Chapter Four
Elena had no clear sense of how long they had been riding, only the accumulating evidence of it: the ache blooming along her back where the raider’s arm pinned her fast, the dull throb in her jaw from where it had struck the saddle when he had flung her across it.
She lay stomach-down over the horse, the world reduced to flashes of ground rushing past beneath her, to hooves pounding earth, to the sharp, metallic smell of sweat and leather.
Her hair had come loose entirely, torn free of its pins, whipping across her face and into her eyes so that she had to blink through strands of black caught against her lashes, the wind pulling it in every direction at once.
As the horse surged forward, she forced herself to look, to take in what little she could from this jolting, breathless vantage.
There were men ahead of her, and more to either side, riding hard and close, their voices rising now and then in rough, clipped English that left no doubt as to who they were.
She counted instinctively, the way her father had taught her to count horses and men when scanning a field: too many to mark precisely, but close to twenty by her best reckoning.
They rode with purpose, close enough to one another to leave no gaps, yet loose enough to move quickly, their mismatched armor and weapons marking them as men gathered for gain rather than service.
The woods closed in around them as they rode, the light thinning, the air cooler beneath the canopy, twigs and forest debris crunching beneath the hooves. The raider’s grip tightened whenever the horse stumbled or shifted, bruising her back and ribs anew.
As the horse drove on, Elena’s mind was in chaos, grasping for some answer to what was happening beyond her narrow, jolting view.
She tried to look past the men riding nearest her, past the blur of trees and ground, wondering if there were others—more riders spreading out beyond her sight, more women dragged from paths and courtyards as she had been.
She wondered whether the castle itself had been breached, whether her mother and Meggie Jamison were safe or not.
She strained to listen for anything that might answer her—shouts, horns, the clash of pursuit—but the rush of wind and hooves swallowed nearly all sound.
For all she knew, this small knot of riders was only part of something larger, a piece of a wider violence unfolding beyond her reach.
It was not unheard of for such gatherings to draw danger; too many important men in one place invited boldness.
For all she knew, Strathfinnan itself had been chosen for that very reason.
She tried to slow her breathing, to bring it under control, but her body resisted her, breath coming shallow and uneven no matter how she willed otherwise.
With that came a quieter realization, unwelcome and undeniable: she did not know what to do.
Not truly. Not beyond speaking, reasoning, appealing—skills her mother had honed in her with care, skills that served well at table and council and in the small, sharp negotiations of daily life, but meant very little here, pressed against a saddle and surrounded by men who might have no interest in listening.
She had always thought of herself as strong—not in muscle or power, never that—but in judgment, in resolve, in the ability to hold her ground with words when others might yield.
Isabel had taught her that courage was not always loud or violent, that a steady mind could be as powerful as a blade, and Elena had carried that belief with her into womanhood without question.
But this relentless motion, this helplessness of the body, revealed the narrowness of that strength.
She had never been taught how to fight, how to turn fear into action when the moment demanded something more than composure.
She had grown up safe, certain that if danger came, someone would answer it for her—her father foremost among them.
As the trees rushed past and the raider’s arm held her fast, fear settled fully at last, and with it a single, desperate hope: that Liam MacTavish was already riding hard in her direction.
She trusted only him to save her.
THE PARTY HOLDING ELENA plunged through a wide, shallow stream not long after leaving the orchard behind, the horses churning water and stone as they crossed, angling downstream before climbing out on the far bank.
Jacob noted it without surprise. It was a simple enough tactic, meant to muddle the trail for anyone coming after them, and it told him something else as well: they expected pursuit, just not immediately.
The raiders drove their horses hard across the broken country, and Jacob matched them stride for stride, keeping them in sight—sometimes no more than a flicker of movement between tree trunks, sometimes a dark line cutting across the slope ahead.
He didn’t dare press closer, not yet. Until he could formulate a plan to wrest Elena away from two dozen armed men, he needed distance as a shield.
They would be listening and looking for armies to chase them.
Though no chief or lord present at Strathfinnan had been accompanied by his full army, most had traveled with a retinue of a score of men at least—these combined together, emerging from Strathfinnan to give chase would easily outmatch this lawless group ahead of him, but only if they could find and catch them.
He heard nothing behind him. No answering hooves, no shouted orders, no horn carried faintly through the trees.
By the time the alarm had been sounded at Strathfinnan, his father and Liam MacTavish would still have been miles out with the hunting party.
They would have turned at once, he had no doubt of that, but returning to the castle would take time, and more time still to gather men and mounts fit for a hard chase.
Any force riding out after him would have to find the trail, sort the false paths from the true, and push on blind through ground already cooling toward dusk.
Jacob did not have that problem.
He stayed with the raiders, never letting them vanish entirely, reading their course from the way they favored certain rises, avoided others, drove south and east where the land folded into thicker woods.
He rode with care rather than speed now, letting his horse breathe, trusting her footing as the light began to thin.
The afternoon gold dulled to gray, the shadows stretching longer between the trees, and he marked the change only insofar as it mattered.
Spring evenings were fickle; this one felt inclined to fall fast.
If help came from Strathfinnan, it would be well behind him—an hour at least, likely more, and slowed by the work of tracking. He could not afford to count on it, and so he did not.
He kept the raiders in sight and rode on, alone but not blind, holding to the single advantage he had claimed from the start, keeping them almost within in sight or hearing distance.
They pressed on hard, intent on putting distance between themselves and Strathfinnan, but even mounted men could not outrun necessity.
Horses needed water; men needed breath. When the woods thinned into a stretch of low brush and broken ground, Jacob saw their pace ease at last, brief gestures passing between them as they scanned the land ahead.
He drew his mare into the shelter of a stand of leaning pines and watched as the raiders chose a shallow hollow near a narrow stream.
They dismounted quickly, movements efficient and quiet, horses tethered low and close.
No fire was lit. No light was risked. They drank, checked tack, spoke in low voices that carried no farther than they meant them to, every action shaped by the expectation of pursuit.
Jacob remained still, counting them again as best he could through the brush, marking where Elena had been set down, where guards positioned themselves, where the ground would favor a clean approach or a quick retreat.
Dusk gathered around them, the light thinning, and with it came the sense that this pause might be the only opening he would be given.
He waited, patient and intent, knowing better than to rush what could not be undone. There were too many to take head-on. Even with surprise, even with desperation, he would not walk away alive from a full assault.
But he didn’t need to defeat them. He only needed to steal away Elena.
They kept Elena tied near the largest of the rocks, beneath the drooping branches of a fir that cast her in half-shadow.
Her hands were bound now as they hadn’t been earlier, her posture stiff from the awkward position they held her in, her hair tangled from the ride.
She did not appear injured, though he could not be sure.
Two men lingered closest to her, one seated with his back to the camp, the other pacing idly along the perimeter as if restless with his turn at watch.
Jacob settled deeper into cover, stepping away his steed, having left her well back among the trees.
He crept low and cautiously, knowing there probably wasn’t much time, that they would not rest long.
Hunting at both Blackwood and Wolvesly had taught him the value of stillness, but also its limits.
Darkness helped, but too much of it sharpened men’s nerves as often as it dulled them.
To his benefit, Elena and the two men guarding her were positioned, for some reason, a short distance away from the bulk of the party. He needed the right moment, which came sooner than expected.
One of the men at the edge of the hollow called out, motioning the pacing guard over.
The exchange was brief and sharp, irritation plain in the gestures even from a distance.
The guard turned back to Elena, took her by the arm, and pulled her to her feet, steering her toward the brush beyond the camp.