In the Time of Kings (17 page)

LONG, LONG AGO

North of Lintalee, Scotland — 1333

T
he day dawns in rare brilliance. A scattering of sunlight, bright as a welder’s torch, falls upon the forest floor surrounding Lintalee as our party heads out. The air is thick with the scent of pine needles being crushed beneath horses’ hooves.

The road — if it can be called that, for it’s nothing but a beaten dirt path — curves around massive tree trunks and crosses gurgling streams. This is old forest, ancient trees soaring to scrape the heavens. The deeper we go into it, the more the earth below is so scant of light that very little grows underneath. Birds sing unseen from the lacework of branches and small creatures scatter at our passing.

There are two dozen of us, most of them Alan’s men. Duncan leads at the front of the group with Alan, while Mariota and I ride side by side in the middle, surrounded by men who wear their armor as comfortably as their own skin. While the armor hasn’t proven to be nearly as hot or heavy as I expected, I still find it a far cry from a broken in pair of jeans and a well fitted T-shirt. Even if I’d been able to wear the clothes I’m used to, I wouldn’t have. The more I make an effort to fit in here, the fewer stares I’ll get.

With every snapped twig, my eyes dart through the undergrowth. I listen intently, my ears keened for the twang of a bowstring. Whenever the wind rushes through the leaves, I glance behind us, thinking it’s the rising rumble of hooves from an English ambush party. Duncan has taken pains to warn me of the possibility we could come under attack and instructed me in how to defend the womenfolk if that comes to pass. I figure both my first and final objectives are: don’t die — or at least avoid being maimed. I’d signed up for a fencing class during my freshman year of college, but during the first session my impulse whenever my opponent thrust his rapier at me was to roll up in a ball on the floor and cover my head with my hands. I quickly switched to bowling class. Me landing in a century where carrying around a length of steel is commonplace is a joke. I’m more likely to accidentally cut myself than intentionally harm someone else.

I hate to admit it, but when Archibald started to talk to me last night about collecting provisions and the organization of further raids into the north of England to gather cattle and sheep, I was thankful the task had been handed over to Alan. I want no part in planning for a war. I’m about as far from being militarily-minded as a guy can get. I’m a biologist. I’m constantly distracted by the range of flora and fauna around us, reciting genus and species in Latin in my head —
Hyacinthoides non-scripta
,
Pinus sylvestris
,
Martes martes
— whenever I’m not imagining enemy arrows whizzing through the air at my head.

Mariota tugs her hood back. A long braid twists over her shoulder and down her front, the ends of wispy curls escaping at random intervals. Fair skin complements the golden red of her hair and beneath delicately arched brows, her green eyes take in the road ahead. It’s the same look Claire gets whenever she’s daydreaming. Mariota’s gaze sweeps from left to right as the road opens out into a meadow speckled with spring’s first wildflowers. Laying the reins across her lap, she lifts her face to the sky, closes her eyes and inhales. Her hands, palms up, drift out to her sides. Silk ribbons trail from her flared sleeves, which are hemmed with gold-embroidered knotwork. Breathtaking. It’s like something out of a Waterhouse painting.

A dove coos from behind us, startling her. Her eyes fly wide and she suddenly realizes I’m staring at her.

“What?” I say. “Can’t a man admire his wife?”

A blush infusing her snowy skin, she looks away. She grabs the reins again, pinching them hard. That’s when I notice her gaze is fixed on something in the meadow. As I peer into the brightness, two shapes part from the far grove of trees.

My heart seizes. For a moment, I stop breathing. Everything around me fades away. All I can see is them, unafraid and unwavering, as they gaze back at us. There are two of them, just like before.

The majestic stag lifts his head higher, ears perked forward. The nostrils of his black nose flare as he lets out a snort. His antlers are tipped with six prongs on each side. The winter fur is thinning to a sleek reddish brown hide. Behind him, the doe sniffs the air, then goes to stand next to him, making the contrast in size between them more apparent. Her neckline is more elegant, her features more refined than his. She curves her neck around to rub her head against his shoulder.

The edges of time blur. I am back there, with Claire, when we got lost in the Grampian Mountains and stopped by the side of the road. The doe gazes back at me and I swear I can feel her presence — Claire’s — surrounding me, filling my heart, coursing through my blood.

