CHAPTER 22
Cap
She might not be working for the General, but Margit was going to be the death of him.
Cap fingered the fletching on his arrows and tried to focus on Jean-haut’s words instead of their chestnut-haired guest. Why did she persist in attacking him? First his hood, now his arrows...
Was Jean-haut right? Was she finding excuses to touch him? The idea seemed preposterous, given the way she shied away from contact when they first met.
Although when he returned from interrogating Nathalie, Margit had leaned up against his shoulder. And yesterday…nothing about yesterday had suggested a distaste for his presence.
“Laurent took three of the boys hunting,” Jean-haut said. Cap refocused his attention. “He mentioned that he might let them split up.”
“Do they all have tokens?” Cap asked. The urge to turn and watch Margit evaporated like a drop of water near Rouge’s flames.
“Do you think I’m a fool?” The forester rolled his eyes. “Of course I gave Laurent extra tokens when he told me that. Even if it weren’t standard procedure, do you think I’ve forgotten that magic-laced breeze two weeks ago?”
“No, sorry. I suppose I’m a little jumpy as well,” Cap apologized, rubbing his jaw. He needed to get his mind off green eyes before he offended his friend.
After discussing a few more administrative details, they parted ways to attend to their responsibilities. Cap was tempted to look for Margit, but he planned to hunt today. And he couldn’t take her with him until her ankle was healed.
The right side of his mouth curved up. When her arrow had hit a different spot than he’d suggested, he’d believed her aim was mildly better than most ladies. But her next two shots proved him wrong. Once she was able to move on her own again, he couldn’t wait to take her—
The smile slid off his face. Once she was more mobile, he would need to send her back to Marielle. Cap’s life wasn’t suitable for a lady. He didn’t know what rank Margit held, but he knew from her comments that she had one.
Pushing thoughts of chestnut hair and lively personalities from his mind, he crept through the trees, eyes peeled and ears stretching for signs of prey.
He wanted to travel farther before making their next semi-permanent camp, but they needed food that they could carry.
Margit and Rouge couldn’t make bread on the road.
He had just spotted a deer trail when the wooden token around his neck started buzzing.
Freezing, he listened for sounds of danger and felt for a breeze. All was still, but Jean-haut’s message pulsed again.
Danger. Return to camp immediately.
Spinning on his heel, Cap sprinted back the way he’d come. Startling his prey was no longer a concern. He needed to help his people before they became prey themselves.
Gasping for breath, he broke through the trees into the clearing.
Half the tents were down. Jean-haut barked out orders as he scrambled to dismantle the clearly unnatural table and pack at the same time.
The horses and slower members of the group had already disappeared into the trees, so Cap headed for his lieutenant.
“What’s the situation?” he gasped. His lungs ached for breath, but he lifted his chest instead of hunching over his knees like he wanted to. He needed to display a strong face for his band. Some of them must be terrified after the warning Jean-haut had sent out.
“Laurent spotted a member of the guard,” Jean-haut replied sharply, eyes scanning the mix of order and disarray in front of them. “Just one, but he was mounted.”
“Are all the hunters back?”
The forester snapped a sharp nod. “Two of them had split off on their own, but they arrived just before you did. Rouge already took the food supplies. The tents are all that’s left.”
“I’m on it.”
Dashing off, Cap joined the others in ripping up tent pegs and rolling canvas. It had been a long time since they’d had to flee because of a guard sighting.
They should have moved as soon as he and Jean-haut returned from interrogating the traitor. He never should have lingered near the Lancée lands.
Cap slung his pack onto his shoulders. He could scold himself later. First, he needed to get his people to safety.
There was no time for a head count. But Jean-haut said all the hunters had returned, and there was no one left in the clearing. He would ease his mind once it was safe to rest. For now, he needed to run.
~
It had been a very, very long time since Cap had run for so long. Maybe he should add it to his daily training.
After several breaths to regain his wind, he filtered his way through the crowd.
He exchanged words of encouragement with Laurent’s hunters, then stopped to reassure Tucker.
The fifteen-year-old’s face was pale, and his eyes were wide.
He’d run from guards the day they met Margit, but that had been an expected adventure for him; this was his first time fleeing the supposed safety of their camp.
“What will we do if they find us, Cap?” the boy whimpered. “I was on their watch list for stealing before I joined you. They won’t need proof that I’ve been on any of your raids; my past and our association will be enough for them.”
