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A lump formed in Siobhan’s throat. Soft deep sobs mingled with sighs of relief surrounded Rory as Callum embraced his twin in a bear hug. Rory’s crew had tears in their eyes and broad smiles on their tired faces. Siobhan swallowed and turned to the loch as the reunions continued behind her. It was early, but the sun was well above the horizon. If she recalled correctly, tomorrow was the summer solstice. As it would be the longest day of the year, the sun would not set until very late. Murdo’s boat chugged back to the other side of the loch where a row of fishing boats moored to a pier. Seagulls circled above their masts.
“Let’s pack up and get going. I just want to be home.” Rory commanded his crew and Siobhan’s Government team behind her.
Rory’s hand came to her shoulder, then slipped around her waist.
“I hope you’re okay it’s common knowledge we’re together. I cannae keep anything from my crew. They knew about us before we did, as they say.” He grinned beside her.
Her mouth tugged at the corners. “Yes. Let’s go home.”
What did she mean by that? Where was home now? In the Government Bunker, or here, up top, with Rory? She sensed she was in the in-between. Something deep inside told Siobhan she was on the precipice of a new beginning, and a knowing saturated her. She was with this man now, and there would be no turning back from Rory—not ever.
They reloaded the remaining equipment onto the horses after striking camp. Sundeep and Sanjay’s bodies, wrapped in dampened camp blankets to keep them cool, lay on either side of the sturdiest-looking packhorse. Antony and McPherson mounted and had their hands tied to their saddles.
“Do I ride with you again?” Standing next to Rory, Siobhan fiddled with straps of her duffle bag as he loaded the pack horse with her gear.
Rory arched an eyebrow. “Well, you need to learn how to ride, woman. But as I’m wanting to get home without any mishaps, I suppose I must endure you sitting in front of me all the way.”
She opened her mouth to reprimand his cheek, but Callum interrupted.
“Rory!” Callum’s deep voice called from where he stood with his horse. He faced the hills behind them.
Siobhan turned with Rory to the direction in which they would travel back to the Invercharing Community. Overlooking the loch, a group of people, some mounted on horses, positioned themselves on the side of the hill. Guns and swords glinted in the sunlight. Their clothes were shabby, and lank hair stirred in the breeze.
“Who are they?” she whispered to Rory.
“Bandits.” His hand twitched to his pistol tucked into his belt. “Mount up as soon as we can, everyone. We’ll veer to our right as we start our journey. No use sitting here like ducks.”
They were soon riding their horses at a walk the way they had come, and the bandits stayed to their left. Siobhan looked at their audience regularly. Rory, Callum, Xian, and indeed everyone in their group, did the same. The bandits hadn’t moved an inch. Their weapons remained at their sides. They seemed content to watch them journey past.
Callum cantered up to Rory’s horse once they had reached Poolewe.
“What’s that all aboot, do ya think?”
Rory shook his head. “They did us no harm.” He looked his brother in the eye then. “I’m no’ sure. Stay alert, aye?”
A silence had descended on the party, thanks to their unwelcome observers.
Rapids roared beneath the arched stone bridge they crossed on their way through the quaint, small village of Poolewe. The village had appeared empty on their way up to Loch Ewe, but now families stood in their doorways and stared at them as they rode through their village. Some waved. Young children giggled. Rory shifted in the saddle behind her and remained quiet. He nodded at the adults who acknowledged them.
Once through the town Siobhan, turned her head to Rory. He wore a frown.
“Why the audience?”
“Dinnae ken.” Rory’s frown never lifted.
The puckered brow continued for most of the morning. It was there every time she glanced around at him.
They stopped for lunch a third of the way along Loch Maree and sat opposite the first of the three islands in the middle of it. Siobhan ate the stale bannocks and dried beef, scanning the countryside. The grey-stoned, green-grassed mountains beside Loch Maree sat in quiet reflection in the waters of the still loch; the loch a mirror in the bright, sunny day.
Still so beautiful. How wonderful to live here. If only it was safer. Siobhan swallowed the dry meat. Her nerves had been on high alert since the morning’s spectators. Once again, the beauty of the wilds of Scotland were tempered with its dangers—the people.
