Chapter 10
As Anna stepped outside, she peered around carefully, as if seeing things for the first time. Now that she looked,reallylooked, the evidence was there for all to see. The castle. The stables. The lack of any mod-cons. The clothing people wore. Heck, the clothingshewore.
Why had she not seen it before?
Because she hadn’t wanted to. It was easier to tell herself Emeric was having a joke than face the truth. Even now she’d accepted it, that truth was still utterly terrifying.
1497.
How the hell could she be in 1497?
She breathed deeply as she walked by Emeric’s side across the courtyard and through the main gates, retracing the steps they’d taken when they arrived late last night. Once through the gates, Emeric led her onto a broad path that snaked through the gorse and heather bracketing the castle and towards where chimney smoke was rising in the distance.
She glanced at Emeric. He was striding along beside her, eyes scanning the terrain on both sides of the road. His presence was soothing, a beacon of stability in an otherwise alien world. The wind whipped his hair into wild arcs around his face and his plaid billowed around his knees. Helooked every inch the wild highland warrior, as though he was a part of this place and it a part of him.
And yet, he’d traveled to the future. He knew about magic and time travel and a million other things that made no sense. How much did she know about him really?
They walked in silence for a while, the only sounds being the crunch of stones under their boots and the whisper of wind rustling through the heather. Eventually though, the path led them to an overlook where Anna got her first sight of the settlement that accompanied the castle.
Rows of timber cottages hugged the road side with charmingly crooked chimneys poking into the sky smudged gray with hearth smoke. Farther on stood a small but sturdy looking wooden church, its steeple pointing at the heavens, and beyond this, like a shining silver coin in the sunlight sat a small, basin-shaped loch. It was like something out of a postcard.
“Dun Achmore village,” Emeric said. “Where I spent most of my childhood getting into mischief in one form or another.”
“Young Emeric, eh?” she replied, trying to bury her unease beneath light-hearted banter. “I’ll bet he was dashing and brave and broke all the girl’s hearts.”
“Oh ye bet do ye? Well, as much as I like the thought of being dashing and brave, I’m not sure I did much heart-breaking. I was gangly and awkward as I recall.”
They entered the village and Anna’s senses were assailed by an array of new sensations. The smell of freshly baked bread wafted over her, luring her hunger out of hiding, despite her hearty breakfast. Distant sounds of blacksmiths’hammers striking metal reverberated through the air mingling with soft children’s laughter. It was all scarily real: the slightly pungent scent of livestock, the hearty calls between laborers in distant fields, even the way the sharp sunlight flared off the crudely built structures.
Oh God,she thought, pressing her hand against her stomach to still the sudden queasiness.I’m really here. This is really happening. I’m in a freaking medieval village!
Emeric, noticing her unease, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, his touch steady and warm. “Are ye well, lass?”
She nodded weakly, offering him a shaky smile. “Yes, I—I just need a moment.”
They stopped on the path and Anna took a moment to regain her composure. She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply the scent of earth and grass, before letting it out slowly.
“I’m okay now. Let’s go,” she finally said, sounding more confident than she felt.
Anna watched the locals as they wove through the village, noticing the way their heads turned towards Emeric, the way their eyes lit up in recognition, the way they straightened up and nodded respectfully. Men stopped hammering planks of wood together to wave at him, women halted their knitting and smiled as he passed by, and children paused in their play to cheerfully call out his name.
“Emeric!” a bright-eyed girl clinging to her mother’s skirts shouted enthusiastically. Emeric responded with a warm smile and a wave that had her giggling in delight.
Everyone seemed to know him and he them, and she was struck suddenly by how different this was to her own life. Her life was transient, constantly moving, constantly changing. But here? Here the roots went deep and even though Emeric had been away for a long time, those roots remained strong.
Emeric though, seemed slightly uncomfortable at the attention he was getting. He was friendly and polite, but in the short time she’d known him, she’d learned to read the slight tightening around his mouth and the set of his shoulders that showed he wasn’t entirely comfortable.
He led her down to a path that hugged the loch shore and along it to a large wooden building that had a thatched roof and no windows. Its single door stood closed.
“This barn is our main store,” he said. “Where we keep the grain as it comes in from the fields before it gets milled into flour. The keep’s share is due.”
“And we’re here to collect it? Right.”
Emeric frowned. “Are ye sure ye are all right, lass?”
