Callum continued. “Not knowing of Kirby’s treachery and wishing not to confuse the matter by putting forth his own claim to the Scottish throne, King David sent Bishop Kirby in his place. If King David were here, he would apologize for this mistake and take up the task in Kirby’s stead. King David, however, is not here and that role has fallen to me. I am Alexander Callum, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and I say that the question of succession should be put to a Parliamentary vote.”
Dead silence.
Clare’s mouth twitched and Callum almost kicked him for his insolence. Then the room went from silent to raucous in a matter of seconds. It started as a murmur and then swept through the hall as each man spoke to his neighbor. The Guardians and the dozen claimants to the throne remained silent, some standing, some sitting, but all impassive. They had known what Callum was going to say, of course, since he’d already said it to them earlier.
Andrew Moray lifted a hand and Bishop Fraser gestured that he should rise and take the floor. The uproar in the great hall had continued for ten minutes, but it was time to talk about it as an official body.
“Among my people, King David’s plan isn’t without precedent,” Andrew said. “We choose our clan leaders through the ancient tradition of tanistry.”
Many of the men nodded, though not Erik, who said right on cue, “And what is tanistry?”
“Upon the death of the clan chief, succession doesn’t fall to the eldest son, but to the most capable man of the clan, even if he isn’t the son of the man who died,” Andrew said. “Moreover, the man is chosen by election.” Although much of the nobility in Scotland were Lowlanders, everyone in the room but Erik of Norway had some Highland blood and should have recognized the practice.
“If you accept what I’m suggesting,” Callum said, “the only claimant whose name will be withheld from the ballot is King David’s.”
“Of all the claimants, he’s the only one who should be on it,” Clare said, though under his breath and only to Callum.
Callum glanced at Clare, trying not to smile at his sour tone.
“That’s the deal,” Callum said. “Take it, and you and your people get to truly decide the ruler of Scotland. Leave it, and you will have King David to deal with.”
“You’re threatening us?” said a man from the back of the room.
“Only if he has to,” James Stewart said.
Callum had wanted to propose that an election be held every five years, and Cassie had demanded that Callum include women, but James had talked him out of both. Even Cassie had eventually admitted that such an agreement would be too much for the noblemen of Scotland to swallow. Callum couldn’t force it down their throats and he would prefer not having to do it at the point of King David’s sword. Personally, Callum thought Scotland was like a wild horse and didn’t envy any of these men trying to tame it. He didn’t blame David for not wanting the crown.
Bishop William Fraser dropped a fist onto the table. “We will adjourn for dinner and meet again later tonight.”
The hall filled with noise again, but those at the high table continued to sit. Clare tapped his fingers rhythmically on the table. “If Parliament elects the new king of Scotland, no body of men has employed such power since ancient Greece.”
Callum shouldn’t have been surprised that Clare would know such a thing. “Will this work, do you think?” Callum said.
“You have boxed them into a corner with the threat of war against England as their only alternative,” Andrew said. “Parliament will accept the power—gleefully, I imagine—though some of the claimants to the throne may in the end, when they lose, come to think that war would have been the lesser of two evils. The new king may also regret the extent to which he is answerable to the men who elected him.”
James ran a hand through his hair. “How did you come by this plan, Lord Callum? Don’t tell me that King David wrote to you of it. There’s been no time for messages.”
“This has been King David’s dream for Britain since he was fourteen years old,” Callum said.
“I would like to meet him,” said James. “When I was fourteen, I’d just discovered lasses.”
Callum smiled. “King David knows that he sits on the throne of England because the people chose him to rule. It gives him power that you can’t yet understand.”
“So be it.” James put his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed to his feet. “Come, Andrew. We have noblemen to appease. Best get to work.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cassie
Callum and Cassie stood on the battlements of Stirling Castle, alone for the first time since their conversation at Kilsyth.
“Just tell me what’s wrong, Cassie,” Callum said. “I can take anything but your silence.”
“I’m going to leave.”
“Cassie—”
She turned to Callum. “I can’t do this, Callum.”
“At least wait a few more days until I can take you home,” Callum said.
“You have a job to do. I’m going to let you do it while I go home. Alone. I can’t stay for even one more day.”
“Then let me send Samuel with you,” Callum said. “It’s not safe for you on the road by yourself.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “I was alone for five years, Callum.”
“Please, Cassie—”
“You deserve better than me.”
“I don’t think better exists,” he said. “And isn’t that my decision?”
“I’m only going to hurt you.”
“Not worse than you’re hurting me by leaving.”
Cassie looked away. “You’ll heal.”
But Cassie wasn’t sure she would.
Callum no longer tried to stop her from going. Within the hour, she was on her way out of Stirling on foot. Because Grampa Bruce had demanded to speak to Callum yet again, Callum hadn’t even been able to see her off and sent Samuel in his stead.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Cassie?” Samuel said. He’d walked twenty paces with her out from the gatehouse.
