Edinburgh, Present
So slender she might fade into the very air, Miss Rose nonetheless filled the airport with her presence. Her smile, her laugh, her dress of layers of sheer, floating cream, and her cherry-red hat with a wide brim turned heads. She walked arm in arm with a teenager in fatigues, laughing together as if they were old friends. As travelers dispersed, a little girl broke free from her mother, and ran to Rose, throwing her arms around her waist. Amy’s violin teacher waved farewell to the girl in camouflage and leaned down to return the child’s hug. Then she lifted her head and saw Amy.
Her face lit with even more than its usual animation. “Amy!” She spoke to the girl. “This is my friend I told you about. She plays the violin like an angel! I’ve known her since she was younger than you!”
She waved good-bye to the child and spun Amy into her arms, planting a kiss on each cheek that knocked her red hat to the floor, releasing her hair into a dandelion puff too dark to be called strawberry blonde, and too light to be called auburn. “I’ve missed you so much! How are you?”
“Fine! Wonderful now that you’re here!” Amy brightened, swept into Rose’s energy.
“Have a good visit, Rose!” a middle-aged man called.
Rose turned to him. “You, too! Come and meet Amy! Isn’t she pretty with her beautiful long hair? And so talented, too.”
Amy blushed.
The man shook her hand. “A pleasure to meet you! Rose couldn’t stop raving about you.” A woman who might be the man’s daughter bounced up and down, calling to get his attention, and he bid them farewell.
Rose scooped her hat up off the floor, linked her arm in Amy’s, and steered her through the crowded airport, greeting half a dozen brand new friends as they weaved their way through the crowd to the baggage carousel. There, Rose heaved a floral suitcase off the belt, and, taking Amy’s hand, charged through the airport, while Amy nearly ran to keep up. “I have orders from Conrad to treat you like royalty.” She threw open the glass doors, bursting into the early July day. She lifted her face to a blazing blue sky. “Heaven! You’ve landed in heaven, Amy. I can’t wait to see your house. Shopping or lunch?”
“Lunch.” With anyone else, Amy might have prevaricated. Rose demanded and got answers. “There’s a good pub near Edinburgh castle.”
“And then we shop.” Rose leaned half-way into the street, straining on tip-toes, and with sheer force of personality, brought a taxi screeching to a halt. She tossed her bag in the back seat, and soon had herself and Amy settled and the driver heading into Edinburgh. “Have you painted lately?”
“I haven’t had time.”
“Hm.” Miss Rose made the sound that told Amy she knew there was more to the story. “You have time now. You were very good. We’ll be getting you some supplies. Where’s the nearest music store?”
Amy settled back against the taxi seat, relaxing in Rose’s presence. “Rose, are you even like this at funerals?”
“I guess I must be,” her teacher replied. “Because if he’s not coming back, we rather are in the middle of a funeral.”
“Do I have your permission to grieve?” Amy regarded her wryly.
“Oh, certainly!” Rose waved her hat, fanning herself. “In fact, you’re under strict orders to grieve. But I’ve known you since you were three, Amy. You need your painting and music. Are you still writing?”
Amy shook her head. “We hadn’t started the new CD.” She turned quickly to stare out the window, hiding the tears she blinked back. “It was going to be Broadway hits.” She’d been looking forward to it. Outside, fields flashed by. “I haven’t composed without Shawn since—well, since college, before I even met him.”
“You’re not letting that talent go to waste,” Rose informed her. “I expect a song before I go. And a painting. Horses? You’re particularly good at those. What else would you like to see and do?”
When the taxi had dropped them at the pub, Rose pulled dozens of brochures from her straw purse and spread them over the table, taking Amy on a dizzying potential itinerary that left her almost as exhausted as if they’d actually visited each of the places. Amy was grateful when the waitress appeared with fish pie, coffee, and a glass of wine for Rose. Gathering the brochures, Rose flashed a smile. “Thank you, dear! It looks delicious! What’s the best place in Scotland? What should I absolutely not miss?”
“Inverness,” the waitress said promptly. “Shopping, theater, hiking, boating, anything you want.”
“Inverness it is,” Rose announced. “Thank you!” She turned to Amy as the waitress left. “Shall we take a bus or train?”
Amy picked up her fork. “You never run out of energy, do you?”
“Nope, and I don’t intend to.” Rose sipped her wine. “Glenmirril’s in Inverness, isn’t it?”
“You want to see Glenmirril?” Amy lowered her fork.
Miss Rose set her wine down. “That traumatic? What happened there, Amy?”
Amy stared at her fish pie. “I left him.”
“You justifiably walked away. He’s a grown man. Why didn’t he follow you out of that tower?”
“He wanted to finish his picnic.”
“His choice. He could have called a cab.”
“His jacket was in the car,” Amy said, “with his cell phone and money.”
Rose sniffed. “He could have walked home. But what I want to know, Amy, is, what happened in that tower that upsets you so much?”
Amy pushed at the fish with her fork. “What did the news say?”
“That he was injured, had a fever and behaved strangely afterward, and then disappeared.”
“That’s about right.”
“Amy, why won’t you look at me? How was he injured?”
“An arrow,” she mumbled.
“Like a bow and arrow?” Rose asked incredulously.
