by Syme, R. L.
Anne’s eyes filled with tears. She could imagine a young man, accustomed to physical beauty and, having that torn from him because of his loyalty, which ran so fiercely deep in him, he likely couldn’t control it. She wished she had known the boy Aedan had been, if for no other reason than to be able to prove to him that she could love him as deeply as he loved her, regardless of what scars he wore.
“Just don’t stop trying.” Brighde breathed slowly, but loudly.
“Are you well?” Anne asked, standing quickly.
Brighde finished her breath and nodded. “I’m still two months from delivery. I just have pain sometimes.”
Anne couldn’t believe it. Brighde was big as a suckling sow. That date had to be wrong. Perhaps she didn’t know how to tell when a babe would come.
Aedan came into the room like an expectant father. “Are you having birth pains?”
Anne felt a smile expand across her face at his glee. For the first time, she wondered after the father of Brighde’s baby. Would he show the same love for the child? She placed a hand on her own stomach. Someday, she hoped, her belly would be round like that, and bring the same excitement to… God help her, she did want to be the one Aedan looked at with those exultant eyes.
Brighde waved him away. “Finish your preparations,” she said. Anne looked down at the flat plane of her stomach. The words her mother had uttered echoed in her mind. He’s smart… you’d better hope he doesn’t double-cross you.
Would that be her future? To have a tumultuous marriage like her parents? Would she and Aedan ever be able to truly trust each other? She liked to think that she believed the best about him. But every man had his threshold. Perhaps being twice double-crossed was his. She could never know. Not really.
Aedan called back. “We’re nearly finished.”
“Is your sister well enough to travel?” Brighde asked.
“I should be asking if you are well enough to travel.” Anne stood from the bed and walked to the table. She took the chair that Molnar had vacated and stared into Brighde’s face. “You are a brave woman to join us. I fear we will be consigning you to the fate of a criminal.”
“Better a criminal and to be with Aedan than a free woman and to be with my father.” She looked at her belly with a rueful smile. “Now that I have a child out of wedlock, no man will have me. I could not have survived the whole of my life living with Randall Donne. His sins will catch up with him and I must be well away from that, with my baby, when they do.”
Anne squeezed her hand. “We will be.”
Aedan came into the front room with a large, heavy satchel in his hands. “What are you two talking about?”
Brighde grinned up at him. “How you rescued me from my fate. For which I cannot begin to repay you.”
“There will be no repayment.” Aedan kissed her forehead and stood next to her. Anne looked at the floor. She would have given anything in that moment for him to kiss her, to hold her hand, to tell her everything would turn out in the end. No matter what kind of brave face she showed the world, she had to admit fear.
They would have to take the cart, after all their talk of fast movement. And they would need to take the utmost care with Brighde. They couldn’t be incognito any longer, not really.
Her stomach roiled. Better to be moving, at least, when they didn’t know if soldiers would try to overtake them. “We should be going if we want to travel at night.”
Aedan helped Brighde to her feet and Anne woke Elena. She still had the vacant look of trauma, but she appeared to know Anne by name and be comfortable in Molnar’s cave. She was much more at ease than she had been since they had left the castle.
Elena rose and, likely for the first time, saw Brighde. Her eyes widened. “Who is this?”
“This is Brighde,” Aedan said, pronouncing it slowly for her. “Bry-dee. She is my sister, and she’ll be coming with us.”
“Don’t forget my instructions,” Molnar interrupted. “If you want new papers and you want a true escape, you must do as I instructed. It must happen in England.”
Anne started and searched out Aedan’s eyes. He sighed and shook his head. “There was naught to be done. The easiest way to escape this place is to cross into England tonight and make for Hull with all haste.”
“Hull?” She had to keep from shouting. That was the exact opposite direction she’d been hoping for. “What happened to Edinburgh?”
“Anne, you don’t understand. We need traveling papers, and we need to get out of Scotland. Your sister will have a price on her head.”