Cassie had talked with Samuel only a few times and wasn’t sure that now was the time for confidences, but she answered him anyway. “Yes. I’m sure.”
“The love Callum is offering you is special. Do you really want to toss it aside?” Samuel said.
Cassie stopped in the act of adjusting the straps on her backpack. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“Isn’t it?”
“This isn’t about love,” Cassie said. “It’s about living. Besides which, you’re a fine one to talk. Callum tells me that you’ve been secretly courting a woman for years. Why haven’t you married her?”
“She’s a Christian. I’m Jewish.”
“The times, they are a’changing,” Cassie sang. “You should be embracing the change, not running from it. King David and Callum both would support your request for her hand. You know they would. That should be enough for anybody.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand?” Cassie said. “You’re a coward, that’s what you are.”
“And that makes you—what?” Samuel said.
Cassie shot him an aggrieved look but didn’t reply. His issues were not hers, nor her business. The only thing left to say was goodbye.
She slept rough the first night, as she had in those months of wandering Scotland during the first year she’d lived in the Middle Ages. The next day, she woke early and set off again. She was just approaching the place where Callum’s company had been ambushed when the cantering hoof beats of a single horse sounded behind her.
Cassie spun around, bow in hand and arrow nocked. Her heart pounded in her ears, but even as the adrenaline rushed through her, she acknowledged that she wasn’t afraid of whoever was coming; she wasn’t afraid because she thought it might be Callum.
That won’t do at all!
Cassie leapt up the slope that buttressed the road and crouched in the brambles to hide herself from the rider, all the wh
ile telling herself that of course he couldn’t be Callum. Cassie had told him how she felt and he would respect her decision. Even so, as the man rode out of the mist, Cassie’s breath caught in her throat. He wore mail, sword, and a helmet like Callum’s. But then he was past her and he wasn’t Callum, and Cassie was alone again.
She arrived home, unscathed but not unchanged. She spent the next week mending her relationship with Donella, renewing her supply of herbs and foodstuffs, and tending to her garden. May turned to June. Lord Patrick returned to Mugdock with the news that Scotland’s Parliament had chosen John Balliol as their new king. Cassie thought it appropriate that the man was given a fair chance, given what had happened in the old world.
Five days later, Cassie was in the midst of picking the first vegetables from her garden, with dirty knees and sweat-soaked hair tied back from her face with a leather thong, when a rider appeared in the clearing in front of her house.
Cassie had been so absorbed that she hadn’t heard him coming. She glanced up, her heart pounding with the idea that it was Callum, and then she recognized Samuel. Cassie hastened to him, brushing at the dirt on her hands and trying to batten down her flash of fear, since he wouldn’t have come if all was well. “What’s wrong—?”
“He’s sick,” Samuel said. Neither of them had to clarify who he was.
All the blood drained from Cassie’s face. “With what? Who’s tending him? What have they tried?” She ran to wash her face and hands in the bucket of water she’d left by the door to her house. Cassie plunged her hands into the cool water and scrubbed at them, internally cataloguing what herbs and salves she had on hand that she might need to bring.
“Nothing anyone does for him seems to help,” Samuel said. “He needs you.”
“Did he ask for me?” Cassie straightened, mopping at her face with a cloth. At the silence behind her, she lowered her hands and spun around.
Samuel stood with his hands behind his back, studying Cassie. A small smile played around his lips.
“That was a dirty trick,” Cassie said. “You mean he’s lovesick. For me.”
“I had to be sure of how you felt,” Samuel said. “Now I am. Why did you really leave him, Cassie?”
“I told you why. I told him why.”
Samuel gazed around at Cassie’s little steading. She kept it neat and clean, probably more so in recent days than she had in the past. It had been important to keep busy. “You’re really so happy here?” he said. “You like these Scottish mountains that much, do you?”
“I do.” Cassie swept loose strands of hair from her face. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand that you’re afraid,” he said. “I understand that you aren’t as happy here as you want me to think.”
Cassie laughed, though the sound came out strained.
Samuel went on. “Callum has become my friend, and I hate that you left him. He mourns the loss of you as you do him, and you’re both too stubborn to fix this.”
“Who says I’m unhappy?” Cassie said.
“As soon as you learned that he was ill, you could think of nothing but going to him.”
Cassie swallowed down a scathing retort. Samuel was right, of course. “Does Callum know you’re here?”
“He’d have my head if he knew. As I said—stubborn.”
Cassie folded her arms across her chest. “Whether or not we miss each other doesn’t change the fact that I’m not the right girl for him.”
“He thinks you are.”
“But why?” All of a sudden, Cassie’s throat was thick with unshed tears. “I don’t want him to love me. I don’t want to need anyone as much as I need him. Everybody I have ever loved is gone.”
As soon as Cassie said the words, she wanted to take them back. But God help her, they were so much the truth it left her breathless. She couldn’t believe she had shared so much of herself with Samuel when until now she hadn’t admitted how she felt, even to herself.
