Exiles in Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Hello.” She spoke in a tone Callum had never heard her use before. Lower, a little sexy, and definitely out of the boys’ league. “It’s a beautiful night.”

  The two boys straightened and stepped back as Cassie and her horse crowded them out of the exit. Neither of them could have been more than sixteen and both were shorter than Cassie. Even so, keeping her attention was all they could think about. Liam and Callum kept on going, past Cassie’s horse and into the woods that bordered the camp to the north. They were out of earshot by the time she came hurrying up, leading her horse.

  “They won’t forget you,” Callum said.

  “Being memorable was worth it to get away with no trouble. Daddy Bruce is busy.” Cassie shot Callum an amused glance and then swung up onto her horse. The move revealed the pants beneath her dress and she made a half-hearted attempt to pull down her skirt. “It will be a while before he remembers us, and then longer still until those boys are questioned.”

  “How are you doing, Liam?” Callum said, after boosting him onto his horse. With a damaged arm, Liam couldn’t have managed it without help.

  “Well enough,” he said.

  Cassie tsked through her teeth. “Both of you are suffering the aftereffects of a concussion. If either of you feel like you’re going to fall off your horse, let me know before it happens. You’re both too big for me to catch or lift.”

  “Deal,” Callum said.

  They headed east. At a junction, they could have turned south and connected with the Glasgow-Stirling road, but Callum turned his horse’s nose resolutely north. He couldn’t abandon the captives. At Killearn, six miles north of Mugdock Castle, he would have passed up another opportunity to turn east, but Liam hesitated at the crossroads.

  “What is it?” Callum said.

  Liam still hesitated and Cassie said, “He didn’t say anything earlier, but he’s wondering if we shouldn’t ride to Stirling Castle and warn William Fraser and the other Guardians what is afoot.”

  “Perhaps that would be the best course, but I feel an obligation to James,” Callum said, “and to Samuel if he’s alive. However much Bruce might admire James, I don’t trust him to care about the hostages when he catches up with the MacDougalls.”

  “I’m not asking you to change course,” Liam said. “I will go alone.”

  Cassie and Callum exchanged a look. That wasn’t a good idea either.

  “I have family in the area,” Liam said. “I won’t be alone once I reach their holdings to the west of Stirling.”

  “What is your clan?” Callum said.

  “MacLaren,” Liam said, and then he grinned. “We support the claim of Bruce and hate the MacGregors, MacDougalls, and Grahams.”

  “I can see why you didn’t mention that earlier,” Callum said.

  “I didn’t want to muddy the waters,” Liam said. “Besides, my uncle knows my father’s family. He would have told Bruce my allegiance if he thought it was important.”

  “Maybe he didn’t think your loyalties mattered,” Cassie said, and then spoke the hard truth they couldn’t deny: “He meant for you to die along with everyone else.”

  Callum nodded. “She’s right. Liam, we do need you to ride to Stirling and make sure that the remaining Guardians know what’s happening. Presumably, someone will have reported the massacre on the road, but they won’t know who led it until you tell them.”

  Cassie put a hand out to Liam. “Don’t say a word about your uncle, though, or Bruce and Kirby’s accusation against John Balliol for that matter. We don’t know who to trust or who else might be involved in this plot.”

  “I won’t,” Liam said.

  Callum held out his hand to him. “May God go with you.”

  “It’s only ten miles to safety,” Liam said, clasping Callum’s forearm with his good hand. “I won’t stop until I reach help, no matter the cost. Where should I tell Bishop Fraser you’re going?”

  “North—but don’t have him try to track us down,” Callum said. “We’ll come to him when we can. The Black Comyn should have been headed to Stirling Castle already for the gathering with Parliament. Now he will have his burned castle on his mind. Hopefully, he hasn’t already started his own war against Bruce in the south.”

  Callum longed for a fast car and a good road. Ten miles was nothing in the modern world—ten minutes of your time, no matter how heart-stopping the danger. But here in the Middle Ages, the twenty miles from Glasgow to Stirling had proved their undoing.

