I said, “So we’re out in the rain, headed to the woods, and it’s important and a surprise, and we might be done in a couple of hours, and it’s romantic. I have no idea what you’ve planned.”
“Ye hae tae remember that the whole plan inna m’plan anymore, now I am simply trying tae be romantic without any plan at all.” He slowed his horse until I came alongside him, and for a moment we both simply sat there in the downpour, looking out at the landscape through the wet. The hills rolled away to the north, their colors darkened to charcoal and rust, and the old oaks along the lower pasture stood black and heavy-limbed in the rain, each one dripping in long silver threads. Somewhere beyond the treeline, a crow called once and fell silent.
“I used tae love tae come out here when I was a lad when my mind was troubled. I would ride until the castle was well out of sight and then I would stop, like this, and quiet my mind.” He shifted in his saddle as he scanned the landscape. “The land daena ask anything of ye. It daena judge, it daena demand. Tis just there.”
“Would Sean come with you?”
“Likely, but he dinna come tae be quiet, he would come tae appraise. He would say, ‘Ye see the forest, Young Magnus, we hae a good stock of wood for the comin’ winter, then he would look upon the walls and decide what work needed tae be done.’”
“I think you look at the walls deciding what work needs to be done too.”
“Aye, ye are right, there is work that needs tae be done on the walls.”
I laughed.
“The point is though, I like tae come here tae be quiet.”
“Then I will wheesht and let you look.”
We sat there for a moment, rain pouring on our heads. Then I said, “Magnus.”
He didn’t even look but I saw his shoulder shake with laughter. “I ken, ye are wonderin’ why are we out here.”
“True, we are soaked through. I know you’re here because you want to say goodbye to all your favorite places, but why couldn’t you do all of this tomorrow?”
He sighed, looking up at the sky, “Seems tis goin’ tae rain all week,” a big raindrop splashed on his face.
He wiped it from his eyes and looked at me, in a way that made my chest ache a little.
“I daena ken, I grew up here and nae matter how far we hae gone, no matter what century we are in, this has been m’home. These hills. That castle.” He paused. “I daena think we will come here anymore, tis unsettlin’. We hae made a good choice, and I ken tis the right one, but all the same…”
“You’re allowed to grieve it.”
He was quiet for a moment. Rain drummed steadily on my hood, on the horse’s neck, on the sodden grass.
“Aye,” he said finally. “I suppose I am. And I wanted tae get tae it, I dinna want tae wait.”
He turned Dràgon and we rode in silence for a little while, picking our way along the muddied track toward the forest. The trees thickened on either side, and the sound of the rain changed as we moved beneath the first canopy, the rain hitting the leaves above. It was less deluge on us, but more percussion as the drops hit the leaves and branches overhead.
Magnus straightened in the saddle, looking around at everything. It looked as if he were trying to memorize it. The angle of a branch. The particular grey-green of lichen on a boulder on the edge of the path as we passed. The way our route curved left around a stand of young ash.
I said, “I recognize this path, we’re headed to the place where the kids planted the seedlings.”
He dropped his head back, looking up, rain splashing on him. “Aye, those trees, young here, now stand tall in our kingdom in my King’s Woods.”
“That was a wonderful day when we all planted the trees.”
“Aye, and those oaks still stand,” he shrugged, the sound of his raincoat crinkling, “or oak trees that came from their acorns, it has been six centuries, I daena think even the mighty oak canna stand that long.”
He began to point, I loved these moments, when he was showing me his world. “There we hae darach, and caorann, and over there, a crann-calltainn, and an uinnseann, and ye ken the giuthas or pine.” Every shift of his back and turn of his arm caused that crinkling sound again. “These trees will form a large forest in six hundred years, spreadin’ for miles.”
He shook his head slowly. “And I hae seen the forest in all these ages. Time travel is wondrous.”
I said, “And this forest is one of your favorite places, andthat’swhy we’re here. And I’m one of your favorite people and that’s why I’m here, and so I figured it out.”
“Not exactly, mo reul-iuil?—”
A gust drove the rain sideways with renewed enthusiasm, straight into our faces. It was comical how fast it drenched us, like a person standing beside us had flung a bucket of water at us, splashing inside my raincoat, drenching my shoulders underneath.