Amy lifted her eyes. “Rose, the news didn’t say everything, because they don’t know everything. It wasn’t Shawn who left the tower with an arrow wound and a fever.”
“What?” Rose leaned forward. “Metaphorically speaking? They kept saying he came back a different man.”
“No.” Amy shook her head. “It really wasn’t him. It was a man named Niall. Did you watch the last concert?”
“I am Niall Campbell, born in 1290, heir to Glenmirril.” Rose leaned back in the booth. She closed her eyes, as she always had when Amy played a passage, and she was searching her fluid, colorful mind for ways to transform it from good to great. “This is who I am.” She opened her eyes, flashes of bright blue. “Yes, I watched it. In fact, the whole world has watched it about four million times, now, on YouTube. Two dozen of those were me, wondering what on earth he was doing.”
“He was telling the truth,” Amy said.
“So who is Niall Campbell? Don’t the police know it wasn’t Shawn?”
Amy shrugged. “I told them what he said. They don’t believe it.”
“You told them he said...?” Rose waited for her to fill in the blank.
“I told them he said he’s Niall Campbell born in 1290, and wanted to get back to save the Scots at Bannockburn.”
“Hm.” Miss Rose swirled her wine. “No wonder they don’t believe it. But you believe he wasn’t Shawn. Why?”
“He had scars on his back. He didn’t behave like Shawn. He was obsessed with Bannockburn.”
“So he wasn’t Shawn. And the police didn’t run a search on this Niall because they believe it was Shawn.”
Amy nodded.
“Did you Google him? Niall, I mean?”
“No.” Amy took a bite of her fish. “He told me who he was.”
“And you believed him?”
Amy set the fork down, leaning across the table. “I wish you could have met him, Rose.”
“You believe him?” her teacher asked again.
Amy felt light inside, remembering Niall’s smile, his hand on her hair. “I believe he was sincere. He was kind.”
“Hm.” Rose tasted her fish, eyebrows drawn. “So Shawn disappeared from the tower, and this Niall got shot with an arrow, had an infection and disappeared from the re-enactment?”
Amy stirred milk and sugar into her coffee. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
Rose frowned. “I’ve known you too long to think that. But it’s a strange story at best. And if it’s true, what did happen to Shawn? Where he is?”
Amy sipped her coffee. “He’s gone.” Tears stung her eyes. She set the coffee cup down with a clatter, and pressed a hand over her face. “And this child is going to grow up with no father.”
Rose rounded the table abruptly, sliding onto the bench beside Amy, and put an arm around her. “I know it’s not what you wanted, but thousands of children grow up without fathers, and it’s not perfect, but they’re okay.”
“Remember my friend Colin, years ago?” Amy sniffed. “He hated not having a father.” She bit her lip, trying not to sniffle. “I swore I would never do that to a child, and it’s exactly what I’ve done.”
“But you didn’t do it,” Rose insisted. “I won’t even pretend to guess what happened, but he was gambling, drinking, cheating. You know what I think you need?”
“A therapist.” Amy pressed a hand to her mouth. “Mental help.”
Rose sniffed. “No, you don’t need a therapist. You need to figure out why you accept so much blame. Then quit doing it. You need to go back to that tower.”
Amy shook her head. “No.”
“Because you can’t face the place he disappeared or because you can’t face your guilt? Unjustified guilt, I might add.”
“I’m just not going back.” Amy tried another bite of her fish pie, but her appetite was gone.
“Pick somewhere else, then. Because we won’t be sitting home. After lunch, we hit the thrift stores and find you something fun to wear. No black, no sweatshirts.”
Amy swallowed a smile. Only Rose could say such things without raising ire. As she had through fifteen years of lessons, she said, “Yes, Miss Rose.”
“You’re not waffling out of this,” Rose warned. “Pick a place.”
Stirling Castle, 1314
With Niall’s drawings in one hand, the Laird glowered at Shawn’s sketches of buses and twenty-first century clothing. Hugh, Niall, and Allene clustered around, studying his attempts to depict modern life.
“Okay, so I’m not an artist,” Shawn said irritably.
MacDonald’s eyebrows snapped down into a deep V over his nose. The scar running from temple to lip turned white, silencing Shawn.
Shawn came as close as he ever had to flushing, as he scrutinized his artistic efforts. Amy had a stroke of genius when it came to capturing images on paper. Ink splotches covered his work which, even with a ballpoint pen, would have been little better than stick figures and boxes with circles. Lines meandered between thick and thin, the quill and ink uncontrollable in his unpracticed hand. He ventured again. “You don’t, uh, hang people for being unartistic, do you?”
MacDonald scowled at him. “For you, we’ll consider it.”
“Father!” Allene reprimanded. “You can see ’tis as Niall drew.”
“I see you were right in saying he’s no idea how to use a quill.” He turned to Shawn. “Are you literate?”
Shawn’s eyes widened in offense. “Are you....” He searched for a Gaelic word for kidding. “Are you jesting?”
MacDonald’s eyebrows dipped lower still. The scar turned whiter. “We do hang men for disrespect.”
“Sorry,” Shawn muttered. “Everyone’s literate in my time.”
MacDonald stabbed a finger at his art. “You can’t even use a quill!”
Shawn spread his hands. “We don’t have quills.”
“I told you they didn’t,” said Niall.
