Chapter 18
Neve arrived later with food sent by Braden.
Jamie had rested sufficiently to be ravenous, so what she brought was welcome.
He did a subtle scan of Aftyn’s injuries and decided it was time to awaken her, so he brought her out of the healing sleep while Neve arranged the food and Mhairi begged a pitcher of cider from a neighbor, saying she’d run out and her son wanted some.
The news from the keep was grim. No one had seen either of the men responsible for Aftyn’s beating. Braden had sent men loyal to him to search for them, but the laird’s men were only searching for Aftyn, Jamie, and Jamie's missing men.
“Ye willna be safe here much longer,” Neve told them as Aftyn sat up and rubbed sleep from her eyes. “But at least ye can eat something before ye have to go.”
“Go where?” Aftyn asked, rising carefully as if testing whether her body would cooperate with her intention. “My father must see what those men did to me, so they will be punished.”
“Ye heard Neve. Until those men are found, ye are no' safe here," Mhairi replied.
"Ye will go home with me,” Jamie murmured, as he took her arm and guided her to a seat at Mhairi’s small table.
“No’ the keep? They canna get to me there.”
“Nay, lass. Ye canna be sure where they can go, and if ye are called to help someone in the village, ye'll be vulnerable. Ye’ll go with me to my home. The Aerie.”
“Ach, I canna leave. Ye ken why.”
“Ye need to be safe,” Neve told her, as she filled a wooden plate and placed it before her friend. “If Jamie can take ye somewhere safe, ye must go. I will manage. Hamish can help me. The notes ye are leaving us,” she added, turning a solemn gaze on Jamie, “will be a great help in the future.”
“I’m glad,” Jamie said. “Ye must safeguard them and Aftyn’s mother’s journal against Aftyn’s eventual return.
Things will no’ always be so unsettled here, and they mean much to ye,” he said as he turned his gaze to Aftyn, who was eating quickly.
“Yer brother will make a fine laird someday, and in the meantime, once he hears what happened to ye, I hope yer father will see the error of his ways and why I have taken ye away.”
Aftyn gave him a look made of a mix of stubbornness and resignation. She swallowed and nodded to Neve. “What if ye are no safe, either? Those men beat a healer. If ye fill that role…”
“I will be well. I can stay at the abbey if need be. In fact, so could ye. Hamish already suggested it. With the work we did after the fire, we would be welcomed.”
“I want Aftyn out of the reach of those men,” Jamie insisted.
“The abbey isna far enough away to suit me. Later, they willna be a problem,” he assured Aftyn.
“If Braden’s men dinna find them soon and yer laird punish them, I’ll return with Lathan warriors once I see ye safe, and hunt them down.
” As much as he wanted to do that, he’d seen the determination in Braden’s bearing and gaze.
“But I dinna think Lathan help will be needed. Braden was determined to see them punished.”
Jamie realized it had been hours since Braden had been here, and the day was waning. His men had ridden out hours before that. And he’d instructed them to wait only until moonrise.
“Neve, ye must go back. They’ll be closing the gates soon,” he reminded her.
“Nay, the laird ordered them closed after ye went missing. The guards ken me and let me out to visit a sick villager.”
Jamie turned his thoughts to how they would escape the Keith searchers.
His horse was at the Keith stable inside the keep, as was any mount Aftyn could ride.
He couldn't get in and ride out. By now, surely it was known that Bhaltair and Rabbie had escaped the dungeon. He’d be suspected of that, with good reason.
Who else would want them freed? The guards would never open the gate for the man their laird hunted.
“They willna find me or my men in the keep,” Jamie said. “But if the search keeps Keith's guards busy a while longer, then ’tis good.”
Neve took Aftyn’s hand. “Dinna fash for me. Hamish and Braden will see me safe. Jamie is right. Ye must go away for a while. But no’ forever.”
Aftyn met her gaze with tears glimmering in her eyes. “Ye are the best friend a lass could ask for,” she said. “I will return to help ye.”
“And in the meantime, I have good news,” Neve said, releasing Aftyn’s hand and giving her a grin.
“The reason Hamish can be so helpful is that he has left the abbey and is joining us here. He had some training at an abbey hospital south of Edinburgh. He’s eager to prove his worth and to be with me. I mean help me. Us.”
Jamie hid his amusement at Neve’s flustered announcement. Aftyn didn’t seem amused.
“He was to be a priest, Neve!” Aftyn said, and Mhairi’s eyes widened.
