The note might not mean much to anyone else but to the barefoot man it meant everything. His mother had read the entrails of another sacrifice. He need not waste time searching for Wallace and Natalie.
They would come to him at the castle. He should never have left. Still, it wasn’t too late. He would get back there before them.
He was not hunted. They were. They would have to avoid the main thoroughfares and that would slow them down.
He gathered up his men and headed north. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. No matter where the two of them ran to, there was no getting away from him. The only way for her to return to her own time was to use the key in the same door that brought her here. That was the door in the dungeon.
Why had he gone after them? The only answer he had was that he had become too excited by the chase to think rationally. So their cheating helperwished for them to sneak back to the castle while he was out? Well, see how that worked out for Wallace and his little friend from the future.
If he planned things properly, he could get both of them there at once. What a joy that would be.
Take the key from her, lock Wallace back in the eternal chains, then take the key down the long stairs to free his father from his dungeon.
Maybe take him and introduce him to Wallace, see how much pleasure it would bring the old man to torture the last of the MacGregor lairds.
He would keep Natalie for himself. He had found the fear in her eyes pleasant enough and with work, he was sure he could make that fear turn into abject terror. Wouldn’t that be something?
Better news reached him a couple of miles into the march. A figure with hands bound was being dragged across open ground before being dumped at his feet by two men.
“Who is this?” he asked, yanking the hood from the stricken figure’s head. “This is not Wallace MacGregor.”
“It’s the captain who brought them to shore,” the man on the left said. “He was married to Scarlett.”
“Was he indeed?” the barefoot man replied,rubbing his hands together with glee. “Then he better join us on our stroll, hadn’t he?”
Under his feet, the ground trembled. Soon, he thought, as he began to march north again, giving the captain a good kick every now and then to keep him walking with them.
Soon the key will unlock the door that the druids said could never be opened again. Naive fools they were to think anyone could keep his father locked away forever.
Soon he would be free and Wallace dead. It would make all this running around worth it to know the MacGregors were gone for good.
Three generations of betrayal and subterfuge would be nothing more than a footnote in the annals of history. He would soon have the key.
It was almost over.
14
Natalie watched from behind a boulder as the barefoot man and his army departed the valley. Only when the last of them had vanished from sight did she allow herself to sigh and then collapse to the ground.
Wallace remained on guard, watching closely in case it was some kind of trap. She looked up at him with fresh eyes. He looked different. Or did he?
She shook her head. It wasn’t him that was different. It was her. She’d just seen a man killed.
Of course, it had always been a risk, coming back into the past like this. Still, there was no getting away from the fact that a man had died, his body lay down in the valley as she sat there, unburied, unloved, uncared for.
The thought was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
She sniffed loudly enough to make Wallace look down at her. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she replied. “Just sad.”
“Oh.” He went back to watching out while she continued to think. So much had changed since her arrival here. Not just in what she thought she knew about the past but in what she thought she knew about herself.
It turned out there were things that made her uncomfortable. Being searched roughly by sneering men was one. Being held captive by a barefooted bald man who made her skin crawl was another. And then there was seeing a man die. She had seen a man die.
She was torn. Part of her wished this was all a dream, that she would wake up and be back at home, all thoughts of ghosts and MacGregors back where they belonged, in the pages of her book. She’d be able to close the cover on them and ignore them if that were the case.
But then what did she have to go back for? Everything in her life that she thought was important was gone. She had nothing. The book seemedso unimportant compared to the real people who surrounded her.
