Page 93 of The Empire and the Wolf King

“He died a while back?”

“Because he was a traitorous fool…”

He gulped.

“I dinna kill him, Wilfrey, he just couldna live with having been treasonous. He sided with our enemies, my enemy Agnie…” The corner of my mouth went up. “NowAgnieI killed.”

“How many people have you killed, Mairead?”

“Many less than I ought tae hae, and only Agnie will I admit tae.”

He said, “Fair enough, you have never murdered a former lover?”

“Nae, I winna accept the sort of behavior that might require it. Is this a deal breaker for ye, Wilfrey?”

He chuckled. “No, this is fair enough, Mairead. I am clear-eyed going into our forthcoming marriage.”

“When I ran a background check on ye it showed ye tae be a bit of a womanizer.”

“Then you probably discovered that I have never been married, Mairead. I have never promised someone that I would be true until today. With marriage I do not think past behavior will determine our future, it will be about trust.”

I said, “That is a valid point.”

He said, “Consider from my point of view, that a down-on-his-luck actor has been asked to marry the Queen Mother of the kingdom of Riaghalbane. You have offered to keep me in extravagant luxury. I will be famous and I will be allowed access to time travel, which I do not actually believe exists yet, but still, why not? I will pretend it exists until I am certain of the truth. But my point is, I think to betray you, Mairead, would be to lose a great deal. You can trust me; I am smart enough to see what you are offering me, the great risk you are taking, and I will take that risk as well.”

He leaned forward and kissed me, warmth spread through me, so much so that I almost forgot what we had been talking about until he pulled away. “Back to my question, Mairead, is this a common way to send messages?”

I sipped from my champagne and said, “Aye, we generally carry modern pens for this purpose while time traveling. We hae learned tae get our name and a date down in the public record when we are in need of a rescue.”

He looked off intae the distance. “And explain to me how this would work, King Magnus writes this in a register because he needs to be rescued?”

“Aye, but we already ken where he is and Archibald is with him…”

“And he knows the message will get into the historical record and then our computers in this kingdom will notice that there is a change in the historical record?”

“Oftentimes changes to history happen unnoticed, not every adjustment is recorded, but we have developed a program that constantly checks for names and events and flags them as discrepancies. The easiest ones are a mention of the Duke and Duchess of Awe or the name Magnus or Mag Mòr. The most difficult ones are the events. For instance, the Siege of Stirling is in the historical record, and seems to have always been there, but the discrepancy is the contemporaneous reports of flying cannons. That becomes a discrepancy that signals time travel might be afoot…”

“I see.”

“So I am just trying to figure out why Magnus left me the message.”

“It seems to me, Mairead, that your monitor is on a shelf in the physician’s office.” He pointed, “behind that jar of Mandrake.”

“What do ye…? Oh.”

“If King Magnus is with Archibald and they have killed Asgall and then Kaitlyn was injured, they have gone directly to the doctor’s office. Do you think the thank you note was for the Doctor, truly, or was it for you?”

“Aye, verra good thinking, Wilfrey, I take back all the disparaging remarks.”

“King Magnus could have thanked the doctor right then and there, he did not need to write it.”

I held up my glass and he clinked his with mine.

I drank and then said, “So my son and his wife are at the Physician’s office on this date, and more importantly my monitor is there as well.”

He smiled. “The King and Queen are also trapped there.”

She shrugged. “Ye will find, Wilfrey, that in time travel a monitor can be worth much more than a member of the royal family. I am not saying I winna see tae the safety of the King and Queen, but the monitor isverraimportant.”

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