Virgins: An Outlander Novella (Outlander #0.5)(21)
Ian burst through the door, wild-eyed, his hair standing on end.
“They’re gone!”
Jamie choked on his ale.
“What? How?”
Ian understood what he meant and was already heading for the bed.
“No one took them. There’s nay sign of a struggle, and their things are gone. The window’s open, and the shutters aren’t broken.”
Jamie was on his knees alongside Ian, thrusting first his hands and then his head and shoulders under the bed. There was a canvas-wrapped bundle there, and he was flooded with a momentary relief—which disappeared the instant Ian dragged it into the light. It made a noise, but not the gentle chime of golden bells. It rattled, and when Jamie seized the corner of the canvas and unrolled it, the contents were shown to be naught but sticks and stones, these hastily wrapped in a woman’s petticoat to give the bundle the appropriate bulk.
“Cramouille!” he said, this being the worst word he could think of on short notice. And very appropriate, too, if what he thought had happened really had. He turned on Ian.
“She drugged me and seduced you, and her bloody maid stole in here and took the thing whilst ye had your fat heid buried in her…er…”
“Charms,” Ian said succinctly, and flashed him a brief, evil grin. “Ye’re only jealous. Where d’ye think they’ve gone?”
It was the truth, and Jamie abandoned any further recriminations, rising and strapping on his belt, hastily arranging dirk, sword, and ax in the process.
“Not to Paris, would be my guess. Come on, we’ll ask the ostler.”
The ostler confessed himself at a loss; he’d been the worse for drink in the hay shed, he said, and if someone had taken two horses from the shelter, he hadn’t waked to see it.
“Aye, right,” said Jamie, impatient, and, grabbing the man’s shirtfront, lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the inn’s stone wall. The man’s head bounced once off the stones and he sagged in Jamie’s grip, still conscious but dazed. Jamie drew his dirk left-handed and pressed the edge of it against the man’s weathered throat.
“Try again,” he suggested pleasantly. “I dinna care about the money they gave you—keep it. I want to know which way they went and when they left.”
The man tried to swallow but abandoned the attempt when his Adam’s apple hit the edge of the dirk.
“About three hours past moonrise,” he croaked. “They went toward Bonnes. There’s a crossroads no more than three miles from here,” he added, now trying urgently to be helpful.
Jamie dropped him with a grunt. “Aye, fine,” he said in disgust. “Ian—oh, ye’ve got them.” For Ian had gone straight for their own horses while Jamie dealt with the ostler and was already leading one out, bridled, the saddle over his arm. “I’ll settle the bill, then.”
The women hadn’t made off with his purse; that was something. Either Rebekah bat-Leah Hauberger had some vestige of conscience—which he doubted very much—or she just hadn’t thought of it.
—
It was still early; the women had perhaps six hours’ lead.
“Do we believe the ostler?” Ian asked, settling himself in the saddle.
Jamie dug in his purse, pulled out a copper penny, and flipped it, catching it on the back of his hand.
“Tails we do, heads we don’t?” He took his hand away and peered at the coin. “Heads.”
“Aye, but the road back is straight all the way through Yvrac,” Ian pointed out. “And it’s nay more than three miles to the crossroads, he said. Whatever ye want to say about the lass, she’s no a fool.”
Jamie considered that one for a moment, then nodded. Rebekah couldn’t have been sure how much lead she’d have—and unless she’d been lying about her ability to ride (which he wouldn’t put past her, but such things weren’t easy to fake and she was gey clumsy in the saddle), she’d want to reach a place where the trail could be lost before her pursuers could catch up with her. Besides, the ground was still damp with dew; there might be a chance…
“Aye, come on, then.”
—
Luck was with them. No one had passed the inn during the late-night watches, and while the roadbed was trampled with hoof marks, the recent prints of the women’s horses showed clear, edges still crumbling in the damp earth. Once sure they’d got upon the track, the men galloped for the crossroads, hoping to reach it before other travelers obscured the marks.
No such luck. Farm wagons were already on the move, loaded with produce headed for Parcoul or La Roche-Chalais, and the crossroads was a maze of ruts and hoofprints. But Jamie had the bright thought of sending Ian down the road that lay toward Parcoul, while he took the one toward La Roche-Chalais, catching up the incoming wagons and questioning the drivers. Within an hour, Ian came pelting back with the news that the women had been seen, riding slowly and cursing volubly at each other, toward Parcoul.
“And that,” he said, panting for breath, “is not all.”
“Aye? Well, tell me while we ride.”
Ian did. He’d been hurrying back to find Jamie when he’d met Josef-from-Alsace, just short of the crossroads, come in search of them.
“D’Eglise was held up near La Teste-de-Buch,” Ian reported in a shout. “The same band of men that attacked us at Bèguey—Alexandre and Raoul both recognized some of them. Jewish bandits.”