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Something prickled at the base of his neck and he felt a strange warmth there. Someone was watching him.

Had Anna come back? A jolt of happiness leapt in his stomach and he turned.

But it wasn’t Anna watching him from the bushes.

With a grimace of absolute disgust, a priest was staring at him, surrounded by about twenty men and women. They were villagers or farmers, poor, worn-out coifs on men’s heads, wimples and headrails on the women. The priest wore a brown robe that was tied with a belt. He was in his fifties, with a broad nose and a clean-shaven face, a bald at the front head, and bushy gray eyebrows.

David turned to them and stood up. The priest and the rest of the people came from behind the bushes.

David gulped. He knew it wasn’t a good thing to yell about faeries near a rock that might be considered magical. Especially not in front of devoted Catholics.

An angry murmur went through the crowd.

“Why were ye calling for a faerie?” asked the priest.

David just hoped Anna was still away by the river. “There are no faeries, everybody knows that. I was just kidding. Jesting,” he corrected himself.

“He must be a Highlander,” said one of the men. “His accent is very strange. Highlanders are wild. They still believe in faeries.”

“Aye,” said another man. “He slept near the old faerie rock that everybody in Kennifar kens nae to go near. Whoever does will be cursed. And now he’s been casting a spell and calling for faeries.”

With a sleek, cold horror David remembered Dùghald’s warning. There’s folk that dinna take people who believe in such things kindly. Especially priests.

“Aye,” said another man, raising his pitchfork higher. “And he’s probably been at it for some time, since a few days past lepers arrived in the village. And everybody kens lepers’ sickness is a curse from faeries and demons. A living death.”

David chuckled uncomfortably. He threw a glance at his sword, which lay about ten steps away by his travel roll. Could he get to it in time to fend off this superstitious rabble? “It was just a joke,” he said and took two steps towards the dead campfire. “A jest!”

The priest’s eyes pierced him like the tines of the pitchfork. Slowly, he walked closer to David. “He is clearly a demon caster and will bring God’s wrath on us. Get him!”

They ran at him while he dove for his sword. Hands grabbed him from all sides, clasping his arms and pushing him somewhere. He thrashed, trying to get away, while the priest started chanting a loud prayer.

David managed to free his arms several times, but there were too many of them.

As they drove him away through the swamp, under the priest’s loud chanting, he kept looking back to make sure Anna wasn’t there.

But from a flash of red cloth between the branches of the bushes, he knew she had seen him.

He only hoped she would keep going to Stirling and forget all about him.

CHAPTER 17

Anna watched the crowd drag David away. The sight was like a nightmare from which she couldn’t awaken. Like a piece of her heart was cut out from her chest.

She knew that when David disappeared behind that grove of trees, the nightmares from the oubliette would come back. The thought was a lightning strike, holding her in its fiery, blinding power.

But she’d need to learn to live without him anyway. She’d need to learn to fight the nightmares without him in her life. Even though she still couldn’t completely believe in time travel, he had told her he wanted to leave, that he couldn’t stay.

And she was bound to marry another man.

Four days until Philip expected to meet her at Bruce’s camp. What were they all thinking now? Was Colum alive? Did her father worry? Had he tried to send a rescue team? How long until they all thought she must be dead and that the wedding would never happen?

And even if she started on the journey to Stirling, she still had the MacDowells and the English looking for her…

Still, she needed to go and fulfil her duty. And even though she’d sinned with David last night, she was still a virgin. She could keep that event like a wonderful memory that would warm her like a hot coal for the rest of her life.

But she didn’t want to go. What she wanted to do—what she must do—was to save David like he’d saved her. Even if it meant risking her life again.

She quickly gathered their things, packed them onto her horse, and mounted, leading Daisy after her. Slowly, she followed the tracks of the mob, and when she saw the first houses of the village, she dismounted and hitched the horses to a pole.