Love never dies.

The stag’s hide twitches. He steps back, his muscles rigid, ready. The doe’s head snaps up, dark eyes wide, ears alert.

The rest of our party has halted. Beside Malcolm, one of the men has an arrow fitted to his bow. The string is taut, his elbow cocked back.

Malcolm jabs a finger at the deer. “Now!”

All I see is the flick of the bowstring and the feathered end of the shaft zipping past his fingers. It hisses across the open meadow and thwacks into the ground where the stag and doe had been standing only seconds ago.

They’re already bounding back across the meadow on slender, powerful legs, propelled by fear.

I kick my horse in the flanks and race toward Malcolm. The man who shot the arrow and two others are galloping across the meadow in pursuit.

“Call them off!” My horse’s hooves slam into the ground as I jerk back on the reins. It wheels around one full turn before coming to a complete stop. Vertigo rushes over me. I grip the edge of my saddle until the world stops tilting.

“Call them off?” Malcolm’s deep laughter rattles in my ears. “That’s our supper they’re going to bring down.”

“They won’t catch them.” They can’t. It’s not the deer’s time to die. I’m not sure how I know that. I just do.

“I say they will.” Arching his back, he pats his stomach. “Ahhh, venison roasted over an open spit ...”

If he keeps this up, I’m going to spew vomit all over him.

“Sir Roslin is right.” Alan lays his reins over his mount’s withers and dismounts. “Sound the horn and call them back, Malcolm. We don’t need to lose any men over an impulsive hunt. We’re too close to the border for that sort of folly.”

A grumble escapes Malcolm’s throat, but he complies. The horn blasts once, twice, and a minute later the three men are cantering back into the clearing.

“Thank you,” I say to Alan.

“For being sensible? Save your gratitude for more important things — such as the fact that I’ve been sent along to carry out a duty that should have been yours, but which you are presently incapable of doing.” Contempt bubbles beneath the surface of his words. He uncorks his flask and takes a drink. “We’ll stop here to eat, but not long. We need to reach the Teviot before nightfall.”

If he’s expecting an argument, he won’t get one from me. I don’t want the duties he’s taken over. I don’t even want to be here.

“Roslin?”

Behind me stands Mariota, holding out bread and a flask. My stomach rumbles. If there’s one shining light in this backwards world, it’s her. I climb down from my saddle, glad to be on firm ground again. Beneath the broad boughs of an oak tree, we share our bland meal, barely saying a word. Oddly, I find the silence comfortable, the way it is with an old friend.

A tingle of electricity sparks in my chest and I can sense her eyes upon me. We smile briefly at each other and then look away. Sitting in silence with her, I begin to understand her better. She’s not quiet because she’s shy or awkward. It’s more of a calmness that she exudes. Serenity. And right now, I need that, because so much around me is beyond my control.

A half hour later, we’re riding again, the dense growth of the forest having given way to grassy hills.

“I don’t like the forest,” Mariota says, unprompted. “There are too many places for the English to hide.”

“We agree on that. What
do
you like, then?” Anything to steer the talk back to something more lighthearted. I don’t need to feed my paranoia. I still remember that English detachment we came upon after Archibald and the others found me.

She thinks a moment. “The sea. From the topmost tower window of Blacklaw, you can see forever across the sea.”

“Beautiful, I’m sure.” But I’m not talking about a castle perched above the sea. I have a clear picture in my mind — of her, standing at the edge of a very tall cliff, her arms wide, the wind fanning the hair from her face ...

A vacuum of shock sucks the air from my lungs with a sudden, terrifying force.
She
is the woman in my dreams. The one I’d seen since childhood. The one I’d known since before I was born.

“Watch it!” Malcolm glares at me as he rides by, a furrow of anger cleaving his brow. “If you are going to stop like that, take your horse off to the side.” He jerks an elbow as he guides his mount past us, then adds under his breath, “Stupid bastard.”

Mariota darts a curious look at me as she joins her brother. I don’t remember doing it, but I must have yanked back on the reins and halted my horse when the revelation hit me like a wrecking ball: that this body I’m inhabiting doesn’t belong to me. I’m just borrowing it for the time being. And all those visions I’d had growing up — they’re memories.

