“Aye, but Rory pushed it through. ’Tis possible he changed the angle a bit as he pushed it through,” Aulay suggested and then shifted with frustration and said, “Nay. He is too careful to ha’e done that.”
“He is,” Greer agreed and then pointed out, “Besides, the arrow was already pressing against the skin of her back ere he forced it through. That is why he pushed it through rather than . . .” His voice trailed away as he considered his own words. The arrow had been pressing against the skin of her back, the bulge visible. It had hit with enough impact to travel nearly all the way through her body before stopping . . . which meant it had been shot from a relatively short distance; certainly the archer had to have been closer than the area he’d searched repeatedly the last three days.
Cursing, he urged his horse forward, moving slowly along the trajectory he had guessed the arrow had to have taken to hit her at the angle it had. He heard the clop, clop of Aulay’s horse and knew the other man was following, but Saidh’s brother didn’t say anything, merely trailed patiently after him. When Greer suddenly reined in and dismounted, Aulay did as well, and moved up next to him when he stopped.
They both stared at the compressed grass next to the large oak tree to the side of the path. It was the size and shape of a body.
“Someone laid in wait,” Aulay said grimly.
“Aye,” Greer agreed, but frowned even as he said it and pointed out, “But if they’d shot her from the ground, the angle of the arrow would have been upward as well as to the side.”
Aulay murmured in agreement and walked around to the top end of the spot, eyeing it solemnly before suggesting, “Mayhap they lay in wait here, then stood when they heard her mare coming and shot her from a standing position.”
That made sense, Greer acknowledged, and the possibility scared the hell out of him. It meant it hadn’t been a hunter mistaking her for a deer or some other such animal. No one would mistake the gallop of a horse for that of the much smaller deer. It also made it less likely to have been bandits too. They did not, as a rule, hang about waiting to shoot women in the woods. They would have taken her, or robbed her, not just shot her off her horse and fled, and Greer was quite sure there had been no one here in this spot when he’d found Saidh. He would have noticed them.
Someone had tried to kill his wife. They had lain in wait and deliberately shot her with lethal intent.
The thought floated through his head like a bird of prey winging through the air, and sent a shudder down his back. Whirling, Greer rushed back to his horse, mounted and turned him toward the castle. He had a sudden desperate need to ensure himself that Saidh was well and safe.
Greer didn’t need to look back to see if Aulay was following. The man was right beside him, racing his horse through the woods, his expression as concerned as Greer was sure his own was. He had found many things to like about the Buchanan men the last couple of days, but the one he appreciated the most was how much they all loved their sister. They would help him keep her safe, he knew, and that was the only good thing he could think of at that point.
Greer and Aulay raced their horses through the bailey, sending merchants, servants, children, dogs and even a chicken or two scrambling to get out of the way. At the stairs, they dismounted and raced to the double doors together, each pushing through one to get inside. Greer spotted Dougall and Geordie at the trestle tables, noted that both men got abruptly to their feet in alarm at their rushed entrance, but didn’t slow in crossing the great hall. He had to see for himself that Saidh was okay.
Apparently Aulay was feeling much the same way, for rather than stop or even slow to explain to his brothers, he kept pace with Greer until they reached the stairs. He only fell back a couple steps then because as wide as they both were in the shoulders they would not have managed the stairs side by side. But he followed on his heels and was only a step behind him when Greer reached and opened the door to the master bedchamber. Both men skidded to a halt just inside the door, however, as their gazes found first the empty bed and then the two men sleeping in the chairs by the fire.
Greer released a string of curses then that would have had Alpin in an uproar. It also woke up the two men in the chairs.
“What’s about?” Niels cried, lunging to his feet, one hand grabbing for his sword even as Conran did the same.
Greer ignored them and turned to head back downstairs, his only thought to find his wife. The fact that the men were sleeping and that Alpin too was missing from the bed told him that she had not been taken, but had somehow arranged their escape. Although he hadn’t a clue how she had managed it, he was quite sure she was somehow behind the fact that both brothers were sleeping. They cared too much for her to have simply dozed off while they were supposed to have been guarding her.
“What’s happened?” Dougall growled, pausing on the steps and turning sideways to let him pass when he reached the man.
“They’ve escaped,” Greer snapped, hurrying past him and then Geordie too when the man made way.
“Who’s escaped?” Geordie asked with confusion.