Chapter 19
My night was fitful. I hadn’t eaten enough, had to get up and pee, had to turn over the three framed photos of Donnan and pull one off the wall. Then I lay awake for a while and wondered if Magnus was going to be okay, wondered what we were going to do now we were in exile — Old Magnus had told me to trust Hammond, to get Quentin and the list, and not to go to Florida, so there was a shit storm of stuff there to worry about. And I had so much to tell Magnus.
When he finally woke, daylight streaming through the curtains I had forgotten to close, I was already awake. “Do you need to get up?”
“Aye, but I daena need help. I will go slow.”
He stood with a moan and plodded around the bed to the bathroom, completely naked, his spectacular ass out for the whole world to see. I was really happy to be the small circle of people who had ever seen it. He pissed in the toilet.
A few minutes later he came plodding out. “What are ye thinkin’ of?”
“Your arse.” I grinned.
He chuckled. “And I was thinkin’ on yours.” He climbed into bed beside me. “Tell me the rest of it, I was laying in bed thinking ye haena told me enough.”
I teased, “Oh really? It looked a lot like you were sleeping.”
He grinned. “I am verra glad you are here, but why would my future self send ye away?”
“Because all you did was fight. There were arena battles, wars, and you had to fight General Reyes every time you tried to come see me, it was a lot.”
“I daena like tae fight but I think I could have fought well enough. It still daena sound like me tae send ye away.”
I leaned on an elbow and watched him for a second. “Do you want the full story? Because there are many layers I need to tell you about. I can’t tell you all at once. You need to hear it bit by bit.”
“I want tae hear it.”
“You and I were riding between Balloch and Kilchurn and by the way I was on my own horse.”
“Ye were?”
“I was.” I nodded solemnly. “You told me I was almost perfect. Even though most of the time you held the thingies.” I gestured for holding the reins.
“I held the thingies for ye?”
“Yes, but I was amazing — we stopped for the night because I had chafing all over here.” I gestured on my thighs. “We built a fire and we were sitting beside it and these three men crept into our camp.”
His brow drew down.
“You told them to leave but they wouldn’t. They made a remark about wanting some of me and you went ballistic.”
“What dost that word mean?”
“Like crazy, violent. I mean you needed to, they weren’t backing down, you had to fight them, but they...” I remembered the fight, the ferocious glare in my husband’s eyes, his beard adding to his crazed wild look.
He stared at the ceiling. “Tell me.”
“You killed them. All of them. Even though the last guy was begging you to spare his life. It was like you couldn’t stop and then you broke down and told me you were broken. You said you didn’t pray anymore because God had forsaken you and… You begged me to help you.”
“Och.”
“And by the time you were calmed we had decided to send me here. We didn’t really talk about it, we both just knew.”
“Twas dangerous for ye tae come alone — the last time ye came... Ye must have been verra afraid.”
“I was but Hammond was exactly the right person for me to ask for help and well, the… Here’s the other thing.” My voice caught. “The doctor was trying to kill you. I had to stop him and they were going to arrest me and if I hadn’t gotten here in time, you might have died...”
He turned his head to look on my face. My chin was trembling I chewed my lip to try to control it.
“Twas a tremendous burden tae place at your feet, mo reul-iuil. I am sorry for it.”
“I would do it again, in a red hot minute. I will rescue you over and over again if I have to, but thank you for noticing that it was hard, because it was really hard and — the nurse, such a fucking bitch, she said Bella was in your room while you were in surgery.”
He said, “I daena ken why, but I will make sure nae one puts her above ye again.”
“Thank you.” I gave him a sad smile. “It was all really hard. What did you have to do, fight to the death?”
“Aye. Sounds like the first of many battles though.”
“We’ll try to figure out how to keep that from happening.”
After a soft knock, Mrs Johnstone came in with a tray of food. “Breakfast for you, Your Highness.”
I wiggled under the covers so she wouldn’t see how frightful I must have looked, crazed hair, days with not much sleep. I asked from under the blanket, “Is there coffee?”
