“Wait a minute.” She held him by the shoulders. “Who are you?”

The boy shrugged innocently, dislodging her grip. “Me? Just a wee lad who has the run of the keep. Dinna fash yerself, lassie, no one notices me. I’ve come to help ye escape.”

“Why?”

The boy shrugged again, a hasty up-and-down of thin shoulders. “Does it matter to ye? Dinna ye wish to flee?”

“But where will I go?” Lisa drew several deep breaths, trying to wake up. She needed to think this through. What would escaping the keep accomplish?

“Away from here,” he said, peeved by her obtuseness.

“And where to?” Lisa repeated, as her sleepy mind finally started functioning with a semblance of intelligence. “Become one of the Bruce’s camp followers? Go talk to Longshank’s son?” she said dryly.

“Are ye a spy?” he exclaimed indignantly.

“No! But where am I going to go? Escaping the keep is only the beginning of my problems.”

“Dinna ye have a home, lassie?” he asked, perplexed.

“Not in this century,” Lisa said, as she sank to the floor with a sigh. Adrenaline had flooded her body at the prospect of escape. Vanquished by logic, it now fled her veins as swiftly as it had arrived, and its sudden absence made her feel limp. Judging by the coldness of the wall behind her back and the chilly draft circling through the tower, it was cold outside. If she left, how would she eat? Where would she go? How could she escape when there was no place for her to escape to? She eyed the boy, who appeared crestfallen.

“I dinna ken what ye mean, but I thought only to help ye. I ken what these men do to the lassies. ‘Tisna pleasant.”

“Thanks for the reassurance,” Lisa said dryly. She studied the lad for a moment. His gaze was bright and direct, his eyes were old for such a young face.

He sank to the floor beside her. “So, what can I do for ye, lassie,” he asked dejectedly, “if ye haven’t a home and I canna be freeing ye?”

There was one thing he could help her with, she realized, for she certainly wouldn’t ask the illustrious Circenn Brodie this question. “I need to … um … I drank too much water,” she informed him carefully.

A quicksilver grin flashed across his face. “Wait here with ye.” He dashed off up the stairs. When he came back he was carrying a stoneware basin that looked identical to the one she had struck Circenn in the head with last night.

She regarded it uncertainly. “And then what?”

“Why, then ye dump it out a window,” he said, as if she were daft.

Lisa winced. “There is no window in this tower.”

“I’ll dump it for ye,” he said simply, and she realized that this was the way of things. He’d probably dumped hundreds of them in his short life. “Och, but I’ll be giving ye some privacy for the now,” he added, and dashed off again up the stairs.

True to his word, he returned in a few moments and dashed off a third time with the basin.

Lisa sat on the stairs, waiting for the lad to return. Her options were limited: She could foolishly escape the castle and likely die out there, or go back to her room and get as close to her enemy as possible in hopes of finding that flask—which she had to believe was a two-way ticket. It was either that or accept that she was condemned to the fourteenth century forever, and with her mother dying back home, she would sooner die herself than accept that fate.

“Tell me about Circenn Brodie,” she said when the boy returned. He hunkered down on the step beside her.

“What do ye wish to ken?”

Does he kiss all the lassies? “Is he a fair man?”

“None fairer,” the lad assured her.

“As in honorable, not attractive,” Lisa clarified.

He grinned. “I ken what ye meant. The laird is a fair man, he doesna make hasty judgments.”

“Then why were you trying to help me escape?”

Another shrug. “I heard his men speaking last night of killin’ ye. I figured if ye was still breathing this morning I’d be helping ye go free.” His thin face stilled and his eyes grew distant. “Me mam was killed when I was five. I doona like to see a lassie suffer. Ye could be someone’s mam.” Guileless brown eyes sought hers.

Lisa’s heart went out to the motherless boy. She understood all too well the pain of losing a mother. She hoped his “mam” had not suffered long, but had met with a swift and merciful death. She gently brushed his tangled hair back from his forehead. He leaned in to her caress as if he’d been starved for such a touch. “What’s your name, boy?”