Magnus and a Love Beyond Words Read online

  Another man stepped from the woods on the other side of the fire.

  I said, “Magnus.”

  “I see him, tis one more tae the left.” He held his position but slightly shifted his weight. The hilt of his sword was at his fingertips, but he wasn’t threatening with it yet.

  Fear settling in my stomach made me want to throw up — it was Magnus against three men. He raised his voice to speak to them all. “I see ye and am tellin’ ye tae move along. I am nae in a mood tae share bread or warmth.”

  The man who entered our glade first sneered. “Tis nae the food or fire we are wantin’ tae partake of.”

  The two men who had remained hidden stepped into the clearing. They were bigger, foul smelling, menacing and gross.

  One leered at me and licked his lips.

  Magnus remained calm and still. He said simply. “Tis my wife ye are speakin’ on. Ye best move along, I have killed men for less than the words ye just uttered.”

  One of the bigger men laughed a laugh full of spite and malice. My eyes flitted from man to man, searching their faces, trying to decide what to do, how to help.

  The man on the right edged toward me and the horses. Magnus said, “You daena want tae move again.”

  The man on the left moved a step closer. I held my knife higher and tried to look tougher than I felt.

  Magnus swept up through the fire aiming a burning stick with a spray of sparks at the smaller man’s face. Then he wheeled around and swung his blade toward the man on the right.

  Fury filled me. I aimed my knife point at the other man. “Don’t come near me, asshole.” He took a step closer and another. The horses stamped and whinnied behind me, pulling at their reins.

  Magnus spun around and charged the man who was looming over me, swinging left and down slicing almost through the man’s arm.

  Then rotating and slicing his side so that he crumpled to the ground.

  A second man ran at Magnus and slammed his elbow into his side, but Magnus pivoted, threw his full weight on him, and forced him back. Magnus was enraged, bellowing. He swung his blade back and forth while the man cowered. Suddenly Magnus lunged and the man emitted a high and loud screeching sound.

  I couldn’t take it, any of it: Magnus’s anger, the blood, the dead man, the screams.

  I dropped to the ground still holding my knife facing out as if I was helping, nonononononoooo.

  The last man begged for his life.

  Magnus turned on him, his bloody sword held high. “I told ye tae leave.” Every square inch of his flesh was holding in a bulging fury — like the Hulk about to smash some shit.

  “Daena kill me.”

  “I told ye tae leave!” Magnus’s face was red, wet, enraged.

  I clamped my hands over my ears.

  “No, please stop please.” The man cowered and begged as Magnus thrust and stabbed him through.

  Magnus kicked the writhing body from his blade and yelled at it, “I told ye tae leave, I told ye!”

  I lurched to my feet, stumbled through the dirt, and pulled his arm back. “Stop. Stop Magnus, please don’t.”

  Magnus looked at me like he couldn’t see me. His breaths were ragged. His chest heaving. “I told him tae leave.”

  Tears streamed down my face, obscuring my vision. I stroked the sides of his face, his temples, smoothing folds of anger. His eyes clamped shut. I sobbed and tried to calm him, myself. “You did, you warned him and they kept coming.”

  “I warned him, I did, I told him.” He opened his eyes and they were so full of pain.

  He collapsed down to his knees in front of me and clutched my skirts. “I canna stop, Kaitlyn. I canna stop killin’.” He pressed his face to me so hard, so rough, he almost knocked me to the ground.

  I braced my feet and held on around his head and gripped his wide shoulders. They heaved with his breathing and it felt a lot like anguish.

  “I canna stop, tis all I do. They come from every direction and I warn them. I tell them I canna let them live but they keep comin’ and I canna do it anymore, Kaitlyn. I canna stop and I need ye mo reul-iuil. I need ye so much.”

  His hands bunched my skirts and pulled me closer pressing his face to me. “I need ye, every day. I dinna ken what tae do. I dinna ken how tae survive without ye and it tore me apart and I think I may be broken. I lost what made me who I am. I am nae longer the man ye love.”

