by Karen Ranney
She sat opposite the wise woman, taking a piece of warm bread when the plate was held out to her.
“I am a witch, aren’t I?” she asked. The words were whispered, as if she could not bear to speak them aloud. She did not look at Hannah. If she did, the wise woman would see tears in her eyes, and a Sinclair did not weep in front of a stranger. “I cannot be a good one. I can’t see the future like you. I know no spells.” She traced a finger along the scarred wooden tabletop. “Is there no tea I could drink, no herbs I might take? Are there no words you could say over me to take this away?”
“I am no witch, Anne,” Hannah said, her voice kind.
Anne glanced up at her, blinking rapidly.
“Young women come to me to have their futures told, and I speak the words they want to hear. In truth, their destinies are their own. But I cannot tell the future and I have no potions.”
Hannah placed her hand on Anne’s. “I don’t think you’re a witch, Anne Sinclair. If you were a witch, there would be other signs. What have you done that harmed another?”
“I lost the brooch my mother gave me,” Anne confessed, staring down at the table.
“That is carelessness, not rancor,” Hannah said with a kind smile. “Who have you bedeviled?”
Anne thought of Ian and his taunts. If she were truly a witch, she might have silenced him. Turned him into a spider, just like the ones he liked to throw at her.
She shook her head. “But Ian says there are witch finders about,” Anne whispered.
“Not at Dunniwerth, Anne Sinclair.”
She nodded. That much was true.
Hannah reached out and tipped her chin up. She blinked, but then forced herself to meet the wise woman’s eyes. “You are not a witch, Anne. Do you believe me?”
She wasn’t completely sure that she did. But she’d been raised to respect her elders, to listen to their words and heed their instructions. So she nodded her head and made herself smile.
Chapter 1
Dunniwerth Castle, Scotland
March, 1644
Anne tied the rope to the post erected for just such a purpose, then reached into the bottom of the boat for her basket.
She and Hannah had become friends in the fifteen years since a frightened child had gathered her courage and ignored myth, legend and the dictates of a father she adored.
As Anne had feared, her original journey across the loch had been discovered. Her father had, surprisingly, not prevented her visits to the wise woman. However, he had insisted that she learn to swim the loch, and be taught in the proper manner of rowing the small skiff.
Anne took her short cut through the trees, glancing at the odd circular building in the clearing as she did so. She’d discovered it on her third visit to the island. Once a year she and Hannah tended to this place, removing the weeds, straightening the stones that lay in front of the building. It seemed the proper thing to do. The small structure with its arched doorway and elaborately carved keystone looked to have once been a chapel. And the gravestones were sad markers that turned the clearing into a place of reverence.
Anne stepped through the opening in the scraggly bushes, past the large stone in the shape of a boot. Still further up a small incline, and she was there, the path to Hannah’s door more worn but just as inviting as it had been all those many years before.
“You are late,” Hannah said as she entered, her smile taking the sting from her words.
“You say that every time I come,” Anne said, placing her basket on the table. “Just as I refute it.”
“I am older than you. You are supposed to give me respect, not arguments.”
Anne smiled at her friend. This, too, was a constant complaint. “You would dislike it if I conceded every point to you, Hannah. You would then have no one with whom to debate.”
Hannah laughed, the gentle sound of it cascading through the cottage.
“You know me too well, Anne.”
Anne smiled, placed her basket on the table. “I have the flour you wished, Hannah, and a bit of honey from the cook. She says that she will take a few of your candles in trade.”
“Will she?” A raised eyebrow accompanied the remark.
“You know, of course, that she sells them,” Anne said, glancing at her friend. The years had been kind to Hannah. There were few white strands among her blond hair, and her face showed its lines only in the bright sunlight. At this moment, however, there was a furrow on her forehead. A precursor to irritation. She’d been the brunt of it too many times as a child not to know the sign.
Hannah nodded. “I’ve heard as much.”
“Why, then, do you not confront her?”
“There are some situations that are better left alone, Anne.”
“Because you never come to Dunniwerth?”
Hannah glanced at her. It was a subject rarely raised between them. Anne’s curiosity occasionally bubbled beneath good manners and the empathy she felt for the older woman. Even as a child she’d known that there were some topics that made Hannah uncomfortable. Today, however, the answer was important. Not solely because of a cook with trickery on her mind.
“Your loyalty to me is admirable, Anne. But it is a trifling matter.” Hannah turned away, busied herself with checking the rising of her dough.
Anne said nothing, only stared down at the surface of the table. The wood was scarred, and a few marks had been caused by her own youthful exuberance.
She walked to the lone window in the cottage, looked out over the clearing. It was a peaceful place, this glade. A friendly place to spend a life. Still, she could not help but wonder if it had been enough. But that was not a question she could ask. Instead, she spoke of other things, circling the true reason for this visit for a few moments.
“I saw him again last night,” she said. Her voice did not betray how deeply the vision had moved her. She stood still and waited, however, for Hannah’s words.
“Your Stephen?”
Anne nodded.
