“He told me to ask for you, to tell you that you helped protect the throne for him. He said you’re good friends and he trusts you.” He looked even more skeptical.
I added, “He gave me the vessels.”
“I haven’t met Magnus,” he glanced at his watch, “and from the looks of it he won’t make it until morning.”
“But he does, he makes it, and you help him and he calls you Hammie.”
His mouth twisted — that meant something. “He also said you like a female singer — I can’t remember her name — but he said if you’ll help me he promises to introduce you to her.”
He leveled his eyes on me. “If you left Magnus in the future why are you dressed like a medieval peasant?”
I glanced down. “It was four years in the future but actually in the past — look this is not the important thing. The important thing is I’m Magnus’s wife and I need to see him...”
“I know who you are.” He glanced at his watch again. “The kingdom is in total chaos, the throne is for grabs, Magnus won’t make it to morning, and you, Kaitlyn Campbell, are a murderer. I saw you the night of the Gala. I was in the ballroom. You can’t deny you did it. I don’t know what will happen with Magnus, or the kingdom, but I know this: for months I have been under orders to have you arrested on sight. Why would I take your side against direct orders?”
I racked my brain and could only come up with one reason. “Because the orders came from a dead man? Magnus is the next king, I promise you he wants to see me...”
He stood firm, his boots wide, his back straight like he was at attention. “I have a crisis to manage and a lot of bullshit stuff to accomplish that I have no instructions for — this is one of them. I have a new king who arrived without you. You arrive while he’s in the hospital and want to be taken to him but I’ve already known you to murder a king. I have no way of knowing your motives. How do I guarantee his safety? I can’t.”
I opened and closed my mouth while he walked to the door.
“You’ll stay here until Magnus wakes and tells me to bring you to him.”
His hand was on the door. “Please? I promise he’ll repay you for doing it.”
“He can repay me for keeping you alive, here and safe, while he’s in recovery.”
I got on my knees, folded my hands together and pleaded, “Please Hammond. He told me he needed me in the hospital. He sent me to be with him. I know you don’t know me, you haven't met him, but we are fiercely loyal to our friends and we will both be forever in your debt...”
“I’ll take you to him as soon as he wakes. It’s all I can do.”
I huffed, stood, and brushed off my skirts. “Fine. I understand. When he wakes though, when you tell him I’m here, you make sure you tell him I begged you to let me see him.”
He turned to leave.
“And please don’t let Lady Mairead learn I’m here. I need guards outside the door. If she knows I’m here, she’ll kill me.”
His face clouded over. “Lady Mairead is a threat to you?”
“God yes. Just keep it quiet please, and I need guards, that’s all I—”
He stared at me as if thinking it over. “Why does she want you dead?”
“I don’t know why. Maybe because she can’t control him—”
“I was under the impression Lady Mairead completely controls Magnus.” He spoke like he was carefully judging everything I said, turning it over.
“She tries to but she can’t. She sees me as a threat so she would prefer me dead.”
He scowled.
I asked, “Shit, are you friends? Please don’t tell her I said any of this.”
“I won’t say anything and we aren’t friends. She used to ask me to do things for her. Things that would have been treasonous. She doesn’t ask me anymore. ” He sort of laughed.
“Well yeah, she is a total bitch. Magnus told me never to trust her in anything and we don’t. Not really. I mean, she can be useful. She has helped Magnus stay alive for a long time, but I promise you, if you are loyal to Magnus he will protect you from her. He would want you to protect me too.”
He looked at me long. “And how would she feel if I take you to Magnus’s hospital room?”
“She would fucking hate it.”
“Okay. Do you have all your things?”
I spun and realized I had nothing. “I’m ready when you are.”
I followed Hammond Donahoe out to the hall.
Chapter 13
With the nod of his head two men fell in beside me and I was led down a very long passageway to an elevator and taken up three floors. There was an explosion and for a short terrifying moment the electricity flashed off and on and then off again and the elevator lurched. When the lights sputtered back on, I was blinded momentarily. My eyes watered. Hammond’s face remained calm and cool.