Cap put a rare hand on Tucker’s shoulder, remembering the terrified boy he’d found crouched behind some barrels a few months earlier.
“They won’t catch us, Tucker. Once we leave the area, it will take them weeks to find us again.
And with lookouts posted farther out, we’ll have plenty of notice the next time. ”
The teenager looked uncertain, but he nodded. “I trust you, Cap. You haven’t let us down yet.”
Yet. With every wrong choice he made, the day he failed them was rapidly approaching.
Tucker looked past him. “Where’s Margit? I thought she’d be with you.”
Thinking of her in Tucker’s presence recalled the scene his young friend had recently witnessed.
Cap could feel heat rising to his cheeks, but he stubbornly pushed it away by refocusing on the current crisis.
He didn’t need Margit’s shining green eyes or soft red lips distracting him.
“I haven’t seen her. The horses were already gone when I returned to camp, and I stayed at the back as our rearguard. ”
“But Margit wasn’t ahead of me,” Tucker replied with a frown. “Not on a horse, anyway.”
“She wasn’t—” The blood drained from Cap’s face as his eyes darted around the surrounding people. Margit could barely walk. If she hadn’t ridden, then where was she?
His weariness dropped away as he ran for the front of the group. “Margit!” he called out. “Has anyone seen Margit?”
“Cap?” Rouge appeared at his side. “What’s the yelling about?”
He grabbed her shoulders. “Where’s Margit? Tuck says she wasn’t on the horses.”
His friend’s eyebrows pulled together. “I haven’t seen her since that tussle with you.
” Her voice turned a little tight on those words.
“After Laurent charged into camp yelling about a guard, I was too busy gathering supplies to worry about her. I didn’t even break down our tent or grab our belongings. ”
“You hadn’t sent her away from camp?”
Rouge shook her head. “No, I gave her some time off before lunch.”
Cap’s hand drifted to the arrows in his quiver. His fingers stroked the fletching as his mind raced. “But what would she—”
He froze, remembering their last encounter. Dropping his eyes to the quiver, he swiftly counted the arrows.
“Jean!” he called, dashing away from Rouge. The forester quickly appeared. “Jean, did you ever give Margit a token?”
Jean-haut’s eyes widened. “No, she never went far, and we always knew when she left camp. I didn’t think about it.”
She had slipped away to practice her archery in secret. And without one of Jean-haut’s magic-laced tokens, they couldn’t even find her.
Not quickly, anyway. Cap could track her if he started from her last known position.
Sprinting for the horses, he swung himself into Farrell’s saddle almost before he thought about it. The longer he waited, the less likely it was that he found her before the scout did. Or the more likely that she wandered someplace to which he couldn’t track her.
“Cap?” Jean-haut exclaimed, trailing behind him. “What are you doing?”
“Finding our lost lamb,” he answered briefly.
Then he was off, guiding Farrell around his tired people.
Rouge called questions after him, and he was dimly aware of Jean-haut scrambling to maintain order, but all Cap could hear was Margit asking him why no one wanted her.
Talking about her brother’s visits when she was a child as if she had been set off to the side and forgotten.
What thoughts would have passed through her mind when she returned to camp and found them gone? Or when the scout stumbled across her while her single arrow was buried in a tree?
It took Farrell less time than it had taken Cap, but the journey back was still too long.
He was about a mile out when he heard a faint scream echo through the trees, but he resisted the impulse to rush headlong into the old campsite. He would do Margit no good if he was captured playing the dashing but foolish hero.
Dismounting, he tied Farrell’s reins to a tree a stone’s throw from the clearing. He crept forward slowly, bow at the ready, but he didn’t hear anything. Had they already taken her away? Or was there a guard lying in wait to ambush him?
Once he’d confirmed the clearing was empty, Cap cautiously entered it. Looking for Margit’s footsteps within the camp was pointless; too many people had been too many places in the past week and a half. He made a quick search for any sign of her presence but found nothing.
Widening his search, he scoured the ground past the clearing. He found two possible trails: one to the northeast, one to the south.
Turning in a slow circle, Cap examined each direction. He didn’t know if Margit had taken her belongings with her, but she probably didn’t have food. Nor would she have a tent.
He faced south. Margit was smart. She would have headed for the most likely source of aid.