Callum was glad that he’d already put the girl aside, though not at all sorry that Cassie had been looking daggers at him while he held her. He might have known Cassie for only a few days, but that was three months in medieval years. It was about time she started thinking about him as something more than a friend.
Besides, Cassie should know better than to think that Callum was remotely interested in the girl. He was twice her age. Whatever the acceptable practice in the Middle Ages regarding relationships between older men and younger women, no thirty-four-year old man should be satisfied intellectually and emotionally by a sixteen-year-old girl.
“I’m here, Walter.” James stood in the doorway of the hut, resting his shoulder against the frame and holding his hand to his newly bandaged side.
“You’re hurt!” Walter’s sternness dissipated in his concern for his master. “When the boy rode into the castle this morning, we feared the worst.”
“It definitely could have been worse,” said James. “The ruffians have been vanquished, at least for now. I don’t see the point of further pursuit.” James looked past Walter to Callum.
Callum shook his head. “The MacDougalls are long gone.”
“The boy you sent mentioned that the MacDougalls were to blame.” Walter swung around to look at his men. “Secure the perimeter.”
The men moved to obey him, and Marty started shooing his people away from the green again. “Show’s over,” he said, though before he said it, Callum wouldn’t have thought that the phrase meant the same rendered in thirteenth-century Gaelic as it did in their old world.
Walter turned back to James. “Are you able to ride, my lord?”
“I will be able to.” James looked at Callum again. “The boy is awake.”
Callum nodded and canted his head at Cassie, inviting her to come with him into Marty’s house. John wasn’t actually sitting up in bed, but he had his arms clasped behind his head and was gazing up at the ceiling. He lifted his head to look at them as they entered. His pinched look cleared and his face split into a grin. “Cassie!”
She walked to the bed. “Hello, John. So you aren’t completely out of your head after all. James said you were raving.”
James choked from behind her. “I did not—!”
“He what—?”
Cassie laughed. “I’m teasing you both.” She took John’s hand in hers. “How do you feel?”
“My head aches.” John’s grip tightened on Cassie’s hand. “Can you help me to sit up?”
“Of course.” Cassie pulled him to a sitting position on the bed with his back against the wall behind him. She handed him a cup of water.
“Why did the MacDougalls abduct you?” Callum said.
“I-I don’t know,” John said.
“It was you they wanted even more than James,” Cassie said.
Callum allowed himself a smile at Cassie’s continued use of James Stewart’s first name. She should have said ‘Lord James’ at the very least. James didn’t correct her, however, and John acted as if he didn’t notice.
“I went to bed in my father’s house and woke up in the bed of a cart,” he said.
“How were you injured?” Cassie said. “It’s just your head, right? They didn’t beat you?”
“That I banged my head was my fault,” John said. “I tried to escape too soon instead of lulling them into a false sense of security.”
“An honest mistake,” said James, coming forward. “I did the same thing.”
John looked at James as if he didn’t believe a lord such as James could possibly have done such a foolish thing.
James ignored the look. “Will you speak to William Fraser of all that has befallen you?” He paused. “And us.”
“Yes,” John said.
It seemed that the honor of the Grahams ran true in this son.
“I will send word to your father of your survival just as soon as we arrive at my castle at Doune,” said James.
John nodded. “Thank you.”
While James stood beside John’s bed, quietly talking to him, Callum tugged Cassie towards the door. “I’m almost afraid to ask you this, but you’re coming to Stirling Castle with me, right?”
Cassie wrinkled her nose at him. “In all our running around, I almost forgot what you were doing in Scotland in the first place.”
“I was supposed to figure out what was going on among the players for the throne,” Callum said.
“Admittedly, you’ve made headway on that issue,” Cassie said.
“And then I was supposed to find out who murdered Princess Margaret,” Callum said. “I haven’t even started on that yet.”
“David doesn’t think she died like they said?” Cassie said. “From the flu?”
“Do you?” Callum said. “I think everyone’s pretending it was natural so they don’t have to think about it. They’ve convinced themselves that King Alexander fell off that cliff all on his own, too, but I don’t believe that either.”
“They’re going to love you in Stirling,” Cassie said, unable to hold back a smile.
Callum laughed. “David envisioned a week of state dinners, not that we’d get ambushed before we’d even started. I haven’t even met Balliol and Grampa Bruce yet.”
“David thought you could have politics in the Middle Ages without murder and mayhem? I thought you said he’d lived here since 1282?”
That prompted another laugh from Callum. “So, what do you say?”
Cassie chewed on a nail, her eyes on James and John. Samuel had fallen asleep on his stool, his back propped against the wall and his chin on his chest. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll come. I want to know how this turns out, too.”
Callum let out a breath. He’d been worried that he’d have to do some serious persuading. “At the very least, with whatever is between the MacDougalls and the Bruces still unsettled, I don’t want you returning to your house alone. It wouldn’t be safe.”
Cassie met Callum’s eyes. “You don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“I can’t help worrying,” Callum said. “Daddy Bruce is marching on Dunstaffnage. The countryside won’t be safe for anyone.”
