The Scottish Prisoner

His left buttock was knotted tight, bruised from the blow, and he leaned in his saddle like a drunk, unable to put weight on it. He looked back over his shoulder, but there was no pursuit. And why should there be?he thought, breathing heavily. Siverly knew where to find him. And find him he would; the verse was only a copy, but Siverly didn’t know that. Jamie touched the pocket of his coat, and the paper crackled reassuringly.

It was raining harder now, and water ran down his face. He’d left his hat and cloak; Tom Byrd would be a

He’d done his part. Now it was John Grey’s turn.

21

A Poultice for Bruising

IN ORDER TO KEEP FROM GOING OUTSIDE EVERY FEW MINUTES, Grey had accepted the invitation of two local men to join them at darts. One of his opponents had only one eye—or at least wore a patch over the problematic socket—but seemed little incommoded on that account, and Grey strongly suspected that the patch was mere gauze, doubled and dyed black, but no true obstacle to aim.

No stranger to sharp practice, his answer to this stratagem was the proposal that they play for pints rather than coin. This agreeable arrangement ensured that, regardless of skill or artifice, any man who won repeatedly would soon lose. The beer was good, and Grey managed for the most part not to think about what might be happening at Glastuig, but as the day drew down and the landlord began to light rush dips, he was unable to keep his thoughts at bay and thus excused himself from the game on grounds that he could no longer see to aim and stepped outside for a breath of air.

Outside, the rain had finally ceased, though the plants all bore such a burden of water that merely brushing the grass by the path soaked his stockings.

Qui

There were of course excellent possible reasons for it. Siverly might have been intrigued by the poem, or by Fraser, and thus invited him to stay for supper in order to carry on their conversation. That would be the best possibility, Grey supposed.

Less good, but still acceptable, was the possibility—well, call it likelihood, given the state of the roads—that Fraser’s horse had thrown a shoe or gone lame on the way back and had had to be walked, taken to a farrier, or, at worst, shot. They had sent back the livery’s horses; Fraser was riding a nag borrowed from Mr. Beckett.

Ru

“Or perhaps a goose fell dead out of the sky and hit him on the head,” he muttered, kicking viciously at a stone on the path. It shot into the air, struck a fence post, and ricocheted back, striking him smartly on the shin.

“Me lord?”

Clutching his shin, he looked up to see Tom hovering in the gloaming. At first assuming that his valet had been attracted by his cry of pain, he straightened up, dismissing it—but then saw the agitation of Tom’s countenance.

“What—”

“Come with me, me lord,” Tom said, low-voiced, and, glancing over his shoulder, led the way through a thick growth of weeds and brambles that put paid altogether to Grey’s stockings.

Behind the pub, Tom led the way around a ramshackle chicken run and beckoned Grey toward an overgrown hedge.

“He’s in here,” he whispered, holding up a swath of branches.

Grey crouched down and beheld an extremely cross-looking James Fraser, ribbon lost, hair coming out of its plait, and a good bit of his face obscured by dried blood. He was hunched to one side and held one shoulder stiffly, higher than the other. The light under the hedge was dim, but there was sufficient left to make out the glare in the slanted blue eyes.

“Why are you sitting in the hedge, Mr. Fraser?” he inquired, having rapidly considered and discarded several other inquiries as being perhaps impolitic.

“Because if I go inside the pub at suppertime looking like this, the whole countryside is going to be talkin’ about it by dawn, speculating about who did it. And everyone in said public house kens perfectly well that I’m wi’ you. Meaning that Major Siverly will ken it’s you on his trail by the time he’s finished his coffee tomorrow morning.” He shifted slightly and drew in his breath.

“Are you badly hurt?”

“I am not,” Fraser said testily. “It’s only bruises.”

“Er … your face is covered with blood, sir,” Tom said helpfully, in a tone suggesting that Fraser might not have noticed this, and then added, in substantially more horrified tones, “It’s got onto your waistcoat!”

Fraser shot Tom a dark look suggesting that he meant to say something cutting about waistcoats, but whatever it was, he swallowed it, turning back to Grey.

“A wee shard o’ glass cut my head, is all. It stopped bleeding some while ago. All I need is a wet cloth.”

From the slow difficulty with which Fraser wormed his way out of the hedge, Grey rather thought a bit more than a wet cloth might be needed but forbore saying so.

“What happened?” he asked instead. “Was it an accident?”

“No.” Fraser rolled clumsily onto hands and knees, got one knee up, foot braced—and then stopped, clearly contemplating the mechanical considerations involved in getting to his feet. Without comment, Grey stooped, got him under the left arm, and levered him into a standing position, this operation being accompanied by a muffled groan.

“I showed the poem to Siverly,” Fraser said, jerking his coat straight. “He pretended not to know me, but he did. He read it, asked me who I was, then tried to dismiss it as a fraud of some sort, a faked antiquity. Then I turned my back to take my leave, and he tried to kill me.” Despite obvious pain, he gave Grey a lopsided smile. “I suppose ye’d call that evidence, aye?”

“I would, yes.” Grey gave him back the smile. “Thank you, Mr. Fraser.”

“Ye’re most welcome,” Fraser said politely.

Tom arrived at this point with a bowl of water, a cloth, and an anxious-looking young woman.

“Oh, sir,” she cried, seeing Fraser. “Mr. Tom said ye’d been thrown off your horse, the wicked creature, and into a ditch on your head! Are ye damaged at all?”

Fraser looked utterly outraged at the notion that he might have been thrown by an aged mare—plainly this excuse for his appearance would never have occurred to him—but he luckily refrained from speaking his mind and submitted with grimaces to having his face swabbed clean. With ill grace and to the accompaniment of much sympathetic—and some derisive—comment from the taproom, he allowed Grey and Tom to assist him up the stairs, it having become obvious that he could not raise his left knee more than an inch or two. They lowered him upon the bed, whereat he gave an agonized cry and rolled onto one side.