To return to me. Rose wiped her eyes then glanced at the captain. Her friend. “I’m glad he did,” she said softly.
“So am I. Mary would never forgive me if I got myself killed.”
Rose gave him a curious smile. “You are an excellent swordsman, Captain. Do you think the outcome of an altercation between you and him is so certain?”
“From what I hear, perhaps,” the captain told her. “He is quick, quiet, and deadly. Have you seen him fight?”
She had seen him fight and kill. She nodded. As skilled as the captain looked when he practiced, Tristan had overtaken twelve men with stealth, savagery, and complete surprise when he’d fallen out of the trees. “I have seen him fight.” She didn’t tell him about Governor Walters or the woman he rescued from her kidnapper.
“And?” he pressed.
“What you have heard is true.”
They were quiet for a time and then he slowed and looked at her again.
“What happened to him? Did the wound become infected?”
“Aye,” she told him, guessing that, as a soldier, he knew about these things. She told him about Nel and the mixture she’d gone to get when she had met up with him. She was surprised and glad when the captain remarked that he hoped the mixture helped.
“Captain?” She stopped him before he picked up his pace again.
“Aye, Lady?”
“I do not remember you being in the castle the night my mother was killed. Where were you?”
Chapter Twelve
Tristan opened his eyes. Then closed them again. Everything hurt. He felt as if he’d been running for days. His chest and back felt as if…as if he’d been shot. He tried to sit up. Pain went through him. He ignored it.
Rose.
“Rose!”
“There now, dear.” An older woman’s voice sounded close by. “There now.”
Who was it? Where was he? He took a moment to let the cobwebs clear from his mind.
Nel. A healer. He’d been here several times in the past when he’d been shot with an arrow or two and stabbed. Nel always fixed him up fine. Why was he here this time?
Rose had brought him here. “Where is Rose?”
Nel’s expression fell. “She had to leave. She—”
“Leave?” He tried to step out of bed, but she pushed him back. She was surprisingly strong for her age, which was about fifty years.
“Ye mustna try to move aboot too soon,” she warned. “Ye had a nasty infection. Ye almost died.”
“Where is Rose?” He didn’t care about almost dying. He remained sitting up and pushed her hands away when she tried to get him to lie back down. “What do ye mean she had to leave? Leave where?”
“She didna say,” Nel told him, much to his disbelief. “She asked me to take care of ye and that is what I intend to do!” Her voice rose to a roar and she practically threw herself on him to get him to lie down.
“Woman, get yerself off me!” He tried to push her off and didn’t have the strength. Suddenly, he realized where he would end up if he left his sickbed now to go after Rose.
He stopped fighting and remained still. His breath was heavy.
Nel lifted herself off him and patted his cheek.
“How long will it be before I have my strength back?”
She shrugged her beefy shoulders. “Who is to say? But ye are strong, Tristan. Ye will be up and aboot verra soon.”
His belly knotted and twisted until he wanted to groan out loud. “How long? When did she leave?”
“’Twas some time yesterday—there, there now. Oh, poor man.” She wet a rag in a small basin of water on a table by the bed and placed it across his forehead. “I will get ye well, and then ye will go find yer Rose.”
He closed his eyes, letting a tear escape him. She didn’t leave on her own. She didn’t know which way to go. Someone had come for her. Most likely, the same someone who tried to kill him. Possibly the same person who burned down her house and killed her mother. Tristan clenched his teeth and held back a scream that would have shaken the foundations of the inn had he let it escape him.
Did the killer have her now? What if he tried to burn her? What if he…he wandered off into a dream of fighting a dragon. Of course, Uncle Torin was in this dream, sitting by a cave hearth telling him a story about a saint and a dragon. Tristan was no saint. He was more like the dragon. Then ye would be fightin’ against yerself, his uncle told him. Are ye?
Tristan woke from his slumber to a dark room. He sat up. Rose. He had to find her. He moved his arm, his torso. He felt a little stronger than when he’d been awake with Nel. Today? Yesterday? He looked at the window at the pre-dawn sky. Yesterday. Rose had been gone for almost two days now. His heart sank. Tracks would be more difficult to find. Where was Nel? Why had she let him sleep so long? He looked at the door to the room.
He needed to go.
He left the bed as quietly as possible and dressed in everything he’d arrived in. It wasn’t wise to walk around in clothes with a hole through them, so he donned his plaid and went to the door.
He paused before he left the room and took ten pounds out of his pouch. He returned to the bed and laid the money on the mattress. Nel and her husband had done much for him.
He left the room and tiptoed down the hall to the stairs in the dark. He tried to be as quiet as he could. He doubted Nel would agree to let him go if he woke her.
He stopped moving when a stair creaked and held his breath. No other sound came to him, so he
