Chapter 16
Too Late
The carriage was gone up the north street before the horses came.
Alistair kept running.
The pain tore through his side at the first corner. Heat spread under the léine and announced that the binding was no longer dry. He held the pace until Graeme came up and caught the back of his coat.
"The horse will get here sooner if you stop running away from it."
Alistair pulled free.
"How long?"
"Two minutes."
"She hasn't got two minutes."
Eliza came up behind them, still without a cloak. She had pinned her hair in a hurry and carried a small pistol she had probably taken out of Penelope's belongings.
"The carriage took the north road," she said. "Malcolm had it made ready before he came into the house."
"How many men?"
"I saw three in the yard. Others may be waiting outside the town."
Graeme took off his own coat and threw it over her shoulders.
"Go back to the house."
"No."
"Eliza."
"Diana knows Malcolm's habits from what she heard in the house. I know Penelope's. If either of them arranged a switch, I'll know it."
"You're barely dressed to go out."
She closed the coat over her gown.
"Now I am. The problem is solved."
Hooves struck the stones.
Two clansmen arrived leading four animals. Alistair took the reins of the first and mounted without help. The movement pulled the stitching hard enough that his sight failed at the edges.
Graeme caught the reins at the horse's head.
"If you go down before we're out of the town, I'll leave you for Iain to collect."
"Try."
"I've been thinking about it since the mill."
Eliza was already getting up on the third horse with a MacLeod's help.
Alistair turned the animal north.
The carriage had kept speed enough to open distance, and it had left deep marks in the wet streets. They followed the ruts between dark houses, past the last row of shops before the road widened.
The north gate stood open. A guard came out of the small side building and raised his lantern.
"No one passes."
Alistair did not slow.
The man stepped back as the four horses came on.
"A carriage came through here," Graeme shouted. "How many minutes?"
"I didn't see—"
Graeme pulled up and threw a coin at his feet.
"Try again."
The guard looked at the money.
"Less than ten. The horse on the right had one pale hoof. It went by the main road."
Alistair went on.
The road left Inverness between low fields and farm holdings. Between clouds, the moon gave light enough to see the fresh ruts. The wind hit his face and went in at the opening of his coat. With every stride the wet binding rubbed against the wound.
Graeme drew level with him.
"You're bleeding."
"Keep your eyes on the road."
"If you lose consciousness, you'll slow everyone down."
"Then I won't."
Eliza came just behind, bent over the horse's neck. Graeme's coat covered nearly the whole of her skirt.
They found the first turning a little more than a mile out of the town. The carriage marks went on along the main road, north. A lighter set cut east toward small holdings.
Graeme got down to examine the ground.
"The carriage didn't turn."
"Malcolm expects us to think that," Eliza said.
Alistair looked at the eastern track.
"Any sign of a stop?"
Graeme brought the lantern down to the ground.
"No. Only a small cart, probably empty."
"Then we go north."
They took up the chase again.
The ruts led to an old posting station, abandoned since the summer. The stable roof had come down on one side, and the yard was still closed in by high walls. One of the gates stood open.
The smell of the animals reached Alistair before he went in.
There was fresh dung, trodden straw, and hoofmarks everywhere.
The carriage stood in the middle of the yard.
Empty.
Alistair got down before the horse had fully stopped. His right leg failed when it touched the ground. He put a hand on the side of the vehicle and opened the door.
A cut cord lay on the seat. The curtain Diana had pulled aside in the street was torn near its rail.
There was blood on the wood.
A dark stain covered the corner of the seat and ran down to the floor.
Alistair touched it. It was still wet.
Graeme came in behind him.
"It may belong to one of the men."
"It may be hers."
The sentence barely came out.
Diana had fought inside the house. Eliza had heard something break. Malcolm would need to hold her through the journey, and the blood sat exactly where Alistair saw her held.
His hand closed on the seat.
In the chapel, Diana had taken hold of his coat and demanded a kiss before she recovered her judgment. Hours later he watched her disappear because he had chosen to follow a box built to distract him.
He had come near enough to meet her eyes through the window.
He had still come too late.
"Alistair."
Graeme was holding something between his fingers.
A narrow ribbon of blue silk was caught on a splinter beside the door. Part of it was stained with blood.
Alistair took it.
He had recognized that color in Diana's hair on the morning she went back to Penelope's house. A small thing, almost entirely hidden under the hat.
"It's hers."
Eliza got into the carriage.
Her face changed at the blood, and she did not ask whose it was. She took the ribbon out of Alistair's hand and examined the edges.
"Diana left this."
"It was torn off in the fight."
"No."
Eliza ran her thumb along one of the ends.
"She cut it with something. Look at the edge. The cloth didn't tear."
Graeme brought the light onto the silk.
There was a clean cut in the middle and a small stitch of dark thread near one end.
"Does that mean something?" he asked.
Eliza looked around the yard.
"I don't know yet."
Alistair got out of the carriage.
"Find the tracks."
Five men spread out over the ground. There were too many marks. Horses had been taken out of the stable, led in circles, and walked out by different gates. A heavy coach had gone by the north gate. A smaller vehicle went west. Three riders took the eastern road.