  I clutched his head. “I love you, Magnus, I do. You’re still the same man, I—”

  “Nae,” he wrapped his arms around me and held us together. “Nae. I canna be. When I meet a man, I decide how I will kill him. While I am smilin’ at him, while I am charmin’ him with my wit I am decidin’ on it. I have a plan how I will kill him because everyone I meet wants tae kill me. I needed ye so much. I couldna get tae ye, tae ask ye for help.”

  I pulled his face up to look into his eyes.

  “I’m here now. It’s not too late.”

  He closed his eyes and moaned. “Tis, mo ghradh.” A bead of sweat rolled down his face. “I needed ye so much. You heard Archie. He said I fought General Reyes for a quarter of a century, how can I bear it, mo reul-iuil? I have been fightin’ four years and I am breakin’.”

  “Oh Magnus.” I knelt in front of him and clasped his hands. “Have you been praying?”

  He wouldn't meet my eyes.

  “Why not?”

  “God has turned his back on me.”

  I tried to look in his eyes to bring him back. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you were so alone. I wanted to come to you but I didn’t know how.”

  “Tis nae your fault.” He looked away.

  “It’s no one’s fault, but I’m still so sorry I wasn’t there.” I steadied his face, looked in his eyes and spoke assurances. “But it will be okay. I have the list. We’ll get it. It will show you how to fight him. You’ll be able to end it once and for all."

  He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek to my hand.

  “Aye.”

  He sat back on his heels and looked down on his bloody hands. “Aye I can end it.” He wiped the blood on his kilt. “I’ll end it.” He glanced into my eyes but quickly looked away. “I can. I will.” He wiped his hands again. “I am sorry about this... Twas havin’ ye back that caused me tae remember how I used tae feel when we were together. I had forgotten.”

  “What do you mean how you used to feel?”

  “I was strong and at peace. I had hope.”

  I took a deep breath. “Now I’m back, you’ll feel that again, you’ll see...”

  He winced. “I canna believe it, mo reul-iuil, when I feel this dark and hopeless inside.” He clutched his chest.

  “If I pray will you join me?” I asked.

  He hung his head. “Nae. I am forsaken.”

  I chewed my lip as I closed my eyes, bowed my head, and decided to pray anyway. I knew it was his comfort. I also knew of everything he said, his inability to pray scared me most of all. It was a part of him, what he did. If he hadn’t been praying, then he had been shaken to his core.

  I began with “Dear God,” not much more than a whisper. I asked for his infinite wisdom to guide Magnus and me as we rebuilt our life together and as we fought the darkness growing in my husband’s heart. As I asked for guidance Magnus’s voice joined mine.

  I peeked. His eyes were clamped tight, his face wearing a mask of pain.

  He begged forgiveness for the deaths he had caused and for not praying.

  I clutched his hands between us on our knees.

  And I quieted.

  And I listened.

  And I cried.

  The actions he needed forgiveness for were many.

  Hearing them was a burden that weighed on my heart. He had become a warrior and it was all that was expected of him. The one identity he had never really wanted. He had been born to make war but had grown to love peace. I had fallen for his easy humor and his kindness and the grace that filled his life.

  I had chosen for him to become a
king but then wasn’t there when his kingdom demanded he fight and fight and fight.

  Finally his breathing calmed, his words slowed.

  His head bowed—

  I pressed my head to his shoulder.

  Do you feel better?

  Aye.

  If you could tell me the one moment, the moment you needed me the most, I could go to you then. I would.

  I pressed my forehead to his beard and stroked across his shirt linen across the planes of his chest, around his shoulder, and down his arm.

  I needed ye when I was bein’ treated in the hospital. The day after I fought Samuel.

  From the first day?

  The very first day.

  Okay, my love, that’s what I’ll do.

  Magnus wiped the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. He kissed me and I rose and hugged his head to my chest. “I love you.”

  “I love ye too, mo reul-iuil.” His voice came from near my heart.

