“There is nay mistake in it, me Laird,” he said. “Another woman is gone. This one from Cairn.”
Frederick’s expression did not change, though his breath caught painfully all the same.
Cairn sat near the northern perimeter, small and unremarkable at first glance. A village of shepherds, traders, and families who had lived long enough in one place to think themselves beyond notice. It was not the sort of place that should have drawn attention from men who hunted with coin in mind rather than hunger.
“How long since she vanished?” Frederick asked.
“Two days, perhaps three,” the guard replied. “The husband said she went out just before dusk to fetch one of the goats that had slipped a fence. She did nae return.”
“Nay signs of struggle?”
“Nay.”
That alone told its own story now.
A missing woman with no disturbance, no blood, and no cry heard in time was no longer coincidence. Not after the first. Not after the attack in the wood. Not after the runner who had bled across Frederick’s land only to vanish near another clan’s edge.
“The hounds?” Frederick asked.
The guard nodded at once. “They took the scent from the edge of the goat track and held it well for most of the morning. The trail crossed the ridge path and went east.”
Lennox shifted his weight. “East, where?”
The guard glanced briefly toward him, then back to Frederick. “Into the O’Douglas clan’s land, or near enough to it that none of the men wished to press forward without your word. About a day away if a man rides with purpose.”
Frederick was silent for a long beat.
A day away. Nae an accident, then.
The pattern sharpened, not into certainty, but into shape, and he immediately wished that his brother-in-law were there. He had a run-in with O’Douglas about a year ago, and he would certainly not stray from another opportunity to bury them.
I will send word to him about this.
The guard stood waiting, his breathing steady but his attention taut. He knew, as any man with eyes would know, that each new report tightened something inside the keep. A laird could endure one unexplained loss and call it misfortune if he was a fool. Two and a trail crossing borders was something else entirely.
Frederick inclined his head once. “Ye did rightly.”
Relief flickered across the man’s face, though he kept his posture firm.
“See that the hounds are rested and fed,” Frederick continued. “Then have the riders who went north give their statements before nightfall. I want every detail set down while it is fresh.”
“Aye, me Laird.”
Frederick’s gaze sharpened slightly. “And send word to the watch at Cairn that nay woman goes anywhere alone after dark. I do nae care if it offends half the village. They will obey.”
“They will,” the guard said.
Frederick nodded once more. “Go.”
The man bowed his head and withdrew, closing the door behind him with more care than force.
For a moment, the study fell quiet again, save for the muted crackle from the hearth and the faint rattle of the window latch in the wind. Frederick remained where he was until the guard’s steps had fully faded from the corridor.
Then he exhaled through his nose and moved toward the map table.
Lennox was already there, waiting.
The large parchment lay open across the wood, held flat by a dagger, a stone weight, and the corner of a ledger Frederick had no interest in now. Clan lines carved the Highlands into shapes men pretended were stable. Villages marked in ink sat like promises that land could be kept orderly if enough names were attached to it.