  He consoled himself with the knowledge that Liam, as a lone rider, could travel the distance in less than three hours—two if the roads were good and his body didn’t fail him. For the thousandth time, Callum wished for a cell phone.

  “Good luck,” Cassie said.

  Liam rode away, heading east into the lightening sky. Callum and Cassie watched until he disappeared into the morning mist.

  Chapter Ten

  Cassie

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Cassie said to Callum after Liam had ridden out of sight.

  “No idea,” Callum said. “I was hoping you did.”

  That was another thing that was different about Callum: his ability to admit he didn’t have an answer to every question. It spoke of a deep and abiding confidence in himself and what he was that he didn’t feel threatened by his own ignorance.

  “I ranged all over this area at one time,” Cassie said. “My memory isn’t perfect, and sadly, what I can’t tell you is where the MacDougalls would have hidden their captives. The problem, as I see it, is that much of this land is hostile territory. The Grahams and MacGregors exist in little pockets between here and MacDougall land in the west.”

  “In the course of my work, I memorized maps of Britain on the off chance that I would ever be stuck somewhere without one,” Callum said. “I traveled this part of Scotland by car a few years ago, but the world looks completely different from the back of a horse. Most of the main roads don’t even follow the medieval roads anymore.” He shook his head. “I’ve even been near Dunstaffnage, to that castle that juts out into the water at Loch Awe. Do you know it?”

  “Maybe.” Cassie wrinkled her nose at him. “I think I know where you’re talking about. If you search for ‘Scottish castle’ on the internet—or at least if you searched back when I could—it’s the most photographed one ever. But I don’t remember seeing it when I passed by the loch. I don’t think it’s been built yet.”

  “I thought you didn’t know anything about Scottish history,” Callum said.

  Cassie stuck out her chin in an attempt not to blush. “It doesn’t mean I don’t like castles.”

  Callum laughed. “I’m not touching that one.” Cassie glared at him, but he just shrugged. “Regardless, if we’re going anywhere, you’re going to have to lead us.”

  “I wouldn’t have said growing up as I did in Oregon would better prepare me for living here than growing up in England,” Cassie said. “It’s your history.”

  “I actually spent a lot of years in Washington D.C., since my father worked for the U.S. State Department. After my parents’ divorce, my mother and I lived in London, and then I went to university at Cambridge,” Callum said. “There’s not a lot of call for trapping rabbits there.”

  Cassie couldn’t help but laugh. Callum smiled too, with a flash of white teeth. His eyes glinted at her as she met his gaze, and she realized that this wasn’t the first time he’d made her laugh—far from it. Cassie looked away, her insides churning.

  “How far could the MacDougalls have marched the prisoners in one day?” Callum said.

  Cassie was thankful that he’d changed the subject. “If everyone was healthy? Thirty miles? Much more and they’d not walk another step the next day.”

  “They went in daylight,” Callum said, “so they must not have been worried about being seen.”

  “Or they didn’t have far to go.” Cassie tapped a finger to her lips as she thought. “You know, Callum … do you remember Donella saying somethin
g about Dundochill?”

  “No,” Callum said.

  “She said it when we first found Liam, something about you carrying him all the way to Dundochill.” Cassie said. “It’s an island in Loch Ard, ten miles north of here.”

  “I know that loch. Doesn’t it belong to the Earl of Lennox?”

  “I think so,” Cassie said.

  “He supports Grampa Bruce,” Callum said.

  “He does.” Cassie gazed north, not that there was much to see but the dark shape of the hill in front of them and mountains beyond that. “I was up there once. Nobody lives there. It would be a good hiding place.”

  “It might be worth checking out,” Callum said. “Donella was holding something back.”

  “I think you’re right. If the prisoners aren’t there, we can always ride on to Dunstaffnage,” Cassie said. “You can have another go at Daddy Bruce.”