I hadn’t fallen into a wormhole and gotten sucked back in time. I’ve been
remembering
who I once was. So maybe, just maybe, I can go back — or forward, however you want to look at it. But how?

That still doesn’t answer what happened to the real Sir Roslin. Had he died in a scuffle with his captors as they brought him back north? Or was he still here, in this body, unable to speak, waiting for me to leave?

I shake myself, nudge my mount in the flanks and ride on. Malcolm and Mariota are now several horses ahead of me. I’d seen my reflection in the water the day I woke up here and then in a piece of polished metal while at Lintalee. I look a lot like the old me, but not entirely. My face is leaner, my shoulders more muscular, and my hair is more burnished, as if I’ve spent more time out of doors than my previous academic lifestyle would have leant itself to. Everyone here has accepted me as Sir Roslin without question — even Duncan, who’s known me ... Sir Roslin, I mean, all his life.

Rain begins to fall, heavily. In minutes, I’m soaked to the bone and shivering. My senses tell me this is real, not a dream. Intensely, miserably real. Still, my logic-driven brain is having a hard time accepting it.

For two more days as we ride on to Blacklaw, I can’t stop asking myself, wondering, when this will all end. I’m starting to think I’ll never get back to 2013, never see Claire again, never go home.

The worst part is that I’m not sure I want to go back. Not if Claire isn’t going to be all right. Not if the baby isn’t going to make it.

Might as well be somewhere else. Even here.

––––––––

M
y world has more than been shaken. It’s been flipped upside down, turned inside out and beaten bloody with a spiked iron mallet. Like nothing I ever planned, let alone even imagined.

Before a week ago, I’d been meticulous about plotting out my future, graphing our combined incomes versus long and short-term investments, our retirement savings plan and a college fund for our still-in-negotiations 2.5 children. Claire and I had debated over which school district to purchase our next house in, which was the most reliable car to buy once my 2001 Toyota Camry slurped its last tank of gas, and how much of our money should go to every assignable budget category. She wanted to buy organic, locally grown food and I pushed for bulk packaged foods from Sam’s Club. Even though we were often on different ends of the spectrum, our debates were always logical exchanges of intellect and shining examples of compromise.

This is bad. Very bad. Already, I’m starting to think of her in past tense. Not ‘we are ...’, but ‘we were ...’

I can feel the gaping hole in my heart. And it needs filling.

God, how I miss her spontaneity. I ache for the little surprises she always showered me with that brightened otherwise mundane days. A few weeks ago, when we were up to our ears in the details of wedding plans, she had told me she’d pick me up at lunch to take me for a tux fitting. I’d been avoiding it for weeks. Crawling out of my T-shirt and donning a button-up Oxford for important functions at work has always been absolute torture for me. I tried to convince her I had to work through lunch, that I was behind on grading papers, but she refused to buy into my flimsy excuse and hauled me from the building.

Imagine my surprise when she turned her car into the botanical gardens parking lot and pulled a picnic basket out of the trunk, complete with roasted Cornish game hens, a fancy raspberry vinaigrette pasta salad with little black olives and sun-dried tomatoes, a bottle of sparkling cider and a red checkered tablecloth. What I wouldn’t give for another day like that.

But it’s slowly sinking in. There’s no way to go back. None.

I’m here, in this place. I’ll never see her again. Ever. And it hurts like hell.

LONG, LONG AGO

Blacklaw Castle, Scotland — 1333

M
y first impression of Blacklaw Castle is that it doesn’t look like much of a home. More like a prison. I can see why Mariota finds the place so desolate.

Ahead of us, a long narrow road curves around a small bay, before winding its way upward along a finger of land that juts out into the sea. Towering cliffs soar above crashing waves, with only a thin strip of shingle beach edging the shore below. Thousands of sea gulls are perched on tiny ledges in the cliff face. Here and there, fledglings peek from their nests, crying out in hunger to watchful parents. Others glide on crescent wings above the froth-capped ocean, sometimes dipping their heads to dive, dive, dive, into the dark, choppy waters, later emerging with a flopping silver fish in their yellow beaks.