“But why can’t we just live in a small croft somewhere in the Highlands? No one will find us.”
Elena and Brighde seemed to sink away from the conversation. Anne wished Elena had more of her wits about her this evening, because she needed the support when it came to convincing Aedan.
“You can’t have your old life back, Anne. You have to have known that when you went to get Elena from your mother.”
Anne groaned and turned her back on Aedan. She had known that, of course. But saying it out loud and knowing it were two different things.
“If you go to Hull, my dear, you’ll be able to get new papers and leave your difficulties behind. Live a public life. Be married. Have babies. And so will your sister, and Brighde.” Molnar’s voice was, for the first time in her knowing him, artless and pliant.
She felt tears crowding her eyes. She knew their lives would never be the same, but did they have to never-be-the-same in England? Couldn’t they at least hide in Scotland?
“My father’s creditors live near Edinburgh. I can’t take the chance that Brighde will be recognized there. Or myself, for that matter. And you and your sister are well-known in the Highlands, and now in the borderlands as well. No, we have to leave Scotland.”
Aedan came up behind her and Anne wanted desperately for this vulnerability she felt to leave her. She inhaled the scent of his hair as it hovered around her face. Couldn’t she just lose herself in Aedan and be hidden in him forever? Why did they have to leave Scotland?
“In trying to secure a way for us to be able to leave the island, we have to go to England, just for a short while.” Aedan turned her to face him and they were so close, she could feel his breath on her face. “I promise, we will leave as soon as we are able.”
Anne closed her eyes and leaned into him. He put his arms around her and held her to his chest. If he would do this forever, she would live anywhere he asked her to.
“What is in Hull?”
Molnar handed her a folded piece of parchment. “I’ve drawn a map to get to the house of Reva McTeague. But she’s called Reva the Baker. None in Hull know her connection to Scotland. You’ll go to Reva and give her whatever she asks of you, and you’ll have new papers and a new life.”
Anne reluctantly took the paper from him. Aedan squeezed her shoulders. “This is our chance,” he said. “For all of us to get away from your family, from my family, from the duties we hold to our memories, and just live the life we want.”
“You must hurry.” Molnar pushed at them, then scurried around to help Brighde. “If you plan to cross the border in the night, you must leave now. And do not travel on the road during the day.
“Yes,” Aedan said. “Only at night on the road, and we’ll find the forests during the day, or try to sleep.”
“This should be enough food to get you to Hull. You send Anne in to find Reva before you bring the whole cart.”
Aedan put out a hand to stop the old man’s progress toward the door. “Wait, why Anne?”
“She is the least likely to be recognized.” Molnar rolled his eyes when they continued to gape at him. “Not pregnant, not a killer, no scar.”
Anne shook her head. “Fine. I’ll go into the city, I find Reva, and then we pay her to get papers. Then, what do we do?”
“There is a farm on that map where Reva’s son Fergus lives. You will go there for safety until you can get a boat to France.”
Her fin
gers closed around the document. She hadn’t realized how important it was. “Molnar, how can we ever thank you?”
The old man smiled, his mostly toothless mouth making a comic situation out of what might have been tearful. “You’ve paid me well my dear. In coin, and information.” He touched his head. “No apologies for gagging me, my dear. I understand.”
Tears came to her eyes and before he could move again, Anne fell upon the old man and hugged him. “I don’t know how we can ever thank you.”
“You live.” He pulled away from her and pushed them all toward the door. “That’s thanks enough.”
*****
The five-day ride to Hull had been torturous, between Elena’s sleep terrors, his sister’s pains, and his own feelings about Anne. Being so close to her, even sitting at her side, but never being alone, Aedan thought he might go crazy.
Every moment was torn between wanting to take her off into the woods and kiss her senseless, and keep her at arm’s length for his own safety. Never knowing what kisses would be her last, before she left him for good or before he would be forced to leave her. That was the real torture.