“Yes, Your Highness, coffee, eggs, and beans. There isn’t much I know how to make, it isn’t usually my job you see. I was more Donnan’s personal assistant, but now I am almost the only person left.” She put the tray on the dresser. I peeked. She stood one of the framed photos of Donnan back up again.
I went back under the covers. “Is there a carafe somewhere? I’m going to need four or five cups of coffee this morning.”
“I’ll bring it, Your Highness. I’ll see about finding you some clothes.”
Magnus said, “I need some too.”
“Yes, I meant you, Your Highness.”
“Then Kaitlyn will need some clothes as well.” She left with a bow.
Magnus and I looked at each other. “Twill be difficult tae get used tae titles like this.”
“I know, Hammond kept calling me Queen Kaitlyn and I thought he was talking about someone else.”
I got our plates, put the photo face down again, and we ate in bed. I explained about the food, “This is basically an English breakfast. She served me this yesterday too. It’s a little rubbery, because I don’t think she’s the normal cook. I'm not sure what happened to the cook, but I saw people being arrested and taken from the house and now we’re here.”
He chewed a bite of eggs dipped through beans. “Och, we need Chef Zach.”
“Yes, definitely.” I sighed then ate a bite of toast with butter. “What I really want, my love, and you’ve probably never had this because Chef Zach would never serve it to you, is Lucky Charms cereal. It has marshmallows which makes no sense at all, but someone did it. Or Cookie Crisp, a cereal that tastes like cookies, again, no one knows why. Or Cinnamon Crunch. Cereal like cinnamon toast. What I’m saying is it’s a big world of food out there and you’ve only had a small taste of it. There’s so much more for you to try.”
“I am glad ye saved my life for the nonsense cereals.”
“Me too.” I dipped a forkful of the egg through my beans. “This on the other hand tastes like feet and is lacking the best part of Chef Zach’s breakfasts: whipped cream and strawberries.”
Mrs Johnstone returned minutes later with two stacks of clothes. “You could sleep in the master bedroom, Your Highness.”
He glanced at me then asked her, “I believe twas Donnan’s room?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Well, I am nae interested in sleepin’ there. Maybe if we move out all of his things first.”
“Oh I see, I’m sorry to say these are his clothes.”
“Well, I will be naked without, so twill be necessary.” He grinned, but she had a look on her face that seemed like she wasn’t used to smiling. She hustled out of the room.
I said, “I don’t think she’s going to like us, we’re not at all what she’s used to. And I think she had a crush on Donnan. I can see it in the way she looks at the photos when she’s talking to me. It makes me want to throw up.”
Magnus said, “I think she is scared of me with my giant majestic naked—”
Mrs Johnstone slipped back into the room with the carafe of coffee I asked for. She bowed. “Your Highness.”
Magnus and I tried mightily to suppress our laughs.
When she left
I giggled. “Your big majestic — what?”
“You ken, ye have met it afore.”
“I don’t know, I think I may have forgotten.” I blew into my coffee mug trying to cool it. I hadn’t mentioned I also needed a lot more milk than this, not wanting to be a bother.
Chapter 20
There was a soft knock and the nurse bowed into the room. She fussed even more than last night, looking at Magnus’s abdomen, giving him another dose of painkillers, checking his temperature, and asking whether he defecated yet. The whole time she called him ‘Your Highness' and it was all very surreal. Finally she said, “Your Highness, you will need to wait for at least a week before resuming any kind of intercourse—”
He looked at me confused.
I explained, “Sex.”
“Nae couplin’ for a week?”
She said, “At least.”
“Och, tis a long time.”
I said, “You’ve gone longer.”
“But nae with ye in m’bed, twill be an immense amount of trouble tae keep m’self from—”
The nurse said, “You’ll have to restrain yourself, you might open your injury and then we would need a doctor and they’re in short supply.”
Magnus groaned. “I daena like the sound of that.”
I said, “Me neither. That’s okay, we’ll find something else to do, like, is there a PlayStation here?”
