Page 26 of Beloved Enemy
His thoughts drifted to Una Greer, a widow living on the edge of the village with three young children. Una had always been self-sufficient, but since her husband's recent death, the weight of managing everything alone had begun to take its toll. Housing Charlotte with Una might be a solution—Una could use the extra hands, and Charlotte would be kept safe and occupied until something more permanent could be done with her—or until she disappeared as Autumn had. Having come years ago from south of Glasgow, Una possibly spoke the best English of anyone in the two villages.
Deeming it a practical arrangement, one that would benefit all involved, Reid decided that’s what he would do. It was a solution that also served his own interests. The last thing he needed was to develop an attachment to Charlotte. Aye, she was captivating, her features and form offering ample opportunity for distraction, and there was no denying the allure of her presence. Yet, what stirred him more was her resilience. Despite the strangeness of her situation, she carried herself with a quiet strength. Aye, she fretted and feared, as anyone might, but she also seemed determined to rise above the confusion and danger she faced. It was a quality he admired—one he respected, even—but it was also a quality that made her all the more dangerous to his peace of mind. He’d settle her temporarily with Una and thentake her to Ben Nevis as she desired within the week—the sooner the better.
Reid's eyes swept over the familiar landscape as they rode northward. The gentle hills and slight glens had given way to more rugged terrain, and soon the shimmering waters of Loch Ness stretched out before them. With the loch being flanked so closely by mountains, the Nicholsons marched directly along the shoreline. The loch's surface was calm today, reflecting the sky above in a way that made it seem—as his mother had been known to say—as though the heavens themselves had been poured into the valley.
Soon enough, the silhouette of Urquhart Castle came into view across the loch, standing proudly on the opposite shore upon a shelf of land that jutted out into the loch. The castle was framed by a mountain directly beyond it. After having been captured by the English at the beginning of the war, the castle had been fiercely contested over the years. Reid had several times fought alongside those who had reclaimed the castle from the English, and was pleased it stood now, once again, in Scots’ hands.
Charlotte, too, noticed the imposing fortress across the water, small though it was at this distance.
“That’s....isn’t that Urquhart Castle?” Her query was stocked with uncertainty and awe.
“Aye? Ye ken it?”
“Yes,” she answered promptly. “Everybody does. It’s on my itinerary, a tour of Urquhart. It’s probably the most famous, most photographed castle in Scotland. Well, maybe Eilean Donan might be more famous, but that’s....it looks intact.”
Her apparent shock over this begged the question: “Should it nae be?”
Reid cast a sidelong glance at her profile as she stared across the shimmering water, noting the mix of confusion and wonder on her face.
“In my time,” she explained, her voice softer, almost reverent, “most of the castles fromyourtime are in ruins. Urquhart is one of them. There’s hardly anything left, just crumbling walls and stones scattered around. Seeing it like this, whole and strong... it’s surreal.”
Reid absorbed her words, a strange sensation settling in his chest. The thought of Urquhart as nothing more than a ruin, reduced to rubble, was difficult to grasp. It had stood already for hundreds of years and through its share of wars, held firm against sieges, and now, here it was—mighty and enduring. The idea that it would one day fall to such a state seemed as distant and unreal to him as Charlotte’s own mysterious origins.
Reid watched her for a moment longer, keenly aware of her suddenly quivering chin.
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “That just makes it seem so much more real. This really is the 14thcentury.”
Her dejection was profound. Though she didn’t take her gaze away from Urquhart, she bit her lower lip, trying to stop it from trembling. In front of him, she seemed to shrink, her shoulders slumping under the weight of the realization. The truth of her situation was finally settling in, so heavy and undeniable that it appeared she herself hadn’t fully believed it until this moment.
Her present deep shock and sorrow, so solemn and quiet, stirred something in Reid. For all his skepticism, the way her body slumped, the despair etched on her face, made him pause. It was the reaction of someone who was truly lost, who had finally confronted the enormity of their situation.
He had listened to her strange tales and her insistence that she came from another time, but he hadn’t been sure whether to believe her or dismiss it as the product of a confused mind. Yet,watching her now, the rawness of her emotion suggested that she was indeed confronting a truth that had shaken her to her core.
