CHAPTER 15
Sybil held on tight as they galloped at breakneck speed across the bridge and down the trail along the shore. She barely held back a shriek when Rory abruptly turned Curan and they plunged into the woods.
After a while, she realized they were following a trail, but it was so old and overgrown that the tree branches slapped at her legs. Someone would have to know about this trail to find it.
“What happened back there?” Sybil asked when Rory finally slowed the horse to a trot. “Why wouldn’t they let us in the castle?”
“I don’t know yet,” Rory said. “But we must be well out of sight before the Macraes decide they ought to try to capture us.”
Capture us?
Rory offered no more explanation. His continued silence and relentless pace sent tendrils of fear through her. After following the little-used track over hills and valleys for several miles, they came to a cottage with a sagging thatched roof.
The cottage looked exactly how she imagined the one belonging to the old hag who turned into a witch in the tales her nursemaid told them as children. Sybil sucked in her breath when a gray-haired woman hobbled out the door with the aid of a cane.
“Ye know this place?” she whispered to Rory.
“Aye,” he said. “A man I can trust lives here.”
Sybil hoped he was right.
“So you’ve come at last, Rory Ian MacKenzie,” the woman chided Rory in Gaelic as they dismounted. “We’ve been worried sick about ye.”
“’Tis good to see ye, Grizel.” Rory kissed her cheek.
A man with a shock of white hair and the frame of a still-powerful warrior emerged from the cottage. He and Rory gripped forearms in greeting.
“Guma slàn dhuibh,” health to you both, Rory said.
“Praise God you’ve returned,” the man said. “Have ye just come from Eilean Donan?”
“Aye,” Rory said. “I was refused entry.”
“’Tis as I feared,” the older man said. “Come inside. I’ve much news to tell ye.”
It must be very bad news for the old couple to dispense with the customary greetings and barely spare her a glance.
“This is Sybil.” Rory took her hand and drew her to his side. “We’ll need to speak in English for her.”
The man gave Sybil a curt nod, and his wife kept her worried gaze fixed on Rory.
“This is Malcolm, a famed MacKenzie warrior who fought at my grandfather’s right hand and served on my father’s council,” Rory continued. “And this is his wife, Grizel, who is famed in her own right as a healer.”
“Now, laddie,” Grizel said, taking Rory’s arm, “ye best sit down to hear this.”
The doorway into the cottage was so low that even Sybil had to duck her head when she followed them inside. The cottage was surprisingly clean and cozy, considering that half of it served as a stall for their cow.
“Is this about Brian?” Rory asked as soon as he dutifully sat on the too-small stool that Grizel led him to. “Where is my brother? I thought he’d be at Eilean Donan.”
Malcolm took a stool facing Rory, while his wife stirred a pot that hung over the hearth. As there was no place else to sit, Sybil perched on the edge of the bed built into the corner.
“I’ll tell it to ye from the beginning, as I learned it,” Malcolm said. “Brian came here, mayhaps a fortnight ago, asking where ye were. He was desperate to speak with ye.”
“What did he want to tell me?”
“Wouldn’t say. When I told him I’d no notion where you’d gone to, he decided to ride on to Killin,” Malcolm said. “He hoped you’d either be there or that your sister Catriona would know where to find ye.”
“Catriona didn’t know. I didn’t tell anyone,” Rory said. “Did Brian say anything else?”
“Aye,” Malcolm said. “After Killin, he planned to travel to Edinburgh.”
“Edinburgh!” Rory ran his hands through his hair. “How did he guess that’s where I’d gone?”
“Is that where ye went?” Malcolm shot a searching glance at Sybil. “Nay, Brian had no notion where you’d gone. He had his own reasons for traveling to Edinburgh.”
“O shluagh, what was he thinking?” Rory said. “Brian knows it’s dangerous for him to set foot off MacKenzie lands. How many warriors did he take as his guard?”
“Only a few of the younger men, including one of my grandsons,” Malcolm said. “Your cousin Farquhar Mackintosh was with him as well.”
“Ach, Farquhar has no business going to the Lowlands either. He’s wanted for the same offense as Brian.” Rory stood and darted glances around the small cottage like a caged animal. “I must go after my brother.”
When his gaze caught Sybil’s, his expression grew more troubled.
“I can’t take her with me,” Rory said in Gaelic to Malcolm. “The journey here was too grueling to subject her to it all again. Besides, Edinburgh is as dangerous for her as it is for Brian.”
Sybil tensed. Was he going to abandon her here?
“I haven’t time to take her to Killin to stay with my sister.” As he glanced around Malcolm’s humble cottage again, he looked as uneasy as she felt at the prospect of leaving her here. “I’ll only be gone for a few weeks.”
A few weeks? The thought of being separated from him made her throat close in panic. She was about to object—and reveal that she understood what he said in Gaelic—when Malcolm spoke again.
“You’re needed here at home,” he said, resting his hand on Rory’s shoulder. “I haven’t told ye the worst of it yet.”
The catch in Malcolm’s voice alarmed Sybil even more than his words. The older man’s broad shoulders seemed to slump as if under a weight, and a deep sadness filled his eyes.
“Your brother Brian is dead.”