He opened the front door and stepped into the crisp air. He was thankful for his plaid. Still, his clothes felt heavy and they weighed him down. He realized he was still weak. Mayhap too weak to fight if he needed to but it didn’t matter. He was going. He had to find Rose and make certain she was unharmed.
His belly twisted. She’d been gone for several long days. If whoever took her intended her harm, it might be too late.
He reached the stable. Rose’s horse wasn’t in it.
“Greetings, Perceval,” he said softly, going to his horse. He hadn’t called his horse the name out loud in years. It was a name from his youth, from some of his uncle’s stories.
Had he dreamed of Uncle Torin last night? Tristan wiped his brow. What was happening to him? He was a cold-hearted savage. It was what he’d become in order to survive, both on the field and off. What was he doing thinking like a knight in a court he used to dream about as a boy? He remembered things about honor and intrigue, courtly love and God’s love and patience, the last from Father Timothy and Brother Simon. It brought a pang to his heart. He missed being home. He missed his kin. It surprised him. The one who barely felt, in truth, felt quite a lot.
Falling in love with Rose seemed to have opened the rusty gates of his heart. Settling in with a wife and bairns no longer seemed so terrible. He wanted her. No one else would ever do.
His heart raced and pumped waves of blood through his veins when he thought of her. She was his. Whoever took her from him was going to pay with his life.
He saddled his horse and thought about how easy it was to talk to Rose about his youth. He’d spent more continuous time with her than he had with any of his men in years. He woke with her and fell asleep with her—and he liked it. He liked her company.
He heard the sound of an approaching horse behind him and turned to see a man a few years older than him leaving the shadows. He carried himself like a soldier, reaching for a small blade hidden in his coat.
“Are you looking for a room?” he asked in his best English voice. The man was a soldier—probably an English one, or a Lowlander, which was close enough to English as one could get. Someone shot him three days ago. Unless the devil had been aiming for Rose and missed…no. The direction was off for that. If someone was trying to kill him then they knew who he was.
“Perhaps.”
Tristan eyed him. “Do you always ride up to an inn before sunrise and expect the owner to be waiting for you?”
The man slanted his sapphire gaze to him and let all pretense fall as he dropped from his horse. He wore his golden hair cut close to his head. A blue woolen mantle draped his shoulders. “Do you always leave without paying your bill?”
“I paid—more than enough if you must know,” Tristan told him, not wanting—or able—to fight. “I enjoy traveling during this time—at the break of dawn. When the earth is waking up.” He gave the soldier a frozen smile. “I did not want to wake the innkeeper or his wife.”
“Well, you are going to have to wake them now,” he said, dismounting and leading his horse by the bridle. “I need to know if you are who you say you are.”
Tristan laughed. “They do not know my name. I was with them only one day, and I slept for most of it. Besides, what do you care who I am?”
“We—”
He stopped when Tristan looked around for anyone else. Finding no one, he gave the man a curious look.
“My captain and I separated to cover more ground in our search,” the man explained. “I have been to seven towns and villages in three days with no success.”
He was a soldier then. Whose? Who were they looking for? Was it his captain who had taken Rose?
“For whom do you search?” Tristan asked.
“An infamous killer called Tristan MacPherson.”
Tristan lifted his brows. “Infamous, you say?”
The soldier nodded. “So who are you? What are you called?”
“I am Geraint Ward,” Tristan told him, taking the name he’d often used when he sometimes had to infiltrate an enemy holding and pretend to be an ally. “I am a shepherd from the western hills.”
The soldier looked him over and then nodded and knocked on the door of the inn.
Tristan sighed silently and grinded his teeth. He was going to have to fight Nel to let him leave. He wasn’t sure he could. If he had his strength back completely, he would put this soldier to sleep and drag him to the forest. He couldn’t. Yet. But he had a few questions of his own.
“Who is your lord, Soldier?”
“The Earl of Dumfries.”
Tristan felt his legs go soft beneath him. Rose’s father had sent his guards, the few he had left, to find him. How did he know Tristan was on his way? Was Rose with one of the other three guards? Was she safe then?
He only managed to keep himself upright because the door opened and Nel scowled up at him.
“What are ye doin’ oot here?” she demanded.
“Is this man running off without paying you?”
“Soldier,” Tristan’s voice sounded stronger than he felt. “Why do you not ask this kind woman to check my bed?”
He hoped that the healer would understand who the man was and sense that Tristan could be in trouble. This man—or the one who had Rose, was the one who’d shot him.
The soldier motioned with his hand for her to go check the bed. She went but shook her head slightly at Tristan before she turned.
While they waited, Tristan thought about ways to find out if one of the soldiers had Rose.
“Soldier—”
“Jones,” the man corrected. “I’m Jones.”
“What do ye mean by leavin’ me all
