Page 51 of Luthias

Callum ignored her as he reached up and took something dangling from a low branch. He stared around the boat, and then tied it to a larger tree limb before he climbed out and into the water.

Emery sat up, and saw the silver necklace he had pulled off the branch. It had a black stone pendant with some kind of carving. The river water whirled around Callum’s waist as he waded into a tangle of low-hanging tree boughs. There he bent and took hold of something, and carried it back to the boat.

She could see the terribly thin woman Callum carried was dead. “Oh, no. We need to take her back to the castle. Her family–”

“She’s a lowlander with no kin here.” He gently placed the corpse in the boat, climbed back in next to it, and then used his dagger to saw through the cord wrapped around her abdomen.

Stones tied to the rope began falling onto the bottom of the boat, and then a small silver tube rolled over toward Emery. Callum snatched it up, opened the tube, and took out a scroll. From where she sat, Emery could see the elegant writing, which he read several times. Then he put it back in the tube and tucked it under his belt before he began picking up the stones and tossing them into the river.

“How do you know this woman?” Emery asked.

“She’s Athdara Martin. My jewel-setter. My woman.” Callum regarded her. “She left me to be with her secret lover, but he beggared and abandoned her. ’Twas why she drowned herself. Now I shall see Luthias MacRoss pay for what he’s done.”

Chapter Fifteen

Darach brought the scullery and his father to Luthias, and told him what had happened to Emery. He immediately called for his armor and sent a guard to ready horses.

“I’ve sent three patrols after them, my lord,” the chieftain said. “We’ll find her.”

“’Tisnae the lad’s fault, my lord, but mine.” The scullery’s sire, a tiller, fell to his knees. “Punish me, I beg you, but let my boy live.”

As Luthias shed his tartan and strapped on the hard leather armor one of the guards had brought to him, he looked at Tom.

“You ken you did wrong by lying to lure Mistress Parker into the woods,” he told the boy. “I ken ’twas to save your Da, and you warned her before you reached him, but that doesnae pardon your act. You betrayed her, and my trust.”

“Aye, my lord.” The boy appeared ready to collapse, but instead straightened his shoulders and looked him in the eye. “I’ll pay for what I did. Only please, save my lady. The lowlander, she kept him from ending us both.”

The lowlander.

Luthias went and crouched before the lad, taking hold of his shoulders. “Tell me everything you remember about the man who took her from us. Quickly.”

Tom had a surprising amount of information about Emery’s abductor, who had hidden his face with a hood, but his cloak did not entirely cover the lowlander’s garments he wore. The scullery also claimed he spoke differently, like a highlander. He couldn’t be sure of his identity, but from what Emery had said he believed the man to be Callen, one of the woodcutters, whom he described him as tall and black-haired with vivid blue eyes.

“My lady, she showed no fear of him,” the boy finally said.

Luthias imagined Emery confronting the bastart. Even if she had been terrified, she would have concealed it from the scullery. “Aye, she’s brave.” Try as he might, he could not summon a vision of Emery now. Anything could be happening to her.

“I’ve seen that woodcutter about the barns and storage sheds,” Tom’s father put in. “He’d peer in the windows and doors, as if looking for something to steal, but he never went inside.” He ducked his head. “I’m sorry I never told the patrols. I reckoned him harmless.”

“Go home with your sire, lad,” Luthias told him, and pulled a second blade harness and sheathe over his shoulder before he took the claymore Taveon handed him. “We’ll speak again once I’ve brought back my lady.”

As he strode from the stronghold his chieftain and war master kept pace with him, but as he took the reins of his battle-clad destrier from the stable master he regarded Darach.

“Gather the women, the young and the elders, and move them to the farms,” Luthias ordered. “Arm every man who can fight. Ready the stronghold. Now.”

“Aye, my lord.” The chieftain bowed before he ran back into the castle.

Taveon swung up on his war horse and followed Luthias out of the gate, which the guards closed and barricaded as soon as they rode outside.

“From what the lad said, ’twas Callum himself who took her,” the war master said. “He’ll no’ tarry on our lands or hold her at the camp. He’ll return to Dun Deigh.”

“Then I shall go there,” Luthias said through his teeth, “And get her.”

The war master wheeled his horse into his path, forcing him to stop.

“Why should the Carack laird pose as a woodcutter and poke about the barns?” Taveon sounded cold, but anger burned in his black eyes. “He’s been searching for something, and no’ the lass. Now he’s taken her as bait to lure you onto his lands. The moment you cross his boundaries thus armed, you’ll shatter the truce between the clans––a truce we’ve held for centuries. Why should he do thus over a wench?”

“Get out of my way,” Luthias told him.