The Laird frowned. Shawn watched warily as he clasped his hands behind his back and strode to the window. Sweat prickled his back under his heavy linen shirt. He exchanged glances with Niall and Allene. Their faces gave him no clue.
“Can you speak Latin?” MacDonald turned back.
Why the hell would anyone want to speak Latin, sprang to Shawn’s tongue. A shadow flickered across Niall’s face. Shawn re-phrased his initial thought. “No.”
“No, My Lord,” Niall corrected.
When Shawn didn’t respond, Allene raised slender eyebrows. “You’d best adapt to our ways while you’re here.”
Shawn’s eyes flashed across the knives in Niall’s and MacDonald’s boots and at MacDonald’s belt. “Yes, My Lord.” Humility galled him.
“French?”
“A little.” Enough to charm women, Shawn thought. Certainly there was no other use for the language.
“I believe the word you’re looking for is chan eil. No.” Hugh grinned in response to Shawn’s glare.
“Can you fight with a sword?” MacDonald asked.
“No.” Shawn’s irritation mounted. Most people had been impressed at all the things he could do.
“Do you know where the Lammermuirs are? The River Esk? Do you know of James Douglas?” The Laird fired one question after another at him. “Can you ride? Can you hunt?”
Shawn shook his head at each, feeling steadily more like a recalcitrant schoolboy, rather than the accomplished phenomenon he’d been—would be—in a mere seven centuries. His anger deepened with his feeling of ineptitude.
MacDonald threw up his hands. “What can you do?” He turned in annoyance, to stare once more out the window to the blue sky beyond.
Shawn looked to Niall, searching for a clue. Niall looked away. Shawn turned to Allene. She smiled reassuringly.
Minutes ticked by, while Shawn’s hands grew clammy and his insides curled in tight knots. Finally, MacDonald turned from the window. “Allene, you’ll tutor him in penmanship and languages each morning and evening. Especially the bollox he’s making of our native tongue.”
“I grew up speaking Gaelic!” Shawn objected, his nervousness forgotten in his anger. “My Gaelic is flawless!”
“Flawless twenty-first century Gaelic, perhaps,” Niall reminded him. “But very peculiar to fourteenth century ears.”
“Hugh,” the Laird said, “you’ll school him on geography and clans.”
Shawn half-rose from his chair. “Why? I’m going home.”
Hugh gave a sharp shake of his head, warning him. He sat back down.
“Niall, you’ll teach him to fight and ride.”
“Ride!” Shawn shot to his feet. His chair scraped backward, tottered, and regained its balance. “Not on a horse! I don’t do horses!”
“You’ll do as I say.” MacDonald’s hand fell on the hilt of his knife.
Shawn’s anger overrode the threat. He planted his hands on the table. “Why? Why do you want me learning all this? I’m going home!”
“Sit down,” Hugh rumbled. His hand on Shawn’s shoulder added weight to his suggestion.
Shawn sank into the chair, glaring at MacDonald.
Storm clouds rolled across the Laird’s face. “We’ve no way of getting you home. You’ll live as Niall. You must know all he knows.”
“I don’t want to live as Niall,” Shawn informed him, his eyes burning.
“As you wish.” MacDonald spoke mildly.
Shawn leaned back smugly in his chair. Niall and Allene glanced at one another.
“Hugh,” MacDonald said, “put a hood over his face and take him to the dungeons. We’ve no explanation for his presence. We’ll have to hang him.”
Shawn felt the blood drain out of his face.
“Yes, My Lord.” Hugh laid a hand on his arm. “Come along, Shawn. Hanging’s not so bad. ’Tis the drawing and quartering you mightn’t care for.”
“I’ll live as Niall,” Shawn said hastily. “I love quills! I love Latin!”
Inverness, Present
In the small, crowded office they shared at precinct headquarters, Sergeant Chisolm slapped a manila folder on his partner’s desk.
Inspector MacLean looked up, scowling. “I’m working.” He pushed the folder off his report. “What is this?”
“Shawn Kleiner.” Chisolm dropped into the wheeled office chair at his own desk, twelve inches from MacLean’s.
“Him.” Irritation flashed across MacLean’s face. “Case closed, is it not?”
“It is. The orchestra’s gone home.” Chisolm leaned forward, piercing MacLean with a meaningful gaze. “Ninety-eight of them.”
“Counting tickets is not my business.” MacLean jotted on his report.
“There are a hundred in a symphony orchestra,” Chisolm pressed.
“Kleiner didn’t go home.” MacLean looked up. “Who else?”
“The girlfriend stayed.” Chisolm looked smug.
“Did she now?” The irritation smoothed off MacLean’s face. He set his pen down. “Did she take time off?”
“Resigned her post entirely.”
“She didn’t,” MacLean breathed. “Why?”
“Thought you’d be interested.” Chisolm tapped the file smugly. “She’s let a house in Bannockburn. As to why, I couldn’t say.”
MacLean frowned at the papers cluttering his desk. “You’ve thought all along she knows something she isn’t telling.”
“She was too nervous,” Chisolm said.
“She’d had quite a few shocks.” MacLean rubbed his chin.
“Too careful choosing her words. ’Tis odd, quitting your job and staying behind.”
