by Amy Jarecki
“Ah.” Sir Douglas shifted his eyes side to side, then smacked his lips. “Do ye have that tall redheaded lassie hidden away in your tent? As I recall, I didna have an opportunity to show her how the gentry does it.”
Before he blinked, William had the bastard in a neck hold with his dirk leveled at Douglas’ throat.
Around them, the Douglas men drew their swords, met immediately with battleax and pike from the Wallace army.
William pressed his lips against the insolent hog’s temple. “Dunna ever say an ill word against my woman. And ye’ll nay forget she’s as highborn as ye are.”
The bastard tried to struggle, but his smaller frame was no match for Wallace. “I was jesting ye enormous, goat-brained brute.”
“I’ll not stand for Scotsmen fighting Scotsmen.” William pushed the sharp blade into Douglas’ flesh, drawing a stream of blood. “Tell your men to sheathe their weapons, else I’ll end this right here and now.”
Sucking in his spittle, Sir Douglas raised his chin a wee bit. “Stand down.”
William didn’t release his grip until every last weapon had been sheathed. Then he shoved Sir Douglas into the crowd while his gaze darted to Sir Home. “I’ll not tolerate your petty feuds. Backstabbing is part of what led us into this mess, and ye’ll stand together and fight like true Scotsmen, else I’ll send ye home to your mas right now.”
Sir Douglas swiped his hand across the blood trickling down his throat. “I come to kill the English bastards and no one will stop me, not even ye, Goliath.”
Smirking, William took the jab as a compliment. “If ye dunna follow orders, I will stop ye, and I can.” He again looked to Sir Home. “What say ye? Can ye fight beside Sir Douglas and his men?”
Sir Home used his fingers to dab a gash just below his lower lip. “Scotland until Judgement. On that I give my solemn pledge.”
William’s gaze shot to Sir Douglas. The man brushed off his mail and gave him a nod. “Agreed. Until Judgement.” He scowled at Sir Home. “But when the war is over, we’ll have a reckoning.”
Stepping between the two, Wallace planted his fists on his hips. “I’ll hold ye to your word, and ye’ll fight alongside each other and all soldiers present on the morrow.”
A soft whistle came from the top of the gully. It was too dark to see who approached, but William recognized the sound. Eddy Little had returned from his reconnaissance. The rustle of rocks and leaves tumbled down the slope as he neared.
Eddy bounded into view. Leaning forward he rested his hands on his knees and drew in deep breaths. “They’re waiting for us—soldiers are camped in a perimeter around Berwick Castle.”
“We have them right where we want them,” Douglas said.
William narrowed his eyes. “How many?”
“Three thousand at the least.” Eddy chuckled. “And they’re flying Cospatrick’s pennant.”
***
William sat up panting, his heart hammering. “Eva?” he called out, wiping the sweat from his brow.
His hand trembled as he ran his palm over the place beside him where she usually slept, only to be met with chilly earth. But the dream had been so real. As clear as the birds outside the tent, he’d heard her crying, felt her trying to reach out him.
He scrubbed his hands over his face and groaned. Eva was out there somewhere, desperately trying to come back to him. If only I could do something to help her. God in heaven, I miss that redheaded vixen.
The tent flap opened and Robbie poked his dirt-smudged face inside. “Are ye ready for a battle, Willy?”
William tossed aside his plaid. “Och aye. I need something to stop this miserable ache in my chest.”
“Pining for Miss Eva, are ye?”
The sound of her name made William shiver. “Silence your gob. She’s left us and there’s naught we can do about it.”
“Where did she off to?”
William gave the lad a stern look.
“I ken ye said not to talk about it, but I miss her, too. She was the closest thing to a mother I ever had.” The lad’s eyes turned watery and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Bless it, Willy, if ye tell me where she is, I’ll fetch her. She loves ye, even if ye did something to make her madder than a hive of stinging bees, I ken she’ll come back.”
