“Saidh and Alpin, o’ course. Who else would be wantin’ to escape?” Dougall pointed out grimly and Greer glanced back to see that both men were now following him with Aulay, Niels and Conran on their heels, Aulay still bawling out the younger men for failing at guarding their sister.
Greer had just stepped off the stairs when an alarmed shout from the direction of the kitchens caught his ear. He turned and rushed through the swinging doors. The stillness in the hot and steamy room brought him up short as he entered. The kitchen was generally bustling with noise and activity, but now every servant stood as if frozen and the only sound was bubbling from the pot over the fire. Greer scanned the room and had just spotted Saidh across the room when someone crashed into his back. He stumbled under the impact, but then continued forward, moving more quickly the closer he got to his wife. Her hair was a wild mess about her pale face, blood trickled from a new wound on her forehead, and she was dressed in only her chemise.
“Greer,” she cried with relief when she saw him approaching. But rather than rush to him, she began to drag something along the uneven stones of the kitchen floor. “Fetch Rory. We need him.”
Greer glanced down with confusion to the sack she was dragging. Not a sack, he realized on examining the material. Her gown. Shaking his head, he asked, “What—?”
The question died on his lips as she stopped and released the edges of the gown she’d drawn up to form the makeshift sack and the cloth dropped, allowing a small pale arm to drop out between the folds to lie unmoving on the floor.
“Alpin?” he asked with dismay.
“Aye,” she said as he bent to remove the cloth that now covered the boy. “He saved me.”
Something in her voice gave him warning. Glancing up sharply, Greer saw her beginning to teeter and quickly straightened to catch her against his chest as she fainted.
Closing his eyes, he briefly pressed her close, then scooped her up in his arms and turned back the way he’d come, pausing when he saw that Dougall, Geordie, Niels, Conran and Aulay were all there.
“Aulay—” he began.
“I’ll bring the boy,” the eldest Buchanan assured him before he could ask. He then glanced to Geordie. “Go find Rory and tell him to bring his medicinals.”
“Thank ye,” Greer said grimly and carried his wife out of the kitchens.
Saidh opened her eyes sleepily and grimaced as she became aware of the low throbbing in her temple. Good Lord, she’d thought she’d got past that. Her head hadn’t ached since the third day after she’d been shot and had fallen off her horse. Her back was throbbing something awful too, and she realized she was lying on her back.
She immediately turned on her side and found herself peering at Alpin’s sleeping face, a sight she’d woken up to several times during the last couple of days. It wasn’t until she became aware of movement and noticed that Alpin wasn’t under the linens and furs, but lying on top of them and that Rory was working over him that she recalled why her head hurt again.
“Is he going to be all right?” she asked anxiously, sitting up.
“Aye. Fortunately, the stones only sheared him as they fell rather than hit him full on. The head wound is just a grazing.”
“But he fainted,” she protested with a frown. “A mere grazing would no’ ha’e—”
“I imagine it was the wound to his back that made him faint,” Rory interrupted.
Saidh shifted her gaze to Alpin’s small back and bit her lip. More than half of it was skinned from shoulder to almost his hip. “How bad is it?”
Rory grimaced and removed the bloody cloth he’d been cleaning Alpin’s wound with. He dipped it in a basin of water, wrung it out and then returned to his work and finished grimly, “ ’Twill heal.”
Saidh sighed unhappily, knowing from the way her brother had said it that the boy was in for a long, painful recovery. Swallowing, she whispered, “He saved me.”
Rory paused and glanced to her in question.
“I was standing where the rocks fell. He pushed me out of the way,” she explained solemnly.
“Yer forehead?” Rory asked.
“I hit it on the castle wall as he knocked me forward. If he hadn’t . . .” She didn’t bother finishing the sentence, but took a breath and asked, “Where is me husband?”
“Up on the battlements with Aulay and the other men, examining the merlons to see how they were dislodged,” Rory answered as he returned to his work.
Saidh nodded, but then just as quickly frowned. “How did they ken about the merlon? I did no’ get the chance to tell Greer ere I fainted.”
“Alpin awoke when Aulay picked him up. He told him about the merlon falling and where it happened as he was carried up here,” Rory murmured, concentrating on his task.
“And then fainted again when ye set to work on him?” she asked, feeling for the poor lad.
“Nay. I gave him some o’ me sleeping tincture so he could sleep through me cleaning his wound. There was no need fer him to suffer through it.”
“Oh, thank ye,” Saidh breathed, grateful that he had. She watched silently as he worked, then asked uncertainly, “Was Greer verra upset that we’d slipped our keepers?”
“Aye,” Rory said shortly, and then paused to give her a cold glare. “As are the rest o’ us.” When Saidh looked away, he added, “Saidh, we were trying to protect ye from exactly what happened today. Ye should no’ ha’e—”
“I ken,” Saidh interrupted on an unhappy sigh. “We should no’ ha’e done it.”
“We?” Rory asked dryly. “By me guess ’twas ye who did it and Alpin jest got dragged along with ye.”
“I did no’ exactly ha’e to drag him,” she protested. “He was as sick o’ this room as I am.”
“He is but a lad,” Rory snapped. “Ye’re a woman, full grown and supposed to ken better.”
Saidh shifted uncomfortably and muttered, “Aye, well how would you like to be locked up in a room fer days on end with men to constantly guard ye?”