by Lynne Jonell
The rock, when they found it at last, looked just the same as it had five hundred years before. Will faced in the correct direction, took in a long breath, and began the careful, precise search for the time he wanted.
It wasn’t difficult, now that he wasn’t hiding from soldiers or afraid for his life. Will probed delicately, and after a minute, he gave a little grunt of satisfaction. There was Gormlaith’s track, faint but unmistakable, doubling back on itself. He allowed the shimmering window to open and turned his head slowly from side to side, scanning.
Jamie gave a little crow of excitement. “Look, there’s Gormly!”
It was Gormlaith, plunging down the hill toward the castle, ears flapping and paws thumping in the goofy, lolloping gallop that was all hers.
Will took in a breath. “All right, let’s go through.”
The children stepped into their own time, one after the other. Last of all came Will, his knees weak with relief. He had brought everyone safely home at last.
They collected Nan’s satchel and picked up the ancient Roman cloak pin to show to Nan’s father. At the bottom of the hill, Gormlaith sent up a sudden loud barking, and a plump figure came hurrying across the parking lot.
“That’s Mum!” Nan struggled out of the long Copper Age dress that covered her shorts and T-shirt, and ran down the hill.
“Why is Cousin Elspeth hurrying?” Jamie asked.
Will hesitated. “Maybe she has news.”
Jamie’s eyes flew open wide. “About Mom?” He bounded after Nan like a rabbit, in great leaping springs.
Will followed more slowly. And as he came closer, his footsteps dragged still more, for he saw that Cousin Elspeth was crying.
“Oh, Will!” she sobbed, enfolding him in her arms. “I just heard from your father, and—oh, children, your mother is all right, he’s got her, and they’ll be here the day after tomorrow!”
* * *
Supper was shepherd’s pie, and Will stuffed himself to the brim. Cousin Elspeth declared her intent of taking them someplace special the next day.
“You deserve a holiday,” she said, “and since tomorrow will be your last day before your parents come, I thought we could show you a bit more of Scotland. I’ll get Callum or some other lad to watch the desk at Castle Menzies. What would you like to do? Visit some ruins? Or, say, the Crannog Centre—it’s this marvelous hut built out over water, you know, showing what it was like in the Bronze Age, or even before—”
Will suppressed a shudder as a breeze from the open window wafted across his neck like a thin blade.
“Can we let you know, Mum?” Nan said hurriedly, after a glance at Will’s face. “Somehow I don’t think we’d fancy the Crannog Centre.”
“It’s wonderful history,” said her father reprovingly. “I wish you’d take more of an interest in that, Nan—there’s so much that’s happened in the past, right here on this land. For instance, take this fibula you dug up. It’s not just a piece of bent metal—it once held together a real cloak, worn by a real Roman centurion. If you use your imagination, you can almost see him!”
The Dimple flitted into Nan’s cheek. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I am interested in history. Mum, can you tell us what happened to Sir Robert Menzies after the Stewarts burned his castle? I saw—I mean, I was telling Will and Jamie about the fire, but I might have gotten some of the details wrong.”
Cousin Elspeth launched into a delighted—and lengthy—explanation. Jamie paid close attention at first but was yawning openly before she was done.
“So they held Sir Robert at Garth Castle?” asked Will, who had followed her narrative closely. “Did they ever let him go?”
“Yes, but not until they had starved and mistreated him, and made him sign a ‘paper of forgiveness’ so he wouldn’t try to get revenge on them for burning his castle.”
“Did the Stewarts burn the church?” Will asked.
“Oh yes, the kirk and the whole town of Weem.”
Will toyed with his fork, making patterns in his mashed potatoes. “Was Sir Robert the only one that the Stewarts put in their dungeon? I mean, did they take anyone else in the family, like—oh, I don’t know, maybe a nephew?”
Jamie stopped yawning.
“History doesn’t say,” said Cousin Elspeth briskly. “Sir Robert seems to have been the only one released, at any rate.”
“Oh,” said Jamie.