MacLean tapped his pen on his desk. “When your boyfriend has just disappeared under such circumstances? Maybe she wants to be nearby.” He took his cell phone from his pocket, clicked a few buttons, and stared at the screen, frowning. He stowed it back in his pocket and asked brusquely, “Do we call her in for more questioning?”
“The case is closed, Angus. She’s done nothing illegal. And she’s out of our jurisdiction now, is she not?”
MacLean frowned, leaning back in his chair. “She is. Keep me updated all the same, will you?”
Stirling Castle, 1314
MacDonald set Shawn straight to work. Niall led him, still moving gingerly with his injury, around the castle compound in the mist before dawn, learning every building. He attended Mass as the sun rose. Through the morning, Allene supervised his attempts with a quill, making him copy French verbs and Latin prayers, even as he repeated them aloud, perfecting his speech, straining his ear to capture every idiom and nuance.
He spent afternoons in his room, learning hand to hand combat with MacDonald, Hugh, or Niall. His back ached from falling on the stone floor as they came at him time and again, the Laird always with a new surprise, Hugh with brute force, and Niall with lightning strikes.
And while they grasped his wrist to yank him off the floor, they battered him with questions. Which way are the Cheviots? Name Bruce’s sisters. Where has Elizabeth been held these many years? Do you even remember who Elizabeth is? And their wooden practice swords flashed again, striking, and the cry of, “You’re dead! Watch, man, watch!” rang in his ears.
Before dinner, he practiced pieces Niall played on harp. He retaliated by taunting Niall with a recorder they found. “You learn something. Keep your fingers in place. The melody goes up by a third there, can’t you hear that? Wrong fingering.” The Laird grumbled about the time. But Niall took Shawn’s part. “You never know what will be of use.”
With his face hidden by a hooded robe, Shawn watched from the corner of the courtyard one day, learning faces and names, as Niall’s mother, with her entourage, departed to visit kin on her way back to Glenmirril. She hugged Niall warmly, and mounted her horse, and with several dozen men, rode out through the gates of Stirling. In the shadows, Shawn thought of his own mother. He wondered if Amy would stay in touch with her, be there for her, now that she was all alone.
Most nights, he ate in his room, while MacDonald quizzed him on politics and battles, but he spent two evenings in the great hall in Niall’s place, enjoying his time with Allene and the men from Hugh’s camp, and swilling his ale deeply. The men called for the song he’d played the night before battle, and he consented, taking Niall’s harp and singing. The whole hall joined, Bruce and his brother Edward standing and lifting stone goblets high, bellowing the refrain. And stood against the English might, and sent them fleeing home! Shawn met Allene’s eye. They both turned away uncomfortably.
Amy was ever on his mind.
So was his loneliness.
“Don’t dare make me look bad by eyeing the lasses,” Niall had warned before Shawn had gone down to dinner. His hand had rested on the hilt of his knife, and his usual humor had been absent. “Anything you do will be attributed to me.” All the same, Shawn didn’t think Niall would appreciate him smiling at Allene.
Niall stood atop the ramparts with him each evening, naming hills and rivers, making him repeat it back until his head spun with names, directions and landmarks, and his dreams were filled with Galloway Hills, lineages, rivers, King Alexander, John Balliol, and all that Niall knew.
The Laird watched, assessing every moment and, Shawn was sure, hearing every word. His neck itched, feeling a phantom rope, wondering what the Laird was deciding behind those fierce, lowered eyebrows.
Falkirk, Scotland, Present
What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing! The words pounded through Amy’s brain, beating down as hard as the glaring sun, as she crossed the broad lawn sweeping before the Callendar Park mansion with its broad wings and fairy tale turrets. An art bag, loaded with new supplies, hung on her shoulder. Heat prickled her neck.
“I’m so glad you picked a place.” Rose clutched her broad-brimmed hat to her head. A breeze swirled her skirt around white Victorian boots. “I was beginning to think I’d never get an answer out of you.”
Amy lifted her sunglasses to peer at Rose with a mischievous smile. “Self preservation! I can’t afford any more of your shopping trips!” She settled the glasses back on her nose. The truth was, as she’d lain in bed, holding the crucifix Niall had left, staring at the leafy silhouette of the tree outside her window, her mind had drifted, like a twig on a river, between the two banks of Shawn and Niall, and an urge had grown in her to see the place Niall’s father had died. Yesterday’s research had led her to Callendar Park, a likely site for the battle of Falkirk that had claimed James Campbell’s life.
Pausing before the mansion, Rose studied Amy’s denim capris and royal blue sleeveless top that stood out like a sapphire against her long black braid. Self conscious under the appraisal, Amy pushed a long tendril of hair, curling with perspiration in the warm day, behind her ear.
“You’re beautiful,” Rose announced. “Black and gray are elegant, of course. Very much what your mother might wear. But don’t you feel better in these bright colors than you did sitting in church in black?”
“In my defense,” Amy protested, “I came on an orchestra tour. That means lots of concert black.”
“And now you feel beautiful in bright colors!” Rose didn’t ask.
The sun blazed in the blue summer sky. Amy laughed. “Yes, Miss Rose.”
“Oh, stop that!” Rose laughed, too, and linked her arm in Amy’s, steering her past the mansion, toward the loch. “What sparked your interest in Falkirk?”
“Well, there’s lots to draw.” Amy couldn’t resist teasing Rose. “You did tell me I would be drawing while you’re here.”