Siobhan eyed the landscape once more. It truly was magnificent—tall, grey mountains, out-croppings of rock, clumps of darker-green forests. Her eyes flicked back to a lone figure. She gasped.
“Rory.” There was alarm in her voice.
Siobhan told herself to be calm or she’d make everyone jumpier than they already were.
“What?” He was by her side in an instant.
“Ah, I’m not sure, but is that a person way over there?” She pointed.
Rory took out his high-powered binoculars and looked in the direction. He shook his head. “No. A standing stone. Maybe one of the standing stone circles that are all over the Highlands.”
“But it’s only one. That happens?”
“Aye,” he sounded unperturbed.
Siobhan continued chewing the tough meat. She didn’t recall any standing circles on their journey to Loch Ewe, but then they’d had other things on their mind.
They remounted after finishing their food. Rory, at the head of the party, turned Boy so he faced them.
“We’re making good progress, due to our early morning’s start, but I wish to camp beside Loch Maree. The same spot at the loch-side near the woods as we camped on our way here, aye? It will be ideal.” He turned the horse and kicked him to a walk.
“Ideal for what, Rory?” Callum rode right behind his brother, as always.
“You’ll all find oot when we get there.” He waved his hand dismissively.
They reached the place and set up camp with efficiency, and few spoke. A campfire lit for cooking was soon on the blaze when Rory approached Siobhan as she sat on the log beside it. He carried his long range rifle and smiled for the first time since leaving Loch Ewe.
“Callum, Xian and I are going hunting and we’ll have a celebratory feast of sorts tha’ night. Need some fresh meat. Have nae eaten well for a few days, aye?” Rory kissed her on the lips before walking off with the other men.
He spoke orders to Kendra and Geoff as he passed. Ensuring their vigilance, no doubt.
There was a definite strange feeling surrounding the camp and a prickling on the back of Siobhan’s neck, but not as in a threat. After all they’d experienced with an underwater nuclear explosion nearby, everything was giving her the heebie jeebies. But the people who’d stared at them earlier in the day seemed benign, even curious.
Siobhan wandered to the loch side, stood amongst the grey pebbles and stones, and filled cooking pans with cool, fresh water for heating over the campfire. Camping was becoming another skill to add to her repertoire. Rising from her task she inhaled the crisp mountain air. The grey, triple-headed monolith on the other side of the loch wasn’t wearing such a cloudy halo today. The sensation of being watched remained. Maybe it was the grey monster over there.
Siobhan laughed to herself at her explanation. Her first laugh in a long time. Yes, the previous days of stress were lifting. Let them. More stresses would come. Such as what to do with Antony.
And what to do about her and Rory.
How would it pan out? She pushed the problem aside for the moment. Celebrate, then think the through difficult things. Just be here; here and now. Life was too short to worry about tomorrow even. Yes, so short for some. She still had to tell Aunty Rajna of the death of her precious boys.
Warm tears trickled down her face. Siobhan hadn’t allowed herself to cry until now. She wiped the moisture off her cheeks. She wasn’t being disrespectful, only practical. Celebrate first. The boys would have understood she needed a break from all this intense emotion.
Siobhan walked back to the fire with the water and then helped around the camp, avoiding Antony as much as possible. She did not want to have any confrontations with him at present. And any interaction with him would be a confrontation.
She sat on the log by the fire for another hour; with no wind, the smoke hung around the camp. She would smell smoky, along with everything else. She was looking forward to a shower. The sound of male voices and foot-tread coming through the forest reached her ears. Rory and Callum each carried a berry of rabbits hanging from their hand, and Xian followed behind with the guns. The rabbits had a split in their bellies from where the men had gutted them.
“We’ll take them over near the loch and skin them,” Callum said.
The others devised a spit.
***
THE EVENING MEAL OF spit-roast rabbit was the most delicious Siobhan had ever eaten. Ever.
After their meal, Rory stood from his seat beside her, a flask of whisky in his hand, and poured a dram into everyone’s mug, then held his high.
