“Ridiculous,” Edgar said. “I have ordered these men to load the pots onto carts in the morning. Then I will leave.”
“She wants the pots to stay,” Aedan growled.
“Mrs. Blackburn is not in charge here.”
“My land, my hill, my old wall, my damned pots,” Aedan said. “And the lady is my choice to supervise here. We both want you gone.”
“‘We’? That sounds almost… amorous.”
“If you like,” Aedan said. “Now go, or I will throw you out myself for interfering with an ancient site. And I will be happy to report that to the museum board.” He pointed toward the house in the distance. “You have one hour to pack your things.”
“Generous. Will you be there to make sure?”
“If I must.” He intended to go back and order his carriage brought round to take the fellow to the nearest town.
Edgar turned to Angus. “Tomorrow morning, first thing, with an oxcart. Two oxcarts, for there are several pots. And bring wooden crates.”
Angus glanced at Aedan, who shook his head. “I cannot promise that, sir.”
“When Dundrennan is owned by the government, you will be glad you cooperated.”
Angus folded his arms. So did Kenneth. “I am not inclined, sir, but if you need a ride back to Dundrennan now, we can do that.”
Rain began to sprinkle. Edgar Neaves looked up. “Never mind,” he said. “I will go back now, and do as I please. When I am ready to inform the museum further, I will leave. But those pots are coming with me.”
“We shall see,” Aedan said, as Edgar stalked off down the hill. “Hector was right.”
“About what?” Angus asked.
“A spit o’ rain would scare him away,” Aedan said, as the others laughed.
*
Floating a magnifyingglass over the fragile vellum, Christina studied the phrases crammed along the margin of one of the parchment sheets. She had carefully copied the words into hernotebook in pencil, not daring to use pen and ink near the old page, and she wore white gloves to handle the delicate vellum.
The work sustained her, fascinated her, distracted her from thoughts of Aedan and Edgar. Perhaps these documents could even help somehow. She continued her painstaking progress, deciphering lines of tiny, sometimes illegible script, flipping through the pages of a Gaelic dictionary to seek the oldest Irish or Latin root of the words she found, and using logic and intuition to discern the meaning—everything Reverend Carriston had taught her.
When she was done, she planned to make a copy of her translation to ask Uncle Walter’s opinion. Ancient verses that had never been translated would stir his interest and improve his spirits; she wanted that even more than she wanted to read the old text.
The light was fading toward twilight, and rain further darkened the sky yet again. Working in the quiet, lamplit library, she wished Aedan could be here in case she discovered more about his family. But he had made his wishes clear.
She would wait. These weeks at Dundrennan had taught her not only that she could love again, and had more worth than she knew—she had also learned more patience.
Since he had not yet returned, she assumed he had either gone to the hill to meet his crew—or to look for Edgar. She shivered at the thought; those two would come to an inevitable clash.
In the last hour as she worked quietly, a revelation had come to her. Love, she realized, true soul-deep, profound love, was healing and powerful. Surely sincere love could outlast and undo any belief at Dundrennan that tried to diminish it. The love she had for Aedan could transcend all. Surely, he would realize it too. Another reason to wait.
Sighing, she returned to her penciled translation. The phrases and scraps of poetic lines composed thirteen hundred years earlier or so had begun to make sense. They were touching and immediate, full of hope, love, despair, and mystery. The more she worked with it, the more she realized that the lines crammed along the margin of a page of psalms were scribbles by a poet mourning his lost beloved.
A feeling dawned on her, gave her chills. The possible date of the pages, the fact that they had been tucked in the Dundrennan Folio, overlooked among family documents for centuries—even her uncle had overlooked them—she had a strong suspicion that the poet could even be Aedan mac Brudei himself, the Druid prince of Dundrennan.
That long-ago Aedan, according to the legend, was the husband of the lost briar princess. Christina traced a fingertip along a translated line:
Dark of night, light of moon… Aedan mac Brudei of Dun Droigheann writes these words.
Liadan, Daughter of the Bear, hear me through the mists. Come to me, my heart.
Shivers cascaded through her as she felt the power of the ancient words. A new thought struck her, and she bent to study the original words in faded brownish ink, each letter carefully rounded in the ancient manner of early Irish and Scottish manuscripts. She felt something resonant in the words, and caught her breath.