The boy’s face turned bright red and William pulled him down beside him on his pallet. “It isna that easy. Miss Eva had to go. She didna want to, but she had no choice.”
“But where?” Robbie persisted.
“Far. Over the sea.”
“The Holy Land?”
William’s tongue went dry. “Near enough.” It was no use trying to tell the lad what had really happened. Robbie was old enough to know vanishing into thin air was only achieved through the powers of dark sorcery. William wanted no one to think ill of Eva or to deem her a master of the black arts. What if she did come back? No, it was best if everyone thought her off on a long voyage from which she may never return.
Robbie shoved the heels of his hands against his temples. “Why would she leave without saying goodbye?”
William ground his knuckles into the lad’s mop of sandy hair. “I wish I knew, but we canna muddle our minds with woeful thoughts about a lass. We’ve a battle to fight and we must harden our hearts to face our foe.”
“Will ye let me ride with the cavalry?”
“Ye ken ye canna. When your beard grows in and your bones grow strong enough to wield a great sword like mine, I’ll be proud to have ye fight beside me.”
Robbie’s shoulders dropped. “But that will take forever.”
“Ye’ll reach your majority afore ye ken.” William shoved the lad to his feet. “Help me don my armor and then tend the oxen with Brother Bartholomew. There’ll be wounded for certain and ye’ll be of more use helping them than becoming one of the poor souls bleeding on the battlefield.”
Chapter Thirteen
Eva’s eyes flew open when she heard him call her name. Heart flying to her throat, she jumped to her feet and turned on the bedside light. Blinking rapidly, her gaze darted across Walter’s small guest room. “William?”
Holding her breath, she listened.
Nothing.
She dropped to her knees and looked under the bed.
Finding only dust, she coughed. With a harrumph, she tugged up her pajama pants, strode to the window and opened the roll-up blind. Raindrops pattered against the pane which overlooked a deserted close. Heavy clouds loomed above and the inky black sky threw shadows in every crevice. With the heavens giving no hint of the time, she retrieved her cell phone from the bedside table: 4:44 a.m., the exact time she used to wake when suffering nightmares about Steven’s murder.
Eva’s entire body shuddered. Though her head told her Walter made sense…it was over, she wasn’t ready to walk away. While with William, she’d gathered a ton of information, and even without the pages upon pages of vellum she’d scribed, she could still write one helluva series of articles. But this wasn’t how it was supposed to end. In a blink, she’d just disappeared. There was no closure, no lingering hugs, no sharing of tears, no goodbye kiss.
It can’t be over.
She tugged the medallion from beneath her sweatshirt and smoothed her thumb over the Latin inscription. “Now I’m hearing his voice? Why in God’s name are you messing with me? By now, you should know I pose no threat to the past. I’ve honored the single rule.” She whipped the medallion over her head and threw it on the bed. “But it seems as though you have a lot more secretive unwritten covenants than that.”
With a groan she slammed her fist into the mattress. She’d spent the past three days frantically staring at the computer screen, researching time travel. She’d hardly slept. Worse, for all her efforts, she’d come up with nothing and with her every inhale, it became harder and harder to breathe. William Wallace was her soulmate. She couldn’t make sense of it—she hadn’t even tried, but in a few short months, Eva had grown closer to William than she ever had to St
even.
Heaven help her, the memory of her first husband was fading.
Climbing onto the miserable bed, she propped herself against the headboard and opened her laptop. She’d read Physics article after article and they all rambled about the same theories quoting traveling faster than light, worm holes, bending space. Eva hated Physics and after three days of research, she’d arrived at one conclusion. Nothing existed online about the medallion or how it worked or if there was a little man somewhere up on the moon who watched her every move and decided what century she would be in today.
While her computer booted, she reached for the medallion and studied it in the bedside light. Nope, no trace of a recording device of any sort. After another groan, she put the miserable thing back over her head. God forbid, it change its mind and decide to send her back to William.
The bronze flickered in the mirror before it dropped to her chest.
C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe came to mind.