It was hard not to feel some measure of sympathy, even though he tried to resist it. At the same time, he was confronted by another theory: perhaps, he thought, there was more truth to her claims than he had been willing to admit. And even if there wasn’t, even if she was simply a lost soul in need of direction, the sorrow she felt was real. It was as tangible as the fortress standing across the loch, a weight that he could almost feel himself.
As he continued to watch her, a part of him—one that he rarely acknowledged—felt the urge to offer some comfort. But he held back, uncertain of how to navigate so tender an emotion or her silent, unnerving mournfulness.
Charlotte said not a word for the next few miles, as they neared Dores, where Kingswood lay nestled along the loch's banks. The dense woodland around it framed all of Kingswood like a protective shield, the tall pines and oaks acting as a natural barrier. From the vantage point atop Ponder’s Hill, the nearest southern beinn to Kingswood, they encountered a Nicholson watch post. A tall, wooden tower had been erected at the hill's crest, and four men waved down at them from its dizzying height, their tartans and a Nicholson banner fluttering in the wind. From here, the landscape spread out before them, offering a commanding view of the lands below. Reid could make out the battlements and some of the sturdy stone walls of Kingswood Keep, the rest obscured by the trees.
As they descended Ponder’s Hill, the full view of Kingswood opened up before them. The south village, Southwick, was a small cluster of cottages and farmsteads, each one crafted from timber and stone, their thatched roofs browned with age and weather. Smoke curled lazily from the chimneys, the scent ofburning peat mixing with the fresh scent of the loch and forest. The cottages were modest, but well-kept, with gardens and small enclosures where chickens and goats wandered freely. Narrow dirt paths wound between the homes, leading down toward the loch’s edge, where small fishing boats bobbed gently in the water, tethered to wooden piers.
Fields and meadows stretched out around the village, dotted with grazing sheep and cattle. The villagers had taken advantage of every bit of arable land, planting crops close to the safety of the keep. In the distance, women could be seen tending to their chores, while children played near the water’s edge, their laughter carried on the breeze.
Beyond the southerly village stood Kingswood Keep, its stone walls weathered but sturdy, the structure solid and imposing despite its modest size compared to grander castles. The keep was built for function, not for show, with high walls, a central tower, and a gatehouse that loomed over the main entrance. Wooden scaffolding clung to one side of the keep, where masons presently worked adding another external set of stairs meant to provide another entrance at each level but more importantly would take a man, or many, swiftly to the battlements. A small guardhouse was positioned near the gate, where armed men stood watch. The keep itself was surrounded by a low outer wall, within which lay a courtyard and several smaller buildings—the stables, a blacksmith’s forge, a kirk, and a storage house.
Beyond the keep was a single lane trail that wound further along the loch, lined with another dozen cottages and the majority of the runrigs, the village of Northacre, the soil there being generally better than the fields on the south side.
“Kingswood,” Charlotte surmised quietly.
“Aye, home,” Reid said with a hefty dose of pride, and no small amount of pleasure. Though he’d been gone but a few days, there was never a feeling so satisfying as coming home.
Recalling that he meant to request of Una that she put up Charlotte for several days, Reid sent the army ahead of him, those who hadn’t already rushed forward, and drew up in front of Una’s whitewashed cottage, where she was busy in her garden with her bairns there as well, the infant strapped to her body while two toddling weans likely were more a disturbance to the vegetable plot than they were a help to their mother.
Una straightened, her hands filled with weeds, and squinted against the sun as she watched Reid dismount and approach. Una was a sturdy woman approaching thirty, by Reid’s guess, with dark hair tied back in a simple braid. Though she regularly appeared weary, there was a softness in her brown eyes and laugh lines were etched deeply into her cheeks.
“Laird,” she greeted him, a question in her tone, her gaze darting from Reid to Charlotte, who waited with the destrier.
Speaking in Gaelic, he addressed Una, "I would ask a favor of ye, Una. The woman Charlotte, upon my steed,” he said, though didn’t turn and point at Charlotte, “has come into our company and our care unexpectedly. She’s in need of shelter for a few days. Would you be willing to take her in? I expect that ye might be agreeable to having another pair of hands around, mayhap for a week or so?”