I, on the other hand, was about to totally freak out.
The door slid open. We stepped into another hall. The lighting was ‘hospital at night’ style, small lights along one wall, the other wall projected a video of a battle: soldiers shooting, helicopters, soldiers racing over rubble in an alley, tanks rolling along an empty city street. Was this today? Right now? It was all filmed with a shaky aerial camera and loomed very very large. If I looked at it my head hurt, but at least the sound was off.
A startlingly loud amplified voice asked, “Can I help you?”
“I’m Colonel Donahoe, I’m escorting Kaitlyn Campbell, the king’s wife, to his room.”
We stopped at a wide ornate door. Two men were guarding it. From further down the hall a man headed toward us wearing what looked like surgical scrubs.
I asked Hammond, “Is there anything I should know about, the fighting, that I need to tell him? Samuel’s forces are fighting against him? Will we win?”
“Why don’t you tell me, Kaitlyn from the future?”
“I’ve got nothing.”
“So don’t say anything, if he wakes I’ll brief him.”
The doctor reached us. His face was pinched, tired, and irritated. “I’m the Royal Physician, John Abercrombie, at your service.” His expression was distasteful as if he didn’t want to be of service to me.
Hammond said, “Kaitlyn Campbell is to be taken to the king.”
“He isn’t in any condition for visitors — I sent his mistress away just a few hours ago.”
My fury rose. Breathe Kaitlyn, just breathe. Get to Magnus, he needs you.
Hammond said, “She is not solely a visitor. She needs to be protected during this interregnum and I don’t have the manpower to protect both royal personages. She will be staying here with King Magnus so we can concentrate our guards in one place.” He checked his watch for the fiftieth time. “I will come to see to her in the morning. When will the king wake?”
“He’s likely to sleep for many more hours. Are you sure this is...”
“Yes, definitely, Kaitlyn is wanted at the king’s bedside.” He added, “Notify me as soon as he wakes. I need to brief him on the current situation.”
He moved to leave and remembered to say, “And Doctor Abercrombie, the king isn’t to have any other visitors while Kaitlyn is with him.”
The doctor said, “Of course.”
Hammond said, “Queen Kaitlyn, it was interesting meeting you.” He left down the long hallway. The doctor's gaze traveled over my attire. “You can’t attend the king in those clothes...”
“I completely agree.”
He huffed. “Follow me.”
I wanted to go into the room to see Magnus so badly. I was only feet away, but I also had to be covered in bacteria from the freaking 18th century. I needed to protect him from germs. I had just now used the first toilet paper I had seen in at least four days.
So I followed the doctor past the doors. I couldn’t tell where exactly I was — in a hospital, was I still inside the castle? So far in my travels to this kingdom I had been on the helicopter pad, dragged through hallways, chased around the grounds, and trapped in Donnan’s
prison rooms. I wasn’t at all a fan of this place. It was very hard to believe it would be my home. If Magnus survived.
The doctor jerked his head toward a door. “There’s a bathroom with a shower. I’ll have someone deliver something clean for you to wear.”
I pushed open the door onto a large bathroom. Everything was there I needed: water, shower, soap. I turned on the shower but had to figure out how to unlace my bodice in a hurry. I pulled at any lace I could get my fingers in contact with, then wriggled and squirmed and twisted, and just about threw my back out doing contortions to get it open enough to pull painfully up and off my body. I tossed it to the ground as someone tapped on the door.
“Yes?”
A woman’s voice said, “I have some clean clothes for you, Mrs Campbell.”
I stuck my head out to receive a small stack of brown clothes, baby poop brown clothes. I tried for a nice, charming smile but the nurse didn’t seem impressed.
I ducked back into the bathroom and checked the mirror. Yep, since the struggle with the bodice I was even more insane looking. My hair stuck up all over. Something was smeared on my cheek. Talk about first impressions — Hi, I’m the king’s wife. Also a murderer.