  Callum chewed on his lower lip. Cassie had said it as a joke, but he took it seriously. “It might be better if we stayed off his radar for now.”

  “You got him to talk to Lord Patrick. It was better than what he was doing.” Cassie paused. “Thank you for that. Lord Patrick is a friend.”

  “We should have waited to leave,” Callum said. “I would have liked to know the outcome of their conversation.”

  “I feel bad about leaving Lord Patrick too. I owe him a lot,” Cassie said, “but Robbie told us we needed to go and he knows his own father. Daddy Bruce is either going to Dunstaffnage or he’s not; the prisoners are there, or they’re not.”

  “I know,” Callum said.

  “I don’t think we could have helped Lord Patrick more than you did by getting Daddy Bruce to talk to him,” Cassie said.

  “Robbie was very convincing in his urgency,” Callum said, “though it would have been nice to understand Kirby’s end game. What’s he up to?”

  “No good,” Cassie said, “but that, too, is out of our hands for the time being.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Callum said.

  Cassie was glad Callum saw that. She liked being right. She was also finding that she liked having something important to do. It had been too long since she’d made a difference in anyone’s life but her own.

  A mile out of Killearn, Cassie and Callum forded the river that flowed east out of Loch Lomond and rode northeast for several more miles, before turning north again. If they kept going as they were, they would reach the river that flowed from Loch Ard and could follow it west to the loch. Cassie yawned. With the rising of the sun, a glorious May day was creeping across the hills and valleys. Now that the excitement had abated, she was feeling her lack of sleep.

  Callum looked over at her. “Stay alert, Cassie. We have a ways to go.”

  “I know.” Cassie shook herself and looked at her companion. He swept his hood off his head and allowed the sun to bathe his face. He looked tired too, but in better shape than he could have been, given what he’d been through in the last few days. “So, how did you learn Gaelic?” Cassie said.

  “My mother is Scottish,” he said. “I missed her every day before I came to the Middle Ages.”

  “She’s gone, then?”

  Callum nodded. “My father too. They both died of cancer two years ago, within six weeks of each other.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cassie said. And then she asked him—despite herself and even though it was so unlike her—“did you have a girlfriend or a wife, back in the old world?”

  “I was dating a girl, Emma. We hadn’t been together long.” He paused. “She would have no idea why I stopped calling.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cassie said again, and meant it.

  Callum shrugged. “I had a job to do and I did it. I can’t be sorry, since it’s who I am. It’s because of the army and then MI-5 that I was at all prepared for this life.” He shot Cassie a wicked grin. “Being a spy is all fun and games until a man ends up in the Middle Ages.”

  Cassie snorted a laugh, which she tried to swallow back. “You seem to have done all right for yourself. You’re an emissary from the King of England.”

  “That’s only because he’s a twenty-year-old kid from Oregon,” Callum said, “though the more time I spend with him, the less I remember that.”

  “I don’t like that there are kings at all,” Cassie said. “Why hasn’t he instituted a democracy already? What about letting women vote?”

  “What about letting men vote?” Callum said. “England has its own Parliament, as does Wales, but democracy depends on education. David’s building printing presses all over Britain, and since he became the Prince of Wales, he has been encouraging children to go to school—both girls and boys. It’s coming, but he’s only been King of England for six months. These things take time.”

  “Too much time, if you ask me,” Cassie said and then managed to curb her irritation. “But I get it. Change is going to take place over generations, not overnight.”

  “With your attitude, why haven’t you ever been accused of being a witch?” Callum said.

  Cassie almost laughed again. “Who says I haven’t?”

  “Have you?”

  “You’re not one to let anything go, are you?”

  “No,” he said.

  Cassie sighed. “My neighbors have been suspicious of me, but nobody has ever accused me of being a witch. You do realize that being an Englishman is far worse, right?”

  Callum was back to laughing. “You have me there.”