“I wonder if we could see Garth Castle tomorrow?” Will said suddenly.
* * *
“It’s going to be dangerous,” said Nan. “Don’t pretend it’s not.”
“I’m not pretending anything.” Will paced the floor in Nan’s room, then stared out the window into darkness. “But we can’t leave him there. He’s just a little kid.”
“Who?” said Jamie from the door, wide-eyed.
Will frowned. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
Jamie bounced onto Nan’s bed and showed every evidence of staying. “Are you talking about Sir Robert’s real nephew? The one they thought was me?”
Nan twisted a lock of reddish gold hair around her finger and then untwined it again. “I don’t think we should do it.”
“You were the one telling me not to be a chicken before!” Will’s neck grew hot.
“I know. But we keep getting in trouble when we go back in time! And it just gets harder and harder to get home again!” Nan’s chin turned square, and the Dimple was nowhere to be seen. “Only I think we should let someone else rescue him, that’s all.”
“Who else even knows he’s at Garth Castle? Everybody thought Jamie was the real nephew, for a whole year. Nobody was looking for the real James, and the Stewarts kept him all that time—I heard Neil Gointe Stewart say it.”
“Well, someone must have found out where he is by now,” Nan said stubbornly. “Didn’t you say he was in the dungeon with Sir Robert? Sir Robert will know.”
Will leaned against the windowsill and folded his arms. “They might be in different cells. Anyway, you don’t have to come with me.”
Nan made an exasperated noise. “What makes you so brave all of a sudden? I mean, we just found out your mum’s okay, so now you’re going to go get lost or maybe even killed? There are Stewarts back in that time, remember?”
“Stewarts?” Jamie whispered.
“The same ones who burned Castle Menzies,” Nan said mercilessly.
Jamie butted his head against his brother’s side. “Don’t go,” he begged.
Will bit his lip.
“Please don’t go,” Nan echoed.
“Your mom’s already set it up for tomorrow,” Will said slowly. It had taken several phone calls and a bit of arm-twisting for Cousin Elspeth to make the arrangements for them to visit Garth Castle. He didn’t want to tell her it had all been for nothing.
“We can still go to see Garth Castle. We just don’t have to go back in time to find a kid who’s been dead a long time already.” Nan tossed back her hair and stood up, taking Jamie by the hand. “Sorry if that seems harsh, but I think your first job is to make sure you and Jamie are here, and safe, when your parents come.”
Nan was right, Will thought later as he lay awake in the darkness. His first duty was to his own family. His father had trusted him to take care of Jamie, after all.
But the thought of Sir Robert’s little nephew wouldn’t leave him.
* * *
On the way to Garth Castle, they stopped at Castle Menzies to drop off Gormlaith. “She won’t be allowed at Garth Castle,” Cousin Elspeth explained, “and Callum doesn’t mind having her here. I’ll be just a minute.”
The children got out to stretch their legs. Cousin Ewen stayed in the car, reading the paper.
Will turned around slowly, taking in the castle, the hill, the woods, the fields, and the castle again. It was hard to believe everything that had happened in this place. He remembered the flames licking from the windows the night Sir Robert had been kidnapped and wondered suddenly if Ranald had survi
ved.
Nan moved close to him. “You’re going to stay with us, right? Because if you try to go back in time, I’m going to scream or something.”
Will jammed his hands in his pockets. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“You can’t go,” Nan said earnestly. “We can’t keep messing about in time. Sooner or later, something really big is going to change. I mean, look what happened with Nurth!”
“What? We saved a kid’s life!”
“Yes, I know,” said Nan, “but think about it. Somebody didn’t die who was going to die, and maybe when he grew up he had kids and they weren’t supposed to exist, either. All those extra people had to change what happened, later on.”
“So what did you want us to do?” Will demanded. “Let Nurth get murdered?”
“No…” Nan picked at a bit of skin on her thumb.
“Anyway, I haven’t noticed any big changes,” Will said.