I tossed the pile of clothes to the counter by the sink, pulled my shift off, and stepped into the warm water. Thank god. There was nothing better than a shower after a trip to medieval Scotland. There were bottles of shampoo and conditioner, also a bottle of shower gel. I lathered every square inch of my body, rinsed it, and then lathered it all again.
When I felt sufficiently clean, I wrapped in a towel and tried to figure out the clothes. They were made of a thin, silky material, but incredibly plain, like surgical scrubs. The shirt was tunic-style colored brown. The pants were pajama-style, tied at the waist, also in brown. Not particularly how I wanted to see my husband for the first time in centuries, but seriously, this was plenty of time wasted already.
I needed to see him, now.
I rubbed the towel all over my hair trying to dry it. It wouldn’t. Crap. I blew my hair dry for a few seconds to take the drippiness off then declared myself officially done. I kicked all my gross clothes, boots, socks, and towels into a pile in a corner and didn’t give a shit if I ever saw them again. I crept barefoot down the hall.
There was no one else except the two guards in front of Magnus’s door. I had no idea what time it was, but it seemed like the middle of the night.
Gunfire sounded outside and a helicopter swept past the building.
At the double doors the guards wordlessly allowed me to pass into Magnus’s room.
The room was darkened, a few over-bright lights along the side. A machine near him, making the comforting beeping sound of ICU rooms: this patient is breathing, this patient’s heart is beating.
Magnus.
His face was drawn. He was asleep flat on his back. A bag of fluids dripped into his arm.
I crept to the bed. “Magnus?”
There was no answer or shift, just silent solid Magnus. I placed my hand carefully under his and waited.
I folded my hand around his. “Hi,” I whispered. I pushed a lock of hair from his forehead, his skin too cool, his eyes closed, eyelashes down, an etched grove by his mouth, a sadness to his face. I brushed my fingers down his cheek and added, “It’s me, Kaitlyn,” in case he could hear me and needed to know.
Tears spilled over my lower lids and streamed down my face. I pulled his fingers to my lips and breathed him in. His smell now mingled with antiseptic and strangers. “I love you. You asked me to come and I’m here now, so you’re going to be okay.” The machine went beep, beep, beep. A drone flew by the window.
“I promise.” I wrapped around his hand and rested my head on his shoulder and sobbed into his blanket. “I promise. I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
I needed to be closer, had to be closer. I climbed onto the bed. It was wide enough if I lay on my side on the edge. I curled along his left arm, being careful to slide under the IV tubing attached there, and knowing the stab wound, the reason for the surgery, was on his right side: low, deep, and life-threatening. I pressed my face to his shoulder. “I’m here now and we’re going to get through this together, I promise.”
I massaged the back of his hand with my thumb. “I was with you, my love, in the year 1679. I found you and you took me to Kilchurn Castle. It was beautiful. I’m really happy I got to see it.”
I ran my fingertips across his shoulder. “We put our feet in the water and I saw the room where you slept when you were a bairn. I wanted to stay with you but we talked it through and you said you needed me here today. You said you couldn’t live without me and the truth is I can’t live without you either. I totally understand. So I didn’t argue, not really, though I cried a lot — leaving you is the hardest thing in the world.”
I listened to the beep-beep of his monitors for a moment. “You said to me once it took all the pain you could bear to leave me. That everything about me begged you to stay. I understand what you meant now because you were saying goodbye to me and it was so hard to leave.”
An explosion happened in the far off distance. I clutched his hand. “Because what if it was the wrong decision? What if I screwed something up by trying? I think now this is a new history and I don’t know what happens from here on out. You survived before, but what if something about me makes the timeline happen differently? I came because you need me and so I’m here but please don’t die. Please. I love you and you have to survive this because it will kill me if I left you when I had you. It was a huge risk and — Please. Please don’t die.”
