“Stew for you both and your room is almost ready for you.”
“You mean our rooms?” Callum asked.
“Alas we have but one room available tonight. Tomorrow is market day at the four crosses. You picked a busy night to come and visit The Lantern.”
“You do not have two rooms available?”
“You are husband and wife, aren’t you? Why can you not share?”
Callum found himself trapped by his own lie.
The innkeeper walked away. “I still don’t understand why you don’t tell him who you are,” Kerry said, looking hungrily down at her stew. You’re the l-”
He cut her off. “The walls have ears and there are many here who are not so friendly as our portly innkeeper. A husband and wife draw less suspicion than any other tale I might have told. We are far from loyal land. You take the room and lock the door well. I shall sleep down here near the fire.”
“No you won’t. You sleep upstairs and I’ll have the fireside.”
He shook his head firmly. “I would not leave you alone in here for one minute. There are many already who have been looking too often in your direction.”
“Then we are at an impasse.”
“I suppose we are.”
For a while they both ate in silence. The stew contained mostly turnips but toward the bottom Callum found a little mutton, enough to give it some flavor.
“I know,” Kerry said out of nowhere. “We’ll share.”
“We cannot share. It would not be right.”
She was already getting to her feet. “Innkeeper,” she shouted. “Show us to our chamber.”
Chamber was an altogether too grandiose a term for the converted hay barn they were taken to. The barn itself was attached to the inn. A set of wooden stairs led to the upper level. The stairs were worn smooth by the many feet that had made the journey before them. Upon the landing were a number of chambers running off a central corridor, the walls little more than wattle and daub in wooden frames. Callum had slept in many such places but Kerry seemed a little taken back.
He thought she was about to change her mind and demand the fireside but to his surprise she walked straight through the door held open by the innkeeper.
“It’s perfect,” she said, turning to face Callum as the door was closed behind them. “There’s a bed big enough for two. I hope you don’t snore.”
“You take the bed,” he said. “I will sleep here.”
He pulled one of the blankets from the bed and laid it before the fire, settling upon it while Kerry continued to stand in the middle of the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Going to sleep. I suggest you do the same. We have a long ride ahead of us on the morrow.”
“You’re going to sleep on the floor?”
“Aye.” He leapt to his feet at a sound from the landing. Glancing out, he saw only two drunken figures making their way to a room at the end of the corridor. Pulling the door closed again, he wedged the only chair against it. Only then did he return to the blanket, his sword by his side just in case.
“Oh no,” Kerry said, lying back on the bed.
“What? What is it?”
“The bed’s all lumpy,” she replied, grabbing the blankets and coming to lie next to him. “Mind if I stay down here with you?”
He did not mind at all. He thought she might talk to him but from the moment she lay down her eyes closed. He did not sleep for some time. He sat beside her lost in thought. Looking at her made him ache with desire. The moonlight shining through the gaps in the shutters illuminated her face in gray and white. She looked like an angel.
Perhaps that was what she was. The tale of coming from the future was just that, a tale. She had been sent from heaven for some purpose he did not understand. If that were true then the feelings he had in that moment were decidedly heathen.
He lay down beside her, listening to her soft breathing, watching her chest rise and fall under the blankets. A chill breeze blew through the shutters and she shivered, turning onto her side away from him.
Without thinking about it he wrapped himself around her, holding her close. For a moment she stirred, her fingers wrapping around his. She let out a contented sigh and then fell back into a deep sleep.
Callum remained awake for sometime, breathing in the scent of her, thinking of how odd it was that just over a week had passed since her arrival. It felt as if he had known her his entire life. She had become as much a part of him as his sword arm and he would find it just as hard to cope without her as without that most vital part of his anatomy. What was a highlander without the ability to fight? And what was he without her?
He tried to convince himself he still wanted her gone but he knew the truth. He needed her like he needed water and the mountain air. Without it he was nothing.
Eventually he closed his eyes and managed to sleep but his dreams were disturbed by a menacing figure that remained in the shadows no matter which way he looked. “I have come for her,” the figure would say. “She belongs to me.”
He did not know it but even as he dreamed he gripped her tighter, as if his soul wanted her to go as little as his hands. He twitched as he dreamed. At a little after three in the morning someone quietly tried the handle of the bedroom door but the chair held well and the two of them remained undisturbed. The rooms either side of them had several possessions stolen overnight but in their room, nothing was taken except Callum’s heart for that had been stolen many days before.
