just as I let fly, so my arrow struck between you.”
“Where did you find the weapon?” he asked.
Although his voice was quiet, its tone increased her tension.
She tried to think how best to answer the question.
“Tadhg,” Fin said. “Did you see where the weapon came from?”
“Nay, but it must ha’ come from the chappie laid out by her feet,” the boy said. “A couple o’ our lads be a-trying to wake him up now. I tellt her that she’d ha’ done better to put that arrow straight through that Comyn’s thick head, but then ye clouted him, so that be fine. Be he dead, Sir Fin?”
“I hope not, because I want to make a present of him to the Mackintosh. But first, madam wife,” he added, “I want to know how you got that bow.”
Knowing that he could see her face better than she could see his, and well aware of their audience, Catriona did not want to discuss the matter there. “We should be getting back,” she said.
“In a few minutes,” he said, the warning note now clear in his voice.
“Aye, very well then. But you won’t like it, because when I saw that man, I—” She stopped when her sharp ears caught a strange sound through the night.
Fin heard it, too, and looked toward the north end of the loch.
The water looked calm, gleaming silver in the moonlight, but she heard a scraping, creaking sound. Then came a chaotic mixture of louder sounds, followed by quieter ones. Moments later, she heard men shouting in the distance, a second explosion of sound, and the roar of rushing water.
“Look,” Fin said. “The surface of the loch is moving.”
“The dam broke!” she exclaimed, and turned to him, grinning. “We did it!”
He put an arm around her and held her close again. “Aye,” he said, “we did.”
“And not before time neither,” Tadhg said. “Look at them clouds. I’d say they be a-gathering up tae rain again afore morning, and I’m still that wet from before.”
Fin’s mood had lightened with the collapse of the dam, but Catriona knew he had not forgotten the bow and arrow. She was sure that he had deduced most of the truth, because he would not imagine that she had just stumbled across them.
But she wondered if he was grateful for what she had done. Men could be unpredictable in such matters.
“We’ll not be taking Rory Comyn back with us, sir,” a man who had knelt by Comyn told Fin. “His head’s bad split. Likely he cracked it on the rock here when he fell, although ye might ha’ split it yourself when ye clouted him.”
“Saved Himself the trouble o’ hanging him,” another man said. “And I’m guessing the old gentleman will be glad to hear it. Will we be going across now, sir?”
Despite the black gloom of lowering clouds above, moonlight still gleamed between them, and Fin recognized an oarsman among the erstwhile prisoners. “What do you think about that current?” he asked him. “And do we have a boat?”
“Aye, sure, sir,” the man said. “The boat be at the landing, because the villains thought they’d want it. And we’d be rowing wi’ the current, which be easy as breathing. Rowing back will be another matter until the water rests easy again.”
“I don’t want us all to go,” Fin said. “The eight who came to take the guard until dawn will stay, and any who got some sleep. Treat Comyn’s body and the two you’ll find near the landing with respect, for we’ll give them back to their kin. Other Comyns will be awake if the torrent didn’t get them, and there were a score of them, so keep your eyes open. The rest will come with us if we can all fit.”
The oarsman chuckled. “Sakes, if Lady Cat could row ye and that Boreas in the coble, I’m thinking we can row the three of ye in our boat with ourselves.”
“And me?” Tadhg said hastily.
“And you,” Fin said, clapping him on the shoulder.
As they turned toward the landing, Fin became aware again of rushing water to the north and decided that the burn was likely making a fine waterfall now.
They made the return trip to the castle as easily as the oarsmen had foreseen. The boat was crowded, but Fin knew that the added weight helped its rowers keep it on course. The current was strongest in the narrows, where the oarsmen used it to their own advantage to make the landing. Thanks to the lingering