  “At the same time, I’m not quite English—I’m not quite anything—and for a long time that was my biggest problem.” Cassie looked at Callum sideways. The sun had come out from behind a cloud again and it shone full on her face. It felt good. She could use some warmth. “When I first got here, I didn’t even know if I was on planet Earth, much less Scotland.”

  “You had it much worse than Meg,” Callum said. “She arrived as you did and at much the same age, alone and friendless. But Llywelyn took her under his wing right away.”

  “I had Lord Patrick’s help, after a fashion.” Cassie patted her bow. “And I had this.”

  “Did you ever tell Lord Patrick where you were from?”

  “God, no!” Cassie shivered at the thought. “Did Meg?”

  “Her closest companions know,” Callum said, “and of course, Llywelyn.”

  “Sometimes I’ve been tempted,” Cassie said, “but it would be stupid to do so. It would ruin everything.”

  “That’s why you need to come to England with me when I return there,” Callum said, very sure of himself. “You need to talk to David.”

  Cassie didn’t say anything. She could admit to herself that she was tempted by that too, but she’d made a home here. From what Callum had described, the English court didn’t sound very inviting. Here, she was in charge of her own life and knew the world well enough to lead Callum through it. She would be lost in England.

  One of the things Cassie liked about Scotland was how wild it was. It had few towns and most people lived scattered among the hills, herding sheep and cattle. It was unusual to find a woman living alone like she did, but not unheard of. What could she do in England but find a husband and pop out one baby after another like every other medieval woman? Even if King David believed in equal rights for women, this world had generations to go before that could become a reality. Cassie didn’t have that kind of time. This was the only life she was going to have and whiling it away at the English court was the last thing she wanted to do with it.

  In addition, the Scots understood something that Cassie hadn’t known any non-Indians to ever really get before: family lands were sacred and if you lost them, you lost a part of yourself. Cassie didn’t know how long some of these people had lived here, but for many it was countless generations, the same as for her family back in Oregon. Even if some of their ancestors came from the south, or from France originally, Highlanders couldn’t breathe if too many people were around. Open space and the natural world were in their blood, as they were in Cassie’s. No w
onder they fought so hard and for so long against the English who wanted to take their land from them.

  Cassie and Callum lapsed into silence until the sun was well up and they reached the river that sprang from the northwestern lochs. They turned to follow it as it wound sinuously west. The terrain was rougher until they found a trail that led to a ford across a tributary. Loch Ard was three miles long, if one included the narrows, and roughly half a mile wide.

  “We’re getting close,” Cassie said. “We should walk from here.”

  Both travelers dismounted stiffly. Callum put a hand to the small of his back and bent forward and back. “I’m getting old, Cassie.”

  Oh, he was so annoying! He’d made her laugh again. “You’re what? Thirty-four or five?”

  “That’s old for here,” Callum said.

  “I’ve probably led us on a wild goose chase anyway,” Cassie said.

  “Even if the prisoners aren’t here, I don’t regret this journey,” Callum said.

  “We’re out of Daddy Bruce’s hands—or Kirby’s for that matter—Liam is on his way to warn William Fraser of what has happened, and we can ask at a village if the MacDougalls have come through recently.”

  “They wouldn’t tell us,” Cassie said. “Or rather, they wouldn’t tell you. I might get an answer if they liked the look of me.”

  It was no trouble to keep to the trees that lined the loch’s shore, walking silently along a narrow path, leading the horses. The day was actually getting hot. Cassie stripped off several layers of clothes, including her cloak, dress, and sweater, and stuffed them into her pack. Birds sang in the trees, most of which were pine, but the deciduous trees were finally fully leafed after a long cold spring.

  “So few people live here. Why?” Callum said.

  “It’s not like someone’s going to build a vacation home on the lochshore,” Cassie said. “There’s nothing up here. The grazing isn’t even good—”

  “Ssh!” Callum put out his hand and they both stilled.

  Cassie didn’t hear anything at first, but as they waited, listening, the sound of an axe against a tree echoed through the woods, followed by the smell of smoke. “Someone’s close,” Cassie said. “What should we do next?”