In between dozens of kisses, quick sips, long leisurely ones, he told her.
Told her how he’d watched her disappear as he’d lain on the ground, the battle raging all around. Told her how the arrow had been deflected by the metal disc on his leather bands and had been but a flesh wound. Told her how they’d discovered who the “enemy” was.
“That old woman,” Gwen murmured. “She said she’d hired the gypsies.”
“Aye, Besseta. She made a full confession.” He kissed her again before continuing, sucking gently on her lower lip. “Besseta claimed she scryed in her yew sticks that a woman would bring about the death of her son. Since I was soon to wed, Besseta decided my betrothed must be the woman in her vision. She warned Nevin, but he laughed it off and made her promise not to harm me. To her ailing mind, bespelling me wasn’t harming me, so she purchased the gypsy’s services to enchant me so she might prevent the wedding. In the first reality, when Anya was killed by the Campbell, Besseta must have thought the threat had passed. I suspect, however, that sometime shortly after Anya’s death, Besseta must have had her vision again, and realized that as long as I was alive and might yet wed, the danger would never pass. So she proceeded with her original plan to have me enchanted.”
“So she drugged you and sent the message bidding you come to discover the name of the man who’d killed Dageus.”
“Aye. I was enchanted, you found me, and I sent you back.”
“But in the second reality,” Gwen exclaimed, “since Dageus and Anya weren’t killed, she must have heard you were coming home with your betrothed—”
“—and stepped up plans to have me abducted. Unwilling to take any chances; she wanted my “betrothed” gone too. As you were in my bedchamber, they assumed you were Anya.”
Gwen shook her head, amazed. “It was her belief in her vision that made everything happen, Drustan! If she hadn’t believed in it, she would never have enchanted you, I would never have been sent back, and Nevin would never have given his life to save me.”
“Aye. ’Tis why the gypsy are o’ercautious of fortune telling. They make it clear that any future they scry is but one possible future: the most likely one, yet not writ in stone. For Besseta, driven by lifelong fear, it was indeed her most probable future. Fear drove her to have me enchanted. Having me enchanted resulted in me sending you back. Once you were there, Nevin gave his life to protect you. Her fear drove her to fulfill the possibility.”
Gwen rubbed her forehead. “This hurts my head.”
Drustan laughed. “It hurts mine too. I’ll be most happy to ne’er muck with time again.”
Gwen was silent a moment, thinking. “What happened to Besseta?”
Drustan’s eyes darkened. “After you disappeared, she plunged into the battle, and though the men strove not to harm her, she was determined to die. She impaled herself on Robert’s claymore.” He frowned. “She confessed before she died, and we were able to piece the story together.”
Fresh tears gathered in Gwen’s eyes.
“You would weep for her?” Drustan exclaimed.
“If not for her, I should never have found you,” Gwen said softly. “It’s sad. It’s sad that she was so afraid. But at the same time, I’m so glad I found you.”
He kissed her again, then told her the rest of it. How he’d grieved, how he raged. How he’d stormed to the stones and stood arguing with himself for hours.
Then his mind had struck upon an idea—so temptingly possible that it had taken his breath away.
The gypsies. They’d made him sleep once for five centuries. Why not again? And so he’d tracked down the wandering tribe and commissioned their services. The gypsy queen herself had performed the spell for a pouch of coin.
“For a pouch of coin!” Gwen exclaimed. “How dare they charge you? They were the ones who—”
“Who sold a service, nothing more. The Rom hold themselves to a strange code. They maintain that blaming them for Besseta commissioning them to enchant me would be akin to blaming the blade for drawing blood. ’Tis the hand that wields the dagger, not the dagger itself.”
“Fine way to evade personal responsibility,” Gwen grumbled. Then she sucked in a shallow breath. “Your family! Silvan and Nell and—”
He cut her off by kissing her. “My choice was painful to them, but they understood.”
He’d not once wavered. He’d spent several months saying his good-byes before being enchanted. And implementing plans that would bear fruit five centuries later, plans to ensure a fine life for him and his wife. But there would be time to tell her of that tomorrow, or the next day or the next. “They bid me give you their love when we were reunited.”