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He chuckled and kissed her hand. “Not right away, maybe. But yeah. I’ve always wanted children at some point in my life.”
“What about what ye said about achieving things…house…car…success?”
He was silent for a few moments. “I’ve always been interested in business. That’s what you guys call trade.”
“Aye,” she said. “My clan is powerful and rich because of trade.”
“Yeah,” David said. “That’s what I want to do with my life in the twenty-first century. Start my own business. So I guess I’d want to find a way to do the same here.”
He asked her about the details of trade—the prices for wool, how long it took for ships to arrive, the politics. Bruges, a staple town in Flanders, was an important port in Europe that bought Scottish wool for a good price, and it was very much valued.
“But that’s raw material,” he said. “If you guys already offered manufactured products from fleece, like yarn or even clothes, they would be more expensive.”
“Ye sound like my uncle Aulay.” She giggled.
They kept talking, painting the future they would never have. And when he fell asleep, she cried silently on his shoulder because he would return to his time after her wedding.
Three days before John the Baptist’s Eve, they woke up to blazing sunlight that shone through the slits around the windows and door, and the chirping of the birds.
No wind. No rain.
When Anna opened the door, blinding white reflections jumped off the water in the muddy puddles. A thin fog had formed from the sun evaporating thick layers of water. The air was humid and heavy. Anna felt heavy, too, like the very world was pressing on them, making it hard to breathe.
But she knew it wasn’t truly the weather weighing her down, but the knowledge that her time with David would soon be over.
CHAPTER 24
“We’re too late,” Anna said, sitting on her horse by David’s side.
As David watched arrows fly from the walls of Stirling Castle down onto the Bruce’s army, screams and the roar of angry Scots came from the distance. The army couldn’t get into the castle, but they were trying. Siege stairs had been lifted. Warriors climbed and fell, dead or wounded. Bruce’s warriors sent flaming arrows at the walls, and thin strands of smoke rose into the air. David knew they needed to ride into the Bruce’s camp, stop the unnecessary bloodshed. But it would be dangerous to cross the open ground with a battle going on.
“We’re not late, your wedding is tomorrow,” he said as he turned to look at Anna, and his breath caught.
Her back was straight and proud as she sat on the horse she had decided to call Ayr, her face pale and her hair dark and thick and waving in the wind. The goddess of the hunt, of the battle. The princess stolen and put into the depths of darkness.
He’d brought her here, to her wedding, to the end of her freedom.
The end of his happiness.
Something rustled and a twig snapped behind him, and he turned sharply to look over his shoulder, peering into the shadows among the pine trees.
“What is it?” She looked back, her hand moving to the dirk tucked into her girdle. “The MacDowells again?”
His hand lay on his claymore. He listened and watched. Trees rustled and bushes swayed. Birds chirped, undisturbed by the uproar of a battle by the castle. Wind brought the scents of woodsmoke and death from down below.
A squirrel darted between the trees and climbed up a trunk, watching him. Did the squirrels of this time take special pleasure in tormenting him? Or was he just too jumpy after all he’d been through?
“No,” he said. “Not this time.”
After the storm, David and Anna’s journey had been slow as they’d passed through debris, fallen trees, and overflowing rivers and brooks. Two times, they’d had a close encounter with the MacDowells, and both times they’d had to change their route, delaying their arrival even more.
“We should make haste,” Anna said as she looked at Stirling again. “They’re hurling stones from the castle now.”
Her voice was quiet, and she didn’t move. David stared at her, hoping to catch her glance. Hoping to talk to her one last time. Hoping for a goodbye…or, on the contrary, hoping—and afraid—she’d change her mind and would run away with him to the future.
But she didn’t look at him.
“Many lives have been lost because we werena fast enough,” Anna said and pointed her finger at the army. “See that banner? ’Tis my father. We must go there.”
