Page 3 of Healing the Highland Sinner
A man approached him, his eyes wary and darting left and right, as if trying to see everywhere all at once. The man was small and wiry, his movements quick and birdlike. He was dirty, his cloak tattered, and his cheeks hollow, as if he hadn’t had a decent meal in days. Ellair drew deep on his pipe and blew a thick plume of smoke skyward, waiting for the man to speak. He licked his lips and cleared his throat.
“Are ye Ellair?” he finally asked.
“Aye. And ye are?”
“I’m Ian, sir.”
“And what dae ye want with me, Ian?”
He looked around, his face twisted with fear. He licked his lips again and wrung his hands together as he shifted nervously on his feet.
“I—I heard ye are lookin’ fer the Widow,” he said.
“Oh? And where’d ye hear that from then, eh?”
“Word gets around, sir,” he said. “There arenae many people foolish enough tae go lookin’ fer the Widow. Ye tend tae stand out.”
Ellair chuckled to himself. He supposed that was fair enough. He drew from his pipe again, watching the man carefully as some faint warning bell rang in the back of his mind. He didn’t look like a threat, but it was usually the ones a man discounted that ended up burying their dagger in hearts. Ellair took nobody for granted and was always primed for a fight. Nobody would catch him off guard. And if the Widow had sent one of his men to run him through, he would be getting a very dead assassin back in return.
“Is it true?” the man asked. “Are ye lookin’?”
“And if I was?”
“Well… could be I ken where tae point ye.”
“Aye? And where might that be then?”
The man frowned and shifted on his feet again, his eyes scanning the area all around them. He was nervous. It made Ellair wonder if he was trying to set him up and pull him into an ambush. Like the squirrely man in front of him, Ellair’s eyes flitted left and right, searching for threats hidden in the darkness around him. He was skilled at finding danger, but he saw nothing. Knowing this wasn’t leading him into ambush told Ellair the man wanted something else.
“Well? Where can I find the Widow?” he pressed.
The man licked his lips. “’Tis valuable information, sir. Isnae it?”
Ellair frowned. “Valuable?”
“Aye.”
Ellair laughed as he realized what the man was after. “And how much value dae ye see in that information?”
The man looked uncertain and licked his lips nervously again. He looked like a man caught somewhere between getting what he needed to survive and naked greed. He had something he knew Ellair wanted. He also knew he couldn’t overplay his hand by asking for too much spurring Ellair to seek the information elsewhere. He decided to take the decision out of Ian’s hands.
Ellair pulled a small purse of coin from his pocket. He bounced it in his hand, letting Ian hear the coins clinking together and his eyes widened. He wrung his hands together faster and Ellair could practically see the man counting the coins in his head and deciding what he was going to do with them.
“Take me tae where the Widow is and this purse is yers, lad.”
A shadow crossed Ian’s face, and he frowned. His his eyes flitted about almost manically.
“I—I dinnae want the Widow tae ken I’m involved,” he said with a nervous tremor in his voice. “Ye’ve heard the stories?—”
“Aye. And I heard plenty of stories when I was a bairn, lad. Daesnae make any of ‘em true.”
“The Widow is fond of choppin’ men’s heads off if ye run afoul of him.”
“Have ye ever seen the Widow chop a man’s head off?”
“Well… nay.”
“And have ye ever seen any of the actual heads the Widow chopped off with yer own bleedin’ eyes, lad?”