They’d come across the farm Molnar described, and as had been promised, there was an abandoned building not far from the farmhouse itself where they could hide the cart and be unseen. Before Anne left for the city, he did pull her into the unseen corner of the barn and kiss her senseless, just as he’d been debating the whole trip. Not before extracting promises for her quick and safe return. But she walked away from that dark corner with dazed eyes and plumped lips, and he couldn’t help feeling a sense of satisfaction as he watched her scurry across the meadow toward the road.
He should have kissed her more.
Elena seemed to be calm, which wasn’t a promise for long, but Aedan felt it would be long enough that he could leave his sister with her while he went to search out Reva’s son.
Molnar had encouraged them not to take the cart directly to the farmhouse, just in case his information was outdated. Instead, Aedan left Anne to go into the city, and he walked in the opposite direction, carrying only a few coins in case he needed to ply Reva’s son for anything important.
They were close enough to the sea again that the air was cool and salty to the tongue. Aedan had left his sword and dagger back at the barn with his sister and kept looking behind him to make sure the building really was as hidden as Molnar had promised.
The farmhouse was a tiny thing at the end of a well-plowed field. Smoke drifted from the back, where the fire had likely been lit, and Aedan found himself making a wide berth to get the whole picture of exits and possible traps.
Always, he expected to be trapped or captured. Perhaps it was why he’d lived as long as he had. Perhaps it was also why Anne never really lost the skeptical look in her eye when he tried to talk to her about what the future would hold.
He loved her, he knew that now. He thought she loved him—she’d said as much, but knowing her mother, he preferred to wait for the proof of her actions to back that up before he could really let himself believe it. And yet, as he’d feared, it was too late.
Today, he had his hair combed down over the scarred side of his face. If he didn’t cover that when he went in public, it was always the first thing people saw about him and it often meant he would get thrown out or pushed away or shunned.
But he needed Reva’s son to believe him, to accept him, to help him. He couldn’t let the girls down.
Sure enough, there was a man in the back of the house tending a fire. It was early in the morning and the sun was at their backs. Aedan approached from the most visible angle he could manage, giving the man plenty of time to see him coming and prepare if need be. But the man just sat by his fire, smoking his pipe and watching Aedan walk up.
“Good morning.” Aedan called out when he was close. “A beautiful day, if I do remark myself.”
“Indeed, it is.” The man took a long puff on his long pipe. “And what brings you to my doorstep?”
“I come bearing greetings from an old friend. Molnar the Potter sends word that he hopes it will rain well for your crops and that you may always have the seed you need for a healthy harvest.”
The man took a hat from the ground near his chair and smiled. He was missing a tooth on the side of his smile, which reminded Aedan of the old man. “Well, if you’re a friend of Molnar, and you’re going to pay me for my time, then my time is yours my friend.”
“Are you Reva’s son?”
“That depends on who’s asking.” The man stood and walked toward Aedan, one hand holding his pipe and the other hand outstretched. “Come and sit by my fire, friend. It’s cold.”
Aedan took a patch of ground near the fire and sat with his legs out. “My name is John Scott.”
The man in the hat smiled. “I’m Reva’s son, yes. You can call me Fergus.”
“Fergus, I’m pleased to know you. My… wife… is on her way in to Hull as we speak to see your mother.”
He took a slow puff and let the smoke filter out one side of his mouth. “Hmm. Let me check on something in the house before we continue.” He left his hat on his chair and opened the back door to the small house. It couldn’t have taken him more than a minute to walk from one side of the house to the other, and he was outside again before Aedan could even have stood and made it to the door.
“My own wife, Rosie, has gone visiting the neighbors, so we can speak candidly, Mr. Scott.” Fergus eased back into his chair. “She’s not really my wife, but folks around here have been believing she is for nearly twenty years now.”
Aedan’s eyes widened. “That’s a long time to be somewhere.”
