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her and ask her to tell us everything she heard?”
    “I’ll wager I heard all she knows,” Sorcha said. “She said a cousin told her. If he’d told her more, I’m sure she’d have repeated it to her friend. In any event, the way news flies around the Highlands, others are bound to know of them. We’ll do as Bess suggests,” she decided. “We’ll need clothes, though, Bess, and quickly.”
    Bess agreed, and to Sorcha’s surprise, Rory MacIver, now a strapping young man of twenty-two with dark curls, brawny shoulders, and a cheerful smile, seemed as eager as she was to find Adela. It was he who provided their clothing, taking note of their sizes and decidingexactly who might most likely both have and be willing to lend the required garments. The resulting clothing was tattered but clean, and Sidony regarded her share of it bleakly. But Sorcha received her brown leggings, long saffron shirt, quilted jerkin, stout boots, and hooded wool cloak with approval.
    “I’ve thought of something else we need, though,” she said. “My sister Isobel always carried a small dirk in a sheath under her skirt. Can you find us each some such thing to put in our boots?”
    “Aye, mistress, I warrant I could,” he said doubtfully.
    Sidony said, “Oh, Sorcha, do you think we should? I doubt I could use a dirk. I do not even know how to wield one. Mightn’t I injure someone with one?”
    Sorcha regarded her sister speculatively before she said with a rueful smile, “It occurs to me that by the time you made up your mind to use it, it would be too late to do any good. Just one will do, Rory.”
    While Rory went to find her a weapon, Bess cut their hair, and while they donned their borrowed clothing, she packed a large supper to take and bundled their own clothing to carry with them in case they should need it. She tried to persuade them to stay at least overnight, but knowing that they had little time before Macleod learned what they had done, Sorcha insisted they leave as soon as possible.
    To her amazement, when they were ready, Rory took them back to the beach, where a longboat waited, its bow on the shingle, with oarsmen ready to launch it.
    “ ’Tis me brother’s,” Rory said. “He’s a captain for Lord Ranald, but he’s off wi’ another o’ his lordship’s boats to Ardtornish to join the grand flotilla for hisgrace’s journey to Edinburgh. His men here must keep fit themselves, though, and they’ve agreed that a fast trip to Shielfoot and back will do them good.”
    Thus, less than an hour after their arrival, Sorcha and Sidony departed. The oarsmen were powerful, the wind at their backs, and the boat relatively light. Three hours later, they landed. Before they sought Bess’s brother, Sorcha asked Rory if they could not acquire horses at once and keep going for at least a few more miles.
    “We’ll no want horses yet, for tomorrow we’ll walk across yon ridge south o’ here to Loch Sunart,” he said. “I ha’ a cousin there wi’ a boat, who’ll take us to Strontian, at the head o’ the loch. If the wind be as strong as today, we’ll save more time by water and we can get horses from me cousin if the wind turns contrarisome.”
    Impatient though she was, Sorcha saw nothing to do but agree, especially since Sidony looked exhausted.

    The party traveling to Lochbuie, on the south end of the Isle of Mull, arrived well after darkness had fallen, as Hugo had anticipated. But the castle servants had kept watch for them and had a hot supper waiting when they entered the great hall.
    Everyone seemed tired, Macleod especially.
    Hugo, sitting next to him at the high table, believed he was having second thoughts about his refusal to search for his missing daughter. To raise that subject might prove both tactless and unwise, but remembering his conversation with Hector, Hugo decided he had good reason to speak of something else.
    He waited until Macleod had a goblet of Hector’s excellent claret in hand. Then he