Page 20 of Winter Longing
“He’s not too keen on this mission,” Cole guessed, his voice close to Ailsa’s ear.
She swallowed against the tumult raised by the warmth of his breath tickling her flesh and hair. “In truth, he harbors a natural and relentless aversion to strangers.”
“Your brother seemed to share a similar dislike.”
“Tis nae to be taken to heart, sir, as in this—”
“Just Cole. I’m not...well, there’s no need for thesir.”
Ailsa thought quickly enough that this was likely true. A knight, deserving thesir, would have great experience on horseback. “Very well. But please dinna take offense to their lack of a warm welcome. 'Tis rare that strangers find their way to Torr Cinnteag, and then even more uncommon that they dinna bring trouble with them.”
“As I told your brother and if I recall correctly, as I said to you when I first saw you, I don’t mean any harm. I’m not dangerous.”
Oh, but he was, of course, but not in the way he implied or as Tavis and Dersey, and possibly Anwen and some of the Sinclair soldiers, feared.
Changing the subject, Ailsa inquired, “But what were ye and yer friend—”
She lost her voice and her thoughts as Cole extended his hand from her side, wrapping it around her middle. As he did so, he tightened his grip briefly, adjusting his position until her back was pressed against his chest. While staring straight ahead, Ailsa’s eyes widened and her body became rigid.
“Sorry,” he offered almost immediately. “I felt like I was about to tumble off the horse’s rear end. This is better.”
Ailsa swallowed, holding her breath. She wasn’t at all certain this wasbetter.
“My friend’s name is Tank,” Cole said then, as if he’d not created so much tumult within her by wedging himself so familiarly against her. “That’s his nickname, anyway. Hank Morrison, known as Tank.”
Ailsa cleared her throat. “Very well, and what were ye and Tank doing that ye were separated and so far inside Sinclair land?”
She felt him glance around, as if gauging who their audience might be. He lowered his voice, and again his breath wafted warmly against her ear. “We’re simply tourists, visiting Scotland. We were out on a hike—Tank wanted to climb that mountain. But...something happened, everything got really weird.”
“What do ye mean?”
“The air was funny—I don’t know, like just different, but it wasn’t too heavy or too light. I can’t describe it, but suddenly, though I could see Tank—he was standing just a few feet away—he sounded like he was under water. Or in a barrel, really far away. It was hard to hear him. It makes no sense, I know. And then I lost my...I blacked out. And when I woke—it must have been hours later—I couldn’t find him anywhere. I wasn’t in the same place, wasn’t up on the mountain anymore. But nothing was familiar, and there were no tracks. Tank was just...gone, like he vanished into thin air. I spent half the day looking for him, and then as it got dark, I was trying to find the road we’d come in on, or any road. I wanted to get emergency services out here, a search party, but I never found any signs of...civilization. Nothing. You were the first person I saw in more than twenty-four hours.”
While he’d spoken, Ailsa had glanced frequently at Anwen, deciding that she was trying to eavesdrop but could not. Cole kept his voice low and with his face so close to her head, she believed the sour look Anwen wore said only that she couldn’t hear anything being said.
“I don’t know how much longer I’d have survived out there if I hadn’t run into you,” Cole continued. “So yeah, I’m really worried about Tank.”
“We’ll find him, I’m sure,” Ailsa said, but she wasn’t sure at all. The countryside around Torr Cinnteag was unforgiving, brutal and inhospitable. As much as Cole seemed ill-prepared for it, she wasn’t sure his friend would be much better able to survive it.
Cole was quiet for a few minutes before he spoke again. “Ailsa, some of these soldiers look pretty young. And you’re telling me it’s 1302, and they’re wearing swords pretty comfortably. Should I assume those swords aren’t just for show? That they’ve killed people? Even though a few of them don’t look old enough to vote?”
Ailsa glanced around at their escort, at Colin who was possibly already ten and seven. And Rory and Somerled, whomight be a year or two older than that. They were the youngest, but certainly old enough to have slain another as needed.
“Aye. Mayhap without a war, they’d nae have killed another already,” she said, shrugging, “but possibly, they’re alive today because they did.”
“War?”
Ailsa frowned over the simple question. “Aye, the war.”
“There’s a war going on? Sorry, I preferred science and math to history in school. I don’t remember half of what we learned about world events in this time.”
“We are at war with England, sir—er, Cole,” she said, a wee bit prickly, part of her assuming that he only feigned ignorance to further his pretense. Pretending ignorance about such a costly and devastating war was simply beyond the pale. Ailsa's lips tightened, her temper flaring at the audacity of his question. The war—the war that had torn the land apart, that had claimed so many lives—was something no one in these parts could ignore, and she didn’t care at all for how nonchalantly he asked about it. Nonetheless, she was forced to qualify her answer. “At the moment, however, there is a truce. That is the only reason my brother is in residence. He’d been gone for more than two years until last February.”
“Jesus,” Cole breathed, a bit of wonder tainting the sound. “And these guys here—even these kids—they fought as well?”
“Aye. At Falkirk and Stirling Bridge—”
“Okay, those I’ve heard of,” he said with some excitement, seemingly happy to recognize something. “Well, admittedly, only since Tank and I had come to Scotland, but we did visit the Stirling memorial.”
