too drunk the first time I tracked him down. I doubt either Allen or the pioneer sent my follower.”
Vale smiled. “Interesting.”
“If you say so.” Sam ducked to enter the building. Inside, it was cold and dark. He made his way mostly by feel and memory.
Behind him, Vale swore.
“All right back there?” Sam drawled.
“Fine. Enjoying the quaint scenery,” the viscount shot back.
Sam grinned. They climbed a series of stairs, and then he led the way to Allen’s room. It was much as it had been before—smelly and small. Ned Allen lay in a corner, reduced to a bundle of rags.
Sam sighed and approached the man. The smell grew worse as he neared.
“Good God,” Vale muttered as he followed. He toed Allen. “Stinking drunk.”
“I don’t think so.” Sam hunkered by the prone man and rolled him to his back. The man turned all of apiece, as if he were made of wood. A knife stuck out of his chest, the handle made of white bone. “He’s dead.”
Vale crouched beside him and stared. “Damn me.”
“No doubt.” Sam rose swiftly and wiped his hands against his breeches.
The room was suddenly too small, too close, too smelly. He turned, stumbling, and nearly ran from the room. He tumbled ungracefully down the stairs and out into the light. Even this grimy courtyard was better than the death room upstairs. Sam took deep breaths, trying to still the rolling nausea in his belly, aware as he made his way back into the narrow alleyway that Vale clattered behind him.
