Page 42 of No Place in Time

Finn said nothing.

The soldier smiled without humor. “Thought so. Tall one. Gave us trouble, didn’t ye?”

“I’ve no quarrel with you,” Finn said. “I’m just passing through.”

“Passing through?” The soldier laughed. “Not anymore. The king has need of strong backs like yours, and it’s my task to gather men who can carry arms.”

He stepped closer and caught Finn’s arm. Two other soldiers closed in.

Finn struggled, but it was useless. Resistance would only earn him a beating, and he would need his strength for whatever came next. He allowed the soldiers to turn him back toward the town, toward the cluster of soldiers already gathering men from the roads and fields.

∞∞∞

By nightfall, he was in the king’s army. They gave him a rough uniform and a short spear. He slept on the ground with a dozen others, the close air heavy with sweat. No one spoke of where they were going, but the talk drifted all the same. They were heading north, across the border into Scotland. William Wallace’s army was stirring again, they said. The fighting would be hard.

Finn lay awake, staring into the dark. He’d been on the path to find Cecily, and now a new path had been drawn for him.

As the camp stirred at dawn and the order was given to move, Finn closed his eyes for a moment and fixed Cecily’s face in his mind. Fair-haired. Alive. So close he could almost reach her.

And again, he was pulled away from her.

24

CECILY

1298

The portraits always stopped her.

She had walked this passage many times since coming to Malethurst, and still she could not move through it without slowing. Sunlight fell through the high windows, lighting the long wall in pale gold. Her parents looked back at her across sixty years as if no time had passed at all.

Her father stood straight-backed in his knight’s chain mail, one hand resting near the hilt of his sword. His gaze was steady and watchful, the same look she remembered from across the dinner table, from the doorway of her chamber when he thought she was asleep. Her mother’s eyes were alert in a way Cecily knew well, the painter having caught something most people missed: the quiet attention behind her composure.

I should have trusted you, she thought, and the flush of shame was familiar now. She had fled instead, afraid, desperate, and certain she knew better.

A little farther down the wall hung her brother, Roderic, older than her by nearly a decade, tall and serious. How long had it been since she last thought of him? Months. The colors in his portrait seemed to have darkened with the years.

Her throat tightened. She forced the tears back, straightened her skirts, and made herself keep moving. This was her family, or had been. Grief was a luxury she could not afford in the middle of a morning’s work.

She found her uncle in the solar, reviewing a stack of correspondence. He looked up as she entered, his expression easing.

“Ah, Cecily,” he said, setting his letters aside. “I have news from Veyron Hall.”

The name made her pulse kick.

Lord Alard de Veyron.

She had never expected to hear the family name again.

“The new baron is hosting a welcome feast,” Stephen said. “A proper one. He’s inviting the neighboring houses. It would be noticed if we did not attend, and I would like you with me.”

Cecily folded her hands in her lap. “Of course.”

Stephen studied her a moment. “His name is Julian de Veyron,” he added. “Young. Well spoken. Well formed, I hear. Eager to make a good impression.”

She nodded without comment. Her hands folded more tightly.

She was crossing back through the passage when a servant found her, a young woman with a ledger tucked beneath her arm.