Samuel, however, was neither moved nor sympathetic. “Everybody needs someone, Cassie.” He turned and waved a hand. Cassie’s mouth dropped open as a woman rode out of the woods and came to a halt beside Samuel. He reached his hands up to her waist and helped her to the ground. “You see, Cassie. I accepted your challenge. This is my betrothed, Elspet. It seems to me that if I’ve had to change my ways, you have to change yours too.”
* * * * *
“You’re wearing a dress.”
Cassie smiled at the amusement in Callum’s voice and turned around. “Ah … but I’m wearing pants underneath. Don’t get too excited.”
Callum entered the room and closed the door behind him. He leaned back against it and looked at Cassie, while she drank in the sight of him. His quarters at Stirling Castle were well appointed and private, indicating his high status. “It’s about time you showed up,” Callum said. “Another day or two and I would have come looking for you.”
Cassie clenched her hands into fists. Now that she was here, her confidence had evaporated. “You would have?” It felt like she hadn’t taken a full breath since she’d seen him last.
Callum pushed off the door and came closer, stopping two paces away, his hands loose at his sides. If he didn’t know what to do with them, Cassie had some good ideas. Before she lost her courage completely, she stepped closer and put her arms around his neck. His hands went to her waist.
“Is this a change or am I reading too much into this?” Callum said.
“You can read whatever you like into this,” Cassie said.
Callum bent to touch his forehead to hers but didn’t speak.
Cassie didn’t have a lot of practice with this sort of thing, but she recognized that for the moment, she was going to have to do the talking for both of them. “What’s next on your list of things to do and countries to save? Are we off to London to give Bishop Kirby his comeuppance?”
“Actually, no,” Callum said. “King David still isn’t satisfied with the official story of what happened to Princess Margaret. Since I’m already here, he is sending me to Orkney to see if I can uncover what happened to her. It’s his guess, as it is mine, that we may find Valence’s hand in that as well. At the very least, I can get the full story from those who witnessed her death.” Callum bit his lower lip. “Did you say we? Last I heard, you wanted to stay here.”
“I do,” Cassie said. “Part of me still does.”
Callum pulled Cassie a little closer. “I can’t stay here, Cassie. The election is over and I have so much to do.”
“I know,” Cassie said. “That’s why I told Lord Patrick that I would be leaving my house and most likely, unless I entirely misunderstood your wishes, not coming back.”
Callum swallowed hard. “You mean it?”
Cassie nodded.
“What changed your mind, if I may ask?”
“You did,” Cassie said. “You never wavered, even as I kept trying to make you out to be someone that you’re not, with ideas that you don’t have, just because I’ve known so many men who aren’t as amazing as you are.”
Callum actually blushed. “As for this dress issue, I really don’t care what you wear.”
Cassie laughed and looked down at her feet. “I can wear a dress sometimes if it keeps people from asking too many questions. I don’t have to be a medieval woman, even if I look like one occasionally. I just need you not to expect it.”
“I never did.” Callum seemed to be having difficulty getting any words out, and when he did speak, his voice was thick with emotion. “I love you.”
Cassie was having trouble breathing herself, but if she was going to do this, she was going to do it right. No half measures or second thoughts. “For as long as the rain falls on these green hills, I will stand with thee. Isn’t that how the vow goes?” she said.
Callum drew in an audible breath. “Every day—every day—I thought about what I would say to you when I saw you again. I meant what I said. In another day, I was going to beg you to come with me.”
>
“I don’t want you to beg,” Cassie said. “You shouldn’t have to beg, though if you wanted to say nice things about me, I wouldn’t stop you.”
Callum tipped back his head and laughed. And then he looked down at her and Cassie finally got to kiss him again.
“Oh! I forgot to tell you.” Callum pulled away a few millimeters. “I received a message from King David yesterday. Have you heard?”
“No,” Cassie said, suddenly wary. “Heard what?”
Callum gave Cassie a huge grin. “It’s a boy.”
The End
A Note from the Author
I’d like to thank each and every reader who has stuck with the After Cilmeri series now for six novels. Exiles in Time has allowed us to wander off into Scotland, where the culture and history are different from medieval Wales, though no less exciting and complex. Since I was writing a novel and not a dissertation, most of the research I did in creating the book didn’t make it into the actual story. For those of you who are interested in the historical context of 1289, I’d like to direct you to my web page and the following topics in particular:
Languages of Medieval Scotland: http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/scots-scottish-and-gaelic-whats-the-difference/
Medieval Scottish Clans: http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/medieval-scottish-clans/
The Succession of 1290: http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/the-succession-of-1290-scotland/
The Welsh Longbow: http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/the-welsh-longbow/
Early Parliament: http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/early-parliament-and-representative-process/
Medieval Bathing Practices: http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/did-medieval-people-bathe/
Exiles in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Page 25