“Pack lightly and pack quick. We leave for the cliffs at nightfall.”
* * *
Isabail and her hired warrior arrived at Tayteath just as dusk was falling. Noting an air of quiet around the castle, she wondered what had become of the MacCurran. If not laying siege to the castle, where was he? Surely, he would have arrived well ahead of her.
She voiced her thoughts to Magnus.
“Were I him,” he said, “I’d be camped in that wood.” He pointed to a thick forest a half league to the west. “No sense alerting your enemy to your presence until you’ve gathered all the information you’ll need to breach his walls.”
“Do you think you could you find him?”
Magnus smiled. “Of course.”
He spurred his horse into a canter and headed for the trees. Isabail did the same, even though she’d long since reached the limit of her endurance. Exhaustion tugged at her shoulders, and holding up her head had become a monumental chore. A short distance into the woods, Magnus reined in his mount and swung to the ground. “We walk from here.”
“Why?”
“The horses make too much noise. They’ll hear us long before they see us.”
Isabail frowned. “Don’t we want them to find us?”
“Find you? Aye. Find me? Nay.”
“Do you have a grievance with the MacCurrans?”
“Possibly,” he said, leading her through the brush and showing her where to step. At the short trill of a bird, he halted. “This is as far as I go. Head straight toward that half-fallen birch. If they’ve got their wits about them, as I suspect they do, they’ll find you within a pace or two beyond that.”
She frowned. “And where will you go?”
“I won’t be far,” he said. “If you run afoul of the MacCurrans, just yell. I’ll find you.”
Isabail lifted the hem of her dress and ripped open the seam. She removed the silver deniers sewn there and pressed them into Magnus’s hand. “Thank you. I could never have made this journey without you.”
He shoved the coins away. “Thank me after the lad is safe. Before that, there’s nothing to be rewarded for.”
He gave her a gentle push in the direction of the fallen birch, then melted into the shadows and was gone.
* * *
Niall marched across the camp to Aiden’s side. “You’ll never believe whom we found in the woods.”
Aiden glanced about. “Who?”
He followed Niall’s pointed finger and found the disheveled yet still amazingly lovely face of Isabail Macintosh. “Bloody hell.”
As she stepped out of the woods accompanied by two of his men, Aiden shook his head. “How is this possible?” he asked her. “How did you get here?”
“Never mind how,” she said. “I’m just glad I arrived before you laid siege to the keep. I will go to the castle and demand entry. They are my men, so they’ll raise the portcullis, and we can enter without bloodshed.”
He sighed heavily. “That won’t work.”
“Of course it will.” She shot him an exasperated look. “Why is it men always want to solve problems with their swords?”
He grabbed her elbow and led her out of the earshot of Niall and the others. He was tempted to kiss her, but thought better of it. She might get the idea that he approved of her reckless race across the countryside. “It won’t work because de Lourdes has replaced all your loyal soldiers with mercenaries from France.”
“What?” She blinked at him.
“Mercenaries,” he repeated. “The villagers confirmed it.”
