Chapter Five

The cart rumbled ahead, slowing at the gate. Tamsin heard the brewer say goodnight and then heard Edith—Edith!—simper and laugh, letting the guard believe she was with the brewer, as his wife or his leman. The guard did not seem to care.

"She is enjoying this," Kirsty whispered.

"I am glad," Tamsin laughed faintly as the cart moved ahead, rattling over the drawbridge and then rolling out over the meadow path.

"Come out," the brewer said after a while. Pushing away the straw, Tamsin sat up, feeling a cool, damp breeze from the castle loch. All was bathed in moonlight.

Kirsty sat up too. "Where is the harper?"

Tamsin looked back. "There, coming down the hill toward us."

As the brewer drew the cart into a grove of trees, she saw the harper striding toward them without much of a limp. Was that false too? He came near, pointing in the distance. "Is that your escort there?"

Peering toward the far end of the meadow, Tamsin saw three riders coming at a good pace, bringing three riderless horses with them. She nodded. "That will be Sir David Campbell with Dalrinnie men."

"Then they will find you safe here." He stepped back, shifting the harp's bag.

"Must you leave?" She felt a sense of alarm, remembering the odd flash of vision that she had seen—the harper on the ground, injured or dead. She was tempted to pull on his cloak and urge him to come with them. "Wait here with us."

"I should not."

"Where will you go?"

"Wherever my music is needed," he said lightly.

"Come with us to Dalrinnie," she said impulsively.

"Not me. You will be safe with the escort. You and the lady widow."

"The who?" she asked.

"Your elderly friend. The widow of Dalrinnie. Lady Thomasina." The harper tilted his head toward Lady Edith.

"That is Lady Edith. She is not the widow of Dalrinnie," Kirsty said. "Why did you think so?"

"I was sent to find the widow, a Lady Thomasina of Dalrinnie. An elderly lady. I was told she might be found at Lochmaben this week. I have a message for her from King Edward."

"Elderly!" Kirsty half-laughed. "What would King Edward want with the lady of Dalrinnie?" She glanced at Tamsin.

Tamsin felt sick. King Edward! She had been wrong about the harper. So very wrong. He was no rebel helping Scotland's noble cause. He was looking for her, and he was dangerous to her. King Edward's message to her would either order her into a convent or an unwanted marriage—or an iron cage.

Her breath came quickly. She felt betrayed, began to panic. How foolish she had been to trust him. This man, this beautiful, devious harper, had charmed and cajoled her.

A small lie helps us see the light of a new day.She valued truth more than anything, and he had led her along to help the king claim her estate and ruin her life.

Fighting the compulsion to tell him what she thought, she sat silent. Staring.

"My lady?" He tipped his head as if puzzled by her sudden glare.

"Lady Edith is not the widow of Dalrinnie," she said, repeating what Kirsty said.

"Where is she? I can share this message only with her. If she is at Dalrinnie—then I will have to go there." He frowned.

She sensed he did not want to go there. Good, she thought. "Why do you think the lady is old?"

"The king called her the Rhymer's daughter. Thomas the Rhymer, if you have heard of him. If so, she must be very old."

Rhymer's daughter! That was the teasing name her family used for her because she had so admired her great-grandfather that she had wanted to be like him, a prophet, a person of wisdom. But if King Edward knew that name, it had only come from someone familiar with her family. Henry would not have discussed it—but her late husband had heard, and might have told someone.

Ah, she thought, Sir Malise. That must be it. And in trusting the harper, she had stepped into Edward's trap. He was looking for her, and the harper was his messenger.

She lifted her chin. Nothing for it but the truth. "I am Lady Thomasina Keith." She wanted him to hear the coldness in her voice.

His brows lifted. "You! That cannot be."

"It can. I am Thomasina. Tamsin," she said. "My family called me Rhymer's daughter as a teasing name. But very few know that." She narrowed her eyes. "And I am not old."

"I see that. I apologize, my lady." He looked bewildered, pushing a hand through his hair, hood falling back. "Then the message is for you. We must speak in private."

She looked at the approaching horses. Suddenly the urgency of that strange little vision returned. "Come with us to Dalrinnie. Explain yourself there," she said on impulse. "Get in the cart, Master Harper."

"Not now." He frowned, his eyelashes black crescents. "I will find you later."

Her head was all in a muddle. She could not trust him. She did not know him. She was rightfully furious with him. Yet she feared for his safety and could not let him leave.

"You will be hurt, sir—do not go—you will be followed—"

But he stepped back. "I will bring you the message. Farewell, Lady Tamsin. Lady Kirsten. Lady Edith," he added.

He thanked the brewer, then went striding quickly over the meadow toward the road that skirted the loch, which would take him to the main road, north or south. Moonlight glittered over water, and soon the man was just a swiftly moving silhouette.

"Godspeed," Tamsin murmured. Fear spun within. She wanted to stop him, and yet she did not know what to think, what to feel.

"Look there." The brewer pointed behind them. "Riders coming from the castle."

Hearing hooves thudding over the meadow from another direction, Tamsin turned. Visible through the screen of trees, several riders were coming from Lochmaben Castle, riding fast, soon pulling up near the cart. She gasped as Sir Malise walked his mount forward.

"Lady Tamsin!" he called. "So it was you in the yard—I thought so! What are you doing at Lochmaben? Are you in need? Who is this fellow?" He gestured toward the brewer.

"Sir Malise," she said, "this is Master Brewer. He was kind enough to bring us here to wait for Sir David and the Dalrinnie escort. They are just coming there."

