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25. Andrew

A NDREW Huntingdon, Huntingdonshire, 2nd June 1613

H ECTOR WOULDN ' T FALL ASLEEP.

I thought at first he feared the dark, as he'd done at the Roman Wall, for he was just a lad who had been thrown too soon onto his road alone, and had a right to see more shadows than the rest of us. But it was not the dark.

Even when I had lit a candle with some vague excuse of needing one to find some item in my pack, the lad stayed sitting upright on his pallet bed, eyes fixed and wide with fierce determination.

In the proper bed, Sir David slept and lightly snored. I'd given him that comfort knowing he'd likely have little of it once we got to London, and because he was the oldest of us, now that Westaway was gone.

I kept my voice low, so I did not waken him, and said to Hector, ‘Messengers must get their sleep, lad.'

He sent me a glance that was pure misery. ‘I can't. They'll come and get me then.'

‘Who will?'

He said, ‘The minister said Master Westaway was carried up tae heaven by the angels. And they came while he was sleeping.'

I began to see the problem.

Hector told me, ‘I don't wish tae go tae heaven.'

‘Well, of course ye do. But not the now, I'll grant ye.' My heart softened, for he looked so small against the darkness. ‘Never fear, lad. Did I not already promise ye that ye've no chance of dying while I'm guarding ye?'

He hadn't yet forgotten what I'd told him in the Tarras Moss, because he nodded. ‘But… what if the angels come tae carry me tae heaven while ye're sleeping, too?'

So many worries for such a wee lad. ‘Hector,' I said, ‘if anyone, angel or no, tries to take ye to heaven, I'll break the damn'd gates down and bring ye right back.'

‘Truly?'

‘Ye have my word.'

Which was all the assurance he needed to lay down his head on the pallet at last. He was sleeping within a few minutes. I would have been, too, had I not heard the sounds from the chamber beside our own.

Phoebe's terrible dreams seemed to find her most nights, and although she made nearly no noise, I was always aware when she had them. The pattern was always the same: she would toss, and then stop, and then toss yet more violently. And then she'd waken, and fall still, or rise and walk restlessly over the floor.

But tonight, she did something she'd never done. She called out, ‘Logan!'

Sir David and Hector kept sleeping, but I answered that call so quickly I scarce touched the floorboards as I went into the corridor and into Phoebe's room, bringing the candle with me.

She was still asleep, but in a terror, her eyes wide and staring. Moving cautiously towards the bed, I said, low, ‘Phoebe? Waken up, now.' But she didn't waken properly until I touched her shoulder. ‘Ye've been dreaming,' I explained, when she looked up at me.

She blinked and told me, ‘You were gone,' as if that revealed everything. And when I would have drawn away, she grabbed my arm and told me, ‘No. Don't leave me, Logan. Please don't go.'

All men have limits. She was testing mine. Her hair was loose and long about her shoulders. She was in her shift. The room was full of moonlight. And she drew me down to sit with her upon the bed.

But Phoebe wasn't meant to be my lass. I'd Seen that when I'd kissed her, at the fair. I'd raised my head to look at her and all the world had wavered and begun to blur, and suddenly I'd Seen her, not at Newark, but against a sunlit wall, and Valentine had stood beside her with a smug expression, holding to her hand. He'd told me, ‘Give us your congratulations, Logan. Phoebe has agreed to be my wife.'

I'd felt the pain of that as though I had been shot through with a bullet. I could feel it now. But whatever I Saw would surely happen, and could not be wished away. I could do no more than to protect my heart – and hers – by keeping things between us honourable and cordial and no more.

But Phoebe looked at me and asked, ‘Will you please hold me?'

‘Phoebe…'

‘Please.'

And so I pushed my limits just a little further. Sitting back upon the bed, and keeping carefully outside the quilts, I gathered Phoebe in my arms so she would feel secure, and not be frightened of whatever demons chased her in her dreams.

She leaned against me, gratefully. After a while she said, ‘They shut you in, you know, when you have plague. They lock the house and no one can come in or leave.'

She spoke for the first time to me about her mother and her brothers, and what she remembered of them. Sometimes there were warmer memories. Always there was sadness.

Then she asked, ‘How did you know about the horse?'

So she had overheard us. I'd suspected it, from how she'd looked at me when she had come into the stables on that day at Newark. I told her, ‘My mother telt me, years ago. She likely heard it from your aunt. They talk.'

‘I see.'

‘'Tis not a fault to be ashamed of, fearing horses,' I assured her. ‘I've seen grown men who'd not stand within arm's length of Brutus, and ye show more courage every day than them.'

‘I'm not so brave, not really. I think often of the phantoms that I saw when we were coming to Northallerton,' she said to me, ‘and wonder just how many might be walking in these rooms with us.'

I glanced around the chamber. ‘None.'

The smile in her voice was meant to chide me for what she believed was my attempt to soothe her with a lie. ‘You cannot know for certain.'

‘Aye, I can, in fact.' If I was not to have her, I at least would have full truth between us where I could. I paused, then took a leap of faith. ‘Those riders that ye saw above Northallerton,' I said. ‘I saw them, too.' And I described them, so she'd not have any doubt.

She went completely still against my chest. ‘How is that possible?'

‘Among my mother's people of the Western Isles of Scotland, there's a gift, or curse more like, we call the Sight – the Second Sight. It gives us glimpses of what is to come. The Sight is passed along in families through the blood. My mother's father had it strongly,' I said. ‘As do I.'

She turned her head and stared at me and said, ‘You are not serious.'

‘I wish that I were not.'

‘You can see things that haven't happened yet?'

I nodded, and she seemed to be struck by a realization. ‘When your eyes… when you do this' – she did a striking imitation of what I must look like to those watching – ‘are you Seeing then?'

‘Aye.'

Phoebe looked away again and thought on this a moment. ‘Can you do it when you wish?'

‘No.'

‘When we Saw the riders, how was it that I… how could I See them?'

‘You were touching me.' I told her how it worked among the people of the Western Isles when they desired to share the things they Saw.

‘But if you cannot do it when you wish,' she asked me, ‘how then can you ever share your visions?'

I admitted that I did not know.

‘Mayhap I'll have to hold you always,' Phoebe said, and drew my arms more tightly round her, leaning back against my chest. She could not know how deep an ache that drove into my heart.

I felt her head grow heavy as she drifted, but her mind was busy and she still had questions. ‘Logan?'

‘Aye?' I brought my head down closer.

‘Did you See my father? Did you know when he would die?'

This part was difficult, but still I told the truth. ‘I knew his time was short. I Saw no more than that.'

The minutes passed, and then she asked, ‘Logan?'

‘Aye?'

‘Have you Seen me?'

My mother always held it was unkind to tell a person what you'd Seen about their future, and I used that now as an excuse to set aside the truth for this one time.

I told her, ‘No.'

‘Good. For I would not wish to know.'

She did not speak again, but settled her head warm beneath my shoulder, with her cheek turned softly to the solid beating of my heart. I kept my arms around her long after her breathing told me that she was asleep. I stayed there, sitting in that same position, holding her. After a while I let my head rest back against the panelled wall, and I slept, too, but I did not let go of Phoebe. Not this night.

Soon enough, the time would come when I would have to.

Not this night.

Valentine would have her for a lifetime.

But this night was hers and mine.

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