Free A Trust Betrayed by Candace Robb Page B

ahead as he turned into a wynd. She slipped, caught herself, hurried round the corner. Empty. She wept, kept running, sobbing, “Roger!”
     
    A hand grabbed her arm, jerking her to a halt. She turned and blindly struck out with her fists, not caring who it was. Damn him for stopping her. Damn him!
     
    “That was my husband,” she cried. Her blows made contact with a fleshy face before her arms were pulled behind her, causing her mantle to fall away. She screamed with pain. The man in front of her shook her by the shoulders until she stopped struggling and quieted.
     
    “Why were you chasing those men?” Water dripped down the soldier’s forehead. He shook it away.
     
    “One of them was my husband. I have not seen him for months. I did not even know whether he was alive. You made me lose him.”
     
    “In this gloom how can you be certain it was him?”
     
    “A woman kens her husband,” she said through chattering teeth.
     
    Her arms were released.
     
    “They cannot be far,” one of the soldiers said.
     
    Margaret rubbed her upper arms as both men took off in the direction in which Roger had disappeared. She closed her eyes, trying to remember every detail of what she had seen. Four gashes on his face, perhaps more. He had stopped, looked at her. It was the others who pulled him away. Was he a prisoner? Had the men with him wounded him? But he had not seemed a prisoner when they approached, only when he hesitated as if meaning to turn back to her. Why? Damn those soldiers for stopping her. She might even now be with Roger. Would he embrace her? He had not seemed indifferent, he had stopped, had not tried to ignore her.
     
    Sweet Jesus, he was alive. She choked back a sob as she began to run again, then stopped, realizing too much time had passed, she had no hope of finding him now. It was not such a large town, but big enough for a man who did not wish to be followed.
     
    And then she realized: Murdoch must have known Roger was in Edinburgh. He heard all the gossip in the tavern. Ye t he had not told her. She did not know what to make of that, but it frightened her. Everyone was turning on her. No one was as they had seemed. It was as Murdoch had said, she should trust no one.
     
    Slowly, in a daze, she bent to pick up her sodden mantle, then headed down High Street, shivering in her wet clothes. From behind she heard the soldiers returning, but she did not bother to look up.
     
    “We found no trace of them,” one of the soldiers said as he fell into step beside her.
     
    “What did you expect? You wasted the time stopping me.”
     
    “It is our duty to question all those who disturb the king’s peace.”
     
    Whose king? she wondered, but she was beginning to know better than to speak in such wise. “Why did you chase me? Why not them?”
     
    “They ran only when you shouted to them.”
     
    Not true. Or was it? “My husband was wounded. Stripes of blood down the left side of his face, deep enough for me to see in the rain. Have you seen such a man?”
     
    “I do not recall a man with such wounds.”
     
    Margaret did not even know whether Roger was their king’s prisoner or supporter. She knew so little about him.
     
    The soldier asked pardon for hurting her, more kindness than she had expected.
     
    “My pain is in losing sight of him.”
     
    The soldier declared he would escort her home, and insisted on giving her his mantle. “I am sorry about your husband.”
     
    She walked in silence, wondering frantically about Roger’s wounds, the men accompanying him. In front of the alley between the inn buildings she paused, lifting the mantle from her shoulders and holding it out to the soldier with thanks.
     
    “If I see a man with a wounded cheek I shall direct him here,” the soldier said, and with a bow he headed back the way they had come.
     
    Margaret took the alley to the back.
     
    Murdoch caught up with her. “God’s blood, escorted to my tavern by a man wearing the badge