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I pouted again. “I didn’t think we were supposed to ask that.”

“Ye ken this is different, say yes, tis important tae me.”

“Yes, I love you, Torin.”

“I married ye in yer kitchen, but I dinna marry ye in front of an altar where God can hear us say it. I think ye need tae hear it said. God needs tae hear it said. And this is the church near m’home where I grew up. I hae come here many times. This is where Max and I would come tae pray. It seems we ought tae take this time for me tae swear myself tae ye in front of God.”

I said, “That’s really sweet.”

“Tis, and if ye think on it, we are married in the year, what year was it?”

“2004.”

“We are seven hundred years afore that⁠—”

My eyes went wide. “We aren’t technically married because we are in the time before we got married.”

“Aye, I think we ought tae marry now. Then we will be married for seven hundred years or more.”

“So long! That would have to be the longest marriage in the history of the world.”

“So ye want tae marry me, Princess, make yer Torin the longest married man in the world?”

“Yes, I would love that.”

“I would as well. When I decided tae do this, I only thought about ye and bein’ married tae ye in front of God. Now I ken it means I will win a contest of all the men in the world, I want tae do it even more.” He pulled himself up while I laughed.

I joked, “I will be the most long-suffering wife in all the history of the world. It’s a win-win.”

“Tis, dost ye want to go in with me, marry me, mo leannan? Tis an act of hope, ye ken, tae tell God we want tae spend the rest of our lives with each other. We are declarin’ tae him that we mean tae live a long time.”

I nodded. “We need the hope, true, yes, let’s get married.”

I wiped my hands off in the cloth, and wiped his as well. “We are a mess, but a wee bit better than we were.”

“Twill help convince the priest tae marry us without the posting of the banns first.” He picked up our bags.

“What does ‘posting of the banns’ mean?”

“Tis usual tae announce tae the village that we intend tae marry so it may raise objections if it must, but we are travelers, there winna be anyone tae object.”

“Can you talk him out of it?”

“Perhaps, I hae been in a battle, am wounded, twas dire. I am urgently wantin’ tae marry, I hae just spoken with Robert the Bruce. I bring the king’s good tidings, and I hae coin. I think I can convince him tae marry us without the banns.”

He took me by the hand and led me up to the door. The stone around the doorway was cut more carefully than the rest of the wall, darkened where hands had touched it for years. I could smell the faint scent of incense seeping from inside.

Torin knocked, then pushed the door open and quietly called, “All hail!”

35

TORIN

1308 - I MARRY THE PRINCESS AFORE GOD

The kirk was familiar tae me. I had been here many times before, hundreds of years down the line. Its thick stone walls around the narrow nave and smoke-stained timber roof, was much the same interior. Light came in poor and gray through a few wee windows, enough tae show the dust ebbin’ and flowin’ along the ground. I used tae watch that same dust dance as a lad when I had been too young tae hae one of the benches and had tae instead stand in the back of the nave.

The floor was packed earth and worn flagstones. In my time there were more of the flags, less of the earth, and here, rushes had been laid down and had gone thin in the middle where feet had been walkin’.