Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(255)

“Aye,” Ruark assured her with an effort. He rolled over and attempted to come to his feet but fell back to his knees and grasped his head as if to hold it in place. Worried, Shanna watched him closely and, as Gabrielle wrapped a patchwork quilt around her shoulders, reached out with a corner of it to wipe his soot-grimed face.

Clad only in a nightshirt, George paused to ask, “What the hell happened?”

An enraged scream, not of an animal, forestalled any reply, and they all turned to the fiery stable. Attila came dashing out, half bucking and fighting against the dark form that clung to his side. Ruark gave a piercing whistle, and the steed swung toward them, coming to a halt by Shanna. The horse stood trembling and snorting as he pawed the grass, and the dark form resolved itself into a bedraggled Orlan Trahern.

“Thank God!” Orlan wheezed. “I was afraid he was headed for the woods.”

He held his loose robe gathered in one hand, and it could now be seen that one end of the robe’s belt was wrapped about the stallion’s neck and the other end was twisted firmly in Trahern’s other hand.

The elderly Trahern was a mess. His hair was singed about the ends and stood away from his head in a silvered corona. His face was smudged and streaked with soot, and his best dressing robe was mottled with black-ringed holes where myriad sparks had touched it. One slipper was missing and his foot and leg were smeared with a brownish stuff, while his other slipper had an oddly crushed look about it.

Shanna gaped. “Papa! What on earth—”

“The beast was tied in his stall,” Trahern puffed, sagging against the horse’s shoulder, his hand still locked in the twisted belt. “When I loosed him, the nag trod upon my foot and would not let me take the lead.”

Gingerly he tested his foot and growled with pain as it touched the turf. “Ungrateful beast!” Trahern moaned. “You have injured me sorely. I should see you fed to the dogs.”

The stallion snorted, nudging the squire’s side with his head.

“Eh, what’s this?” Trahern caught the rope halter and held the steed’s head. “He’s all bloody.”

Ruark forgot the pain in his head and came to his feet to examine Attila’s nose and face where long, bloody welts showed in the firelight, crisscrossing the velvet snout.

“He’s been beaten. And you say he was tied?”

“Aye!” Trahern untwisted his hand and flexed it as if he were somewhat doubtful he could still use it. “And with his head low, close against the boards.”

George stepped near to peer through his spectacles and mused aloud, “ ‘Twould appear it was done to get someone into the stable.”

He gazed thoughtfully at Ruark and then at Shanna who had risen to take her husband’s arm. The fact that Ruark had stated he would sleep in the stables was not questioned as George concluded. “With each moment that passes, I think this deed has more the taste of murder. But in heaven’s name, why?”

“I can’t say why,” Ruark growled and turned to the other men. “Are the horses safe?”

“Aye!” Pitney answered gruffly. “But look here what I stumbled over.” He held up a buckshot-weighted quirt which had blood gleaming on its black surface and short gray hair clinging to the sticky red.

Ruark’s lips tightened as he reflected on the brutal mind that would so cruelly beat an animal. “Damn the bastard!” he vowed vehemently. “If I ever get my hands on the bloody bitch’s son who did this, I may well throttle him.”

“Well, whatever you do to him, you’ll have to use your hands,” Nathanial drawled wryly. “I believe I saw your pistols and musket in the stable before supper. They’re probably part of what’s warming your backside now.”

The stable blazed into a soaring inferno, defying the best efforts to douse the flames. Some of the men had chopped a hole in the tack room’s outer wall, and most of the harnesses and saddles had been saved. Dawn began to glow above the hilltop before the last charred frames of the place collapsed in a heap upon the burning rubble.

It was a tired, black-faced group who returned to the house. The women had been forced to retreat sooner from the cold. Amelia, still in her husband’s robe, met the men in the house and quickly served glasses with a rich amber brew twinkling in the bottom of each, the only exception being a tall, brimming mug of chilled ale for Pitney. Recognizing that it could have been a worse disaster, the group wearily raised their drinks in a grateful salute to their health. Amelia watched with growing amusement as they sampled the stuff, and her husband glanced up in question.