“I also told you to call your parents,” Rose reminded her, “and you haven’t. It’s taken some doing on my part, these last few conversations with your mother, to convince her to give you time. Since when have you wanted to draw a ditch?”
“It’s not a ditch,” Amy objected. “It’s Antonine’s Wall.”
“It was Antonine’s Wall,” Rose sniffed. “It is a ditch. Historical value aside, you wouldn’t choose to draw a ditch. So why Falkirk?”
Yes, why? Amy asked herself. There was nothing to be learned here. It didn’t even directly relate to Niall or Shawn. “The mansion, gardens, swan boats,” she said. “They’re all perfect for drawing.” As they approached the pond, she added, “It’ll make a beautiful water color, don’t you think?”
“Hm.” Rose shaded her eyes to scan people paddling swan boats on the smooth, blue surface, past the small island in the middle. “You made the mistake of leaving me a whole day to read.”
Amy narrowed her eyes at Rose. There was no way she could guess.
“It didn’t go over my head that one James Campbell of Glenmirril died here in 1298.” Rose pulled a brochure from her straw purse to fan herself. “Was he Niall’s father or brother?”
“Father.” Amy clamped her mouth tight, but the word had slipped out. She cursed her tendency toward full candor. Maybe she ought to have moved half an inch in Shawn’s direction on the honesty spectrum. “I mean,” she hedged, “I mean—Rose, why are you hounding me?”
“A man who looks like Shawn claims to be Niall Campbell of Glenmirril, who would have been eight when James Campbell of Glenmirril died at Falkirk, and here we are,” Rose replied. “A convoluted path, but I hardly think coincidental. And you were quick to say James was his father.”
On the loch, a couple on a swan boat laughed. Amy spun and marched for the woods. Rose hastened after, reaching for her arm. “You’re right,” she said. “Listen to me, going on at you. I’m sorry. I know things were rocky with Shawn, but it’s still a loss. And traumatic, the way it happened. But something isn’t sitting right, and you won’t say what. I guess I’m just trying to get you to talk to me, like you used to.”
Muggy July air filled Amy’s lungs. She hurried toward the shady woods. “Talk about what?” she asked. “He’s done some horrible things this past year, and my gut says there’s more. My head tells me I’m a fool to still feel anything for him, but I do. What must people think of me?”
The shade of the grove welcomed them. The glare of the sun settled into a leafy green filter of pale light on the dim path, but the air still clung, damp and heavy. Amy flapped the neck of her shirt, trying to cool herself.
“Don’t worry about anyone else,” Rose said. “They don’t understand if they haven’t been there. But you’re hardly the only one to love longer than you should have.”
“Have you?” Amy demanded. “Do you have any idea what it’s like?”
“You know I was married?” Rose queried in return.
“You mentioned it years ago.” Sweat trickled down Amy’s back.
“For five years.” In the dim copse, Rose removed her hat, fanning herself. Her reddish hair gave a puff with each flap of the hat. “The night I met you was the worst night of my life.”
“That’s hard to believe.” Amy stopped on the shady path, studying her friend. “I remember it like it was yesterday. You were playing by the Christ-mas tree, in white lace while all my mother’s friends wore black and bottle green velvet. And you kept looking up at me and smiling.”
“Yes, I did.” Rose laughed, a cheery sound on the quiet trail. She linked her arm in Amy’s and began walking again. “I felt better when you smiled back. You looked so lonely sitting up there.”
“What happened that night?” Amy asked.
Rose sighed, staring up into the leafy canopy as they walked. “He was like a prince in a Disney cartoon. Tall, good-looking, talented, cheerful. Everyone loved him. He could romance like he had a team of Hollywood scriptwriters behind him. He made me feel like a princess.”
As if on cue, a bird warbled high in the trees. “My friends started saying they’d seen him with other women,” Rose said. “I didn’t believe it because I’d known someone good and kind for eight years.”
“What finally convinced you?” Amy’s feet scuffed on the soft forest path.
“I found a note. One he couldn’t explain away.” Rose smiled. “In retrospect, I should have enjoyed the show, watching him squirm and try to come up with a story. It was really quite funny.” The smile drifted away on the sound of a sigh. “To someone who wasn’t in the middle of heartbreak.”
“Yeah.” Amy’s heart squeezed as if she were still hearing Shawn’s lies, torn, wanting him to be the man who had brought so much joy into her life. A rabbit darted from the foliage. “With voicemail and travel and time differences, an agent might call at two in the morning.”
Rose laughed. “These men are masters of stories that might be true. And we want to believe them. Life with him was so good, I wanted it to last forever.”
Amy nodded. “That’s how it was with Shawn, the first year and a half.”
“But I knew that night at your parents’ party that it was over, and it felt like having my heart ripped out and put through a meat grinder. Nothing ever hurt so much in my life. It’s so hard to reconcile the person you thought you knew with the monster staring you in the face. Makes you a little crazy.”
“A lot crazy,” Amy said softly. “My head tells me I shouldn’t waste tears over him when he made me feel that way.”
“The head and the heart play at two different tempos.” Rose stopped, peering through foliage and pine trees. “Is this the mausoleum the brochure mentioned?” She veered onto a side path, charging uphill.
