Page 131 of Promises to Keep

“Fine, pretend like I didn’t see you, I’m going to go check everyone is in their battle stations, I’ll come back down in a moment.”

I watched all the activity of a castle battening down. There were many merchants here, the men had gone up on the walls, the women were taking cover along the interior edges of the courtyard, animals milled around, and carts, stacks of bags, and baskets were left laying around.

The men were at the work of being guards on high alert. I had been here long enough to know many of their individual personalities — there was Yungly, who raced around for the older men. Drach-dim had a grim expression as he stalked by and scowled at me, and Trochench, who always looked confused, was headed away from the walls. I asked him, “Do you know what’s happened?”

He stopped and scratched his head, “Nae, I daena ken, but… I am tae get…” He looked left and right. “More guns.”

“Then go to the armory! I’m sorry I kept you!”

He walked away, not as purposeful as I thought was necessary. Then Yungly raced by him, shoving through the people who were milling about the courtyard, went to the armory, returned with guns, skirted Trochench, who was meandering around some pigs, yelled, “Hurry!” And took the stairs two at a time.

Archie said, “Should I help carry guns up to Uncle James?”

I held him close to my side. “No, this is your job. We’re supposed to be away from the guns and gunfire—” I stopped talking as men started yelling, guns were aimed, yelling from below, yelling from above, it all sounded so dangerous, so imminent. I clutched the kids’ shoulders and clamped my eyes but then the guards swung the main gate wide, a horse rode in, a man — Magnus! — he spotted me, dropped down from his horse, and shoved through the people and animals all around the courtyard.

His clothes were a uniform, but not his king uniform, the uniform of a soldier, in a gray camouflage, big boots, straps across his chest and bag of gear on his back. His face was dark from dirt and grime and soot. He held a helmet from the strap and tossed it to the side, then he was there, in front of me, he threw his arms around me and hugged me so tight. In my ear, “Och, och nae, twas so… och I wanted tae see ye.”

I buried my face against his neck, his stubbled jaw — he smelled of effort and smoke, exertion and war, sweat and dirt, mingling to a kind of mud on his neck. His thick arms holding me so close, bound, his excitement to see me in his strength as he held me to his body. I kissed his jaw and then his lips and with our lips pressed, his hold tight, he said, “I dinna miss it?”

“What…?”

“The birth?”

We both looked down, between us. “Och aye, ye are as big as a tank, mo reul-iuil. Ye are as fine a sight as I hae ever seen.”

“And I won’t be giving birth for days now.”

He chuckled. “I think ye might want tae listen tae me on it, I got here just in time.”

He pulled away from my arms and knelt down to hug the kids who knocked him down to his bottom, as they liked to do. Isla climbed in his lap, Archie sat beside him. I dropped down to the ground on his other side and Isla told Magnus about picking flowers in the field as if that had been the only thing we had done in the whole long nine months that we had been away. Archie was quiet and just held on.

I dropped my head to his shoulder, wide and strong, how I had missed it. “Where is Fraoch?”

“He’s still captured.”

I exhaled. “So how long are you here? We haven’t won?”

He kissed my forehead. “Not yet, the war has been long, mo reul-iuil, but we hae almost taken the city. We hae exerted a tremendous force upon him, collapsed the supply lines, blocked the trade routes, but it has been slow-going and continues on…”

Everyone came down from their hiding place in the nursery and sat down around us in the dirt. Zoe and Ben crowded up to Magnus. Hayley asked, “No Fraoch?”

“We hae much tae talk about, Madame Hayley, about Fraoch… but…”

“He’s still alive though, right?”

“Aye, he is alive, we will get him home, but... can it wait for a moment? I daena want tae talk of him with the bairns present. Tis complicated…”

Hayley nodded, hugging her arms around herself. “Of course.”

He asked us, “Quentin and Beaty didn’t return?”

We shook our heads. He nodded, “Good, we dinna want tae risk the time travel.”

Hayley said, “I traveled though, and—”

“Were there any threats on ye here after ye traveled?”

Hayley said, “No, I was pretty panicked, but no.”

---