Jack carefully approached a sick rowan tree. He didn’t know if he was shocked that the blight was also present in the west, or if he should have expected it. He took a moment to examine the surrounding trees and saw that another one looked recently stricken as well. Jack wondered if the Breccans had done anything to contain the blight, or if they had yet to learn that such destruction was creeping across their territory.
He would talk to Adaira about it, to see if she had any insight that he didn’t. But then Jack thought of Innes Breccan. Would he want her to know the east was struggling with the blight? Should he keep that information concealed from the west?
Jack grimaced, uncertain. He would deal with it later, after he had reunited with Adaira.
He carefully wended his way through the rest of the forest and reached the boundary, the place where the trees ended and the land unfurled.
He took his first full view of the west.
The hills, speckled with copper bracken and yellow-tipped woad, rolled into a steep mountain range whose peaks were crowned by low-hanging clouds. The river flowed from a place hidden between two summits, clear and babbling over large, smooth stones. The air smelled like burning peat, damp moss, and brine from the distant sea.
Jack turned to the left and set off at a brisk pace. Determined to stay focused on the journey and to never let his mind wander, he noticed every twisted tree he walked beneath, every bird that fluttered past. He listened to the wind, to the sounds it carried. He passed through thin patches of heather and climbed over rocks softened with moss.
Jack soon came upon the first croft—a sprawling farm of stone fences, a muddy yard, and a cottage that looked crooked in the wind. It felt dark and abandoned. Disquieted, Jack pressed onward to find the southern road.
He passed a few other crofts and at last found pockets of life. Sheep bleated and children called to one another as they went about their afternoon chores. Smoke rose from hearth fires, and women tended to their gardens. Jack’s anxiety spiked when he started to pass people on the road.
He kept his head down and his pace steady, fighting the urge to stray from his route. The swirling mist was both an advantage and a challenge: it cloaked him and yet made it difficult to discern what lay ahead.
By twilight, Jack had no idea how many kilometers he had covered and his feet were riddled with blisters. He decided to find a place to make camp for the night. Elspeth had packed him a simple but hearty meal, along with a flask of ale, and he thought of the story she had shared with him about Iagan as he followed a deer trail leading away from the road. Eventually, he found a cluster of bracken to bed down in.
An eastern wind was blowing, whistling through the valley. It felt cold for a summer night, and Jack shivered, longing for his plaid as he ate a cheese pie. He didn’t hear the riders, not until the party was nearly upon him, and by then it was too late to dash behind a cover of rocks.
He froze in the bracken, watching as six riders drew closer in the dusky light. Young men, mounted on lathered horses, dressed in leather and hunting plaids. They were heavily armed with swords, long bows, arrows, axes. Blood was splattered across a few of their chests.
Pass me by, Jack prayed. Take no note of me. I’m insignificant, beneath your attention—
“And who might you be?” asked one of the riders, a man with straw-blond hair and a ruddy complexion, as he walked his stallion in a circle around Jack.
Jack rose, hoping his satchel would remain hidden in the bracken fronds. He was quiet for a moment, suffering their scrutiny with as much dignity as he could muster. They took in everything about him: the lack of tattoos on his skin, the absent plaid, his simple but durable clothes, the way his boot leathers crosshatched up to his knees. The braids in his hair.
“My name is John,” he said.
“John who?” a second man asked, his narrow-set eyes suspicious.
“I’ve no surname,” Jack answered. “I claim what my laird gave me.”
“Where are you traveling to, John Breccan?” the blond rider inquired, his stallion finally coming to a halt. His five companions mirrored his actions, forming a ring around Jack.
“Castle Kirstron.”
“What awaits you there?”
“My wife.”
“Ah. She must be anxious to see you then. Come join our party. It’s unwise to travel the valley alone at night. You can share our fire.”
Jack’s mind raced, seeking a polite excuse. But he couldn’t find a way out of this, and so he nodded and allowed the hunting party to herd him to a small glen. When he noticed one of the riders lifting his satchel from the ferns, Jack’s fear ignited, burning his lungs, his heart, his stomach.
A camp was swiftly made. A fire was kindled in a ring of stones, and skewers of rabbit and potatoes were set over the flames. The horses were hobbled and tended to, and bedrolls were laid out on the grass. Flasks of ale were passed around, and Jack pretended to drink, hoping to ease their mistrust of him.
“No plaid?” the blond commented.
Jack, who had certainly taken note of the plaids draped across the six men, shook his head. No doubt the weavings were enchanted, although Jack wouldn’t be able to know without touching one. “It’s with a weaver at the moment.” He dared to study their features. The firelight spilling across their noses and lips made them appear haggard. “You have yet to tell me your own names.”
The blond—the apparent leader—took a swig from his flask. “I’m Rab Pierce, and these are my men.”
Wonderful, Jack thought drolly. I choose the southern road to avoid the Pierce holding and I still manage to have Rab stumble upon me.
“I’ve never seen you before,” Rab said. “Where do you live?”
“On a small croft not far from here.”
“Hmm.” Rab didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t press Jack for further answers. “You often enjoy nightly walks?”
Jack nodded, but sweat was beginning to seep through his tunic. The man with the narrow, beady eyes and a chain of tattoos around his neck began to hand him a bannock, and that’s when it happened: one moment Jack’s hand was outstretched in acceptance, and the next it was twisted behind his back and he was harshly thrown facedown in the grass. He resisted the desperate urge to flail, to fight.
He lay quietly and breathed through his teeth as one of the riders took the dirk sheathed at his belt. Jack’s only weapon.
“Bind his wrists and ankles,” said Rab.
“Why are you binding me?” Jack raised his head from the loam. “I’m no threat to you.” He felt Narrow Eyes begin to fasten his wrists together, painfully tight, and then his ankles. Eventually, Jack was set back up like a puppet, and he watched as Rab sifted through his provision pack, dividing the meager spoils among his men. And then came the harp.
Jack could hear Elspeth’s warnings echo through him—you should leave your harp behind, bury it somewhere deep or give it to the river, and tell no one that you are a bard. He watched as Rab yanked the harp from its sheath. The instrument gleamed in the firelight, the simple carvings in its frame seeming to move and breathe.
“Why are you carrying a harp?” Rab asked, meeting Jack’s gaze.
“It was given to me.”