Prologue
The sun was beginning to set as Greer MacPherson finished the last of the few days’ collection of washing. But where was Mac?
She glanced over her shoulder as she plunged her hands into the icy barrel beside the river, expecting to see her younger brother bounding over the hill with his usual youthful exuberance.
He’d seen twelve summers with an unfettered joy she had never been afforded, and that was exactly what she wanted.
She’d wash all the clothes in Scotland if it kept him innocent and happy.
The water in the barrel was cloudy from lye soap that stung at her chapped hands, but she edged around the familiar discomfort and fished out a kirtle—the last item to be washed.
After a practiced dunking in the quickly flowing water of the river, she rose with the broad basket clutched in her hands, the weight of the wet clothing making her tired arms quake.
Normally, she would gather the garments from the line that had been dried by the sunshine earlier and hang the sodden clothing straight away. Except a gnawing at the back of her mind made her set the basket down inside the door of their cottage and follow the well-worn path to the meadow.
Where was Mac?
He loved the meadow, aye, but he’d always returned by early afternoon. If nothing else, his bottomless stomach had him sniffing about the large clay pot where their bread and cheese were kept from vermin.
The breath huffed from her lungs as she made her way up the hill, the tension in her chest there by nerves rather than exertion.
Something was amiss.
She reached the meadow as the late afternoon light took on a reddish hue. “Mac?” Her voice carried on the wind, unanswered.
She ran through the tall grass and stopped short when she came across a figure on the ground. Not Mac. Thanks be to God.
But Greer’s relief was short-lived.
The woman lay prone, face up and pale against the verdant lawn, her neck cocked at an unnatural angle, her golden hair loose and snagging over the grass about her like fine cobwebs. Her blue eyes were open, wide as they stared sightlessly upward.
Her gown was precious silk, a pink that turned orange in the strange light of the setting sun that twinkled at the gems on her neck.
Greer took an instinctive step back. Finding a dead noble was never a rewarding deed for a peasant. That was when she caught sight of the small wooden hoop laying on its side; the one Mac loved to roll through the grass.
Icy dread tightened in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly, she had an idea of where Mac had gone. He would not have quietly left such a scene. Nay, his kind heart would have compelled him to find someone to help. Someone who would take him prisoner for what he’d found. Or worse…
Greer spun on her heel and fled the meadow, heading straight for Lochmaben Castle, and prayed to God that her brother had indeed been taken there. Then at least, there would be an opportunity to have him released.
And she would do anything to see her brother safe.