“Nay, he wasna. We were all mistaken. He was there to help another man who hasna arrived yet start a small infirmary, like the one where he served. He would help train the priests, not become a cleric himself. He doesna have the calling. He can work from Keith for now, and care for both. With me, and when ye return, with us. Or we can go back to the abbey.”
Jamie frowned. “Does yer da ken this? If he did, he wouldna need me, and none of this would have happened.”
“It wouldha,” Aftyn insisted. “He uses what he has in reach. He doesna like to wait for something else, even something better, to come along in the future. Neve’s news changes nothing.”
Aftyn sighed, and finally smiled at Neve, easing Jamie’s concern that they would leave with a rift between the two friends.
Mhairi leaned against the cupboard behind her and crossed her arms. “It seems we will manage quite well without ye, lass. For a wee while.”
Jamie returned to satisfying his hunger and thirst.
“Will they let ye return?” Mhairi asked Neve. “If no’ ye can sleep here. There’s no’ much room, but we’ll make do.”
“They’ll let me in, never ye mind. But thank ye. In fact, I’d best be going. Hamish is waiting for me and will worry if I stay out of the keep much longer.” She wrapped Aftyn in a hug. “Bide ye well, my friend.”
Aftyn returned her embrace. “Ye, as well. Thank ye for helping us.”
Neve moved to Jamie, surprising him when she also hugged him. “Take care of her, or ye will answer to me.”
“Dinna fash, Neve. I will.”
Once she left, Aftyn returned to the pallet. “I will rest until we must leave,” she told Jamie. “Thank ye, Mhairi.”
“No thanks are needed, lass.”
Jamie put a hand on Mhairi’s shoulder, reading her fatigue. He gave her what help he could, quickly and without depleting the strength he would need to get them free to safely meet his men. When Mhairi took a deep breath and gave him a smile, he knew his touch had helped, and he nodded.
“I must go find a horse or two,” he told her. “But I’ll be back as quickly as I can and we’ll go.”
Mhairi glanced at Aftyn, whose eyes were closed. “Will she be ready?”
“She will.”
“Ye can take one from the post house livery. I understand there are several stabled there.”
“Thank ye, Mhairi. Ye just relieved my greatest worry.”
Someone knocked on the door. Jamie moved quietly behind it, but Mhairi said, “Perhaps they didna let Neve back in as she expected.” She opened the door, then stepped back, her gaze full of remorse.
Two Keith warriors filled the doorframe.
“Ye are hiding Aftyn and the Lathan healer. Produce them or the laird will see ye punished.”
“Nay,” Mhairi said. “Ye two are mistaken.”
Jamie was glad the side of the cottage where Aftyn lay was in darkness, and that Mhairi had found a way to tell him how many men were at the door. They may not have seen Aftyn yet.
“Out of the way,” the man said and pushed Mhairi aside to enter. He did see Aftyn then and moved toward her.
Jamie waited for the second man to enter, then shoved the door closed and knocked him out.
The first man whirled and drew his dirk.
Jamie was unarmed, but unworried for himself.
He could handle one man easily. He only feared for the women accidentally being hurt in a fight.
He kept his gaze on his opponent and moved away from Mhairi, waving her toward Aftyn. She understood and obeyed instantly.
The warrior took that to mean Jamie’s attention was on her and attacked, but Jamie anticipated him and met his charge with a blow that knocked the dirk from the man’s hand. After that, the fight was over in seconds and the second man lay beside the first.
“Have ye anything to bind them?”
Mhairi found a length of rope. Jamie bound them, hands and feet trussed behind them, then gagged them with strips torn from a sheet. “That should keep them for a while. I’ll be back soon with a horse.”
He opened the door and peered out. The low sun barely penetrated the persistent fog, but there was enough light to see the village was quiet.
No one moved about. Most were likely having their evening meal.
Jamie slipped out and made his way in the shadows to the post house stables.
He picked a mount and saddled it, deciding he’d ride with Aftyn in his arms. Once they reached his men, they’d have the protection of an escort.
But before he could lead the horse he’d picked out of its stall, male voices sounded nearby.
More searchers, judging by what he heard them saying to each other.
If they entered the stable, they’d find him in the process of stealing a horse and call for help.
He didn’t know what penalty the Keith might exact for that, but it wouldn’t be good.
With regret, he left the horse and vaulted over the stall wall, dropping behind the stable and making his way back to Mhairi’s in the shadows.
Once it was fully dark, he and Aftyn would have to get to the woods on foot.
It wasn’t the best plan, but it was the best chance they had to find his men.