“If you shake the life out of me, how can I tell you—even if I would?”
He let her go free, and presently she glanced at him, her grey eyes wide with malice.
“Our Garsykes Men are not good at the fighting, so they hatched another plan. If they could take what Hardcastle holds dearest, and keep her till he paid tribute at long last——”
She halted, watching the sweat break out on the man’s haggard face.
“Where is she?” he repeated.
“Not in Garsykes. You might rouse even your chicken-livered Logie Men to ride through us. She’s in the caves behind our village.”
A gulf seemed to open at Hardcastle’s feet. If this were true—he would not have it true—and through his dazed sickness sounded Nita’s voice, gentle as a dove’s.
“They are long caves and deep. You knew them as a boy?”
“Yes, by God,” he said, towering above her with still and awful menace, “and now I’m going to know them as a man.”
She halted for one last thrust. “It may be too late for paying tribute. They may be out of hand, now I’m not there to whip them into order.”