Chapter 21
KAITLYN
I LOVE SURPRISES!
We gathered our things and went to meet our horses, Dràgon and Osna, in the courtyard. I had my skirts hitched up, a raincoat on, and boots. Magnus had on a raincoat too, our hoods covering our heads, rain dripping on my face.
I joked, “So fun!” And wiped my wet cheeks. “I love surprises!”
Sean appeared, wearing his modern raincoat we brought him years before.
He said, “Well, Young Magnus, I canna believe ye are draggin’ me out intae this.” He took his horse’s reins and climbed on him.
The rain got even worse, dumping on us as if to say, what are you, crazy?
Sean grinned down at us standing forlornly in the rain. “Tis a fine day, braw weather for a ride!” He turned his horse and headed away.
Magnus looked at me. “Ready?”
“Maybe it’s time to tell me?”
“Nae, we need tae be on the horses, so ye canna kill me.”
I laughed. And we climbed on our horses.
We rode through the gates, and far ahead of us I saw Sean going into the woods, in the direction of the clearing.
I wonder why?
He was much faster than we were. We went slowly, our horses seemed irritated, their hooves splashing in the puddles from the torrents that had been falling since before dawn and showed no intention of stopping.
Magnus rode ahead of me by half a length, on Dràgon, his modern waterproof jacket an absurd anachronism over his linen shirt and waistcoat, his boots — good rubber-soled boots from modern-day Florida were already dark with wet.
I followed on Osna with my hood pulled forward against the sideways lash of it, watching the back of my husband’s head and the way he kept turning to look at the hills, the treeline, the pale smear of sky above the glen.
He said, “As ye ken, ye can see the Tay from here, when tis clear,” raising his voice above the torrent.
“On a clear morn, with the sun just up, mist sittin’ on the water — there’s nothin’ like it in any century!
I hae stood in this exact spot when I was just a lad, in 1710, and in my kingdom, in all those different centuries and it looks the same. It always looks the same!”
I wiped rain from my face. “It kinda looks like soup today.”
“Aye. Grey soup. Tis likely goin’ tae inspire the castle cook, as ye ken, on rainy days he loves pease pottage.”
“Let me guess, you’re already thinking about lunch?”
“Aye, ye ken how I get.”
“Will we be back in time?”
“I hope so, m’stomach is already growlin’.”
I said, “So we’re out in the rain, headed to the woods, and it’s important and a surprise, and we might be done in a couple of hours, and it’s romantic. I have no idea what you’ve planned.”
“Ye hae tae remember that the whole plan inna m’plan anymore, now I am simply trying tae be romantic without any plan at all.
” He slowed his horse until I came alongside him, and for a moment we both simply sat there in the downpour, looking out at the landscape through the wet.
The hills rolled away to the north, their colors darkened to charcoal and rust, and the old oaks along the lower pasture stood black and heavy-limbed in the rain, each one dripping in long silver threads.
Somewhere beyond the treeline, a crow called once and fell silent.
“I used tae love tae come out here when I was a lad when my mind was troubled. I would ride until the castle was well out of sight and then I would stop, like this, and quiet my mind.” He shifted in his saddle as he scanned the landscape.
“The land daena ask anything of ye. It daena judge, it daena demand. Tis just there.”
“Would Sean come with you?”
“Likely, but he dinna come tae be quiet, he would come tae appraise. He would say, ‘Ye see the forest, Young Magnus, we hae a good stock of wood for the comin’ winter, then he would look upon the walls and decide what work needed tae be done.’”
“I think you look at the walls deciding what work needs to be done too.”
“Aye, ye are right, there is work that needs tae be done on the walls.”
I laughed.
“The point is though, I like tae come here tae be quiet.”
“Then I will wheesht and let you look.”
We sat there for a moment, rain pouring on our heads. Then I said, “Magnus.”
He didn’t even look but I saw his shoulder shake with laughter. “I ken, ye are wonderin’ why are we out here.”
“True, we are soaked through. I know you’re here because you want to say goodbye to all your favorite places, but why couldn’t you do all of this tomorrow?”
He sighed, looking up at the sky, “Seems tis goin’ tae rain all week,” a big raindrop splashed on his face.
He wiped it from his eyes and looked at me, in a way that made my chest ache a little.
“I daena ken, I grew up here and nae matter how far we hae gone, no matter what century we are in, this has been m’home. These hills. That castle.” He paused. “I daena think we will come here anymore, tis unsettlin’. We hae made a good choice, and I ken tis the right one, but all the same…”
“You’re allowed to grieve it.”