Amy followed, pushing at ferns that hung over onto the narrow path, to a massive round edifice like a Greek temple. Its gray stone base, covered in graffiti, rose above her head. Columns stretched higher yet, supporting a flat roof. Rose marched up to it, touching it and studying its surface, before turning back to Amy. “The head reaches the fine first. It takes time for the heart to get there. It’s often many pages behind.”
“Doesn’t make for very harmonious music,” said Amy.
“Every great piece has some dissonance. Goodness, it’s hot!” Rose dis-appeared abruptly around the tomb.
Amy glanced up at the dappled green filtering down through the trees. A shaft of light skimmed down one side of the mausoleum, turning it silver, highlighting the ugly scrawls that defaced its timeless beauty. She seated herself under a tree, and pulled her sketch pad and pencils from her art bag.
The air grew warmer. Midges swarmed around her face. She waved them away, disrupting their dance and thinking of those long-ago Scots, waiting in formation with their pikes. James Campbell, maybe in chain mail and leather boots, stood among them. Did he swipe at midges, too? Did he think of his sons, executed by the same English waiting across the field to kill him in his turn? Did he think of Niall and Finola, his children back at Glenmirril praying for his return?
Humidity filled Amy’s lungs. She breathed deeply, pulling in sticky air. The image was disturbingly vivid. Here where James had died, she could almost see him watching her—an older, grayer version of Shawn and Niall, with weathered skin and laugh lines crinkling into sorrow around his eyes. Trying to shake the feeling, she set her charcoal pencil to the paper, sketching the crypt with firm strokes.
Rose returned from her inspection of the monolithic tomb, settling herself beside Amy. Her white skirt pooled around her. “It’s like people,” she said.
Amy’s pencil paused. She looked up into Rose’s eyes, blue as the hot July sky above. “What’s like people?”
“The battle of Falkirk.” Rose dug in her purse. Brochures in vivid reds, blues, and greens spilled like jewels over her white skirt. She snatched one up, waving it triumphantly.
Amy laughed. “Rose, only you would come up with such a comparison. How is the battle of Falkirk like people?”
“You seem to think you need to sum Shawn up and place him in a single column, good or bad. Like accounting. One final answer.”
“Well, it would be easier.” Amy sketched in the foliage hanging over the mausoleum. “Then maybe my heart would hurry and reach the coda and I’d feel sane and happy like I used to.”
“But life isn’t so simple.” Rose fanned herself vigorously. “It’s more like music. Majors, minors, tri-tones. They all work together.”
“And what does this have to do with a medieval battle?” Amy paused in her drawing to wipe a bead of sweat slipping down her temple. “Besides, I’m not really seeing any good in this one, in particular.”
“What do you know about it?” Rose asked.
Amy laid the pencil down. “Their own lords deserted them!” Her voice shot out a third above normal, as if it touched her personally. But it did. She had known, almost loved, Niall, even promised to consider marrying him. And his father had died here, maybe lay here still, bones beneath the earth. It did touch her personally.
Rose frowned.
Amy cleared her throat. She tried to speak as if it were inconsequential—just meaningless words in a history book, not someone’s life, not a boy of eight left fatherless. “It was a horrible defeat. There’s nothing good in that.”
Rose tapped the brochure. “But defeat here was only one movement! It wasn’t the fine.”
“It was for....” Amy’s jaw tightened. She looked down to her sketch pad, taking an intense interest in shading the columns.
“For Niall’s father?” Rose arched one eyebrow. “You speak as if you knew him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Amy’s pencil came down hard, making one column too dark. She scrubbed at it with an eraser, only smearing it more. “What good do you see here?”
Rose leaned forward, the brochure crumpling in her grip. Her eyes shone. “William Wallace kept fighting. Almost single-handedly. How did his example change everyone around him? How did it shame and inspire those run-away lords? He made them believe they could win against the most powerful nation in the world! How did that change history?”
The eraser in Amy’s hand sagged to the drawing pad. Niall had changed history. But maybe Wallace’s persistence against impossible odds had inspired him to push forward, even in the face of waking up in the wrong century. He could have given up. He could have settled into Shawn’s life of ease and plenty. Amy wiped her hand across her perspiring forehead.
Rose lifted the brochure. “Edward II had a hollow victory here. His men were hungry, deserting. He left and didn’t come back for three years, which gave the Scots time to regroup.”
Amy nodded. “Okay. But Shawn....”
“There was good in him, too, Amy.” Rose gripped her arm. “Don’t hate yourself for mourning him is what I’m trying to say. He made people happy.”
“In more ways than one.” A diminished note of bitterness colored Amy’s words.
Rose snorted. “I’m sure. Did you think he’d change for you? His type rarely does, and it’s not because you weren’t good enough. He had a reputation, which I’d hoped he’d put in the past. That aside, the last time he played at Lincoln Center, he held his taxi for my friend, went out with his umbrella to meet her, and had the taxi take her home first. He paid the bill.”
“He had plenty of money.” Amy dismissed his good deed. “You know, I’m not sure you’re helping. It would be easier for me to just hate him.”
“But you don’t,” Rose pointed out. “And you hate yourself for not hating him. And you shouldn’t.” She lowered the brochure. “Kindness always matters. My friend is arthritic. What he did meant a great deal to her. That’s part of who he was, Amy. It’s okay to grieve that.”
