Page 28 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
“No, sir,” the trooper replied.
Captain Bolton straightened up. He had just decided that he might very well go and ask these vagrants what they had really seen––and ask them with the aid of a sharp piece of steel––when his eye alighted on something metallic glinting in the leaf mold a couple of meters away.
“What the…?” he mused, striding over to the spot. He bent down, pushed the leaves aside and pulled a brooch––a pin, he amended to himself––from the forest floor. It was half-covered in mud, but a quick wipe on his kerchief immediately showed him what it was.
“Those Highland swines,” he muttered, looking down at the piece of jewelry in his hand.
It was, indeed, a pin. The sort of pin that a Scottish man might use to secure his great plaid––the tartan wrap that Highlanders swathed their body in. This particular one was fashioned out of silver and depicted a stag crossed with an arrow. Carefully etched into the shaft of the arrow by the silversmith were the words,Non Ducor, Duco.
“I am not led, I lead,” Captain Bolton translated, squeezing the pin tight in his fist, so tight that his knuckles popped and turned white.
The fact that the pin was made of silver pointed towards a person with considerable private wealth.
Or perhaps one those homeless vagabonds up in that dell filched from someone?
The Captain immediately discarded this theory. A pin like this would be enough to keep a reprobate, the likes of which had been described to him by his soldier, in ale and food for months. There would be no chance that they would lose such a treasure.
“It must be one of those Highland scum,” he muttered. He knew the clan sigil well enough; the arrow crossed hart. It belonged to the MacQuarrie clan. He had had dealings with them in the recent past.
Ugly dealings, but that hanging had to be performed.
It had acted as an example, showing that the clan chiefs were subject to the same law as the meanest peasant. He remembered it well. The woman had been a handsome one, and she had kicked and fought like a demon as his men dragged her to the gibbet.
It was clear to him now. The events that had taken place opened up before him like a flower. One of those accursed MacQuarrie clansmen had been watching the camp, waiting for the opportunity to strike at him––revenge for the hanging of the Laird’s wife. They had seen Charlotte leave the encampment, no doubt to go on one of her ludicrous foraging expeditions, and had snatched her away.
And I can guess well enough what they will do to her. As the Bible says, “an eye for an eye…”.
“Sir?” one of his men asked. “What would you like us to do?”
“Lex talionis,” the Captain muttered to himself, thrusting the pin into the breast pocket of his immaculate red coat. “The law of retaliation… So be it.”
“What was that, sir?” the pock-marked tracker asked.
Captain Bolton’s head snapped around. “Nothing.” He strode over to his great black charger and practically launched himself into the saddle. “We ride for the encampment.”
“But, sir––” one man began.
“Silence!” Captain Bolton roared, making the man physically rock back in his saddle. “We ride for the encampment. When we get there I want one of you to send Hirst, Savage, and Sheppard to my tent immediately.”
At the mention of those three names, the gathered mounted soldiers looked uneasily around at each other. Without waiting for any of the men to answer, he spurred the horse away and out of the clearing.
Trusting his instincts and never allowing anything to rush him might have been two of the qualities that had helped Adair Bolton rise to the station of captain, but there was a third attribute that had played a part in his rise up the ranks: ruthlessness.
His keen mind was already flickering like a fencing rapier, as he tried to unravel the spot that he had unexpectedly found himself in. He knew that the MacQuarrie clan was responsible for the disappearance of his daughter. However, he also knew that a single dropped pin was no sort of evidence.
There is no way that I shall be granted permission to move an entire battalion against one of the Highland’s most prosperous clans, not without irrefutable proof.
However, every day––every hour that he spent not in pursuit of whoever had abducted his daughter––was an hour closer to the MacQuarrie lands that that person got with his prize.
I will not give the Laird of that pestilential bunch of ruffians the satisfaction of avenging themselves at my expense. I will not bear that sort of embarrassment.
Which is why he had asked for his most skilled, most cunning, most coldblooded trackers to be sent to him. Sheppard, Hirst, and Savage were reviled even amongst the other soldiers, but their skill at hunting men down was legendary within the English army––as were the grizzly ways in which they dealt with their quarry when they found it.
Captain Bolton smiled a wolf’s smile. He only hoped that the man that had kidnapped his daughter was, in some way, important to the clan.
The MacQuarries thought they would strike at the person that was closest to him, in order to repay him for robbing the Laird of his wife, to visit that same pain upon himself. Little did they know though, that after his own wife had died, Captain Bolton had ceased to care about anyone or anything.
Instead of the sweet taste of vengeance though, they’re about to take delivery of a far more bitter dish…