“It has been a while since the last time. I had hoped he would be gone for good.”
Anne glanced over her shoulder. Hannah was looking at her, the frown hinted at now fixed in place.
“I remember when you were a child and terrified of him. When did it change?”
“I was never terrified of Stephen, Hannah,” she said with a smile. “Only of what was happening to me.” She’d seen him often enough over the years, a friend who’d visited her in the moment just before sleep.
Anne stared out at the view before her. A clearing, a small knoll of land surrounded by large trees. The day was chilly, spring was on the horizon but not yet here. There had been fog upon the loch this morning. Some days it wreathed the small cottage in a cloudlike miasma. She held her hands tight at her waist.
It might have been easier to have been granted the ability to hear thoughts or predict the future. She might have turned her skills to warning people of their fate, to issuing cautions. A child birth could be predicted, a marriage foretold, a crop saved. But what she saw was of no use to anyone.
Her visions were like looking through a window just as she did now. Only this view was of Stephen living his life. She could not choose what scenes she might see. Nor had she any knowledge of when the window might open. At times she yearned to see him. But the visions came when they willed, not when she wished.
She’d been captivated by the small glimpses into a life so alien from her own. He lived in a castle so unlike Dunniwerth that it had enchanted her. Langlinais. Even the sound of it seemed exotic. She had watched him racing over the hills on his black stallion and seen him in quiet times when he sat and sketched the castle. She had even seen London through his eyes and felt his wonder at seeing the port so filled with ships.
Hannah spoke from behind her. “Pay attention to those men who pay court to you, Anne, not someone in your mind.”
The words were like small pinpricks. Little wounds that Anne ignored. They had been said too many times.
“Sentiments that echo my mother’s words, Hannah. Is this mania to get me wed because my birthday will be soon?”
“You are three and twenty. It is time.”
Anne nodded. Another statement she’d heard often in the last few months. Not one of the various suitors her parents had suggested to her was without charm. Each was possessed of some attribute, some quality that made him acceptable. None of them drank to excess. Each came from good family. They were all able to provide for her and any children who would be born to them. But they did not have eyes the shade of midnight. Or a face so strong and vital that she recalled it even in her dreams.
“Have you ever wanted something so much, Hannah, that you would have given everything you owned for it?”
“What would you wish for, Anne Sinclair, that you are not provided?”
To touch him.
Last night’s vision had been the strongest of all. Stephen had stood in a tunnel of darkness, shadows of gray and black swirling around him. His hand had been outstretched as if, after all these years, he could finally see her. He seemed to implore her. He spoke, but his words were snatched away by gusts of angry wind. She had stretched out her own hand until she thought their fingers might touch. But instead of coming closer, Anne felt as if she were moving farther and farther away from him. He then looked beyond her and she became frightened by the look in his eyes. She did not have the courage to turn and look at what was behind her. Disaster? Death itself? Anne only knew that she had stood between Stephen and this terrible thing. But whatever it had been, it frightened her and made her fear for him.
Instead of answering her, Anne asked her own question. “Have you never wanted to leave the island, Hannah?”
The silence in the small cottage had a sound all its own. Not unlike a bell whose peal deadened all other noise.
“I leave it often enough.”
“Once or twice a year. No more.”
“Why do you ask that of me, Anne?”
She turned, faced Hannah resolutely. “Because I want you to come with me.”
“Where?” Hannah came and stood beside Anne. The question was spoken, but the knowledge was already there on the older woman’s face. An odd destination, one of heart more than of place.
“You do not even know if he’s real,” she said incredulously.
“He is real, Hannah.”
“Because you wish him to be? The world would be a fine place if all our wishes would come true, Anne. But it does not happen.” Hannah’s face seemed to change. The anger vanished and in its place was a look of sadness before it, too, was gone.
“Have you not the sense God gave a gnat? A journey with no destination? Instead of being afraid you were a witch, you should have feared becoming a fool.”
“Would you have me remain here all the rest of my life, Hannah? Without knowing if he was real or not?”
“Yes,” Hannah said bluntly.
Anne smiled. “Give me a week, Hannah. That is all I ask. One week from my life. If I do not find him, then I’ll return to Dunniwerth and be the meek woman you wish of me.”
“You’ve never been meek a day of your life, Anne Sinclair,” Hannah said wryly. “The idea is madness, Anne.”
“No,” Anne said softly. “The madness would be in not heeding this feeling.” She turned away, faced the window again. “I can feel him, Hannah.” She placed her clenched fist in the middle of her chest. “As if the spirit of him lives in me as well as in his soul. Don’t tell me he’s not real. Or that this longing I feel is only a dream.”
He calls to me. Even now, as she stood in Hannah’s cottage, it was as if she could hear him. A voice without sound. Words without speech. A longing so strong that she could not deny it. It was instinct and craving and something even more earthy and elemental. How did she explain it? Perhaps she could not.
She could not tell anyone what she felt at this moment. Not even Hannah. Perhaps she didn’t know the right words. Or they’d never been crafted. She was afraid and confident. Confused and certain. Extremes. That’s how she measured this feeling.