“I’d almost forgotten that too.” Cassie turned to James and switched back to Gaelic. “You know Robbie’s father better than we do. Do you think Robbie would have gotten into trouble for helping us?”
“The Bruces and the Comyns hated each other long before this week. I trust Robbie’s instincts, and if he helped you to leave his father’s camp, we have to assume he knew what he was doing.” James glanced at Callum. “We need to have a conversation.”
Callum woke Samuel with a hand to his shoulder. With John watching bright-eyed from the bed, Callum sat on the bench next to Samuel while James and Cassie pulled two stools close. James eyed Cassie for a second, and then seemed to come to the decision that whatever needed to be said could be said in front of her. By now, James had to know that he shouldn’t expect Cassie to behave like any other woman he’d ever met.
“I am concerned about how to approach the other Guardians and Parliament with what has happened,” said James.
“That makes two of us,” Callum said.
James looked hard at Callum. “Kirby is a bishop and an advisor to the King of England. Before I make any move against him, I must consult with my advisors. I would hope that I might include you among them when I reach Doune.”
“Of course,” Callum said.
“Kirby should be locked in a dungeon, sooner rather than later,” Cassie said.
“Do we have definitive proof of his duplicity?” Samuel said.
“We have the testimony of Robbie Bruce and of Cassie,” Callum said, with a glance at her.
Cassie nodded. “I witnessed the ambush; I saw Kirby’s decoy fall. Robbie was the only one to escape before the ambush, and Callum was the only man left alive after the MacDougalls marched the prisoners away.”
“Which means that for Kirby to have reached Robert Bruce
’s forces before Robbie, he had to have already been on his way there when the MacDougalls attacked,” said James.
“Yes,” Cassie and Callum said in unison.
“Robbie himself reported what Kirby did and said?” said James.
“Again, yes,” Cassie said.
James rested his elbows on his knees. “That should be enough for the other Guardians and any reasonable man. Kirby will deny all culpability, of course.”
“He’s very good at talking,” Callum said, “and plotting. We need to have a clear plan for dealing with him when we encounter him again.”
“There’s still too much we don’t know,” said James, “and won’t until we reach Stirling. Has Comyn retaliated against Bruce for the burning of his castle? Has he sent men after the Bruce army? What have Robert Bruce the elder and John Balliol been doing all this time?” James shifted on his stool, holding his hand to his side. Blood hadn’t penetrated the bandage—yet.
“I feel as if time is short, but we can’t answer those questions today. You need to rest, my lord,” Callum said.
James nodded. “Today we will break bread with the people of this village, who will forever have my thanks, and then we all must rest. We will ride to Doune in the morning.” James paused to nod at Callum. “If that is acceptable to you, my lord.”
“Of course,” Callum said. To ask for Callum’s approval was diplomatic of James. The man had class. Besides which, staying the night in the village was fine with Callum. Despite his heroic efforts to keep upright, if he were driving a car, he would have had to pull over and take a nap.
As James was aware (and fortunately for Marty and the villagers), Walter and his men had brought enough food for a two- or three-day journey. They broke it out. In turn, the villagers emptied their homes of tables and stools, a few unsuspecting rabbits were brought out and cooked, and by late afternoon, everyone gathered on the green for a meal. Nobody mentioned Callum’s gun again. Callum took that fact for the gift it was and tried to put it out of his mind.
Marty seemed in his element, the center of accolades from James, who toasted him and his village more than once as the meal progressed. Eventually, however, Marty left the main table and came to where Cassie and Callum shared a bench. They were both exhausted from days of nonstop activity and not enough sleep. Cassie sat with her chin in her hands, chewing laboriously on a tough piece of meat.
“What happens next for me?” Marty planted himself in front of Callum and spoke American, though in a low voice that didn’t carry.
Callum looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—what does the future hold for me? I have a wife and a child on the way, and I need to know what you intend to do with me.”
“I don’t intend to do anything with you,” Callum said.
“Are you worried that we would force you to leave? That King David would demand it somehow?” Cassie said.
Marty’s brow furrowed. “I imagine neither he nor his mother have a favorable view of me. With a word in the ear of the Earl of Menteith, King David could make life very difficult for me.”
“I’ve never heard either the king or his mother speak badly of you. They only spoke of you at all to wonder what became of you,” Callum said. “You are under no obligation to change your ways or your life. Stay here or go as you please. I guarantee that you’ll be welcome in London or Caerphilly if you want to go there, whether for a visit or to stay.”
“Besides, it looks to me like James Stewart has taken an interest in your village,” Cassie said. “Even if he hated you, King David currently has bigger fish to fry than pursuing revenge over a five-year-old grudge.”
Marty turned to look at his people, eating and talking among James’s soldiers. “I like it here,” he said softly. “When you told me how Meg had gone back to our time, I was excited at first, but I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe I wouldn’t go back even if I had the chance, not unless I knew I could return.”
“That’s always the question, isn’t it?” Callum said.
“We’re stuck here, too,” Cassie said. “Same as you.”
Marty nodded. “I started out just having to make the best of it, and now that I’ve taken a step back to examine what I have here, I’m thinking it’s pretty good.” He put his heels together and gave Callum a quick bow before heading back to the table and his seat beside James.
