"Who--" Duncan began, only to be cut off by his cousin.
"He is a messenger from Lord Rolfe."
Duncan cursed. He had hoped this was Greenweld's man. "How was he injured?"
"Saving my life."
Duncan stilled at that, and Allistair grimaced, his gaze sliding past him to Laird Angus, Lady Wildwood, and Iliana as they moved to join Duncan and hear the explanation. "I thought I spied someone duck behind a tree as I was riding back with the cloth merchant."
"Why did you not tell me?"
Allistair shrugged. "By the time I got to the tree there was no one there, and I thought mayhap I hadn't really seen anything at all."
"But you went back to check."
"Aye...Well, it was bothering me. I thought if there truly had been someone there, he would have left some sign somewhere in the area."
"And did you find any signs?" Angus asked, stepping forward now to lift and peer at the head of the man his nephew held upright.
"Aye. The remains of a small fire. I was about to head back to call out a search party when I was jumped from behind. When I awoke, this fellow was leaning over me, bandaging me hand."
Duncan glanced at his cousin's sword hand as he held it up. It was wrapped tight with a strip of plaid.
"I must have broke it as I fell," Allistair admitted grimly.
Duncan frowned at that, then glanced down when his wife slid her hand onto the crook of his arm. She smiled at him gently and he raised a hand to cover her own where it now lay on his arm, then turned as Allistair continued.
"A second man was there as well, already dead. This fellow told me that he be a messenger from Lord Rolfe. He said he'd been sent with news of Seonaid, and that he had come along as Greenweld's man was about to cut me head off. He interfered, they fought, he was injured, and the other one died."
Both Duncan and Angus were silent for a moment, exchanging a glance, then Angus asked, "You were not conscious when the two fought?"
"Nay."
"And you never saw who hit you over the head?"
Allistair shifted uncomfortably, his gaze sliding to the man he held upright. "Nay."
"Then you have no proof he is who he claims to be?" Angus sounded more disappointed than anything as he murmured that. Allistair was looking pretty disappointed himself; then he suddenly brightened.
"He showed me the message."
"The message?"
"Aye. He was afraid he would bleed on it, so he gave it to me. 'Tis in my belt, I stuck it through there ere helping him onto me horse."
Angus moved forward to search for the message as Duncan asked, "Where was his horse?"
"I put the dead man on it."
"The message must have fallen out on the way back," Angus muttered, straightening. "Where was the dead man's horse?"
"I don't ken." He glanced at the man he held. "Mayhap he kens."
"Ye say ye brought the other man back, too?"
"Aye. He's hung over a horse outside."
Angus turned and gestured to one of the men in the room. The fellow immediately moved out of the great hall.
"Do you not think we should tend his wound?" Iliana asked at last when they all continued to stand around glaring at the unconscious man. Angus and Duncan peered at her as if she was quite mad.
Even Allistair looked taken aback at the suggestion as he asked, "Tend to the wound of an Englishman?"
Iliana frowned at their reaction. "He is injured."
"He is English."
"What has that to do with anything?"
"Scots don't heal an Englishman's wounds, wife," Duncan explained gently. "They cause them."
Iliana's mouth tightened and she tugged her hand off his arm. "Well, then your English wife will tend this Englishman's wounds," she snapped irritably, sure they were teasing her, but that this was really no time for it.
"Nay." He tugged her hand back over his arm. "Yer not English."
"I am so," she protested, tugging her hand loose again.
"Nay," he corrected, pulling her hand firmly over his arm once more. "Yer me wife. Ye wear the plaid. Yer Scot now."
As Iliana gaped at him, her mother spoke up. "Well, I am English, not married to a Scot or wearing a plaid, so I will tend to him. Bring him to the table." She moved determinedly forward as she spoke, fully expecting Allistair to obey. And he did, but not until he received a nod from Angus.
Iliana paused long enough to glare at her husband for his behavior, then followed her mother.
Duncan arched an eyebrow at his father. "Now what have I done?"
Shaking his head, Angus slapped his son on the back, urging him to follow the women. "I believe yer wife would appreciate a bit more diplomacy." When Duncan stared at him blankly, Angus grinned and shrugged. "'Tis something I've never bothered to teach ye. But don't fash yersel' about it over much. 'Tis something ye'll gain with age. Or not. 'Tis not really important anyway, but women seem to prefer it."
Iliana caught the dirty look her mother sent her father-in-law's way after that statement, but paid it little attention. The Scot Angus had gestured to had come back into the keep, the other man's body slung across his shoulders like a sack of vegetables. Carrying him to Angus, he pulled the man off his back, dropping him on the floor at his feet.
Wincing as his head struck the hard stone, Iliana left her mother and Gertie tending to the man on the table and moved forward to peer curiously at the dead man's face. He was a gruesome sight. His face was as pale as a sheet, most of his blood seeming to stain his surcoat. It looked as if he had suffered a rather large, gaping wound to the stomach and chest. Judging by the grimace of pain on his face, death had been slow and painful.
"Is he the one who attacked you in our bed?"
Iliana swallowed thickly. "'Twas dark. I saw little but a silhouette. Still..." Peering down at him again, she frowned slightly. "He does look familiar to me."
"Ah."
Iliana peered at her father-in-law and raised her eyebrows at that.
The older man shrugged. "Ye were held at Greenweld, were ye not?"
"Aye."
"Then ye must have seen him there," he said simply, then turned to Allistair. "Did ye spy anyone else around?"
The younger man had just shaken his head when Iliana's mother glanced over and announced that their guest was awake. Iliana followed her husband and father-in-law back to the table, where the man was attempting to sit up, struggling against Gertie's equally determined efforts to keep him down.
"Let 'em up, wench, I would talk to him," Angus ordered, pausing beside the table.
Muttering that he would rip the stitches she had just put in his body, Lady Wildwood's maid stepped out of the way.
The man sat up at once and eyed them all rather warily, relaxing only when Allistair approached to stand beside Angus.
There was a tense silence for a moment; then Angus shifted impatiently. "My nephew tells me you saved his life."
The man's gaze skittered to Allistair then away and he nodded. "Aye."
"What happened?"
His gaze slid to Allistair and back again. "I was heading for the keep when I heard a shout. When I came upon your nephew he was unconscious on the ground and a man was standing over him about to cut off his head."
"A man?"
"An Englishman."
"Ye fought him?"
"Aye."
"He died slow," the older man commented, and the Englishman nodded solemnly.