Page 32 of Laird of Flint
It wasn’t the man he’d followed. This figure was smaller and stouter and walked with a shorter stride.
Hew frowned. Was Dunlop a gathering place for mysterious nighttime travelers?
This stocky fellow wasn’t even using the road. He clambered down the slope and began hiking off across the hill.
Where was he going?
Hew came to his feet.
The figure strode surely through the wet grass, as if he knew exactly where he was headed.
Hew hesitated.
He didn’t want to leave his post. The man he’d followed could emerge at any time.
On the other hand, perhapsthisman was the thief. Perhaps he was on his way to a robbery right now.
The man from the monastery had only just arrived. If he was the physician, he’d remain within. If he was a man of the cloth, he’d surely spend at least an hour inside.
Meanwhile, Hew would follow this new stranger and see what mischief he was up to.
After a long trek over fell and dale, it seemed the man at last found what he sought. A fold of cattle sleeping beneath the trees. They stirred when the man approached, then settled back down to doze.
“Sard me,” Hew muttered in self-disgust.
The man was obviously just a cooherd come to watch over the laird’s cattle. Hew had wasted time, following the fellow.
Still, it was curious that he’d come in the middle of the night. And his behavior toward the coos was odd. He was standing far too close to one of them, scratching its head between two horns that could have easily tossed the man heels over head clear across the glen.
Perhaps the cooherd was soft in the head.
He sighed. It wasn’t Hew’s affair. He had a thief to catch.
But then, just before he turned to go, he saw the cooherd lead the familiar beast away from the others while the rest of the fold slumbered on.
Where was he taking it?
His interest piqued again, Hew crept down the hill after the cooherd. And the farther he got away from the rest of the fold, the surer Hew was that this was not a cooherd after all, but a cateran, a cattle reiver.
He’d never seen one work alone before. As a lad, he and his cousins had occasionally thieved cattle from the neighboring clans for sport. They were chided by their parents and always returned the coos. Just as often, the neighboring clans stole Rivenloch coos. In the Lowlands, reiving cattle was considered harmless fun.
But there was a bit of danger in it. Not only from the coos. Sometimes drunk or angry clansmen took the thefts too seriously and came after young caterans with their fists or swords. That was why they always went reiving in groups.
Reiving alone was risky.
Another curious thing was that the cateran had come out of Dunlop, but he was leading the cooawayfrom the castle.
Before he could wonder further about that, he spotted something the cateran hadn’t seen yet. Two figures had emerged from the woods and were scrambling down the hill after him. They were probably the cooherds who watched over the fold.
Hew grimaced. There were two of them and one reiver. They were twice his size. Young and brawny. When they caught him, they would likely pummel the poor fellow to within an inch of his life.
Hew couldn’t stand by and watch that happen.
As the pair closed in on the unwary cateran, Hew sidled down the hill to intercept them.
Hamish snorted and lifted his wary head.
Carenza froze, alert.