She turned. “Come with me, Hannah.”
“Or else you will do this thing alone?”
“I am not that foolish, Hannah.”
“But you will convince someone else,” she said dryly. “Who will explain this idiocy to your parents?”
“What could I say, Hannah? That I’ve held this from them all my life? Their hurt would vie with their disbelief.”
“Where will you go? How would you find this man who does not exist?”
“He exists,” Anne said, closing her eyes as if she saw the route in her mind. “Three days ride due south. A road veers beside a deserted abbey, and there we need to head west.”
“A vision, Anne?”
She blinked open her eyes. “Directions, Hannah.”
By the look on her face, it was clear that she had startled the older woman. “There are not that many places named Langlinais. One of the peddlers I spoke to thinks he knows it.”
Hannah pursed her lips, frowned again. Then she nodded once, a sharp jab of chin. Concession, then, in a gesture.
Chapter 2
Anne thought that the only jarring note to their journey was the ease with which it was accomplished. Her parents had departed two days earlier for Edinburgh. It was a coincidence of timing due more to her father’s wish to sign the Solemn League and Covenant than to happenstance. But to Anne it was as unexpected as it was blessed. It made their own departure from Dunniwerth one performed without explanations.
They wound their way south from Dunniwerth. A strange procession comprised of herself, Hannah and Ian, the tormenter of her childhood now grown and one of her father’s most trusted soldiers. Douglas, a sweet young man of slow wits and amiable disposition, made the fourth.
Hannah lost no opportunity to voice her displeasure of this quest. Ian seconded each complaint. He’d refused to accompany her at first, had agreed to do so only afer she’d made it clear that she would continue her journey with or without him.
“Tell me why you’re set to go to England, at least,” he’d said.
She’d studied him for a long moment, wondering if he would understand something so fey as her visions, her dreams of Stephen. Or would he ridicule her just as he had when they were children? She’d said nothing, remaining silent even in the face of his obvious disapproval.
Anne felt suspended in time as the days passed, neither wishing to go back, but almost afraid to reach their destination.
What would she say to Stephen when she found him? I have seen you since you were a boy. Do you remember the time you raced over the meadow? Your horse threw you, and you lay there for the longest time. I was afraid you were dead. But then you began to laugh, arms and legs flung out on the grass, your face lifted to the sun.
A hundred memories. She’d become accustomed to his presence in her life. A nightly ritual. Washing her face and hands, kneeling for her prayers, scrambling in between the sheets and waiting until sleep came. At that moment before dreams, murmuring his name. A blessing or perhaps a summons. It did not often happen, but when the visions came, when she saw him, she smiled her way into her dreams.
She was a Sinclair, and Sinclairs were always brave. A family motto if not a clan’s. She would need her courage. Not only if she did find him, but more importantly if she did not.
You do not even know if he’s real. Hannah’s words. The only rebuttal? The image of Stephen laughing at something hidden from her. The sight of him standing so straight and tall atop the tower, staring into the distance as if he could see his future there and anticipated it. A hidden fist clenched as he endured his father’s harsh words. She’d watched as he sat intent upon his studies and other times when he’d laughed with abandon.
Could she have simply wanted him to be real so much that she had imagined him? No.
As an only child, sometimes she had been lonely. Her free hours had been spent in drawing and imagining. She was, upon occ
asion, even known to talk to Stephen as if he were a playmate she’d devised for herself. There were nights when she’d begged for another story from Gordon, who was talented in such things. She had sat there captivated by heroes and mystics, curses and prophecies.
She could not deny that she had been a child immersed, sometimes, in a world of her own creating. Even her sketches mirrored her love of fantasy.
But she had not imagined Stephen. Not a boy with midnight blue eyes and a dimple on his left cheek. Not a man with a tiny scar near his right eye.
If she had dreamed him, she would have made him less sober these last years. Given him a smile that came more often. She would have given him back the laughter he seemed to have lost in his childhood.
He was real. He had to be. And somehow she needed to find him.
It was not fancy that sent her on this journey. Nor boredom. She had been to Edinburgh twice, and the discomfort of the journey had not endeared travel to her. The feeling she experienced now was something she did not quite understand. It was as if she were being driven to do it and had no choice. The yearning within her was so strong that it felt elemental. As natural as birds flying south or the first flowers of spring popping up beneath the icy crust of earth. A quest that she could not help but perform.
Even Hannah had understood how important this journey was to her. She would have, if she had not found someone to accompany her, traveled on her own. An act of madness, perhaps.
Was she mad? Or simply in the thrall of something she didn’t understand? She would know the answer to that question when she found him. And if she didn’t.
There were fifty of them. All united under one goal, to move and protect the artillery that lumbered behind the Parliamentarian army commanded by General Thomas Penroth.
Their posts of guarding the six cannon had been awarded to them for the reason that they were exemplary soldiers. Not one of them had ever been disciplined. They obeyed orders to the letter. But more importantly, they believed in their cause. They were dedicated to the goal of removing the king from power.