“Ye can eat now, lass,” Duncan said to me.
From the command in his voice, I wasn’t sure if that was an order or permission. Either rankled despite my stomach rumbling. I didn’t know when the last time I’d eaten had been. I had to remind myself that I was considered property in this time, and I didn’t like it.
His gaze turned frosty. “Do ye need one of those fork things?”
I glared right back and used my fingers to pick up what appeared to be some type of poultry and stuffed it in my mouth. Given our proximity to the sea, it was likely a show of wealth to eat this and not the plentiful fish. The taste was palatable, yet I immediately reached for my mug to wash the taste away. When I picked it up, dark liquid sloshed around. I’d never had alcohol and assumed this was the ale of the time. I tentatively sipped. It was sour and sweet and not at all good. I put it down.
A man I hadn’t noticed to my right said, “Will ye be writing to yer father to let them know ye are well taken care of?”
“I dinnae care what her father thinks. She’s mine now,” Duncan said with a finality that shut the squat man up.
When the conversation dried up as everyone next to me ate, I noticed the music playing in the background. I located the little trio in the back corner. They had a harp, what looked like a flute, but not the silver kind of my time, and something that was like a guitar but not. It had strings, but it was smaller than a guitar, but maybe a little larger and differently shaped than a ukulele. No one used bagpipes—those I caught sight of some on the floor nearby and sorely missed not hearing that. Though the music was pleasant enough.
“Da, Da.” A little boy came running from out of nowhere, as I hadn’t seen what direction he’d come from. He climbed the stairs and barely could see over the table while standing next to it.
“What is it?” Duncan asked.
The little boy produced a ring of flowers from behind his back. “Is she my new mother?” he asked.
My eyes bounced back to Duncan. I was curious about how he’d respond.
“I told you we’d talk about it tomorrow,” Duncan said. “You’ll have a chance to meet her then.”
Likely because the rules of this time dictated it, Duncan’s son did not look at me when he asked his next question. “Can I give this to her now?”
“You may,” Duncan replied.
Finally, the little boy looked at me directly instead of the quick glances from moments before. “Yer crown, m’lady.”
“It’s ‘my lady,’” Duncan corrected.
“My lady,” the little boy said and bowed his head. I took the floral wreath from his hand with its bell-shaped flowers that were a color somewhere between blue and purple. “They are the Scottish bluebell.” His eyes dipped.
“It’s lovely,” I said, hoping to restore the light in his eyes.
Now that I was sure I wasn’t in my time, seeing Fiona was walking past solidified certain hard truths for me, like what it meant for the Fiona in my time if she was here in this one. I stopped her. “Fiona.”
She started as if shocked someone from the high table we sat at would call her by name. I smiled, and she scrambled over. “How can I help you, my lady?”
This “my lady” was going to take some getting used to. “Can you remove my veil? I’d like to wear my new crown.” I held it up for all who were paying attention to see.
She grinned before bowing her head. “Yes, my lady.” Then she hustled her way around the table and unburdened me from the veil. I didn’t realize how heavy it had been, figuratively and physically, until it was gone. Then she crowned me with the floral wreath.
“How do I look?” I asked Duncan’s son.
“Beautiful,” he said. He caught a look from his father that I didn’t see and, with a wave of Duncan’s hand, he took off before I could ask his name.
A man at the end of the table joyfully announced, “And we now have our queen.”
The crowd sent up a chorus of “To our queen,” that reverberated through the hall.
My jaw opened a little, and I had to stop it before it fell on the floor. I wasn’t a historian, but I couldn’t recall a king of England or of Scotland named Duncan.
The man on the other side of me leaned in. “I bet your father didn’t realize what a favorable match he’d made. You married the king of Scotland.”
Seeing as I hadn’t known of a Duncan as king of Scotland, I had to assume that the locals accepted him as such, but he’d yet been crowned in truth. Something had happened after Duncan saved some of the McAllister clan while in Kintrye. He’d disappeared from there and ended up here. Ivor had said we were heading north when he drove me to this castle. I assumed we were somewhere in the highlands I’d read about and Kintrye was in the lowlands. Why this group wanted Duncan as king was anyone’s guess as it wasn’t written anywhere in the history books.