“But we wouldn’t notice, would we?” Nan shot back. “We would think everything was the same as always, because that’s how we would remember it—oh, I can’t explain it, but what if some people weren’t even born just because we went back? What if we ended up actually doing harm while we were saving Nurth?”
Will stared at the castle stones, one on top of the other, and tipped his head back, following the blocks all the way up to the sky. “It’s the same as now, though, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Every single thing we do now affects what’s going to happen next. We can’t stop doing stuff just because we’re afraid of the future. We just have to pick, you know? We have to do the best we can, in the time we’re in.” He gazed at the blue-and-white flag of Scotland flapping briskly at the top of the castle, and suddenly realized he had already made his decision. “I’m going back.”
“But how are you so sure it’s the right thing to do?” Nan demanded.
“I don’t know.” Will frowned. “I was the one who heard where they were taking James—I mean the real nephew. So that makes me responsible.”
“You’re not responsible,” Nan said furiously. “The Stewarts were!”
“I hate the Stewarts,” said Jamie, coming up suddenly.
Cousin Ewen had gotten out of the car and was following. “Why is that, then?”
“He means Neil Gointe Stewart,” Nan said. “The one who burned the castle. Jamie doesn’t like him.”
Cousin Ewen grinned. “So you were listening to Elspeth’s history lecture last night!” He ruffled Jamie’s hair. “Ah, lad, don’t tar all Stewarts with the same brush. Neil Gointe Stewart was a nasty piece of work, I admit, but there are plenty of good people among the Stewarts. In fact, you probably have a bit of Stewart blood yourself. See?” He pointed to the heraldic panel over the ancient castle door. “There’s the joined coat of arms—the Menzies and the Stewarts, together. That was put up after they rebuilt the castle, when a Menzies laird married a bonnie Stewart lassie named Barbara.”
“So there was forgiveness?” said Will slowly.
“Enough, anyway, to be going on with,” Cousin Ewen said cheerfully. “Neil Stewart came to a bad end, of course, but the Stewarts who came after him were better.”
Jamie pointed to the motto inscribed above the coat of arms. “What’s that word—Vil?”
“Vil God I Sal,” said Cousin Ewen. “It’s the old spelling for the Menzies motto, ‘Will God, I Shall.’ It means that, with God’s help, the Menzies can tackle anything that needs doing, and do it no matter what.”
Will was silent.
“Whoever wrote that spells like I do!” Jamie said brightly.
“Come on, if you’re coming!” Cousin Elspeth called, appearing from the castle door, and in a moment, they were in the car and rumbling off over the narrow road to Garth Castle.
14
GARTH CASTLE
GARTH CASTLE WAS A PLAIN, square tower, much smaller than Castle Menzies, and as Will followed the caretaker up the long, straight stairs, he wondered if Neil Gointe Stewart had been jealous.
Suddenly he thought of something. “Time Sight might not work here, anyway,” he whispered to Nan. “We’re not on Menzies lands anymore!”
Nan rolled her eyes wearily. “Actually, we probably are. The boundaries in the Highlands shifted, my dad says—the clans kept fighting back and forth over lands—and we’re only about five miles from Castle Menzies. I’m pretty sure our ancestors lived on this land, too, some time or the other.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Will muttered.
They emerged at the top of the tower into the shifting light of a half-cloudy day. Will walked to the edge and looked down. His stomach gave a sudden turn. Far, far below was a stream—no, a burn—noisy with water and full of rocks.
“It’s a long way down, isn’t it?” The caretaker leaned his elbows on the parapet. “The laird who built this castle used to tie people up and throw them off when they displeased him. The Wolf, he was called.”
“Not—Neil Gointe Stewart?” Nan asked in a small voice.
“Eh? Nay, the Wolf was Neil Gointe’s great-great-great-granddad, or something like that. But I hear as Neil Gointe was near as bad. He murdered his own wife as she was strolling down by the burn. Dropped a rock on her head, he did—or paid to have it done.”
Jamie’s cold fingers stole into Will’s. “Let’s go down,” he urged.
