"We'll need money," he said promptly. "And men." He cast an eye appraisingly over the bundles stacked against the wall. "Nay," he said thoughtfully. "That'll be for King James. But we'll take what ye've got on your person." The small black eyes swiveled back to Dougal and the muzzle of one pistol gestured gently in the vicinity of his sporran.
One thing to be said for life in the Highlands was that it apparently gave one a certain fatalistic attitude. With a sigh, Dougal reached into the sporran and tossed a small purse at my feet.
"Twenty gold pieces and thirty-odd shillings," he said, lifting one brow in my direction. "Take it and welcome."
Seeing my look of skepticism, he shook his head.
"Nay, I mean it. Think what ye like of me. Jamie's my sister's son, and if ye can free him, then God be wi' ye. But ye can't." His tone was final.
He looked at Murtagh, still holding his pistols steady.
"As to the men, no. If you and the lass mean to commit suicide, I canna stop ye. I'll even offer to bury ye, one on either side of Jamie. But you'll not take my men to hell with ye, pistols or no." He crossed his arms and leaned back against the cavern wall, calmly watching us.
Murtagh's hands didn't waver from his aim. His eyes flickered toward me, though. Did I wish him to shoot?
"I'll make you a bargain," I said.
Dougal raised one brow.
"You're in a bit better position to bargain than I am at present," he said. "What's your offer?"
"Let me talk to your men," I said. "And if they'll come with me of their own accord, then let them. If not, we'll go as we came—and we'll hand back your purse, as well."
One side of his mouth came up in a lopsided smile. He looked me over carefully, as though assessing my persuasiveness and my skills as an orator. Then he sat back, hands on his knees. He nodded once.
"Done," he said.
In the event, we left the glen of the cave with Dougal's purse and five men, in addition to Murtagh and myself: Rupert, John Whitlow, Willie MacMurtry, and the twin brothers, Rufus and Geordie Coulter. It was Rupert's decision that swayed the others; I could still see—with a feeling of grim satisfaction—the look on Dougal's face when his squat, black-bearded lieutenant eyed me speculatively, then patted the dags at his belt and said, "Aye, lass, why not?"
Wentworth Prison was thirty-five miles away. A half-hour's ride in a fast car over good roads. Two days' hard slog over half-frozen mud by horseback. Not long. Dougal's words echoed in my ears, and kept me in my saddle long past the point where I might have dropped from fatigue.
My body was pushed to its limits to keep to the saddle through the long weary miles, but my mind was free to worry. To keep it from thoughts of Jamie, I spent the time remembering my interview in the cave with Dougal.
And the last thing he had said to me. Standing outside the small cave, waiting as Rupert and his companions brought their horses down from a hiding place higher up the glen, Dougal had turned to me abruptly.
"I've a message for ye," he had said. "From the witch."
"From Geilie?" To say I was startled was the least of it.
I couldn't make out his face in the dark, but I saw his head tilt in affirmation.
"I saw her the once," he said softly, "when I came to take the child." Under other circumstances, I might have felt some sympathy for him, parting for the last time from his mistress, who was condemned to the stake, holding the child they had made together, a son whom he could never acknowledge. As it was, my voice was icy.
"What did she say?"
He paused; I wasn't sure if it was merely the disinclination to reveal information, or if he was trying to make sure of his words. Apparently it was the latter, for he spoke carefully.
"She said if ever I saw you again, I was to tell you two things, just as she told them to me. The first was, "I think it is possible, but I do not know." And the second—the second was just numbers. She made me say them over, to be sure I had them right, for I was to tell them to you in a certain order. The numbers were one, nine, six, and seven." The tall figure turned toward me in the dark, inquiring.
"Mean anything to ye?"
"No," I said, and turned away to my horse. But it did, of course, mean something to me.
"I think it is possible." There was only one thing she could mean by that. She thought, though she did not know, that it was possible to go back, through the circle of stone, to my proper place. Clearly she hadn't tried it herself, but had chosen—to her cost—to stay. Likely she had had her own reasons. Dougal, perhaps?