She pointed in that direction, wanting to deflect his attention away from the harper walking near the loch. She smiled, hands folded, fingers shaking.

"Sir David is coming? Good." Malise gathered the reins of his horse. "I am glad of the chance to see you, my lady. I want to be sure you are well. I know how difficult it may have been for you since your husband's passing."

"I am fine," she said, a bit surprised, yet touched by his chivalrous concern.

"I will come to Dalrinnie," he said. "I have a suggestion—to benefit you. Sir John was concerned about you. I will not forget it."

Startled, she nodded. "Thank you." She had no desire to see him again, but his mention of her late husband gave her pause. He could be sincere. She had seen that in him.

"Be safe, my lady. I have business at Lochmaben, but only came out now to stop that scoundrel yonder. We must hurry to catch him."

"Scoundrel?" she asked.

"The harper?" Kirsty asked then.

"No harper, that one. An outlaw. A wolf's-head I have been searching for. I recognized him in the castle yard. With me!" he shouted to his men, then turned with them to canter, then gallop, after the harper.

Ahead, the harper began to run, the slope taking him out of sight. Men and horses followed in hard, fast pursuit. Tamsin heard Malise shouting.

"An outlaw!" Kirsty said.

"But the harper had a message from King Edward. Malise must be wrong."

"It is a puzzle. What did Sir Malise mean when he spoke to you?"

"He seems interested in my welfare." She watched the riders thunder over the meadow.

"More than that," Kirsty said. "Look! They are nearing the harper!"

Tamsin leaned over the side of the cart, heart thumping as she peered through the darkness. The pursuing horses drove forward so swiftly that all she could discern were moving shapes, then the glint of metal in moonlight. She heard distant shouts and the clang of steel.

Angling across the meadow, the Dalrinnie escort came closer. Shadows were falling fast now, a dark veil swallowing horses, men, and the meadow in murky, inconstant moonlight. She could hardly see the cluster of men and horses on the rim of the slope in the eerie light.

"They have him," the brewer growled, standing up in the cart. "He is down. They are dragging him—"

"Oh, dear saints," Lady Edith said. "He was a lovely man, the harper."

Tamsin strained to see an agitated cluster of men and horses in a blur of darkness. This was not justice on Malise's part. This felt like treachery. The certainty made her breath come in gulps as she gripped the cart side.

"Nay," she whispered. "Stop—leave him be—"

"They are lifting a body," the brewer said from his higher perch.

Dear God.Tamsin put a hand to her throat.

"Jesu," the brewer said. "That lad was right enough, a good Scotsman. But Edward's men need no reason to take down a Scot. Looks like they killed him. A shame."

This was wrong. The Scot was Edward's messenger, one of them, not Malise's enemy. The harper had been sent to find her—which made her the cause of his death. Covering her face in her hands, she bent forward.

Now the Dalrinnie men arrived, horses thundering around the cart, riders pulling on reins. Sir David Campbell dismounted and came forward.

"My lady! How is it you are here? What was all that about?" He gestured widely.

"Oh, Sir Davey!" Tamsin felt close to tears. The seneschal offered a hand to help her climb down from the cart, then turned to help the others.

"Well, Davey," Lady Edith greeted her brother. "Finally, you are here! They just captured an outlaw. We thought him a fine Scotsman—but we were in terrible danger!"

"What happened?" Sir David looked toward the loch, but there was little to see.

"Sir Malise Comyn was here. He said the man was an outlaw," Tamsin said. "But he was a harper. He helped us. It is cruel, what they have done."

"A harper? Curious." Campbell took his sister's elbow and ushered the younger women ahead to help them mount the extra horses.

Dalrinnie's seneschal was a strong, steady fellow, fatherly and practical. He had been at Dalrinnie Castle before Sir John Witton, before Tamsin, and he had become one of the few people she trusted there.

"We were all but prisoners in that castle," Edith said. "I will say he helped us."

"This is Edward's business," Sir David said. "We cannot interfere. Likely we will never hear more about that fellow."

"Could he be alive? The brewer thought him killed," Tamsin said.

"He would be lucky to be dead if you ask me. Edward shows no mercy to Scots these days."

"Brutal attack. Fine young Scot," the brewer said.

Sir David took coins from his belt pouch and thanked the brewer, who touched his cap and urged his pony and cart over the meadow.

Soon, Tamsin rode among the others, her legs to the side, cloak tucked around her. Ahead, cool moonlight revealed horses and knights in the distance, vanishing southward. One horse carried a form slumped across the saddle.

Sir David slowed to ride beside her. "If Sir Malise went after the man like that, he must have been an outlaw."

"He mentioned having orders from King Edward. He was one of them."

"Many Scots act for both sides, my lady. Some do what Edward orders. Some, like Malise Comyn, try to gain privilege. Others are a thorn in the king's side. No matter what the harper told you, he may have been a thorn."

Tamsin nodded. She had caused his death. She shivered as chill air and guilt tore at her. Autumn was in the air, and her world was changing fast around her.

She had seen it before it happened. Men, darkness, the glint of steel—a man on the ground. The harper, dead. She had tried to warn him, but he had not heard.

With a shout, one of the Dalrinnie men rode toward them. "Sir! We found this." He held up a leather satchel. "It might be of value, but it is broken, by the sound of it." When he shook the bag, Tamsin heard wood rattling, heard a sad, sour chime.

"The harp!" she cried. "I want to keep it."

She had failed to save him. But she would not leave his harp behind.