Chapter Nineteen

 

 

It was a journey Andrew did not want to make. So many times in his life he had traveled from the old hall to the new castle to observe the progress of the building work. When he was little it had been on foot but once he was old enough to ride he had more often than not gone on horseback beside his father’s noble steed.

While he was being shown the work, his father would look down at him and say, “One day, lad, all this will be yours.”

Andrew would nod and smile but he had no real understanding of what that meant. He knew now. It did not mean just the stones, it meant the people working there, the lands both inside and outside the castle grounds.

It had become his all too soon and after the death of his parents, he had traveled alone between the castle and the old hall, considering both his home.

He recalled the journeys alone, the road seeming very desolate once he became laird. He felt immense sorrow at the loss he had suffered but that pain was nothing to that he endured as he rode with Beth sitting in front of him on the day she was to return home.

It was only a short distance from the castle to Pluscarden, less than a day’s ride. He wished it was miles and miles, the journey was almost over and yet it had barely begun.

When they got there she would be leaving forever. He had tried many times to come to terms with that fact but it still cut him deep every time he looked at her, knowing how he would soon never see that smiling face again, those sparkling eyes, that mind of hers, so much sharper than any he’d ever known.

She was going home.

It was a pain that stabbed at him over and over as they rode like walking barefoot with a thorn in his heel. He could not ignore it no matter how hard he tried.

The chapel was finished and she was going home. The snow had begun to fall an hour earlier, coating the fields with white like an enormous blanket dropped from the skies. Winter was here and there would be no more building work until spring.

It was as if the heavens had waited until she was done to send winter along to take over the highlands. The chapel was complete. The bishop had returned and blessed the highlands, the castle, and her.

The falsework remained in place. It would not come down until she was long gone. “I will see it in my time,” she had said that very morning as they prepared for the ride. “Hopefully it will still be standing.”

Andrew had barely grunted in response. She looked hurt by his silence and on the ride she had said not a word. He dared not speak to her. He needed to get used to the idea of life without her. Engaging her in conversation would not help that.

It had been a perfect month in many ways though with a black cloud looming over him for every moment of it. That night they had spent together had not been repeated.

He had only to close his eyes and he was back in the bed with her, nothing but the two of them in the darkness. It was the most perfect night of his life and that was why he had not returned to her chamber for the rest of her stay. It would make letting her go impossible.

He knew why she had to leave. Knowing her reasons only made him love her all the more. She was willing to put her own desires to one side to tend for another, that was the depth of her compassion. He could only admire that.

They reached Pluscarden just after noon. The cellarium had been completed, the windows in the correct place. The stairs to the floors above were wooden, easy to chop away if there was an attack, not that Andrew was expecting one.

Since the alliance between the MacIntyres and the MacLeishes had been announced the other clans of the highlands had come together to negotiate terms. Soon, if things went well, the highlands would be united and then the Normans would have something to fear. They could bring their entire army north of the border but they would find only death waiting for them with a united Scotland.

He had spoken to Fenella only once since the collapse of the chapel roof. In her chair she had leaned back, the cat on her lap, nodding as he told her all that had happened.

“Perhaps she came back to unite the clans,” she said when he was done. “And now that task is done, she is supposed to leave.”

“Is there no potion that could make her stay? No spell you could cast to persuade her to be my bride?”

“Even if there were, you would not want to use them, would you?”

He sighed. “I suppose not. Do you have any advice at all?”

“Aye, I do as it happens. Do you remember what I told you last time you were here?”

“To look up, not that I listened in time.”

“This time I tell you only that you should look down.”

“Look down? When?”

“When the moment is right you’ll know.”

She would not be drawn on any more detail and so Andrew was left with only a hint of what he might do to make her stay. Given that weeks had passed and gluing his eyes to the ground had revealed nothing, he suspected whatever he was supposed to see, he had missed it.

Outside the hall, he clambered off his horse, helping Beth down to the ground. “This is it,” she said.

“Aye,” he replied, saying no more.

The building site was empty. Andrew had told all the workers they would be paid for the day but they were to stay away. He was still working out how he was going to pay to get all the work done.

There was not enough spare money to go around. Even the work on Pluscarden abbey had slowed to almost nothing. At this rate, his hall might be built by next winter but the abbey would take until the day of reckoning itself.

Beth walked over to the pit where the cellarium had been built. A rough wooden bridge had been built over it to the door at ground level. “Will it happen here, do you think?” she asked, turning to face him. “Or the bedroom itself?”

“I dinnae know,” he said, hoping it wouldn’t happen at all, wishing once again that she would stay with him. He would never see that beautiful face again, those eyes that shimmered like sparkling dawn light on a crystal clear loch.

“I will never forget you,” she said, holding out a hand to him.

He didn’t take it. He couldn’t. He might not be able to let go again.

“Goodbye then,” she said.

“Farewell, lass. I thank you for all you’ve done.”

“Look after this place, won’t you?”

“I will that.”

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, a tear rolling from her eye as she turned away and walked through the doorway.

Nothing happened.

She spun around, looking back at him. “I’m still here.”

“Aye,” he said, hope rising in him. “So you are.”

“It must be the bedroom door after all.”

She walked into the hall, along the low stones that marked the corridor. It was beaten earth and covered in snow but when finished it would be tiled or flagged depending on what he could afford.

He followed her, stopping by the one remaining part of the original building. The doorway into the bedroom where he was born.

“This is it,” she said, looking at him and starting to cry.

He couldn’t look at her any longer. She was going and he would never see her again. He looked down at her feet, frowning as he spotted something. It had been hidden under the snow until she walked by, her foot revealing something that sparkled in the light.

“What’s that you’re looking at?” she asked, looking down where his eyes were fixed. She gasped, leaning down and grabbing the object from the floor.

“What is it?” he asked. “What have you found?”

She held her hand out for him to see. It was a silver locket on a long thin chain. “This was my mother’s,” she said, opening it to reveal an image of a baby so real, Andrew was shocked.

“Who can paint so well?”

“It’s not a painting. It’s a photo of me.” Her fingers curled around the locket. “Do you know what this means? It means she’s here. She must have come through time after all.”

“If she is here,” Andrew said, wrapping his hand around hers. “We will find her.”