Amy stared at the half-drawn picture on her lap. Tears pooled in her eyes. “He was tormented,” she said. “His father’s murder really messed him up. I think I saw the person he would have been, even tried to be.” She closed the drawing pad. “But Niall’s father died, too. And....” She stopped, breathing heavily in the heat. She couldn’t tell Rose Niall had been kind and good; she couldn’t say she’d known him personally.
She lifted her eyes to Rose. A man bolted from behind a tree, charging with a pike, mouth drawn in fury. Amy scrambled to her feet, the sketch pad and pencil falling to the dirt path.
“Amy!” Rose leapt to her feet. “Are you okay?”
The man disappeared, leaving only herself and Rose by the decaying tomb, amid the leafy trees and birdsong.
“I’m fine!” Amy grabbed for the sketch pad, the pencil, the art bag, shoving them at one another. “Sorry. It must be the heat.” Or an overactive imagination. Shawn had always said she imagined things. “We better head back, maybe get something to drink.” Struggling to breathe in the damp air, Amy plowed down the forest path, fleeing the ghosts of Falkirk.
Stirling Castle, 1314
With a glance at Shawn, Niall hefted a wooden sword from the pile Hugh had left in the dewy grass at the edge of the field. “Ready?” Across the field, other men practiced, their swords crashing against one another.
“Breeze.” Shawn smirked. “Hell, this isn’t even real.” Being outdoors lifted his spirits, even if the Laird had insisted he wear a heavy steel helmet that covered most of his face, and made it impossible to flirt with the women in their flowing skirts and sleeves nearly sweeping the floor. But the early morning breeze and grass under his feet still beat another day quoting Latin prayers, surrounded by the same four stone walls.
Niall smiled and tossed the sword. It jolted into Shawn’s hand, jarring his arm and wrenching his shoulder as it slammed into the dirt, dragging him off balance. Pain shot across his abdomen. He righted himself and shot Niall a dirty look. “This weighs three times what the real ones do!”
“Only twice as much,” Niall corrected.
“How am I supposed to fight with this?” Shawn gestured angrily at it.
“Picking it up would be a good start.” Niall reached for a second weapon. He swung it in a lazy arc.
“No.” Shawn clamped his hands on his hips, glaring through the helmet’s slits. “This is ridiculous. Get me something that weighs what the real ones do.”
“Have it your way.” Niall’s wooden sword flashed high in the air.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Shawn threw his hands up over his head. “Where’s the chivalry! You attack an unarmed man?”
“You’re unarmed because you’ll not pick up your weapon!” Niall lowered his sword, but pushed his face in Shawn’s. “Is that going to work in battle?”
“What if they gave a war, and nobody came?” Shawn countered. With his leather-booted toe, he kicked at the offensive object. “Ride the peace train. You people are behind the times. Downright medieval.”
“So you’ve said. Pick up your sword.”
Grunting and clutching the wound that still gave him sharp twinges with exertion, Shawn heaved the thing from the dirt with both hands.
“Maybe you should try swinging it first,” Niall suggested.
“Yeah, you think?” Shawn slashed it through the air a few times, its weight like lead in his arms. “Why do they make them so heavy?”
“Build up strength. If you can fight with this, you stand a better chance of survival with enemies coming at you. Now, see the pell?”
“The stick guy over there?” Shawn nodded at the six foot post with a shield stuck to its front. A large blackbird sat atop its helmet.
“If that’s what you call it. Hit it. Three points for head, shoulders, or abdomen.”
“Let’s start on my level,” Shawn suggested. “How about three points if I manage not to let him hit me first?” In the distance, men shouted and called as they drilled.
Niall quirked a smile, though he fought it back. “How about a point if I don’t hit you first? You’re the most ill-mannered student I’ve ever been unfortunate enough to be saddled with.”
“And you’re the most humorless sword instructor I’ve ever been saddled with.”
“You’ve had many?” Niall raised one eyebrow.
“None, thank God.”
“It shows.”
“Mr. Motivation, aren’t you?” Shawn scratched at his back, where sweat prickled under the thick gambeson. “I’m not seeing you as a successful leader in the business world.”
“I’m in the business of staying alive, and I find the prospect of dying in battle to be powerful motivation. You ought to, as well.” Niall swung his sword at his side. “Hit the pell.”
With a grumble, Shawn hefted his sword to his waist and managed to fling its tip at the post. It struck what would have been a man’s knees before sagging to the ground. The bird atop the pole flapped its wings, scolding, but didn’t budge.
“Hm.” Niall frowned. “Worse than I expected.”
“You don’t read parenting books do you?” Shawn hadn’t felt inept in years. Heat flushed his face under the metal helmet. His embarrassment came out as anger. “Here’s where you say rah, rah, good effort!”
“’Twas a poor effort if any at all.” Niall selected another weapon from the pile and tossed it at him. “This one’s a little lighter.”
They worked while the sun climbed high in the sky, till Shawn’s muscles screamed in pain, till sweat ran down his back under the padded gambeson, till his mouth was dry as sandpaper, and a headache throbbed in his temples, till he vowed he’d take the wooden sword to Niall as soon as he had the strength to swing it. They worked to the sound of men and horses racing at quintains across the field. Finally, with the sun blazing directly overhead, Hugh approached, swinging a leather bag.