I lay there for a lot longer and then I said it again, “Please don’t die. I’m here to rescue you.”
Chapter 14
A woman’s voice woke me. “Mrs Campbell?”
“Huh? What?” I raised my head from Magnus’s shoulder with a glance at his face.
He was as deep and still as he had been when I fell asleep, but the room was brighter — just past sunrise I guessed. A helicopter roared by the building.
“We need to take his vital signs, we’ll be busy for a few moments. Would you like to step into the hall?”
“I need to go to the bathroom, anyway.”
I climbed off the bed and padded across the room to the door and pushed through for the hallway.
In the bathroom I looked in every drawer for a toothbrush and toothpaste or any kind of makeup, with luck a hairbrush. What kind of place has a blow dryer but no hairbrush or toothbrush? I sighed, thanked the universe for the toilet paper, and apologized to the ether for complaining, because whoever stocked the bathroom with shampoo and soap was a literal angel. I left the bathroom.
The hallway was empty. The guards weren’t at Magnus’s door anymore. The doors stood wide open.
I raced into the room as the doctor, the nurses, and the guards were hurriedly wheeling Magnus on a gurney into another room. “Where are you taking him?”
A nurse said, “Mrs Campbell, his vitals have dropped; we’re taking him back to surgery. We’ll let you know as soon as we have information.” The doors began to slide closed behind them.
I slipped through the doors after them. “Excuse me — he had a thing once — his heart stopped, just be careful, he—”
They passed through another set of double doors.
I didn’t know if I was allowed to follow them or if I was allowed to wait here in someone’s office so I returned to Magnus’s room. Daylight streamed through the windows, yet outside still sounded like a war zone.
What if that was it?
What if that had been my last moment with Magnus? A loud explosion vibrated the glass, another helicopter hovered over the building, loud and terrifying.
I stood watching the door, waiting, chewing my lip, occasionally my fingernails.
* * *
The doors behind me slid open. Hammond rushed in with four men, weapons drawn. “Where’s Magnus?”
I pointed, because I lack
ed words.
Hammond barged through to the surgical room commanding, “We have to go, now!”
From somewhere in the building, gunfire, loud, close, possibly on the floor below. Footsteps in the hallway running by.
Suddenly Hammond rushed back through the doors, followed by the physician, two nurses, and the gurney with Magnus on it. A nurse was pulling a fluid bag from the stand and tossing it beside Magnus on the bed. I stepped back as they all rushed past me. Soldiers fell in around the gurney. Wires and tubing trailed behind them.
I jumped into action, picked up the wires, rolled them around my fist, and put them on the end of the bed while trying to keep pace. I held onto one of the corners as we all rushed following Hammond.
Dr Abercrombie said, “I can’t guarantee the king’s life if we leave the palace. He isn’t stabilized—”
Hammond reached the door and slammed it open. “We have to move him to safety, the palace is about to fall to the insurgents.”
Chapter 15
A large military helicopter waited for us with its rotor blades spinning — noisy, windy, and overwhelming. I had only been in a couple of helicopters, both times under extreme duress, and there was nothing now that made me want to go into it. Except Magnus being wheeled there.
The men slammed the gurney against the helicopter folding the front legs and sliding it across the floor. Two soldiers jumped in after it. The nurses and Dr Abercrombie climbed in and began buckling into seats.
I took the closest seat I could get — the one next to his legs. I buckled my seatbelt and wiggled my bare foot under his thigh. It felt crucial that I be touching him.
The helicopter lifted into the air with bumps and jolts. I gripped my seat.
The rooftop we just escaped was now swarming with soldiers. Loud gunfire aimed at our helicopter sent showers of sparks past the windows. Bullets hit the metal with a ting ting ting noise. A soldier beside me returned fire with loud continuous blasts and it was so fucking terrifying. I clamped my hands over my head and focused on the lump under the blankets that was Magnus’s knee.
Magnus and a Love Beyond Words Page 5