"Well," I was doing better with the smile, though it felt pasted on my face. "That is rather uncertain at the moment. I have several relatives and close acquaintances in the town, with whom I fear I shall be obliged to stay in turn, in order to avoid offending anyone, you see." I managed a small laugh.
"So if it does not disturb you too much, perhaps my groom could call to inquire for the letter?"
"Of course, of course. That will do excellently, my dear. Excellently!"
And with a quick glance back at his decanter, he took my arm to escort me to the gate.
"Better, lassie?" Rupert pushed back the curtain of my hair to peer at my face. "Ye look like an ill-cured pork belly. Here, better have a bit more."
I shook my head at the proffered whisky flask and sat up, wiping the damp rag he had brought across my face.
"No, I'm all right now." Escorted by Murtagh, who was disguised as my groom, I had barely made it out of sight of the prison before sliding off my horse and being sick in the snow. There I remained, weeping, with Jamie's box clutched to my bosom, until Murtagh had gathered me up bodily, forced me to mount, and led me to the small inn in Wentworrh town where Rupert had found lodgings. We were in an upper room, from which the bulk of the prison was barely visible in the gathering dusk.
"Is the lad dead then?" Rupert's broad face, half-obscured by his beard, was grave and kind, lacking any of its usual clowning.
I shook my head and took a deep breath. "Not yet."
After hearing my story, Rupert paced slowly around the room, pushing his lips in and out as he thought. Murtagh sat still, as usual, no sign of agitation on his features. He would have made a wonderful poker player, I thought.
Rupert returned, sinking down on the bed beside me with a sigh.
"Weel, he's alive still, and that's the most important thing. Damned if I see what to do next, though. We've no way to get into the place."
"Aye, we have," Murtagh said, suddenly. "Thanks to the wee lassie's thought about the letter."
"Mmmphm. One man, though. And only so far as the governor's office. But aye, it's a start." Rupert drew his dirk and idly scratched his thick beard with the point. "It's a damn big place to search."
"I know where he is," I said, feeling better with the planning, and the knowledge that my companions weren't giving up, no matter how hopeless our enterprise seemed. "At least I know which wing he's in."
"Do ye, then? Hmm." He replaced the dirk and resumed his pacing, stopping to demand, "How much money have ye, lass?"
I fumbled in the pocket of my gown. I had Dougal's purse, the money Jenny had forced me to take, and my string of pearls. Rupert rejected the pearls, but took the purse, pouring a stream of coins into the palm of one capacious hand.
"That'll do," he said, jingling them experimentally. He cocked an eye at the Coulter twins. "You twa laddies and Willie—come wi' me. John and Murtagh can stay here wi' the lassie."
"Where are you going?" I asked.
He poured the coins into his sporran, keeping back one, which he tossed meditatively in the air.
"Och," he said vaguely. "Happen there's another inn, the other side of the town. The guards from the prison go there when they're off duty, for it's closer, and the drink's a penny cheaper." He flipped the coin with his thumb, and turning his hand, caught it between two knuckles.
I watched it, with a growing idea of what he intended.
"Is that so?" I said. "I wouldn't suppose they play cards there, too, would you?"
"I wouldna ken, lassie, wouldna ken," he answered. He tossed the coin once more and clapped his hands together, trapping it, then spread his hands apart, to show nothing but thin air. He smiled, teeth white in the black beard.
"But we might go and see, no?" He snapped his fingers, and the coin appeared once more between them.
Shortly past one o'clock on the following afternoon, I passed again beneath the spiked portcullis that had guarded the gate of Wentworth since its construction in the late sixteenth century. It had lost very little of its forbidding aspect in the succeeding two hundred years, and I touched the dagger in my pocket for courage.
Sir Fletcher should now be well dug in at his midday repast, according to the information Rupert and his assistant spies had extracted from the prison guards during their foray the evening before. They had staggered in, red-eyed and reeking of ale, just before dawn. All Rupert would say in response to my questions was "Och, lassie, all it takes to win is luck. It takes skill to lose!" He curled up in the corner then and went soundly to sleep, leaving me to pace the floor in frustration, as I had been doing all night.