Chapter 4
The First Flight
The three horses stopped in front of the mill, and the silence after them was more dangerous than the ride that had brought them there.
Alistair opened his eyes. The dark inside the mill had thickened since Graeme put out the lamp, and he could still make out Diana beside the table. One of her hands stayed on the new bandage. The other searched the surface for the case without making a sound.
Outside, leather creaked.
"Two men," Graeme murmured. "Perhaps three."
"That's three horses," Eliza said.
"Horses don't usually knock."
Diana closed her fingers around the handle of the case.
"Penelope sent two men. The third may be Robert."
Alistair tried to sit up. The pain came in under his ribs and pushed him back down.
"Lie still," Diana said.
"We have to get out."
"With the stitches still fresh, what you chiefly need to avoid is ideas."
Graeme moved to the door and put his ear against the wood.
A voice called.
"Miss Whitmore?"
Diana went still.
The accent was English, trained to sound patient. Alistair had known men who spoke that way before they broke down a door.
"Miss Whitmore, Lady Hawthorne is concerned for you."
A younger voice answered at the door. Robert. Diana placed him before Alistair could make out the words.
Eliza leaned toward her sister.
"Penelope is never concerned without witnesses."
Something shifted in Alistair's memory at the ease between them. Two girls arguing at the edge of water? The image was gone before it took shape.
Graeme looked toward the back room.
"Is there a way out?"
"A narrow passage behind the millstone," Eliza said. "I saw it when I went for wood."
"Where does it go?"
"To the dry streambed. I hope so, at least. It would be a poor moment to discover it ends in a wall."
Graeme pushed the broken millstone aside far enough to show a low opening between the stones. The wind came through it with the smell of old water and cold clay.
Outside, the man called again.
"Miss Whitmore?"
The door took the first blow.
Alistair got a forearm under him on the table.
"Get me up."
Diana turned.
"No."
"I'm not lying here while they come in."
"You will, if the alternative is opening the stitches and bleeding until you lose consciousness."
"Is that an order?"
"It is a description of what will happen."
The door took another blow. The board propped against it moved.
Graeme came back to the table and pulled Alistair's arm across his shoulders.
"We'll discuss her authority later."
"I didn't recognize any authority."
"Excellent. Go on not recognizing it while you walk."
The first attempt to put his feet on the floor nearly took him down. Graeme held his weight. Diana came up on the other side and put a firm arm around his waist, keeping clear of the wound.
She was smaller than her voice had suggested. The warmth of her came through the layers of cloth and settled in a place that ought not to have mattered.
"Short steps," she said. "And breathe."
"I know how to walk."
"Today you have not yet demonstrated it."
Eliza was already pushing the case through the opening. Then the blanket, the bag, and a small store of bread. Not one movement was wasted.
The door groaned.
Graeme brought Alistair to the passage. The space was too low to go through standing. Alistair looked at Diana.
"No."
"We agree again," she said. "All the same, you will have to bend."
He put a hand on the stone and went down. The stitches pulled. His sight darkened for a moment, and Diana's hand stayed at his back, guiding without pushing.
Behind them, the door gave way.
Eliza went first. Graeme came through after Alistair and pulled him by the arm out to the dry bed. Diana came last and set a loose stone back in front of the opening.
Voices filled the mill.
"Search the floor above."
"There's still blood here."
Graeme pointed to the low bank of the stream.
"North."
"The road is east," Diana said.
"That's why we're going north."
They went on between banks covered in roots. The dry bed curved behind the mill and disappeared under a stand of alders. Eliza walked ahead, opening a way through the branches. Graeme carried most of Alistair's weight. Diana kept her hand near the bandage and checked it every time he stumbled.
Behind them someone shouted that there were tracks.
"Faster," Graeme said.
Diana did not answer. She adjusted her step.
The ground rose past the alders. A narrow track ran there, cut by peat carts, almost invisible under the mud. Graeme took it without stopping.
"It comes out in an abandoned field," he said. "Then a country road."
"And after that?" Eliza asked.
"After that it depends on how many men Penelope brought."
"They aren't Penelope's men," Alistair said.
Graeme looked at him.
"Did you recognize a voice?"
"A military accent. And… MacPherson."
Diana looked up.
"Malcolm?"
The name came out of her without fear. Alistair watched her.
"You know him?"
"I know enough to know that Penelope would not order a search without informing someone capable of turning it into a threat."
The track ended in a field closed in by low walls. An abandoned barn stood at the far end, its roof leaning to one side. Graeme changed direction before they reached it.
"No buildings," Diana said. "Penelope will have every one of them searched."