“To our heroes and dear friends. May we never forget them. Scotland is indebted to them. To Angus. To Dae-Jung and the helmsman. To Sundeep and Sanjay. To Murdo MacDonald.” Rory lifted his mug in a toast.
“Angus, Dae-Jung and the helmsman.” Chorused around the fire. “Sundeep and Sanjay. Murdo MacDonald.”
Rory removed the lid of another flask, a silver-metal hipflask from his kit. Holding it high, he began to pour out its contents onto the ground beside him. He blinked often as his brow crinkled. The group held a respectful silence for a while. Even those restrained, who’d had their bonds loosened to eat their meal, remained silent.
“Slainte Mhor.” Rory raised his mug again.
“Slainte Mhor!” Echoed around the circle, then they all drank once more.
The smooth whisky warmed Siobhan’s throat. She glanced at Rory. His mouth formed a tight smile as his gaze rested on her and then he swallowed the last of his whisky.
“A Highland single malt. The best Scotch.” Rory sat back next to her.
“But you’ve poured it out on the ground.” His libation in honour of the fallen somewhat of a mystery to her.
Rory stared at the silver hipflask he held. His broad shoulders rose with a pensive breath.
“It’s no’ a sacrifice if it cost me nothing.” His intense blue gaze connected with hers.
Yes, Rory knew what that truly meant, and had almost sacrificed his all to save others—people he didn’t even know—to ensure the safety of Scotland. Angus had taken the task from him, without his consent. Siobhan fought with waves of emotion. Sadness mixed with guilt at feeling so grateful Angus had prevented Rory from fulfilling the role he believed was his—almost a birth-right.
Callum walked to his tent with Kendra and returned soon after. Callum held a whistle and Kendra a small bodhran. The music started, Callum sang and Rory’s crew and others from Siobhan’s team who knew the songs, joined in. Rory sang softly next to her, his deep masculine tones following the melody tunefully. Callum’s voice was just as masculine but held more musicality.
The evening passed with music and singing. Most of the lyrics eluded Siobhan but some tunes were familiar, as they had played them in the Bunker. After a time, people’s voices required a rest, so Callum played his whistle for a few musical pieces, its haunting low-pitched notes echoed around the campfire and flew off into the night. Then Kendra sang, her female voice lilted and breathed through the lyrics in the Gaelic tongue.
Siobhan’s chest warmed. They were singing Scotland. The whistle was the wind through the Highlands. The bodhran the steady beat of the mountains, the continuation of the season’s cycle, year in and year out. Vocals singing in the Gaelic belonged to the animals—the deer, the grouse, the osprey, the sea otter. The lyrics themselves were the lives and thoughts of the people who have inhabited the Highlands for millennia, for generations and generations—some of them her ancestors.
The music spoke to her very soul—touched it. The scene around the campfire blurred.
“The human soul responds to music. You’re made that way, aye?” Rory’s deep voice was gentle in her ear. “The one who made all sings to us through the wind, the forest, the animals of his world. Each life is a song to sing. You hear the lives of those who have gone before you in the music.”
“How?” Siobhan wiped away her tears as she frowned at him.
“You’re a scientist. You ken you carry the genes of your parents and their parents, and so on. You’re no’ just you. You’re part of everyone who came afore you. You are a flesh and blood part of everything that is, and which only has its being through the one who made us.”
“You believe that?” She was seeing yet another side to this man.
Rory didn’t answer, only returned his gaze to the fire. The music continued to surround them and flowed to fill the loch to her left and the forest behind her.
“You hear the lives of the ones who have gone afore you,” Rory said at last.
“I do?” Her tone was as incredulous as the idea was to her.
“Aye, you do. When ye asked me how I time travelled,” he whispered close. “You did nae doubt the possibility but mentioned portal as a way o’ doing it. That’s no’ scientific, is it? Yet you asked me if it was a method I used. A portal to travel through time is something your ancestors would have believed in, lass.”
She squinted her eyes at him. He raised his brows at her.
“So, if not a portal, then you have access to a time machine or a wormhole,” she whispered hoarsely into his ear. “Though the latter seems most unlikely.”
“Och, no, I’ve said too much already. Conversation over.”