  I held him for a moment more then said, “So I will go, but there are things we have to deal with here.”

  “Och aye, we needs tae get some distance from this battlefield.”

  We gathered our things, packed the bags, loaded the horses, kicked sand on the fire, and left our glade to head further west while the sun continued to shine.

  Chapter 8

  We rode for another three hours. My thighs had gone past raw to numb which was good. It had finally grown dark, but we kept walking in the moonlight. I must have eventually fallen asleep because when I heard Magnus’s voice, “Kaitlyn, we are stopping for the night,” I had to struggle to open my bleary eyes. Magnus had his arms out for me.

  Then while I stood to the side wrapped in a blanket yawning and barely staying awake, Magnus tied the horses to the closest branch. He wrapped in another blanket, sat leaned against a tree, and held out his arm for me.

  I tucked my head to his chest, and wrapped my fingertips in his beard. His strong arms wrapped around me and the sounds of the wind rustling the trees, the nearby stream rushing down from the mountaintop, and the insects with their vibrating hums, all lulled me to sleep.

  * * *

  The next morning I woke slowly: comfortable, warm, wrapped in Magnus’s arms. Slowly I tilted my head back and he dropped his head forward and we kissed — the best way to wake. I tucked my head back under his chin, not wanting to speak until my mouth was well away from his nose — morning breath and all.

  Magnus ran his hand down the back of my head, still wrapped in the warm woolen blanket. “I have been thinkin’ about it, mo reul-iuil, and I am worried about ye goin’ back. I was in the hospital and there was a long and complicated transfer of power. I daena ken if I will be able tae protect ye—”

  “Do you have someone there you trust?”

  He looked off into space. “I have one man, Hammie—”

  “Hammie?”

  “Tis short for Hammond Donahoe. He stationed men about the castle during the transition from Samuel’s government tae mine. He has since fought alongside me many times. I trust him, but when I was there after my surgery I haena met him yet.”

  “Does he know about the vessels?”

  “Aye, he does.”

  “Then tell me something only you can know about him, and I’ll tell him you said he needs to protect me.”

  “Aye. Let me think...” Magnus stared off in the direction of a group of trees and squinted, thinking. “He greatly admired a singer by the name of Shona; she is verra famous. You could tell him I said tae protect ye and in return I will introduce him tae her. She often came tae the castle and he would get verra excited around her.”

  I twirled the bottom edge of his beard.

  “What will happen to you?”

  “I daena ken...”

  “You are here, alive, I don’t think I can bear leaving you if it means...”

  His big strong hand held my head, his thumb brushed my cheek. “Twill be okay, twill be a relief, Kaitlyn.”

  “Oh.” I nestled into his arms. “It will be so hard to leave.”

  “I ken it will, mo reul-iuil.” He kissed my forehead and next thing we were rising, brushing ourselves off, folding the blankets and packing them away. We shared the last protein bar and Magnus finished his breakfast with some hard bread and dried meat.

  Chapter 9

  Before we descended toward Loch Awe, I took a bathroom break and then Magnus had me join him on his horse. His arms around me, he began to talk of the landscape, the undulating hills and craggy peaks, using ancient sounding words like beinn and creag, uaine meaning green, and ghorm for the blue sky. The sky was ghorm and endless and high, with puffy clouds speckling it, or as Magnus told me to call it, bhreac.

  We talked about the weather, our horse traveling slowly on a path through the hills.

  His voice rumbled as he told me what he saw — the entire landscape reminded him of being young, happy, playing with Sean through the hills. The path turned and ahead of us the loch glistened in the sun. With barely a breeze it reflected the sky. A brighter blue below, sky in the water. Surrounding it a green, so vivid it seemed unreal. The castle seemed not to rest on the land, but to float within the loch, taking up most of a far point on an island out in the water.

  The surrounding land was green and lush and was connected with a low causeway to the shore. The castle was a tall five-story tower surrounded with fortified walls. It looked magical, fairytale-like. “It’s beautiful... this is your childhood home?”