He was quiet for a moment. Rain drummed steadily on my hood, on the horse’s neck, on the sodden grass.
“Aye,” he said finally. “I suppose I am. And I wanted tae get tae it, I dinna want tae wait.”
He turned Dràgon and we rode in silence for a little while, picking our way along the muddied track toward the forest. The trees thickened on either side, and the sound of the rain changed as we moved beneath the first canopy, the rain hitting the leaves above.
It was less deluge on us, but more percussion as the drops hit the leaves and branches overhead.
Magnus straightened in the saddle, looking around at everything. It looked as if he were trying to memorize it. The angle of a branch. The particular grey-green of lichen on a boulder on the edge of the path as we passed. The way our route curved left around a stand of young ash.
I said, “I recognize this path, we’re headed to the place where the kids planted the seedlings.”
He dropped his head back, looking up, rain splashing on him. “Aye, those trees, young here, now stand tall in our kingdom in my King’s Woods.”
“That was a wonderful day when we all planted the trees.”
“Aye, and those oaks still stand,” he shrugged, the sound of his raincoat crinkling, “or oak trees that came from their acorns, it has been six centuries, I daena think even the mighty oak canna stand that long.”
He began to point, I loved these moments, when he was showing me his world.
“There we hae darach, and caorann, and over there, a crann-calltainn, and an uinnseann, and ye ken the giuthas or pine.” Every shift of his back and turn of his arm caused that crinkling sound again.
“These trees will form a large forest in six hundred years, spreadin’ for miles. ”
He shook his head slowly. “And I hae seen the forest in all these ages. Time travel is wondrous.”
I said, “And this forest is one of your favorite places, and that’s why we’re here. And I’m one of your favorite people and that’s why I’m here, and so I figured it out.”
“Not exactly, mo reul-iuil—”
A gust drove the rain sideways with renewed enthusiasm, straight into our faces. It was comical how fast it drenched us, like a person standing beside us had flung a bucket of water at us, splashing inside my raincoat, drenching my shoulders underneath.
I squealed.
Magnus’s horse, Dràgon, tossed his head, side-stepping in protest, and Magnus yelled, hilariously, “Gack!”
I burst into laughter, the out of nowhere kind, the I can’t believe that we are completely drenched on horseback in a downpour in 1710 kind.
We were wearing modern rain jackets, but it did not help at this point, we were totally drenched.
This Scottish rain was committed to wetting us through, and it was so profoundly, specifically ridiculous that there was simply nothing else to do.
Magnus chuckled. Then he set his face really seriously and said, “Tis dreich.”
I devolved into hysterics.
I thought of a funny joke, but it took three tries because I was laughing so hard, but I finally got out, “I love… your dry… wit.” And laughed even more.
Magnus was laughing. “Please daena fall from yer horse, Osna will be verra worried.”
I patted the side of Osna’s neck. “I would not want Osna to be worried about me.” I wiped my eyes and face. “Dreich. That is a perfect word.”
“Aye, ye hae tae grimace when ye say it, ye canna be smiling, Dreich, it explains the weather and there inna anything more tae be said about it.”
The rain streamed off the brim of my hood in a small waterfall. I pointed at it. “Look, Magnus, look what is happening. I have been turned into a downspout, my insides are as wet as my outsides. I need you to tell me what’s happening.”
His eyes were merry. “We are riding tae the woods, tis what we are talkin’ about—”
“But why, Magnus? What’s the secret? What is my surprise? Something made you drag me out here even though the sky is clearly falling.”
Something in his pocket made a squawking noise.
“Are you carrying a radio?”
“Aye and…” There was fumbling while he tried to get his raincoat open to pull it from an inside pocket.
Then he pressed the button on the side. “Magnus, here.”
Sean’s voice came through the radio, but I couldn’t hear because the rain was coming horizontal.
He grinned. “Now the surprise is ready.”
“Tell me the surprise, Magnus.”
“Remember when I was planning it seemed like a verra good plan, not one that could ever go wrong.”
“Except the weather,” I rolled my hand for him to keep going.
Somewhere in the direction of the clearing, a branch cracked.
Magnus chuckled sadly — the sound of a man who comes up with a plan and watched it dissolve in precipitation. “I was goin’ tae take ye down this path tae the King’s woods, and we were goin’ tae cut a branch that I could carve ye a new heart—”
“Yes, you told me...”
“I was goin’ tae get the wood while I talked tae ye about our lives and our family and the trees around us, ye were goin’ tae love how romantic twas tae be.”