The Guardian by Diana Knightley

Twenty-nine - Kaitlyn

Her eyes followed me as I entered in front of Hayley and Quentin and we all sat down in James and Sophie’s small sitting room.

Sophie asked, “Why hae ye locked me within? I daena understand, Queen Kaitlyn. There must be a mistake!”

Hayley said, “I don’t think so. You understand that we have to be cautious, there is a king and his children here, and it has come to our attention that we don’t know your full story. It’s troubling.”

She sank down on the settee. “Why? What did I do? And I am without James or m’telescope.” She dabbed at her eyes, sniffling.

I was so scared my hands were trembling, yet I was conflicted. She seemed honestly forlorn and it made me feel like the bad guy. I was wondering why I offered to come and talk to her in the first place. “I’m trying to protect my family.”

“Och, they are my family too, what hae I done tae hae ye mistrust me so? I daena understand!”

“It’s not that we… we have trusted you… very much, you are a member of our family — but there are some discrepancies and I have to protect my children...” I felt on the verge of tears myself, so I straightened my back and folded my hands in my lap.

Hayley saw I was struggling, so she asked, “Why don’t you tell us why you are truly here.”

“I had nae where tae go! Nae family, nae friends! They were goin’ tae try me for witchcraft! I remembered afore I was married, m’guardian was a cousin of the Campbells of Breadalbane, I had heard mention of Lizbeth and Sean Campbell, I asked if I might come tae visit. Tis all!” She clasped her hands pleadingly.

I said, “I know that is the story, that’s how it goes, but Lizbeth didn’t know of you before you arrived. I know there have been long months with no trouble, but—”

“I hae nae idea what ye are speaking about. I daena understand why I am locked away, but I will tell ye anything ye need tae ken.”

I squinted my eyes and looked at her. “Here’s a question, are you using your telescope to look for storms?”

She shook her head, “I daena ken what ye are... m’telescope is for looking at the stars and the moon.”

Hayley said, “Look, this is only until we figure out who you really are, what you’re doing here, and who sent you — that shouldn’t be that hard, right? You tell us the year you were born for instance, and that will get us started right off.”

“I was born in the year 1682.”

Hayley snapped her fingers. “That makes you what? I have the hardest time with age math... like twenty-five, right? When you arrived you told us about the storms in Glencoe. Did you really just hear about them in your travels or did you have some business there?”

“Nae! I daena ken what ye are accusing me of, I am telling the truth!” She sobbed even harder.

Hayley said, “Och, this is not going well.”

Quentin and I exchanged glances. He said, “Look, this is our family. You understand we want to keep our family safe?”

She sniffled. “They’re my family too.”

“Beaty heard you say something that if you were from, um... here, you couldn’t have known—”

“I am nae from here! I am from Edinburgh! Tis verra far away!”

Quentin went quiet.

I said, “This is true, but... I mean, the only conclusion I can draw is that you are here to make us less safe. Please, be honest with me, let me know what is happening, we can come to an agreement. Who sent you?”

“I would never want to cause harm to you, or to your son and daughter, Queen Kaitlyn. I…” She clutched her hands. “Queen Kaitlyn, I would never want tae harm your sweet bairns.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry we have to keep you locked up, truly I am. I think the world of you.” I dug through the bag I kept at my waist. I pulled out my Burt’s Bees tinted lip balm and passed it to her without a word. “You understand that I’m just worried about my children. That’s all this is. I’m just worried.”

She nodded, holding the stick of lip balm in her hands.

I passed her a compact mirror. She flipped the mirror open, pulled the top off the lip balm, twisted it up, and smeared some on her lips. I glanced at Hayley sitting open-mouthed.

I smiled. “You look very pretty. Has James given you some lip balm, does he use it?”

“No, I daena think he does, why?”

“He doesn’t carry some in his pocket to share with you?”

She shook her head.

“Then I’ll leave this one for you.”

“Tis verra kind of ye.”

“We’re going to step out in the hall to discuss for a moment.”

Quentin and Hayley followed me from the room. In the hall outside he said, “I don’t know how much longer we can keep her...”

“Bullshit, we can keep her as long as we want, she’s a time traveler, we just have to figure out from where.”

* * *

I joined my husband up on the freezing cold walls.

He was checking the mountain with the binoculars while I wrapped my arm around his and rested my chin on his shoulder.

“Madame Sophie is a time traveler, but she’s not fessing up.”

“Och. I hae been watching the woods and the mountain, yet here she is within our walls.

“Are there any vessels anywhere?”

“There is naething on the monitor.”

“I’m glad we have plenty of weapons.”

“Aye, me too.”

