Neacal and Petrus were sent to circle with torches. Mungan was given the rearguard. Smearing their faces in peat, they made ready in silence, moving into position in the next half hour.
Ciaran checked his girth, then looked again at the column. The English marched with the arrogance of men who thought themselves safe. He curled his hand into a fist, raised it, and the signal passed like fire among his men.
From the birch stand above, Mathar’s first volley hissed down. Arrows bit into shields, men stumbled and fell. Stones followed, loosed with ropes and landing heavy among the enemy. An ox bellowed and crashed sideways, tipping a wagon into the bog. Mud sucked it down, oats spilling like grain for the birds.
Ciaran spurred forward with his Kerrs, blade in hand. Two slashes and the yoke split, oxen bolting wild, another cart upended in their wake. His blood surged. This was the work he knew best—cutting a beast down to size.
Alaric’s horn sounded, and the MacKinlays poured down the slope. Steel met steel. The rearguard of the English tried to hold, but panic ran quicker than orders. Torches flared in the trees as Neacal’s men came on, shadows turned to flame. Wagons snarled the road, men slipped in the churned muck, and standards wavered under the assault.
“Dinna waste good steel on unarmored rabble!” Ciaran barked, cutting a man from the saddle, his words carrying over the din.
For a time, the glen rang with the clash of iron and the cries of dying men. Then three sharp blasts sounded from Alaric’s horn—the call to withdraw.
“Back! Back!” Ciaran shouted, dragging his men clear, forcing them uphill as the English floundered in fire and mud below. The forest closed about them once more, swallowing the patriots whole.
They did not stop until the ridge hid them. Horses blew hard, men wiped muck and blood from their faces. Mathar counted losses—two down forever, four hurt, Ruadh’s leg cut but not to the bone. Blair came grinning despite singed hair, boasting of English shrieks until his voice caught and sobered.
Ciaran listened, jaw tight, heart still pounding with the fight’s echo. He gave Mathar a nod, gave Blair another, let the men feel they had won. That was his place as laird.
But weariness pressed behind his ribs, a weight too familiar. Another raid, another skirmish, another night of blood. They bled the enemy, aye, but never enough. Never enough to end it.
Dissatisfied, another image flickered across his mind. Not the men below, not even his own fallen—but the pale face of thewoman lying fevered at Caeravorn, found by the tinker nae even a week ago. A stranger, yet not wholly strange. He should not be thinking of her here, with the stink of English blood still in his nose. And yet he was.
He forced the thought of her aside, tightened his hand on the reins, and called to Mungan. “Count what we took.”
“Six carts ruined proper, two teams into the hills, a crate of crossbow windlasses smashed, three wagons’ worth of oats for our own,” Mungan reported.
“Guid,” Ciaran said. He looked to Alaric, who already watched the road below with that same unbending edge in his eyes. “We’ll cut them again when they think they’re safe.”
Victory, as in this quick strike, wasn’t enough.
Ciaran wiped his blade clean, turned his horse uphill, and shoved away the memory of the woman once more, as it came to him at the most peculiar times.
***
She hadn’t come to grips with it. Not even close. Ivy’s words from the day before rattled around Claire’s skull like loose coins at the bottom of her purse, ridiculous and insistent all at once.It’s the year 1305.As if anyone could say something so ludicrous with a straight face. Claire had buried her head—figuratively—inside the four stone walls of her chamber, pretending that if she stayed put, she could block out both Ivy and the insane suggestion she’d made.
But silence was its own kind of torment. The endless hours of staring at every corner in her room pressed on her until she wanted to bang her head against the wall. The strange world beyond the chamber door didn’t go away just because she refused to face it. And when it came to her—the maid bringing a meal—there was no relief. Claire had asked the maid point-blankwhat year it was. This was answered with shrugs of confusion, mumbled Gaelic, and what seemed a hasty retreat.
Two mornings after Ivy had delivered such preposterous and maddening news, Claire had had enough of her self-imposed confinement. She stormed down the corridor barefoot, intent pounding on doors until she found Ivy but having success at the first door she approached, next to hers.
“I can’t take it anymore,” Claire announced the instant Ivy opened the door, her tone brisk but sour, the words half-snapped, half-pleading. “I have to get out of here. I tried to go outside yesterday, but some kid told me I couldn’t leave.”
“That was my idea,” Ivy admitted quickly with a grimace, hands raised as if in surrender. “Not because I mean to hold you hostage or anything, but because it isn’t safe to wander beyond Caeravorn. But...” She hesitated, then offered, “would you like to get some air? We can walk the cliffs again. And maybe... we can talk. I know you must still have questions.”
Questions, yes. An avalanche of them. Claire nodded sharply, and turned toward the stairs, her brain and body already screaming to get outside.
They moved together through the castle and then outside, Claire’s eyes darting everywhere. Yesterday, when she’d tried to leave this stupid place, she’d taken a better look at everything—the stables with their empty stalls, the cold forge of what appeared a blacksmith’s hut, other shuttered outbuildings, and several people, some idle and some busy, every one of them and all the surroundings as convincing as a high-budget movie set. Frighteningly convincing.
As she had two days ago, Ivy guided her through a side gate and out onto the cliff path.
The wind slapped at Claire’s borrowed skirts, colder and wilder than she’d expected with the sun shining so bright. Shewrapped her arms tight against her middle, frowning at the wide, restless sweep of sea below.
“All right,” she said after a moment, meaning to get right to it, “Let’s pretend I believe what you said. Why is it so quiet here?” she demanded, unable to stop herself. “I mean if this is supposed to be a real, living, breathing medieval castle? Is it an abandoned one?”
Ivy pissed her off by saying first, “Claire, it really is thirteen-o-five. I’m not sure how much you know about Scotland’s history, but this is the time of the war with England—you know, Edward the first, Longshanks, William Wallace, Robert Bruce...?”
“I’m familiar with the history,” Claire said, huffily, but was compelled to qualify, “as much as any American would be.”
