Shaking away such nonsense, he sat on the ground and leaned back against a tree, feeling better with the strong solidness of wood behind him.
‘Where are you from?’
Her voice was hard, the frustration in it unhidden. He noticed she did not ask for names.
‘France.’ He had decided that there were only certain pieces that needed telling. ‘The boat we were on was blown off course and overturned in the storm.’
Her attention was drawn to the other men beside her, their words rising in anger as they squabbled over the jewels. She stopped them with a short command, though the oldest of the pair drew his hands into fists and punched the air, twice.
Intentions!
Staying expressionless, Marc looked back at the woman. Her fingers had crept to the knife at her belt, relaxing as she saw one of her men move off into the forest, though when she gestured to the other to tie them up Marc swore beneath his breath.
He could fight, he supposed, and win, but with an arm that needed some attention and Simon with a leg that was taking him nowhere he thought it better to wait.
The rope was thick and well secured, putting them a good length away from each other. When the man was finished Isobel Dalceann checked the ropes herself. Her flesh was freezing as her arm brushed against her prisoner’s and he thought for the first time that she was good at hiding her feelings.
‘We’ll unfasten you when the food is ready, but at every other time you will be tethered until we decide what to do with you. After dinner I will tend to your arm.’
Her last sentence heartened him. If she meant to kill them, surely she would not waste any time caring for them first? Then the import of what she said sunk in. The gash was deep and the light was bad and the few belongings seen in this provisional camp pointed to the fact that medical care would be at best basic.
‘I can wait.’
His saviour began to laugh and there were deep dimples in both her cheeks. He heard Simon next to him draw in breath and knew that his thoughts were exactly the same as his own.
This warrior queen was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, despite the scar and her garb and the grimace that was her more normal expression. Looking away, he tried to take stock of such thoughts and failed. Beneath his tight hose lust grew. God … the world was falling topsy-turvy and he could stop none of it. Shifting his stance, he bent his knees.
‘Wait for what? Edinburgh is almost a week’s worth of walking from here and by that time your arm …’ She stopped, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. ‘The sea may have cleaned it, of course, but the bindings holding you are well used.’
He frowned, not understanding her reasoning.
‘It is my experience that filth often finishes what a blade begins.’
Riddles. Another thought wormed into his head. Was she one of the silkies that the legends from these parts were full of? He had never seen a woman so easily able to manage the sea before and the colour of her hair was that of the sleek black coats of fur seals often sighted off the coastline.
Lord. The blood loss was making him unhinged and those knowing eyes so full of secrets were directing him to imagine things that would never come to pass.
He looked away and did not speak again.
The stranger would be screaming before the night was out despite the careful diction in his sentences. Isobel was glad for it, glad to imagine the weakness in him as he submitted to a mending that would not be easy.
He unsettled her with his verdant, vivid eyes, his high-priced golden bracelet and his French accent. Ian had wanted to kill him, finish him off and be done with any nuisance or trouble, but the thought of his blood running on the ground as his soul left for the places above or below filled her with a dread she had not felt before. They were probably David’s men, newly returned from France with the fire of the power of the monarch in their bellies, and no mind for the ancient laws.
What would they know of her and of Ceann Gronna?
‘Unmarriageable Isobel’ she was called now; she had heard it from a bard who had come to the keep with a song of the same name.
Swearing soundly, she returned to the food, panic subsiding as the everyday task took her attention; two days’ walk to the keep and another two to Dunfermline where the strangers could be sent by ferry across the Firth towards Edinburgh.
She wished Ian and Angus had not been with her, for she would have to watch them and the foreigners at the same time. Anything of worth had been taken, after all, and now their presence could only be a bother. Isobel doubted the third man would last the night, given his colour, but there was little in truth she could do about any of it.
She hoped that the green-eyed man would speak the French again so she might overlisten and at least know just what his intentions were.
The jewellery might tell her something of them, of course, but she did not wish to ask Angus for a look at the haul just to probe into the mystery of who he was. Nae. Better she never knew and sent him on, out of her life and out of her notice.
The simple silver ring on her own finger tightened as she turned it, a lifetime pledge reduced to just two years, and then a yoke of guilt. Sometimes, like now, she hated who she had become, a scavenger outside the new system of government imposed on the old virtue of possession, leaving no true home in any of it. Even the ground did not speak to her as it used to, whispering promises of the for ever. Once the system of lairdship had ruled this place, the great estates handed down through the generations, like treasured possessions and always nurtured. Until King David had come with his fealty and his barons, taking the land by force and granting it to his own vassals for their allegiance and loyalty.
Now possession was tempered by blood and war and betrayal. Sweat beaded beneath the hair at her nape and if she had been alone she might have lifted the heavy mass away from her skin and simply stood there.
But she was not alone.
She could feel his eyes on her back like a hawk might watch a mouse crossing a field. Waiting.
Had he not said exactly that to his friend as he sat there against the tree, his hose tight in places that made the blood in her face roar.
‘Alisdair.’
The name came beneath breath like a prayer or a plea, invoking what was lost and would never be again. She was glad when Angus reappeared from the forest with a bundle of dry tinder and a good handful of blaeberries.
Chapter Two
The fish and rabbit were tenderly cooked and when the one she called Ian might have given them only a very small portion she had gestured him to ladle out a full plate, with a crust of hard black bread in the juice.
The boatman had eaten nothing, his head lolling on to his chest in a way that was worrying. Marc saw the woman bring an extra blanket and lay him down on it with care. He also saw that she did not bind him again, but left him free. To die in the night without fetters, he supposed. Perhaps there was some folklore from this part of the world that a man should meet his maker unconstrained.
After she had finished with his comfort she came to him, loosening the ties at his wrists and directing him to come to the fire.
There was a flask of whisky waiting and she motioned him to drink. The brooding in her eyes lent him the thought that she had not meant to do this at all and he swallowed as much as he could before she took it back. He was pleased to feel the burn of it down his throat as an edge of calm settled.
He would need it. Already she had lifted her knife.
‘I have to remove the bad skin.’
He had not even answered before she poured whisky across his gash, fire against the hurt and his heart beating as