Cassie watched him go while Callum watched her. “I think about my family back at home every day,” she said.
“Would you go home if you could?” Callum said.
“I would,” Cassie said. “I’m not committed to staying in the Middle Ages forever. I spent most of my first year here hiking around Scotland, looking for a way home. Correctly as it turned out, I’d decided that I’d fallen through a fault in the space-time continuum, though I didn’t know that the fault was in a person and not a cave or a ring of standing stones, or I might have lived differently.”
“You didn’t meet Marty when you visited this village, though?” Callum said.
Cassie shook her head. “I don’t remember him. He wasn’t the headman then, but he obviously fit in well. They trusted him enough to ask him to lead their village.” She moved her hand as if she would put it on Callum’s knee and then stopped herself and clasped her hands together. “You’ve done the same thing—you and David and Meg. It’s like you were born to be here.”
“But you don’t think you were?” Callum said.
“Meg and David believe coming here was their destiny. I don’t believe in destiny.” Cassie coughed a laugh. “I don’t really believe in anything, to tell you the truth. All the same, I can’t help but ask why this destiny was mine.”
“I’m not so conceited as to think you were put here to save me,” Callum said.
“I’m not sorry for this week. I’m glad I could help.” And now Cassie did touch Callum, nudging his side with her elbow. “What do you think? Do you rail against fate and wonder why me?”
“I have at times, that’s for sure,” Callum said. “I don’t have any answers for you. Mostly, I’m just trying to survive and make a difference for the people here as much as I tried to serve my country at home. It’s the only thing I know to do.”
Cassie tsked under her breath. “Serve your country.” Callum almost didn’t catch the words, she said them so quietly. She looked down at the ground and stabbed the toe of her boot into the dirt at her feet but didn’t elaborate.
So Callum didn’t either. In the army, he did what he was told and told others what to do, believing all the while that he was making the world a better, safer place. He had never said it out loud, but he’d thought of himself as a knight, even if he might have laughed at such a romantic notion if someone had challenged him on it. At the same time, he knew that he could never live up to that code. After a single week in Afghanistan, even the greenest recruit knew how flawed the mission was, and that Britain had gotten itself involved in a war it couldn’t win. But still, Callum tried. The best men tried.
Ironically, it was once he got back home that his world fell apart. He found the civilian world messy and complicated. Morality was all shades of grey. Honor was a quaint concept. Backstabbing and gossip, social niceties and norms were just as real and almost as deadly to the soul as IEDs had been in the war.
Callum didn’t think Cassie would mock him if he told her any of this, but she didn’t understand it either. He wanted to be of service, and whether he did that here or at home didn’t matter to him so much anymore.
The next morning, having slept for nearly twelve hours uninterrupted by dreams, Callum stepped out of the door of Marty’s hut. He’d shared the floor with Samuel and been happy to do it. Cassie had found a pallet in the healer’s hut. Although Callum couldn’t see the sky because of the mist that hovered above the ground, it had the look of burning off sooner rather than later and might give them a clear day for the ride to Doune Castle.
Because they were short on horses, Callum arranged for Cassie
to ride behind him. It allowed her not only to wrap her arms around his waist, but for them to talk privately.
“It has been years since I’ve been this far east,” she said. “The lowlands are less safe for me.”
“And why is that?” Callum said.
Cassie tried to peer around Callum’s shoulder to look into his face. He turned his head to look at her.
“Are you one of those people whose brains don’t work until they’ve had a cup of coffee?” Cassie said. “You’re not thinking. Have you looked at me recently?”
“I can’t actually look at you very well when you’re behind me.” Callum knew his voice sounded complacent, but he didn’t care. “I know well what you look like. What’s the problem with your appearance?”
Cassie let out a sharp burst of laughter. “I’m dressed as a man and I wear a bow. They don’t like that where we’re going.”
“That’s just too bad,” Callum said.
“Easy for you to say,” Cassie said. “You’re the emissary from the King of England. I’m a nobody.”
Callum opened his mouth to argue with her, closed it, and then decided he had nothing to lose in asking about something that had been troubling him for a while. “Why does this bother you so much? Did something happen to you that makes you not want to leave the Highlands?”
Cassie clenched his cloak and put her forehead into his spine. “You’ve been in the Middle Ages for six months, Callum. How can you not know what might have happened to me?”
“That’s it.” Callum reined in and pulled to the side of the road. They’d been riding towards the rear of the company, and it was a matter of thirty seconds to let the last few men pass them. Several looked at him with raised eyebrows, but he lifted a hand to indicate that all was well and said, “We’ll catch up.”
“What are you doing?” Cassie said.
“Off, Cassie.”
That ‘v’ of concern had formed between her brows again, but she slid off the horse and then Callum dismounted too. Cassie gazed at him with a perturbed expression. Even though he knew that she had started to avoid contact with him again, after a brief interval where she actually initiated it, Callum caught her hand in his and slid his fingers through hers. He tugged her close. “You were hurt?”
Exiles in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Page 19