The monk vanished around a corner, leaving Lennox to pass back through the gatehouse and rejoin Rose outside the abbey grounds.
"What happened?" she asked as the gatehouse closed behind him.
"We are to head north. We should find the siege ended by the time we get there."
"As simple as that?"
"Apparently so." He managed a smile but he felt uneasy. Something about the monk had unnerved him. There was more than brotherly spirit to his offer of assistance. Not knowing what price he was going to pay made him distinctly uncomfortable.
He shook off the feeling. Whatever the price, it would be worth it to prevent the slaughter of his people on the battlefield or their starvation within the castle walls.
13
By the time they made it north of the border, Rose was beginning to enjoy horse riding. Her legs had changed shape, the calf and thigh muscles growing stronger.
She noticed it most when bathing in a river two days into their journey. No longer did she need massages each time they stopped to rest.
That was for the best. Lennox had been colder since leaving Rievaulx Abbey, and whenever she asked him what was wrong, he refused to answer.
The frequent stops to rest the horse affected their time, as did the need to avoid marauding bandits who plagued the borderlands. "Why so few villages?" Rose asked as they spent another day seeing nothing but pasture and wasteland.
"Would you build your home where it might get burned down any day?"
"Why would it get burned down?"
"Because these acres are continually fought over between the Scots and the English. I would build only a castle here and one that’s fully manned by a garrison of strong men with good aim."
When they crossed the border, settlements again emerged, giving them a chance to refill Lennox's knapsack with food.
That was something else Rose noticed. Food tasted different in the Middle Ages. The bread was grittier. Most bread was stale when she ate it, but occasionally they were able to purchase a fresh loaf, and it was like eating a cloud, light and fluffy and utterly delicious.
Fruit was scarce, though what apples they were able to buy tasted sweeter than any of the modern era. There were no potatoes, no bananas, but all the greens she could want and even sometimes meat to buy, though it was so salty she felt like drinking gallons of water after eating it.
The people she met were in poor health, for the most part. No doubt that was the result of having to eat whatever was available, not having the luxury of choice. They were shorter than her, only Lennox and the others at MacGregor castle of comparable height. Many of them limped or were missing limbs.
She began to see the villages in a new light as each one they passed. On the journey south, they had seemed ugly. They were not the medieval houses she knew. The few that had survived to the modern era had striking thatch roofs, flowers up the walls, perfect paint and neat grass outside. These houses looked like they might fall down at any time.
Most of them had cob walls, nothing more than straw and mud. What windows existed were tiny, shuttered, not a piece of glass in sight.
It all looked rotten, covered in moss or lichen, the thatch extending almost to the ground in places. The fences that surrounded many houses were made of warped wood. Piles of firewood sat by doors, water butts everywhere.
As time went on, she started to see a beauty to the arrangements. Things here weren't designed to look good. They were intended to function well. The firewood was piled up where it would dry and be easy to get to, the thatch extended so far to protect the walls from rain.
The barrels of water were needed in a world with no plumbing. The positioning of the houses which looked so chaotic at first was also beginning to make sense. They were in suntraps, on the path to fields, near a marketplace, or just a source of water.
Who was she to judge the needs of a very different time? There were flowers too but they were growing straight out of the ground or in herb gardens.
She found herself admiring the hard work of the people who lived in such places. They had created homes from almost nothing, working by hand in between raising animals, children, and crops.
What struck her most on their journey was how young most of the people were. Seeing anyone over forty was a rarity, most looked to be in their teens or twenties at the most.
She knew life expectancy was shorter in the 1300s but seeing it before her eyes in one village after another brought it all home. You were lucky to live past forty by the looks of things. Ross and Quinn were the exceptions, not the rule.
It was no different in Scotland. There, the ravages of many wars had taken many men in their prime, leaving a younger population apart from the strongholds as Lennox explained. "I am lucky to still have my father alive in his sixties. It is a rare thing indeed to not die in battle."
"It seems so sad. Don't you worry that your children will not have you to look up to?"
"I have no children."
