Page 14 of The Hawk Laird
“He must have been a brave man, like his son,” she said quietly. “My father was taken in a battle last spring. He’s in an English prison still.”
Geordie seemed intrigued. “Jamie was in an English dungeon for months. He finally escaped. Will you ransom your Da?”
She shook her head. “We lack the coin for that and have naught to offer in trade. I do not even know where he is held. But a friend has promised to find him,” she added. “But for the siege, I would have heard word of my father by now.”
“You will find your father.” Geordie straightened his bony shoulders proudly. “We have come to rescue you. And I will help you find him, my lady,” he added sincerely.
“Thank you, Geordie Shaw. I appreciate it.” She frowned. “James Lindsay was in prison?”
“Aye, taken last spring. He escaped just before Wallace was taken.” He looked away, and Isobel saw a glaze of tears in his eyes. “You may not have heard about Wallace.”
“We heard,” she murmured.
“How could you know of it, under siege these weeks?”
“The English took delight in shouting the report to us. Once, they allowed us to declare a truce for a holy day and let our priest come inside to give us communion. Father Hugh told us much news before he left. That was the day he took our horses and animals out with him so the animals would not starve,” she said. “And the day we let my father’s hawks and falcons fly free. So ’tis true, then,” she added. “Wallace is dead.”
“Aye,” Geordie said hoarsely.
“We heard that the Hawk Laird betrayed Wallace. I hope it is not true,” she added.
He shook his head. “Evil rumors. Jamie will not speak of it, but I would never believe it of him. We few stayed with him, but the rest have gone, for he is a hunted man. He came here to seek you out,” Geordie said suddenly. “But he did not say why. Will you make a prophecy for him? Can you help him?”
She blinked at his blunt, eager questions. “I do not know.” Had Lindsay come to ask a prophecy of her? Perhaps he had questions about whatever she had said of him, but she did not even know what that was and so she could not help him.
“Do you trust him, Lady Isobel?” Geordie asked quietly.
“Trust?” She looked away. “I do not know him,” she said carefully. “I cannot say.”
“He will save you from this siege,” he said confidently. “Then you will place your faith in him just as we have. If only folk would trust him again, all would be well for him.”
Isobel sensed that the lad adored this forest rogue, his hero, so much that he was willingly blind to his faults. James Lindsay was said to be a traitor to Wallace and Scotland. If that was true, she feared that Geordie Shaw would be deeply hurt.
“I will try to trust him,” she said, gazing out the window.
Isobel had placed her faith utterly in James Lindsay when he had pulled the arrow from her arm. She remembered the warm comfort of his arms afterward, and his soft, deep voice as he soothed her. Exquisite shivers rippled through her at the memory.
Had she known only his compassion instead of ill rumors, she would have trusted him completely. She would have felt safe. Loved, she thought oddly, quickly.
Foolish yearning born of loneliness, she told herself sternly. She was betrothed to a man who had no compassion in his nature. But, she reminded herself, Lindsay had only comforted her because she was in pain. Not because he cared about her, and she must remember that.
She sighed and leaned against the windowsill. “Geordie, those men over there in the corner. What are they doing?”
“Jamie told them to knot the ropes and make ladders and harnesses so that we can go down the cliff side. Jamie says the full moon will give us muckle light to climb down. He says we will leave as soon as—” He stopped, coloring deeply. “When he gives the word.”
She narrowed her eyes. “When the castle is put to the torch? I know what he intends.”
The lad looked uncomfortable. He peered out the window. “I am to watch for his signal.”
“What signal? He is not even down there.”
“Aye, he is, see. Straight below us.” Geordie indicated the area near the base of the keep. “He is talking with your bailie.”
Looking straight down, she saw Lindsay’s wide shoulders and the glint of his dark, gold-streaked hair. He walked beside Eustace past the base of the keep. Cool moonlight cascaded over his face and commanding form.
The two men strode into the center of the yard. Lindsay paused, standing with a bold, relaxed power, one hand on his upright bow, the other pointing toward the battlement. Eustace nodded in response to something the outlaw said.
Isobel leaned against the windowsill, watching. Though her legs trembled with fatigue, she stayed there, fascinated, as if the forest rogue who had entered her castle exerted some mysterious power over her. She could not look away.