"I heard her."
"All the same, you looked at the barn."
Graeme said nothing.
Eliza gave her sister a quick look.
"Try not to correct every MacLeod you meet."
"I will begin when they stop requiring it."
Alistair knew that rhythm. The exact observation, the short pause, the refusal to give way only because the other person was larger. Another shapeless memory brushed past him: a child's face lifted against the cold.
He put his attention back on the ground.
"Graeme."
His cousin understood. When they reached the cover of another wall, he stopped them.
Alistair put his back against the stone. Diana knelt in front of him and pushed the coat aside to look at the bandage.
"There was little bleeding," she said. "More than there should have been, less than there might have been."
"An encouraging conclusion."
"I am doing what can be done with the patient available."
Graeme stayed on his feet, watching the line of trees.
"The castle fell three weeks ago."
Alistair looked up.
The sentence needed no introduction. He had ridden out to confirm rumors about a compromised route. The ball and the blood had interrupted his return. He expected losses. Not that one.
"How much?"
Graeme set his jaw.
"The great hall burned. The west tower cracked in the heat. Part of the roofs came down before we could get everything out."
The wind crossed the field and struck the stone at Alistair's back.
"Dead?"
"Seven confirmed. There are people scattered across small holdings, barns, and two abandoned chapels. We're still looking for others."
Diana stopped adjusting the bandage. Eliza went still as well.
Alistair looked at his own fist. Dried mud marked the knuckles. The hand closed slowly.
"Malcolm?"
"He gave up the line of retreat."
The answer came low.
Alistair had suspected it. Hearing it made the betrayal simpler and heavier.
"He knew the northern approach," Graeme went on. "He knew where the wounded were and which men had been sent to the eastern valley."
"The map?"
Graeme took a moment.
"Taken."
The stone was cold through Alistair's coat.
The piece of parchment had been in the clan for generations. Old routes, mountain passes, shelter marks, and symbols none of them understood in full. His father had kept it hidden even from allies.
Malcolm knew that.
"Where is he?"
"Inverness. He uses a rented house near the river, rooms at an inn, and a warehouse. He moves among trading allies. Penelope Hawthorne came into that network months ago."
Diana looked up.
"Penelope demonstrated an interest in a parchment during the journey."
"What did she say?" Alistair asked.
"Nothing direct. She asked about old families, trade routes, and abandoned land. Penelope prefers to appear bored when something interests her."
"Did she see the map?"
"I do not know yet."
Eliza set the case down on the ground.
"A week ago I heard two men discussing a delivery to the warehouse by the river. One of them mentioned Malcolm."
Graeme turned to her.
"And you said nothing before?"
"I didn't know who Malcolm was."
"You could have told Diana."
"I told her Penelope was hiding correspondence. Diana suggested I stop listening at doors."
"I suggested you choose less obvious doors," Diana said.
The familiarity came from that as well: the way Diana expected Eliza to understand what had not been said.
A call went up at the edge of the field.
Graeme peered over the wall.
"They've found the track."
Diana closed the case and stood.
"Where now?"
"There's an empty house two miles west," Graeme said.
"Buildings will be searched."
"The clan shelter is farther. He can't make it."
Alistair pushed himself off the stone.
"I can manage."
Diana put a hand on his chest and held him where he was with irritating ease, helped by the weakness he refused to acknowledge.
"You can manage to say so. Those are different activities."
Graeme pointed to a band of pines beyond the field.
"There's a herding track behind the trees. It reaches the valley without touching the road."
"How long?"
"Three hours in good conditions."
Diana looked at the sky. The light was going.
"Then four."
"We can be there before dark."
"With a man who has just been operated on?"
"He's a MacLeod."
"The ball demonstrated no respect for surnames."
Eliza picked up the provision bag.
"Since we haven't a fifth option, perhaps we can discuss MacLeod pride while we walk."
Graeme got Alistair on his feet again. They crossed the field close to the wall, reached the pines, and went in under the shade of the trees.
The track was narrow and wet, and it climbed. With every step the castle came to Alistair in pieces: the hall open to the cold, the cracked tower, men and women sleeping in barns because he had trusted the wrong person.
Diana walked beside him. Her face stayed toward the track, and she had not missed a word.
"Does the map contain routes?" she said.
"Yes."
"Passages your ancestors used?"
"And places of shelter."
"Does Malcolm know the symbols?"
"Some of them."
She pushed a branch aside and waited for Alistair to pass.
"He does not need to know all of them."
He stopped.
Graeme looked back.
Diana held his gaze.
"Understanding a few of the passages is enough to use them against the clan."