The nurse shook her head.
“Fine, we’ll come up with something, I don’t know — knitting.”
We all laughed.
Even with that terrible news it was so nice to be on the safe side of a very ‘big and dangerous thing’ and now we were in bed together. Talking about things. Happy.
The nurse left. We kept looking at each other smiling.
I asked, “Where did we leave off?”
“Ye were bein’ a good wife tellin’ me somethin’ about my magnificence, but now we need tae get m’mind off my magnificence. Ye should maybe tell me more about what messages I sent through time.”
“You said there were many many battles and one of the warnings was we needed you to do that a lot less. You said you trusted Hammond, but you called him Hammie. Oh, and you said you wished you had gone to get Quentin.”
“Yet, we canna go tae Florida.”
“Maybe we could land somewhere else and travel there, like on a plane—”
There was another soft knock on the door. “Your Highness, Colonel Donahoe is here to meet with you if you can.”
“Tell him I can, I will be out in a moment.”
I said, “Looks like the world is upon us, ready to be dealt with.”
“Aye.” He got up and began to dress.
Chapter 21
Magnus was gone for hours tucked away in an office with Hammond and three other men I hadn’t met. I missed him and was very bored so I wandered around. There were plenty of intricate nicknacks and things to look at, porcelain figurines and old books. There were many photos of Donnan to be taken off walls and shelves and tabletops. I stacked them behind doors, out of sight. The house was very incredibly grand, but also there were reminders everywhere that it once belonged to Donnan. I didn’t want to go too deep into the closets.
I took a very long shower and blew dry my hair. The shampoos were all scented like freesia or something beautiful and floral and totally necessary after the length of time I had gone without. I dressed in the simple wrap dress I was given. It fit nicely, but I was dying for some makeup and jewelry.
Mrs Johnstone seemed to think I would want to move into the master apartment but I swear to god I couldn’t even look at it. What if there was — I don’t know, his fucking underwear in there?
And it didn’t feel like my home, this didn’t feel like my staff. I couldn’t imagine telling them to get rid of anything, to clean it out. I felt like a guest. Probably made worse by the ‘staying in the guest room’ thing, but that couldn’t be helped.
It struck me this plan had seemed so normal when I was deciding for us. Yet here I was in the decision, inside an unreal, crazy, war-riddled world. I wandered past the giant projection of the war on the living room wall to the kitchen, suffered Mrs Johnstone bowing and calling me ‘your grace’ or something, to ask if she could show me a map of the kingdom.
The video projection of the battle scenes shifted to a gigantic map. She pretended to be busy scrubbing the counters while I looked over the familiar outlines of England and the European continent but with unfamiliar colors and strange borders. There had been a serious shakeup in the last 300 years. “Where are we, right now?”
Mrs Johnstone wiped her hands on a towel, approached the projection, and pointed.
I asked, “And what about all of this?” I gestured around continents that were colored gray and barely marked.
“There’s nothing there.”
“All of this? Like this whole area? Where did all the people go?”
She irritatedly said, “You can see this in your room, Your Highness.”
“Oh, okay, thanks.”
I returned to my room and with trial and error figured out how to get the map to appear on a wide bare wall. I asked the computer questions and spent time researching locations and being surprised by how wide the kingdom was, but also, how small compared to the whole world. The whole desolate and ruined world. I asked to see some photos of what lay beyond the kingdom and quickly asked to have them turned off. There was some shit that once seen I could not unsee. It was like the future of the world had entered a dark ages.
We had to live and reign in a kingdom that had not much else beyond its borders except the last dredges of what used to be civilization. Two other kingdoms and that was it, barely anything. It was terrifying and would have shaken me to my core if not for the fact I was a visitor here. I hadn’t been a part of the apocalypse or whatever that was.
This was what was left, this. All I could do was try to figure how to make this work.
And to do that I’d need to learn a lot about the politics of this place.