Setting her laptop aside, she crawled off the bed and stood in front of the wardrobe. Made of walnut, it looked like an antique with double doors and an oval ornamental relief at the top. Though she hadn’t unpacked her suitcase, she had opened the door the first day to hang up her thirteenth-century gown. Nothing seemed untoward then.
Her palm perspired when she reached out and grasped the brass pendulum handle. The door stuck at first, but with a tug, she opened it about six inches. Peering inside, she couldn’t see a thing. The hinges creaked when she pulled the doors wide. Her gown and shift were the only garments hanging inside. On the left was a banker’s box. The type she used to store past documents like tax returns. Jeez, she definitely didn’t want to meddle into Walter’s taxes.
A manila folder stuck out beneath the box. She started to close the doors, when the tab of that folder caught her eye. The words “time travel” were written in block letters.
Sucking in a gasp, Eva bit her thumbnail and looked at the door. No noises had come from Walter’s room, nor had he clomped down the hallway. What harm would there be in taking a peek at his notes?
She bent down and slowly pulled the file from under the box, trying not to make any noise. With a tug, the folder slipped free. She closed the wardrobe and resumed her seat against the headboard. Leafing through the file, she found pages of handwritten notes.
The professor’s handwriting was pretty sloppy, but if she could decipher Auld Scots without spelling convention, this ought to be a breeze. It started out yammering about the same theoretical, unproven, untried scientific stuff she’d found on the internet. Still, Eva read every word, praying she’d find a nugget—the slightest hint to lead her in a new direction.
It wasn’t until she reached page twenty that she stopped and re-read the title he’d written on that page. “Psychic Traveling.”
Only an hour-and-a-half ago, she’d awakened when she’d heard William call her name. Was his voice a form of psychic time travel? It had seemed so real. At this stage, she’d grasp threads. Indeed, she’d grasp anything to move forward.
It’s not over. I heard him. I know I did.
For another ten pages, she read about out of body experiences and self-hypnotism where people sent their minds to foreign places. But the professor’s scratchings were so damned vague.
The floor creaked in the room across the hall, followed by footsteps.
Walter was up.
Eva pored over the next several pages while listening for him to walk down the hallway to the kitchen.
The man must have spent an hour in the bathroom, because by the time his loafers clomped down the wooden floorboards, she’d finished reading.
Eva neatly placed the papers back into the folder and carried them out to the kitchen. Walter stood with his back to her, ladling a teaspoon of instant coffee into a mug. “Good morning.” He didn’t turn around.
“Hi.”
He held up the jar of Nescafé. “You want a cup?”
“No thanks. I kicked my caffeine habit a few months ago. May as well not take it up now—the withdrawals aren’t worth it.” Though Eva might enjoy a tall, decaf, nonfat latte if there were an espresso machine nearby. She placed the folder on the counter and leaned against it.
“Suit yourself.” The electric kettle rumbled to a boil and clicked off. After adding water and stirring, he faced her. “How’s the flat hunting going?”
“It’s going.” Having done absolutely nothing to look for a place to live, her gaze trailed aside. “I’ll be out of your hair by the end of the week. How’s that?”
He shrugged. “Well, it’s time you picked up the pieces and returned to your life in this century. What about applying for a job at the Herald or the Daily Times? You may not need the money, but a job is a start—you’d meet people, you ken—start to assimilate.”
She shook her head. “Probably a good idea.” But she didn’t believe it for a minute. Her fingers wandered over and grasped the folder. “What can you tell me about psychic time travel?”
Color spread up his cheeks. “Found my notes, did you?”
“They were in the wardrobe.”
He opened the cupboard and pulled out a box of Weetabix. “You want some?”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve tried it some.” After retrieving two bowls, he added two biscuits in each. “Would you mind handing me the milk?”
Eva opened the fridge. “Did you have any success?”
“A bit.” He poured and handed her back the bottle. “Come, let’s sit.”
The table in the bay window was stacked with newspapers, leaving barely enough room for each of them to eat.
