Page 17 of Highlander's Escaped Prisoner
“Aye, M‘Laird,” the guard replied. “We will find her, never fear.”
Roy wished he could feel so sure. He went to the chapel and prayed until his knees were sore.
“M’Laird!”, Jamie Crosby, father of Logan and one of the most trusted guards of the Guthrie Clan, came riding up to Roy Guthrie, gasping in shock. “We have found somethin’. I dinnae know whether it has anythin’ tae dae wi’ Mistress Guthrie, but come an’ see.”
The laird galloped after Jamie, who led him to the grotesque sight of a man’s body pinned to a stout pine tree by an arrow embedded in his back. He could see by the depth that it had penetrated the body that the archer must have been very close. Moreover, the placement of the arrow, in the exact center of the man’s back, spoke of an expert bowman.
“Or woman,” he said aloud. He looked down and saw a set of hoofprints on the ground, which could only have been made by a huge horse, and the spacing between the prints told him that it had been galloping. Someone, a skilled archer, had fired from the saddle. It had to be Nessa since he knew no one else who wascapable of such a feat, but where was she now?
“Have you found anything else?” he asked Jamie.
The man was about to answer, but just then, another one of the men came rushing up. “Another body, M’Laird!” he announced. “A man, but naybody we know.”
The body was a hundred yards away from the other one, but he had not been shot by a bow. There was a wound on his inner arm, and the ground around him was saturated with his blood, but the laird frowned as he indicated the injury, which looked like no more than a deep cut.
“Surely this cannot have caused his death?” he asked, puzzled.
“There is a big vein in yer arm there,” Jamie said. “From my experience I know that ye could bleed tae death in minutes if ye were cut there. Looks like that is what happened tae this fellow.”
Roy stared down at the corpse. “It could be Nessa’s work,” he said thoughtfully, then sighed. “These two are likely bandits.” He growled in exasperation. “Have the dogs scented anything?”
“It has been too long, M’Laird,” the man replied sadly. “The trail is cold.”
Roy looked up at the gathering clouds above them. “It is going to rain, and the men are exhausted,” he sighed. “We will have to find her by some other means.” Then he yelled to the heavens in complete frustration: “Nessa, tell me where you are!”
There were thirty men and women seated around the table in the great hall, all of them members of the Guthrie clan and their allies, the McAllisters. The McAllisters bordered the Guthries’ land to the north, while the disputed lands lay to the west. However, the McAllisters had no feuds to fight since none of the disputed territories bordered them.
They had been seated for hours trying to work out what had happened to Nessa but seemed to be making no progress in agreeing about where she had gone, if she had been kidnapped, and the best way of finding her.
“We know that there are bandits in this area,” Laird John McAllister said, “but we also know that Nessa is an accomplished archer and swordswoman. As you told us, Roy, those two bandits probably got in her way, but if she had killed them to save herself, then why did she not come back here afterwards?”
“I think she may have had someone else with her,” Roy answered, frowning. “It is a possibility, but whether she went with whoever it was or he took her...” He shrugged. “Damnation! I feel so helpless!” He paced away from the table to pour himself a glass of whiskey, then drained it, and was about to pour another when he heard a soft woman’s voice at his elbow.
“M’Laird,” said Lady Marion McAllister, “you will need a clear head. Best not to let the usquabae fog it up.”
Roy nodded and smiled sadly into Marion’s gentle brown eyes. He had always had a soft spot for her even though she was married to another man.
Just then, they both jumped, startled, as the door at the end of the hall burst open, and Logan Crosbie ran through it.
He was flushed and gasping as he approached Laird Guthrie and had to stop to recover his breath before speaking. “M’Laird,” he breathed, “I have news. Bryce Blair has escaped from prison, apparently due to the negligence of the jailers. Many other prisoners left at the same time, and they scattered in all different directions, so they had no idea which direction he went in. However, I have just heard from a peddler who visits Wallaceneuk that Bryce Blair might have something to do with Nessa’s disappearance. The two of them were seen riding together near there, or at least she was walking, and he was riding. He described the horse as being very big and black with a white star on his forehead.”
“Jo!” the laird cried. “There can be only one horse who looks like that, and if my Nessa was walking, it means that swine Blair has captured her. Nessa would not let anybody ride her horse, and she certainly would not walk!”
There was a murmur of conversation around the table before Laird McAllister spoke up again. “What did the man look like?” he asked. “We must be sure that it is Blair. He is not the only one who can steal a horse.”
“The peddler said that the man was very tall and very muscular,” Logan replied. “He had long dark hair—very long, he said—and a thick dark beard that reached down to his chest.”
“Hmmm…” Eric Guthrie, one of Roy’s cousins, spoke up. “The man has been in jail for what, seven years? He would likely have very long hair. I do not think the prisons employ barbers. It could be him.”
“Or it could be some perfectly innocent fellow,” Lady McAllister put in. “Perhaps Nessa, out of the kindness of her heart, took pity on a man who had been waylaid by bandits, and seeing thathe could not walk, allowed him to ride Jo. She is a very kind-hearted lady.”
No one seemed to have thought of that possibility, and there was silence for a moment as they mulled over the likelihood of such a thing happening.
Roy sighed. “You are right, Marion,” he agreed. “But if that is the case, then why has she not returned to us?”
Logan poured himself a glass of whiskey and turned to the assembly. “With your permission, M’Laird,” he began, “I think we should begin by hoping for the best but being prepared for the worst. We all want Nessa to come home, and I personally think she is still alive, but until now, we have only searched the countryside. We should now begin asking the people of Wallaceneuk since that is where she was seen last.”
“Indeed,” Roy agreed, smiling and patting Logan’s shoulder.