He sat quietly for a moment.

I asked, “Anything happening on the mountainside?”

“Nae, but I check all the same, I was waiting for ye tae come from your discussion, then Quentin and I are going tae ride up there tae check them.”

“No one knows they are there, right? No one told Madame Sophie about them?”

He shrugged and looked down at the binoculars. “She has lived with us for nine months. We were verra relaxed. We talked of Florida and m’kingdom at times, and some here call me a king. She may well ken about the cave, and though I daena ken how, she might be reportin’ tae someone about us.”

“I don’t know. I don’t talk about the vessels. I don’t think James would...”

“She might just suspect. She might hae seen us ride that direction, day after day —we daena ken. I felt safe because the vessels are hidden and they daena shew on any monitor, but she might hae advised someone exactly where they are.”

“I thought they were safe too. Just yesterday I was teasing you about checking them so often.”

“Aye, nae matter how hidden, I still check.” He kissed my head. “The kids are safe?”

“Yeah, in the nursery.”

“So why are ye here?”

“I don’t know, I missed you. I wanted to touch base.”

He leaned against the wall so that I could fold up in his arms on his chest. Held by him. I said, “This is so complicated you know?”

“Nae, tis nae complicated, mo reul-iuil.”

I looked up at his face. “What do you mean?”

“We are naething but an exiled king and queen in their grand highland castle. We are surrounded by our family and so far it has been a good life here. How long since we moved in?”

“Almost ten months.”

“It has been better than I ever thought twould be, daena ye agree?”

“Except for the dark and the rain, the long boring winter indoors — besides that, I do. It’s been far better than I expected.”

“And I am getting stronger.”

“Are you?”

He nodded, his lips pressed against my forehead. It was the lack of voice to it that kind of freaked me out.

When I would lie awake at night, I thought he deserved to be ‘tired’. He had lived the lives of three men. He had been a hero and had fought and done more than... but also, there was something very tired about him. Exhausted. Depleted. I knew he needed to rest, to recuperate, but it nagged at me more and more. We needed to take him to a doctor.

But I kept that to myself, though it was getting way past time to do it.

“We haven’t talked about it much, about the fact that the kingdom is still overthrown, that it’s ruled by Sir Padraig. What is there left to do? How do we solve it? You know how in the middle of the night I lie awake and stare at the ceiling?”

“Aye, right after I hae gotten up tae guard the walls.”

“I’ve been cycling through worries: the future looks exactly as it did when we crash-rescued you, full of war and mayhem and Isla and Archie are in big danger. Or, it’s a bleak wasteland of nothingness, because you stopped that from happening, but nothing has been written over yet. Or your kingdom is how it was before Paddy attacked, but it’s without its king…” I snuggled into his chest. “And without its king, who knows what will happen.”

“It’s just for a time,” he said. “Soon enough we will figure out the solution. I will fight for my throne, and we will end Sir Padraig’s reign of fear.”

* * *

I went to nursery to see the bairns.

There was a raucous, roaring kid-brouhaha happening, Archie and Ben had created a full blown free-for-all. I stopped Archie as they raced by. “Hey little man, kiss!”

He kissed me very fast.

“Where you going?”

“Playing dragon break, gotta go mammy, they running.”

“Okay, okay, but not out of the walls, okay? Stay in the castle today.”

“Okay mammy!” He raced away.

I used my walkie-talkie to tell Magnus.

His low voice answered, “Hello.”

“The boys are in a full run, headed toward the courtyard. Make sure the gate knows they aren’t to go out.”

“Aye, they are running by right now. I will hae security alerted tae the dangers.”

Isla was sweetly toddling around the room, but I could see she was on the verge of a meltdown. “What’s up with your eyes, wee Isla? They are glassy. Are you a little on the silly wee sleepy side?”

She grabbed a cloth doll from the hand of one of the other kids. “Want doll!” Then the kid grabbed the doll back and Isla wailed, “Mine!” as if her heart was breaking for having had the doll stolen from her though she had clearly stolen it first.

So I tried to come up with a solution. Then Beaty tried to help to no avail and so all I could do was pick Isla up and move her away from the other kids since she was definitely swinging at them, yelling, “Mine! Mine!” She was shrieking and bending backwards and struggling until I got her onto my lap where she cried desperately as if her world was crashing around her. I rocked her and shushed her and she was hitch breathing, in gasps and fits, and then thirty-seconds later she was fast asleep.

Beaty said, “Och, she has a temper, Queen Kaitlyn.”

I sighed. “Well, she’s going to need it. The world is going to try to beat her down and we’re going to need her to be a terrible arse.”

Beaty said, “Tis true.”