“Dinner.” Niall grinned, lowering his sword. “And I daresay some ale.”
“I daresay it’s high time.” Shawn tugged his helmet off. Light and air and a full range of vision had never felt so good. “You people have a startling lack of awareness of the dangers of dehydration.” He used English where there was no Gaelic.
“What’s that?” Niall asked.
“Lack of water.”
“Aye, well, we’re not given water breaks in battle, are we?” Niall hailed Hugh. The giant of a man tossed the sack the last couple of feet, and Niall caught it easily.
“Progress?” Hugh asked.
“Barely.”
“I object!” Shawn flung down his sword. “I scared off that crow!”
“No, it was flying home to get its friends to come and laugh at you, too.” Niall chuckled, pulled out a bundle of bannocks wrapped in a kerchief, and tossed a couple to Shawn. He wolfed them down. Hugh took a long draft of ale from the skin he carried, before passing it on.
Shawn hesitated only a moment before deciding he’d risk germs over dehydration. The ale slid down his throat cold and wet and more glorious than anything he’d ever drunk. His irritation with Niall slid away as quickly. A broad grin covered his face. “Whew, that’s good!” he shouted. “What do you guys put in this stuff?”
“Hard physical labor,” Niall said dryly.
“It makes everything taste better,” Hugh added. “After you eat, Allene’s ready to work with him on his script and Latin.”
“Veni, vidi, vici,” Shawn muttered. “Carpe diem. Fish today.”
Hugh shook his head and walked away. Niall slung the pack of food on his back, and they walked together to a tree on the edge of the field. Shawn sank in exhaustion to the ground, leaning against the broad trunk. He closed his eyes, feeling the hot noon sun shine bright against his lids, while sword-fighting instructions and Latin and clans marched through his weary mind. Bruce, Turnberry Castle, Elizabeth, Marjory, Douglas, Conrad at the castle hotel, Dan, his own small mansion on its spread of trees and fields, parties, the orchestra and Rob and Dana laughing, drinking freely of champagne.
“Why did you treat Amy so poorly?”
“Huh?” Shawn jolted, surprised at his feet jarring against soft earth, and the tree rough against his back, trying to remember where he was.
“She was—is—kind. She deserved better.”
Shawn said nothing. His aching body and exhausted mind hovered between the medieval field, gambeson, helmet, and wooden sword, and his twenty-first century home with its modern appliances and his first party there, just before Christmas, where he’d so recently been in his sleep.
“’Tis none of my affair,” Niall apologized.
“No, ’tis not,” Shawn mimicked. His irritation from the morning returned. He dropped his head back against the tree, staring up into the foliage overhead. A bird sang, and far away, a sheep bleated.
“Still,” Niall said, “it seems we’ll be spending a great deal of time together. She wasn’t your sort. Did you love her at all?”
“That’s right, this is the age of chivalry and romance, isn’t it?” Shawn spoke with derision. “You’d care about a thing like that.”
“Is there a time when one wouldn’t?” Niall asked. “Do men not care about love in your time?”
Shawn shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” The bird sang, a trilling pitch as beautiful as the clink of champagne glasses, as light as the laughter at the Christmas party. Shawn drifted back into the night. It had been the first big party in his new home, after a big write-up in a national paper, when his first CD and his recording with Mannheim Steamroller had taken off and he’d made himself the 22-year-old owner of a small mansion on twenty acres.
He’d invited the whole orchestra. Amy had gone ice skating with him just a week before. He was sure she’d come. He found reasons to be near the door, hoping, waiting. It was easy at first, with people arriving, needing to be let in. As the party reached full swing, and his guests demanded his attention, it became harder.
His eyes wandered past whomever he chatted with, searching the growing crowd of musicians, neighbors, and children. He drank more and grew more lively as the night wore on. When groups began to leave, he knew she wasn’t coming. Dana sidled up to him, touching his arm. “Hey.” She lifted a martini glass. “Where’s the Christmas spirit? Why are you looking so down at your own party?”
“Only thinking you’re leaving soon.” He put a smile on his face. Nobody ever found him down. “That would bring anyone down. You know you have beautiful eyes?”
She rolled those eyes. “As does every woman, according to you.”
He grinned. “Just because I notice doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
“Want some help cleaning?” Not waiting for an answer, she circled the great room, gathering dishes, and carried them to the spacious kitchen. He followed with a few wine glasses. “Are you disappointed Amy didn’t come?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Amy who?”
She laughed. “You think you’re fooling anyone? Get those plates from the table.” He obeyed, amused at her taking charge. She plunged her arms deep into the sink full of suds. “It’s your house. Grab a towel and start drying. You think I don’t see how you look over my shoulder at her all the time? And how you try to wheedle information from me about her? I don’t blame you. She’s sweet.”
He set wine glasses on the expanse of granite counter, and threw a handful of streamers in the garbage. “Do I look like I do sweet?”
She had looked up from the dishes. For once, she didn’t smile. “Maybe something in you knows that’s exactly what you need.”
“Did you love her?” Niall’s voice yanked him back to the medieval field.
“Yeah, I did.” Shawn leaned against the tree, staring up into fluffy clouds. He’d felt like a better man with her, like maybe he could be all the good she saw in him. “She was exactly what I needed.”