AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Open the gate,” he yelled as he charged for the main portal. “Robbie, you are to follow me. Bring men with you.” He had no idea what might have happened, but it could not bode well that Roselyn’s constant companion, her shadow, was hobbling down his hillside alone but for a skivvy from his kitchens.
He reached the huge oak gates just as they parted and galloped through. Once in the open he kicked his mount into a gallop and together they ate up the mile or so which separated them from the unlikely pair.
As he got closer he could see that Annie was weeping, and that she was urging the dog to keep moving. The hound was dragging her rear left leg behind her, and he could see at a glance that the limb was broken.
“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered as he thundered up the hillside, urging Bartholomew to even longer strides.
Annie saw him coming and stopped to wait. As soon as they stopped moving Freya collapsed into the heather. The hound lay panting on her side as Blair hauled the stallion to a skidding halt and slithered to the ground.
He crouched beside the stricken dog as Annie flung her small arms about his neck. “Laird, they took ‘er. They took Lady Roselyn an’ they killed Harry.”
Harry? One of his stable lads, and probably the one who had been driving Roselyn’s cart. Blair dislodged the sobbing child from his neck and set her before him. “Annie, ye must tell me what happened. Who took her? What did ye see?”
The scrawny little wench could barely speak to him for her sobbing and the child was clearly terrified. Of him? He could not quite think that, not after she had hugged him so. He needed to calm her or he would get nowhere. Still kneeling in the heather, Blair took the slight figure in his arms again and stroked her matted hair.
“‘Tis all right, Annie. No one will hurt ye, and ye did well tae come home. Now, can ye tell me what has happened tae Lady Roselyn?” He adjusted his usually more cultured speech to match that of the tiny scullery maid in an attempt to put her more at ease.
She gulped, sniffed hard and nodded against his jerkin. Blair eased Annie from his embrace and tipped her chin up. Hooves thundered behind him, his men were coming.
“So, tell me, hinny.” He could not quite muster a smile but he did succeed in calming his features enough not to alarm her all over again. “Tell me all that ye saw.”
“The lady came tae our croft. I was there, Elspeth said I could spend the day wi’ me ma an’ the new young ‘un…”
Right, so his cook had sent the wee lassie home for the day, Blair could piece that much together. It wasn’t unusual for families to send their younger children into the care of their laird to earn their way in the castle, it was one less mouth to feed on the croft, but Annie had clearly been homesick and under all that ferocity he knew Elspeth to be a kindly soul. “So Lady Roselyn reached your family’s farm then? She arrived there safe?”
“Aye, Laird, an’ she played wi’ the bairn. She shared our meal, but she brought flour an’ apples an’ a fine side o’ pork that Elspeth had nae use for. So there was plenty tae go around.”
“Right, then what?”
“The lady said it were time for her to go as she had to be back by nightfall. I wanted to see the kittens in the barn so I ran off to have a wee look, an’ I forgot that I was supposed to hurry…” Tears started again and the little girl’s shoulders hunched over. “I am sorry, sir, so sorry. I shouldna ha’ been so slow…”
“Annie, please, tell me the rest.”
She sniffled a bit more, then peered anxiously about her as the men from Duncleit dismounted and clustered around them. “I came out o’ the barn just as the lady’s cart was leavin’. I ran after ‘em as otherwise I would have to walk all the way back an’ the lady had said as how I could ride i’ the cart wi’ her an’ Meggie.”
“They didna wait for ye?”
“Meggie was lookin’ tae the front an’ talkin’ tae Lady Roselyn. Harry ne’er saw me neither. They didna ken I was behind them, runnin’ after…”
“Why did ye no’ shout? Lady Roselyn couldna see ye but she would have heard.”
“I did, but the wind was in the wrong direction an’ they was so far ahead. But I kept on runnin’ in case they might stop an’ I could catch up…”
“Right, I understand. So…?”
“It were over by Dunisburn woods, where the trail goes through the trees an’ it be dark overhead. I dinna like the woods, Laird, there’s all sorts o’ goblins an’ such livin’ in those dark corners.”
Surely she was not about to tell him his wife had been spirited away by woodland pixies? “Annie…”
Annie clutched at his arm. “There were men there though. A lot, maybe a dozen. They jumped out o’ the trees an’ onto the cart and some were on horses. They was yellin’ at each other an’ the dog was barkin’ an’ snarlin’. I heard the lady scream so I crouched in the long grass at the edge o’ the wood an’ I tried to see that was goin’ on but I couldna. There was noise though, a lot o’ din. Men shoutin’…”
“Did ye see who they were? What colours they had on ‘em?”
“They were no’ another clan, Laird. They were English, or lowlanders perhaps by their speech. The lady knew ‘em though. I heard her call one o’ them by his name.”
“What name? What name did she say?”
The child screwed up her face in concentration. He schooled himself to wait.