“Indeed.” Fergus sucked on his pipe. “It’s a long time to pretend to be married, too. But to each his own.”
A glance back toward the barn told Aedan they still couldn’t see these women he protected, yet he was so worried that there was something else happening while he talked to this friend of Molnar’s.
“So you’re looking for traveling papers.” Fergus emptied his pipe into the fire. “And she’s not really your wife, is she?”
Aedan’s pulse quickened. “She certainly will be.”
“And Molnar sent you here because he knew you’d be safe.”
“How do you know these things?”
Fergus smiled down at him and leaned forward, putting his elbows nearly on his knees. “First, your English accent needs work. I can hear the lowland Scots rolling around there. Second, don’t use the Scott surname here. Anyone with a Scott last name is a Scot themselves. And third, we’ve had soldiers here asking about a man with a scarred face and the women who travel with him.”
Aedan swore. “I’d hoped we would outrun any possible word about us.” In truth, he was surprised the Sheriff’s men, old or new, had come this far south. It was far more likely they would travel toward Anne’s father. Unless they knew about Brighde. But that would be impossible. No one should be able to connect her with Aedan, not after he’d paid Tilde and her family well to say she was still at the house.
Would they never be truly free?
“What were the soldiers asking for, specifically? How many women?”
“Two women,” Fergus said. “One blonde, one mostly blonde. One beautiful, one insane.”
“And where are the soldiers?”
Fergus pointed behind the house, away from the barn, and Aedan’s breath normalized. “They came from Hull and went toward the West, on the King’s road.”
“That is at least good.”
“You passed them in the night, I think.”
Aedan looked across the field to where the road began. Being this close to the road likely had its benefits. Of course, the constant soldier traffic would be a deterrent for Aedan, but perhaps a boon for someone else.
“You are so close to the road,” Aedan noted.
“We wanted to always be near the travelers.” He used his thumb to clean out his pipe, then wiped both pipe and hands on his dark trousers.
“So, if we are speaking candidly,” Aedan began, raising his eyebrows. Fergus nodded.
“You will hear my wife return with a loud slam of the front door, and even if she is here, the only untrustworthy thing about her is that she does talk in her sleep. And occasionally to the nosy women who live around us.”
“The woman who will be my wife, she and her sister are escaping from soldiers in Berwick. As am I, in a manner of speaking.”
“What manner is that?”
“I helped them escape, when my… wife’s younger sister killed a man.”
“The Sheriff, I hear he was.”
Aedan nodded tightly. “An evil man, but still, a death.” He sat back on his hands and stretched out his legs. “We were running from Berwick, but my wife doesn’t want to run forever.”
“No woman does.” Fergus couldn’t stifle his laughter and Aedan joined him, just to be polite. But truth be told, Aedan didn’t want to run, either. He was as sick of running as Anne or Elena, or even Brighde. He wanted to give them something stable.
“In order to have a life free of fear that at any moment they may come for her sister, my wife has consented to live in France. But we cannot board a ship with the papers we have. They will turn us in to the authorities.”
“This is what my mother does, my lad.” Fergus held up a hand in reassurance. “Have no fear, she will procure the papers you need, and have you on your way to France and freedom. And until then, you and the women are welcome to stay in the barn where I have no doubt Molnar told you to leave them before you came to speak to me.”
Aedan laughed. “How did you know that?”
“Molnar believes there to be too much traffic at my house. He doesn’t see how a man could properly hide in the sight of so many soldiers. He prefers the west barn, and it’s almost always uninhabited.” Fergus turned his attention to the house and held up a finger to stop Aedan from talking. He inclined his head as though listening, but soon waved Aedan off.
“I thought I heard the wife, but it may be just the wind.”
“Your wife is a great woman.”
“Now she is,” Fergus said. “When we first came here, she was timid and scared, like anyone would be. She feared we wouldn’t blend in, wouldn’t be accepted.” He spread his arms wide. “Now, twenty years later, look at us.”