* * *
They were in the dungeon. The owners of Garth Castle had turned it into a wine cellar, but the stone walls were still there, rough and stained, and even in summer the stone floor breathed cold.
It was the last part of their tour. The caretaker had shown them around the whole castle, and there had been a few snatched moments when Will had told Nan his plan. She had argued, and reasoned, and finally agreed to help him. Now she was using her persuasive powers—and the Dimple, of course—to get the grown-ups to leave them alone in the dungeon.
“For the experience, see?” she said, tilting her head adorably. “You told us we should use our imaginations with history, Dad. And we want to imagine what it must have been like, to be locked up here so long ago.…”
The adults exchanged indulgent smiles. “All right,” said the caretaker, “but don’t touch the wine bottles, and climb back up as soon as you get bored. That won’t be long,” he added in an aside to Nan’s parents.
“I want to stay, too,” said Jamie.
“Are you sure?” Cousin Elspeth smoothed his hair. “It’s cold down here, and there isn’t much light. You might get frightened.”
Jamie held up the Highlander toy, grubby beyond all recognition. “Vil God I Sal,” he said.
Cousin Ewen chuckled. “He’s a Menzies to the bone. Come, Elspeth, let’s leave our budding historians to soak up the atmosphere.”
The door at the top of the stairs shut with a hollow boom. Will backed up to a corner, away from the wine racks. “Stand against the wall—there isn’t much room, and we don’t want to get stepped on. Nan, warn me if you hear your parents coming.”
Will stared into the middle of the room with unfocused eyes. “I’m going to try to find the time when they let Sir Robert out,” he said quietly, as the air before him began its familiar shimmer.
“Why then?” asked Nan.
“Then we can see if they let out the nephew at the same time,” Will answered. “We might not need to rescue him at all. Quiet, now—give me a second.”
In fact it took almost two minutes of careful probing. Will went back first to the time of the fire—he couldn’t go beyond that; it turned gray on him—and then he pressed forward in time until he sensed the disturbance when Sir Robert was brought into the dungeon, a prisoner. He inched ahead—it felt like months, not years—until he felt Sir Robert’s presence leaving the dungeon. Then he went back just a hair. There, that was as close as he could come.
Carefully, quietly, he opened the time window. Nan and Jamie crowded close over his shoulder to peer through.
Before them w
as a vaulted space that had been closed off by a wooden door. The only light came from an arrow slit, high above. A shadowy form hunched in the corner; a bucket gave off a foul smell. A thin beam of flickering light shone into the cell through a grated window in an iron-studded door.
The shadowy figure moved, and the light fell on a gaunt face, deeply lined.
Jamie gasped. “Sir Robert!” he cried.
It was Sir Robert, looking sick with misery and far thinner than a grown man should be. Will felt a pang, remembering the bright-eyed, laughing boy who had run down the path to sword practice.
Nan grabbed Jamie’s collar with her free hand. “Don’t go through. Just watch. He can’t hear you if we’re on this side of the window.”
“But they’re starving him,” Jamie said, his voice trembling.
There was a sound of footsteps. Sir Robert’s eyes flickered, and he turned his head. Then he rose, straightening his shoulders. A panel in the door slid across, and a man’s hairy face showed briefly, peering in.
The heavy door opened with a creaking of hinges. Armed men appeared; a small, narrow-lipped man with a squint was at their head.
Jamie pressed closer to Will’s side.
Sir Robert, a look of deep disdain on his face, reached into his sleeve and pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment. Neil Gointe Stewart took it with a thin, malicious smile, unrolled it, and ran his finger down the lines. His smile stretched wider, showing his teeth. “How pleasant that you’ve decided to be reasonable.”
Sir Robert said nothing.
“It’s too bad you’re not reasonable enough to ransom your little nephew, though,” Neil Stewart added, tapping his fingers together.
Sir Robert snorted. “You sent your first ransom demand over a year ago, telling me you held the boy captive. And all the time he was safe in my castle! You will have to find someone else more simple than I, to pay you. I am not so great a fool.”