Malcolm had prepared every direction.
Dugald arrived with the men who had left the warehouse. He got down and crouched by the marks.
"The north coach carries at least four people. Deep ruts."
"Diana may be in it," Alistair said.
Graeme pointed at the western tracks.
"This one left after. The marks cut across the coach's."
"It may be the switch," Dugald said.
"Or another deception."
Alistair looked at the north road. Open ground would let them recover distance. If Malcolm meant to reach allies outside the region, he would choose that route.
To the west, the way disappeared among woods and low hills. There were isolated holdings, old hunting cabins, and tracks able to hide a vehicle until daylight.
To the east, the riders would reach Inverness by another way or cross the river higher up.
Three directions.
Diana could be on any of them.
"North," Alistair decided. "Graeme with me. Dugald takes the west."
"No," Graeme said.
Alistair turned.
"The coach carries more weight."
"Exactly. It was prepared to leave the easiest track."
"And if she's in it?"
"And if she's in the light one?"
"Every minute we spend arguing adds distance."
He went to the horse.
Graeme stepped in front of him.
"You don't know which road to choose."
"Move."
"Choosing the deepest track doesn't turn a guess into information."
Alistair seized Graeme by the front of the léine.
The force of the movement opened another wave of pain under his ribs. He did not let go.
"Malcolm has her."
"I know."
"There's blood in that carriage."
"I saw it."
"Then get out of the way."
Graeme held his gaze.
"You want to ride because standing still makes you admit you can't control this."
Alistair pushed him against the saddle.
"Careful."
"If you take the wrong road, you'll hand Diana to Malcolm for a few more hours just to feel you're doing something."
The yard went quiet.
Dugald did not interfere. The other men kept their eyes on the tracks.
Alistair's hand was still holding Graeme's léine. His fingers loosened one at a time.
For years he had believed that every loss could be prevented with enough watchfulness. Malcolm destroyed that certainty when he gave up the line of retreat. Penelope repeated the lesson using Diana.
Now the roads opened in front of him, and none of them obeyed his will.
"Then find information," he said.
Graeme smoothed the crumpled front of the léine.
"That's what we're doing."
Eliza was still beside the carriage with the ribbon laid out on her palm. She had moved away from the light to see the silk at another angle.
"I need to know how it was caught."
Alistair pointed at the splinter.
"There."
"Which end was facing out?"
Graeme showed her.
Eliza put the ribbon back on the wood and caught the middle at the same place. The end with the small dark stitch fell toward the west side of the yard.
The wind moved it.
She held the silk against the wood.
"When we were girls, our mother wouldn't let us go off together in the markets. If one of us had to show the other a direction, we used ribbons."
Dugald brought the lantern closer.
"With a stitch?"
"A slanted stitch near the end. The marked end pointed the way. To anyone else it looked like a bad mend."
Graeme looked at the west road.
"It could have shifted when the carriage stopped."
"Diana cut the ribbon, marked the end, and caught the middle in the wood. She wouldn't do all that and leave the last part to the wind."
Eliza took the silk off and examined the cut.
"She knew I'd recognize it."
Alistair took the ribbon again. The small stitch crossed the cloth on a diagonal. Diana had done that with her wrists bound, inside a watched carriage, perhaps with a pin taken out of her clothes.
She had not waited to be rescued.
She had left a direction.
"What's to the west?" he asked.
Dugald answered.
"Small holdings. A disused mill. Two hunting lodges."
Graeme crouched by the light vehicle's track.
"Malcolm uses a hunting lodge outside the burgh."
The information from the council came back whole. Malcolm kept a house by the river, men at an inn, the warehouse, and an old hunting lodge for meetings that could not happen in Inverness.
"Which one?" Alistair asked.
"The older one is three miles west," Dugald said. "Near a birch wood. The other is to the southwest and belongs to a family that stays there through the winter."
Eliza raised the ribbon.
"Diana pointed west."
Graeme mounted.
"So did the light one."
Alistair put the silk inside his coat, against his chest.
The binding under the léine was still bleeding. His body would charge for every mile, and there was finally a direction that had not come from his own haste.
Diana had left it.
He got up on the horse and turned to the men.
"We follow the west track. Dugald, send two men up the north road to confirm the deception. No one goes onto the property until we know how many men are there."
Graeme gave him a brief glance.
"Now that sounds like a plan."
"Enjoy it while it lasts."
Eliza gathered the reins.
"I'm going."
"No," Alistair and Graeme said at the same time.
She looked from one to the other.
"I'm the one who read the ribbon."
Graeme opened his mouth.
"And there may be other signs," Eliza went on. "Diana didn't leave a mark so that I'd be left in the yard once I'd read it."
Alistair had no time for another dispute.
"You stay behind Dugald."
"I don't promise."
"Then promise not to pass him."
"I'll consider it."
Graeme said something in Gaelic, low.
Eliza went past him.
The horses took the west gate. The narrow road absorbed the sound of the hooves as they went in among the trees.
Behind them, the empty carriage stayed in the yard, with blood of unknown origin drying on the seat.
Ahead, the light vehicle's track ran toward the birch wood.
Diana had pointed to the old hunting lodge west of Inverness.