Eva took a bite. “So tell me more. Have you traveled with your mind?”
“Only after you disappeared.”
“Me? Why?”
“Having been the one who gave you the medallion, I felt responsible.” He shook his spoon at her. “Cripes, your da is the U.K. Ambassador to the U.S. and it only took a few days until your mother was sending me panicky e-mails. I had to do something to ensure you were all right.”
It was Eva’s turn to blush and heat ran from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. God I hope he didn’t see everything. “Y-you were spying on me?”
“Not exactly. The few times I tried it, I just got a sense that you were okay—kind of a feeling that you were unharmed, and…”
“And?”
“You wanted to be there.”
“Did you ever hear my voice?”
He chuckled. “No. Just sensed your emotions, I guess.”
“How did you know it was me you were connecting with?”
He pointed his spoon at her. “As a scientist, these words shouldn’t even escape my lips, but I just knew. I wish I could explain it.”
“When you were meditating, did you hold an object of mine or something?”
“That would have been a good idea. But no, I just focused on remembering your face and all that red hair.” He held his mug to his lips. “You need to let go, Eva.”
Her swallow caught in the back of her throat. “I can’t.”
He pushed back his chair. “In that case, I have to insist that you be out of my spare room by the end of the week as you suggested. I don’t mind helping you, but I’ll not sit idle while you wallow in misery. And don’t you think I don’t know that all you’ve done since you’ve been here is try to figure a way back? You went to Fail and literally failed.”
She stared at her bowl while tears blurred her vision.
“One day you’ll thank me for pushing you back into the life you were born to lead.” He strode out of the kitchen. “I’m off to work like a real twenty-first century Scotsman.” The door slammed behind him.
Wiping her eyes, she stared at the folder. Dammit, I can look for a flat any time. Besides, I’m from Edinburgh, not Glasgow. Then she opened it and memorized the steps to psychic time travel…comfortable chair, focus on the one thing you want to change, rid your mind of fear, stress and anxiet
y…
She wandered into the living room and sat in Walter’s recliner. Flipping up the foot rest, she leaned her head back. I am capable of contacting William. I can let him know I am trying to return to him.
The difficult part was to rid her mind of anxiety. For the past three days she’d been wound tighter than a hunter’s snare. But she closed her eyes and focused on taking deep inhales and letting them out slowly, all the while repeating, I am capable of contacting William. Focusing her gaze on a vase sitting on the mantel, Eva relaxed her toes, then her feet. All the while, she took calming breaths as the stress fled from her calves, knees and stomach. Her pent up anxiety melted from her shoulders and out the tips of her fingers. And finally, her face didn’t feel drawn so tight anymore. She stared at the vase awhile longer as her eyelids grew heavy.
By the time Eva could no longer keep her eyes open, the sensation of floating and weightlessness swirled around her. She pictured herself alone in the midst of a grassy lea. A gentle breeze caressed her face and made her long skirts dance and flutter around her legs.
Still floating, she walked up the rolling hill. William must be there. She felt his presence as if his aura surrounded her like a shroud. “William?” Eva wasn’t sure if she’d spoken his name aloud or not, but she repeated it until she reached the crest of the hill.
What she found stopped her short. In the distance raged a fierce battle. A drum beat a steady rhythm while men grunted and howled on the wind. Beyond the blue sea stretched to the east, and to the south, motte and bailey surrounded a four-towered castle. Eva’s gaze quickly honed on the fight. Horses whinnied and metal scraped.
William fought in the middle of it, swinging his great sword. No, she couldn’t see him, but his presence swirled around her. Her muscles twitched with every swing of his blade as he attended each wave of attack.
Her heart clamped tighter than a fist…William’s heart. God, he missed her as much as she missed him—he needed her. Without her, anger and hatred drove him into a rage.
Taking in a sharp gasp, Eva tried to run toward the mayhem, but with each step, they grew further away. Terrified that she might lose the vision, she stopped.