Gently setting Benet aside, Harcourt rose to stand on his own two feet. The pain was bad but he believed he could get back to the keep without causing too much damage so he nodded. He felt a little pang of regret when Callum took Benet up with him and someone settled the cat in his saddle pack. With a sigh he patted the cat’s head and decided it was better than having to carry the lamb. Nicolas had taken that animal up with him.
By the time they reached the keep, Harcourt was not sure he would remain conscious when he dismounted. Pain and blood loss had made him grow increasingly light-headed. They were swarmed by people when they rode in. Harcourt’s last clear vision was Dunnie walking up, taking one look at the lamb and the cat, and laughing so hard he was clutching his sides. Then Harcourt heard someone yell out in alarm as he slid out of the saddle.
“Maman, is he going to die?”
“Nay, Benet. He just had a lot of pain and lost a lot of blood. He needed to sleep.”
“Why didnae he get off his horse first?”
“Sometimes sleep just reaches out and takes you. Ye have done it a few times.”
“Oh, aye. I have. I wanted to tell him I am sorry.”
Harcourt wanted to tell Benet he had nothing to be sorry for, that it was not his fault. He found it difficult to form the words, however.
“Ye have nothing to feel sorry for, love. Ye did naught wrong. Those men who took ye away from us were the ones who did wrong.”
“But Sir Harcourt got hurt fighting the bad men and he wouldnae have had to do that if I wasnae with them.”
“Ye didnae ask to be with them, love, and that is the important thing. Now, have ye fed Roberta yet?”
“Och, nay. I best go do that now. They wanted to eat her,” he added in an unsteady voice.
“Weel, they didnae understand that she is precious to ye, love. We all do so ye dinnae need to fear that while she is living here.”
Harcourt heard the boy sigh with relief and then run out of the room. “He ne’er walks anywhere.”
Annys was so startled by hearing Harcourt talk she nearly dropped the basin of water she was using to bathe him. The man had lain there like the dead for two days. His friends and family had assured her that he would wake when he was done recovering from the blood loss, that a good long sleep after a wounding was not uncommon amongst the Murrays. She could feel tears stinging her eyes and fought against the urge to weep.
“So, ye have decided to rejoin the world,” she said and watched his eyes slowly open.
“Aye, although my leg is protesting it.”
“It has actually been healing verra nicely while ye snored away the days.”
“How many days?”
“If we dinnae count the part of day that was left after ye fell off your horse, then two days. ’Tis the night of the second. I was told again and again that this was a normal way of healing for a Murray and must say, it did seem to work verra weel.”
He allowed his mind to mull over every ache and pain and said, “I dinnae feel like I hit the ground.”
“Nay, Nicolas moved verra fast and caught ye ere ye finished falling.”
“How is Benet doing? I could hear him saying he thought it was all his fault and ye seem to get him realizing it wasnae. But, he saw a lot of things that could badly trouble a wee lad.”
“What he appears to have latched on to is that those men wanted to kill and eat Roberta and that no one should get Roban angry.”
Harcourt laughed and winced. “The cat was a fury of claws and teeth. Ne’er seen anything like it. One could almost think the fool beastie placed himself in the tree where it did intending to do just what it did if anyone got too close to the boy.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly when she bathed the area around the wound on his thigh. It was not pain that caused his sudden tension either, but the fact that she was touching his leg. Even the damp cloth she held between her skin and his did not dim the pleasure of that touch.
“How did someone get the lad out of the bolt-hole?” he asked in an attempt to get his mind off the way her bathing of him made his passion rise.
“Whoever did it stole a key. We are still trying to find out whose key was taken but the search for that got set aside when Benet was returned and ye were brought to bed with a serious wound. Now that ye are awake, we shall deal with that. The bolt-hole is being watched. Callum has found that odd one ye discovered filled in and he looks for more.”
“We will get the traitor now.”
“I hope ye are right. I was so hoping that Benet could tell us who took him but he said they covered his mouth and eyes until he was in the camp. Put a sack o’er his head. He is too young to have noticed anything such as scent or sound, and too scared. So we still dinnae ken exactly who is doing this. It is verra difficult to fight an enemy who lives within your home and kens all your secrets.”
“But ye now ken a few of hers. Ye ken how she is slipping in and out and ye ken that she has stolen a key. Small steps toward discovery but more than we had.”