Page 37 of Connal

“The clan’s never measured the shoreline, but should you walk round the edges, I reckon ’twould take a moon and a half from beginning to end,” Connal said.

“A healthy person can walk twenty miles a day.” She knew in clanspeak a moon was roughly a month, and did some quick calculations. “That works out to be about nine hundred square miles. A little smaller than Rhode Island.”

“You dwelled on an island in your time?” he asked.

“No, that’s the name of a state in my country. It’s not too far from New York.” She’d lost him, she saw. “At least that explains why I can’t see the other side. Your island is huge.”

He nodded. “Upstate New York, ’tis large as well?”

“Much bigger.” She tried to think of how to describe it. “Where I live there are three mountain ranges nearby, and so much forest it blankets the land in green. Most of the towns are small, and the people who live there are close to each other, a bit like your clan––everyone knows everyone. During the fall, when the leaves turn colors, it’s as if someone repainted the country in gold, orange and scarlet.”

To Valerie’s surprise talking about home didn’t bother her. She missed her students, but not the house she’d shared with Dale and all the material things they’d accumulated over the years. He had always been a pack rat, while she had preferred to live without clutter. She reached up and touched her locket, dismayed by how little she actually cared about what she had left behind in the future.

Maybe I’m more suited to living in the twelfth century.

The trail rolled over a ridge in the glen, and on the other side she saw dozens of cottages nestled among a clearing filled with wildflowers.

“This is gorgeous,” she murmured as they stood and looked down. “How many of the clan live here?”

“None,” Connal said, staring at the horizon.

He looked a little pale, perhaps from sensory overload, so Valerie slipped her hand into his. “Would you rather go back to Dun Ard now?”

The laird looked down at her hand, the village, and then at her face. “’Tis gone. How?”

“I’m sure the castle is still standing.” Was he going to have a panic attack? Why did he look so astonished? “Or did you mean something else?”

Connal took in a deep breath, and let go of her. The moment he did he staggered a little, and then grabbed her hand again.

“Are you sick?” She looked around for a place where they could sit.

“The dizziness ends when you touch me.” He held up their clasped hands. “I cannae abide high places. I grow unsteady and tumble down.”

“Vertigo is a terrible thing, but I can’t make it go away,” Valerie assured him, a little bewildered by the flood of memories coming from him. In each one he suffered such terrible vertigo it made her queasy. “Is that your mortal weakness? Heights?”

The laird nodded. “I’ve trouble even with walking stairs. When I go atop the keepe, in but a few moments I swoon. Yet now, here, ’tis naught for me to look down at the village.” He frowned. “’Tis how I climbed the stairs to the stronghold the morning you came to the island. I carried you in my arms, and naught happened to my head.”

His wife jumped off a cliff while he watched, she recalled. Had his mortal weakness prevented him from reaching her in time to stop her? Was that why he blamed himself for her suicide?

“If I can help, then by all means, keep holding my hand,” Valerie said, curling her fingers around his. “Do you want to test the theory someplace higher?”

“Aye.” He turned his head and nodded at the hills rising beyond the village. “There, ’tisnae too far––unless you’re weary, my lady?”

She glanced at the long line of dark clouds on the horizon. The storm seemed to be growing larger, and closer. It would be safer to return to the stronghold and try this experiment there. Yet Connal looked so hopeful she didn’t want to disappoint him.

I don’t want to go back to the castle yet, either.

“If you’re sure you want to do this, then okay.” She tucked her fingers between his. “Let’s go climb a hill.”

Chapter Twelve

Holding Valerie’s hand as they walked should have proven uncomfortable, Connal thought as they crossed the sloped pasture at the base of the hills. She had refused to wed him, after all. Nor was he some young lad who needed to clutch at a woman. He didn’t fear another bout with his mortal weakness. Indeed, he’d never tried to fight off the dizziness, for he knew he could never prevail over it.

The higher they walked, the more he tensed, expecting the worst to come at any moment. Yet nothing plagued him; his legs remained steady and his head clear.

Connal stopped as they reached the path winding up to the hilltops, and glanced back at how far they had come from the forest. They now stood perhaps fifty perches higher, or the same height as the outer curtain wall at Dun Ard. He had never been able to stand on that wall, even when he was a lad too small to see over the edge.

“Do you want to sit down?” Valerie asked him, looking worried now.