  “Aye, though we spent a lot of time at Balloch, tis Kilchurn I am most fond of. Tis the highlands, mo ghradh, my Scottish home.”

  “I’ve never seen any place this gorgeous. It’s vivid, like it was painted by an artist. It’s beautiful.”

  Magnus said, “Aye. Twas painted by God.” Our wide and worn trail led to the shore. Magnus brought the horses to a slower pace. “I had many adventures climbin’ the hills here. Sean and I would climb tae the top and yell, ‘Cruachan!’ and run and roll down the slopes.”

  “What is Crewakan?”

  He pointed at one of the peaks. “That majestic beinn is named Cruach na Beinne or ye might call it Beinn Cruachan. We Campbells believe tis formidable, so we have made it our war cry.”

  “So little Magnus was yelling a Campbell war cry while playing with his brother on the hills here?”

  “Aye.”

  “I'm really glad you’re showing this to me.”

  We approached the long, low, thin path that stretched across the water to the castle. Men on horseback were coming and going along the causeway. We headed in the direction of the stables.

  Magnus stabled our horses speaking first to a few of the men tending them. He unlatched our bags, slung them over his shoulder and carrying the bundle of blankets under his arm led me from the stables along a path and through the main gate to the walled courtyard. There he spoke with the guards for a few moments before we were allowed to pass through.

  The castle was very different from Balloch, older, more fortress-like. I spun to take in the towers and the main building that loomed at the far end. “It’s so medieval looking.”

  “Twas built a verra long time ago, even for me.”

  “I want to see your room, where did you sleep?”

  “Everythin’ is older, m’uncle made improvements afore I was born, but I can show ye the rooms.” Magnus deposited our things under a low roof along the wall and led me through the main door.

  He led me down long halls and up a staircase. We had to press against the stone so some men could descend. He showed me through large doors on the second floor, the Great Hall, cold, big, and impressive. A wooden table stretched the length of it. There were long benches instead of chairs. This seemed the kind of place where people drank mead, clutched turkey legs in their fists, and said things like Argh, or Och. People like my husband I supposed.

  Then we climbed another two floors and down a small corridor to a room with rugs and some very small wooden beds. “Tis the room where the
bairn would sleep. We were only here in the summer with Uncle Baldie. Twas his favorite place from his own childhood. He has never cared much for Balloch.”

  He ducked inside and crossed to the window, not much more than a sliver, open to the weather. “See there? We have a clear view of Beinn Cruachan. I dreamed a lot about what adventures lay beyond that beinn.”

  “If you only knew Florida awaited you, huh?”

  “If I only kent ye were waitin’ for me on an island in the New World — twould have truly been a marvel tae the young Magnus.”

  He turned from the window. “Let me take ye up tae show ye the view.”

  We climbed two more flights of stairs and stood on the rooftop, the breeze pulling my skirts behind me, pushing my hair from my face. The sun was warm on our skin. “Point me to north.”

  He turned my shoulder so I was facing due north. I marveled at the mountain range.

  “East.” We both turned to take in the pass between the hills we had traveled through a couple of hours before. “That’s where we came from?”

  “Aye, mo ghradh.”

  “South.” We turned to look south.

  Magnus pointed. “Verra far off there is the home of Kaitlyn Campbell, wife of Magnus Campbell, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in the year two naught seventeen.”

  “Your home too.”

  “Aye, tis. I hope ye will help me get back there.”

  “I’ll do everything I can.”

  We turned to take in the west. “What’s this way?”

  “Your grandparents’ house, with the lake and the dock and if we think on it, tis only one ocean and a wee bit of land separatin’ that dock from this dock here.” He pointed at a dock below. “Tis almost as if we could sail from the one tae the other.”

  “I like thinking of it that way. And we need to put a toe in the water. You can’t visit a shore without getting your feet wet.”

  Magnus led me down the five flights of dark stone stairs and across the dusty courtyard through the guarded gate and around the high walls to a simple wooden dock jutting into Loch Awe.