Chapter 22 - Magnus
The meetin’ lasted for many hours and I was pained from sittin’ up for that long. There were men there though that I had never met afore. I had tae earn their respect. I couldna allow them tae see me as weak; twas a time when loyalty was verra important.
Madame Johnstone brought lunch tae the office, but I wanted tae see Kaitlyn so I took my leave.
I found Kaitlyn in our room leanin’ on the pillows lookin’ at the projected map of my kingdom. I sat on the edge of the bed, my elbows on my knees. I greatly wanted tae lie down but I feared I would nae return tae m’feet. “I have a break but must return, mo ruel-iuil, there is still much left tae discuss. Have ye been studyin’?”
“I have, it’s a big kingdom.”
“Did you see, Kaitlyn, Castle Don—”
“Is that what it’s called?”
“We will want tae rename it.”
“Good.”
“Did ye see tis verra near the River Tay? When I was living’ there I recognized the mountains through the windows but dinna trust m’eyes.”
“I noticed.”
“Hammond was shewin’ me a map and I learned that the castle is near where Balloch castle once stood. Hammond told me the Balloch ruins are on the grounds.” I ran a hand through m’hair. “He shewed me photos. There is nae much left but some crumblin’ walls.”
“Was that hard to see?”
“Aye, twas a verra difficult meeting. Roderick has raised a considerable army. He has the upper hand in two of the five closest shires. I am worried there will be a great many lives lost.”
Her face turned concerned. “Are you tired? This has been a lot to do today, maybe you should rest?”
“I feel good enough, I am askin’ men tae fight for me, tae possibly die for me. I should hold on long enough tae ken the details of the war.”
“Then again, you just had a surgery.”
“The stitches are holdin’ me taegether.” I
laughed tae prove I was nae so grave. “I have many deep scars, mo reul-iuil.”
She crawled across the bed and wrapped around m’arm and tucked her head against my shoulder. “You should have seen how many you had four years from now.”
“Och. We shall try nae tae let that happen again.” She kissed me, a pleasant sweetness on m’mouth. “I have tae go back, the head of Royal Affairs wants tae stage the coronation on the morrow. He wants tae broadcast it. Dost that mean tae show everywhere like the cat videos? I wasna sure I kent what he spoke of.”
Her hand clasped mine, twas warm and soft and comforting. “Yes, exactly like the cat videos. But really? With the battles going on in the streets and...?”
“They think they have the worst of the fightin’ closest tae the castle under control and crownin’ me is the highest priority. Once I am crowned, the discussion will change — I am the natural successor tae Donnan. They will put a crown on m’head and twill be difficult tae take it from me.”
“Will men come to fight you for it?” Her words quickened with her fear. “You aren’t able — I mean, you aren’t ready to fight. You need to change the rules about challenging your reign.”
“Daena worry, Kaitlyn, I will change the rules. Why do they get tae challenge me? I am the king and what are they? The unclaimed sons of Donnan?” I scoffed. “I am prone tae consider all challenges illegitimate. Who are they tae make me fight? Donnan liked tae have his sons fight for the glory of it.”
“He was a really craptastic father.”
“Aye. I have higher hopes for my sons.” I chuckled and folded her hand in mine. “And once my son is born they winna have a reason tae challenge.”
She said, “Your son… I actually have a lot to still explain... So much really.”
I tried to read her face, but it told me nothin’ of what she meant. “Twill have tae wait for longer, mo reul-iuil. I have the second part of the meetin’ still.”
Chapter 23
I wandered more around the living room, looking out the tall windows at the gardens outside, not sure if I had permission to go out there with the danger and all. Growing braver, I investigated the cabinets and bookshelves, everything exquisite and antique and beautiful and collected. I wondered if Lady Mairead had been involved, but this wasn’t hoarded. It looked chosen: the best of the best, the private quarters, the extra special. The books were very very old. I dusted off a few and opened them to see inside, but wasn’t much into reading the Iliad or the Epic of Gilgamesh or whatever.
Magnus and a Love Beyond Words Page 8
