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David knew it would be safer to enter enemy territory with a couple of Highland warriors at his side, but he was still not sure if he could trust them. “Maybe. Maybe not. Tell me first, who is the lass you are trying to break free?”

Colum poured water from his horn into a cup and handed it to David. David took it and drank. “If I tell ye, ye must ken ’tis a sign of significant trust. ’Tis a secret, only known to a close circle of people.”

“I will keep this secret.”

“’Tis my cousin, Anna,” Colum said. “She’s the daughter of my deceased aunt Julianna, who was supposed to marry Robert the Bruce nineteen years ago.”

David felt his eyebrows crawl to his hair. “Is she Robert the Bruce’s daughter?”

“Aye. Bastart daughter. My aunt and he never got a chance to wed, even though the intention and the agreement of the families was there. Julianna died shortly after the birth. Anna must wed the constable of Stirling Castle in sixteen days, on John the Baptist. Her wedding will ensure Philip hands the castle to the Bruce without a fight. She was kidnapped ten days ago by Dugald MacDowell, an old enemy of the Bruce. We are sure he did it for revenge. The king’s men ravaged MacDowell’s lands, Galloway, and forced him out because he had killed Robert’s two brothers.”

Through the years, between Rogene’s teachings and news from the front, David had gotten a pretty good understanding of Scottish politics and knew which clans were pro-Bruce and which pro-England. “Right. MacDowells have always been on the English side.”

“Aye. He wants to stop the wedding so that Bruce doesna get Stirling easily. But we must retrieve her. We must save her, Scotland, and our king.”

David took a long sigh. The last thing he wanted was to get involved in the political games and wars of medieval people. He didn’t wish Anna any harm, and he would be glad to help her, but his main focus was on finding his rock. Could he do both?

“As ye ken,” Colum said, “my clan is rich. Ye will be paid handsomely in gold for yer help.”

“Why was it just the three of you? Now two.”

“Because Carlisle is very hard to take by force,” said Iàcob. “Bruce tried a few moons ago, and didna succeed. Besieging it again would only leave his forces weaker. And he’s already besieging Stirling. First plan is to sneak her out secretly, smartly, like true Highlanders. If it doesna work, my uncle Aulay, chief of clan, will bring a larger force against Carlisle and Bruce will help him. There is nae guarantee this will work, either. So. Will ye help us get into the castle and retrieve my cousin?”

David thought about the map of Scotland and how he had no other leads as to where the time traveling rocks could be. If this paid off and the rock in the dungeons sent him back to his own time, then all the rest wouldn’t matter. And if it didn’t work, he’d have a handsome sum of gold from the MacDonalds, which would help him with his search and allow him to keep moving rather than having to earn his coin offering labor.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m in. I’ll help you get your princess.”

And hopefully travel in time. Maybe he was becoming a true Highlander, because in his head he added, or die trying.

“Good,” said Colum. “We move tonight. Now tell me about that way in.”

CHAPTER 4

Carlisle Castle, the same night

Anna didn’t know how much time had passed.

Darkness had become her everything.

Darkness was her very blood, her very breath. Her very existence.

Darkness was her bed, her guard, and her nightmare. It smelled like an outhouse, it sounded like a scream, and it looked like death. It felt like cold, wet stone and tasted like mold.

When Dugald MacDowell and his band had brought her to Carlisle, she’d thought they’d put her into a dungeon.

They did worse.

Dugald had dragged her down the stairs, down the narrow corridor between a stone wall and a grid of iron bars with several dungeon chambers. But he opened none of the iron doors. Fire kept jumping off the rough stone walls, off the iron bars like the spirits of those who’d died here long ago. She kept trying to free her hand, but he was too strong, and she was too hungry and thirsty and weak.

Then, at the end of the corridor, he opened a heavy door, and inside was a small, round room. He dragged her to a hole in the floor at its center. Cold death breathed at her from its endless nothing. Guards brought torches, and they spilled orange light on the stone floor and walls that came together above their heads in a round ceiling.

But the only spot in the room where light didn’t reach was the hole. Like an entrance into another world.

The world of nightmares.

There was a mechanism over the hole, like that above a well, with a pulley and a thick chain with a hook at its end.

“What—” she had started, but it was quite clear what it was.