Page 76 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
He was, however little he distrusted the Sassenach woman, not a man to let his prejudices stand in the way of acting as a Laird should. As soon as the Englishwoman had been removed from the room, he had called for Dunnet and ordered him to send out a few capable scouts to see if what the young lass was saying was the truth.
There was a knock on the door at that moment, and Dunnet walked into the room and stopped in front of the Laird’s chair.
“Have ye done as I asked, me old friend?” the Laird asked the grizzled old man.
“Aye, yer Lairdship, I sent out four o’ the best riders––men and women who ken this land better than most. If that devil-spawn, Bolton, is on his way, we’ll ken of it afore long.”
The Laird nodded. Then he said, “Dunnet, ye met the lass, talked with her a few times whilst she was here. What did ye make of her?”
Dunnet ran a finger across his luxuriant mustache thoughtfully. The firelight gleamed off his bald pate as he ducked his head in cogitation. With a final tweak of the mustache, he looked up to face the Laird.
“Me initial impression, me Laird, was that she had a good heart,” he said.
The Laird raised an eyebrow. “And, that’s all, is it?” he growled.
Dunnet puffed out his cheeks. “I think that she was as scared and out o’ her depth as any lass that I have ever seen. I think that, if there is subterfuge in her, as ye seem to think there is, then it is buried deep. Too deep fer me whisky-clouded eyes to see.”
The Laird ran a hand through his graying hair, stroked his beard, and made a signal for Dunnet to leave. Dunnet bowed his head and left the room.
The milky light of a misty morning slowly filtered in through the gaps in the shutters of the Laird’s study. The growing light of day illuminated the Laird’s haggard features, as he finally got up from his chair, threw another couple of pine logs on the fire and ripped the window shutters wide.
The world was bathed in fog. The sun was a ghostly disk hanging somewhere near the eastern horizon. The Laird breathed deeply, trying to invigorate himself with great lungfuls of the crisp Scottish air.
There was another knock at the door, a sharprat-tat-tat-tatthat somehow proclaimed urgency.
“Come,” Edward’s father rumbled.
The door creaked open and a young woman entered quickly, shutting the door smartly behind her. She was slim of build, willowy, and moved with a cat’s grace. She was dressed in travel-stained clothes of browns and greens––the garb of a hunter. Her hair was a bright, pure blonde, pulled back in a rough tail, and her eyes the deep blue of mountain meres. Slight and delicate though she was, there was something indefinably strong about her; like a flower crafted from steel.
“Huntress Nina,” the Laird greeted the woman. “What news have ye?”
Huntress Nina’s gaze darted around the room, making sure that they were alone, and then fixed the Laird with her piercing, almost hypnotic gaze. When she spoke, it was in the quiet tone of one used to talking under their breath so as not to spook prey––for she was the finest hunter and tracker that the Laird had in his employ.
“Yer Lairdship, this woman from England, she speaks the truth; there is an English army nae four hours behind me.”
“Ye’re sure?” the Laird asked.
Huntress Nina raised a shapely eyebrow. “It is difficult nae to be sure of at least five-hundred soldiers, nay?”
The Laird tugged distractedly at his beard. “And me son? Any news of Edward?”
“Nay,” the smooth-skinned woman replied simply. “I did nae see him. His tracks were confused and spoiled by the woman’s coming the other way. But, Edward’s tracks disappeared towards the army o’ the English––towards this Bolton.”
The Laird bowed his head, despair at the coming of Bolton and the potential loss of his son threatening to overwhelm even his stoic resolve.
He heard the door snap close behind the retreating Nina. Ever since joining his household and becoming the best hunter that he had, she had never sought his permission to come and go.
The sound of the door closing seemed to snap him out of his gloom though. He raised his head, a fresh fire kindling in his eyes.
I have orders to give and an army to ready. And I must have words with that damned sassenach…
* * *
The dungeon was not really anything like the dank, foul-smelling hole that Charlotte had pictured when the Laird had given his orders for her to be thrown into it.
Expectations formed from reading too many tales, perhaps?
The straw mattress that she was huddled on was fresh, free from lice, and set upon a pallet. She had been provided with food and water. Even the gaoler was––if not overly talkative––not a mean man, as Charlotte had come to think of all gaolers having to be.
