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  Queen’s Academy

  An Academy of Time story

  Skye MacKinnon

  Copyright © 2019 by Skye MacKinnon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For the real Petra.

  I both hope and dread that you’ll read this book.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Bonus: ‘Elizabeth’ by Laura Greenwood

  Academy of Time

  About the Author

  Also By

  Foreword

  Dear readers,

  * * *

  I’ve always been fascinated by Mary Queen of Scots, so when I got the chance to write about her, I couldn’t resist.

  * * *

  While I’ve tried to be as historically accurate in this story as I possibly can, I don’t claim that everything is correct. Mary would have spoken mostly French and Scots, but to make it easier for both readers and myself, I’m having her speak English with the occasional Scots word thrown in.

  * * *

  Many of the scenes depicted in this book really happened – not the time travel bits, obviously – and I’ll tell you some more about that at the end of the story, so read on once you’re done.

  * * *

  Happy reading!

  Skye MacKinnon

  Prologue

  7 February 1587

  Fotheringhay Castle, England

  You shall be executed tomorrow.

  The words didn’t come as a surprise, yet they struck deep nonetheless.

  They were all gone, leaving me to pray, but I knew guards were outside the chapel doors, making sure I didn’t try a desperate escape. It was too late for that.

  I’d waited two months for Elizabeth to sign my death warrant. I was ready.

  I turned the rosary beads in my hands, but they didn’t give me the same comfort they usually offered. They’d forbidden my chaplain from hearing my confession one last time. They didn’t even let him give me the Last Sacrament. A Protestant minister was brought to me, but I was born a Catholic and I would die a Catholic.

  I lifted the rosary to my lips and kissed the largest bead, a small cross carved into it.

  “Almighty God,” I prayed, saying the words aloud. If I were to die tomorrow, I would speak as much as I wanted. No one could halt my tongue.

  “Be my guide. Deliver me from my suffering. Tomorrow, guide me home so I may reach the gates of Paradise and bask in your glory.” The echo in the small chapel felt like an answer to my prayer. I wasn’t alone. God was with me.

  “Give me strength. I cannot be weak. I cannot show my fear. Help me be brave. Lord, I beg you, let me be brave.”

  I kissed the crossed bead again. “Heavenly father. Deliver me from my sins. Don’t judge those who will bring me my death tomorrow. They don’t know any better. I take their sin onto myself.” I swallowed hard, my composure waning. My words may have been brave, but I was feeling anything but inside.

  “Lord, give me a sign that I shall reach the golden gates of Paradise,” I whispered. “If I know that I’ll be able to bask in your glorious self will give me the strength to walk to my death a proud, most Christian Catholic.”

  I raised my rosary once more, but just before my lips kissed the beads, a flash of light filled the room. I threw myself onto the stone floor, spreading my arms in the shape of the cross. He’d arrived. God had taken pity on me, taking me from this cold Earth before my execution.

  I started whispering the Hail Mary, too scared to lift my gaze towards the dais.

  Footsteps approached me, echoing through the chapel.

  My entire body was quivering with fear and anticipation. I was in His presence. He had come to save me. Tears sprang to my eyes and when he stopped so close that felt his presence, I finally dared to look up.

  I gasped when I took in his ruffled hair, his wild beard, his bright blue eyes.

  “You!”

  Chapter 1

  500 years later

  Somewhere deep beneath Switzerland

  I sat up, bumping my head on the bunk bed above me. I groaned and rubbed my head. After three years, I should be used to how low my bunk was, but I’d had yet another nightmare.

  No, not a nightmare. A dream. Of her.

  Even though for me it had been a dream I craved to have again, for her it had been a nightmare. I balled my hands into fists. He’d hurt her. Her own husband. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him do that. A few weeks ago, I’d witnessed him stab a man to death right in front of her eyes. I’d woken up with tears in my eyes and rage in my heart. She didn’t deserve this.

  She was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Not that beauty said anything about someone’s character, but for her, her outer beauty reflected that of her soul. I grimaced. I wasn’t usually one to be poetic. I was a pragmatic guy who preferred biographies and factual books over novels. I’d never read a romance novel in my life, yet she brought things alive in me that seemed to be taken right from some trashy Mills & Boon volume.

  I got up and checked Seamus wasn’t in his bed before splashing some water on my face. The sink was covered in Seamus’s beard hair. I was going to have to talk to him about that once again. As much as I liked the guy, I didn’t want his beard on my toothbrush. Why did I manage to shave without leaving traces of it and he didn’t?

  Her face flashed through my mind again. Fair skin, beautiful hazel eyes beneath a high forehead, red-golden hair curling around her heart-shaped face. She was slim but not too thin, and her movement had a grace that spoke of a well-trained body. She was tall, towering over many of the men I’d seen her with. Close to six foot, maybe, although it was hard to tell that from just dreams.

  While these were the most vivid dreams I’d ever had, I knew they were just that. Dreams. A reality conjured by my mind. Yet it had become part of my life.

  I’d had the first dream at the beginning of my second year at the Academy. The night after my first trip through time. I’d been buzzing, hardly able to sleep, but in the early hours of the morning, I’d finally succumbed. And then I saw her. Back then she was a young girl, much younger than I. She played with a boy, running through a palace. I watched her learn the lute. I witnessed the first time she rode a horse. I’d never been on one myself, yet after watching her in my dreams, I was sure I’d be able to do it if I ever got the chance. I never heard any words during those dreams, but I felt her emotions as if they were my own. They helped me understand what was happening. How she despised the needlework she had to do, even though she was good at it. That she was sure one of the important ladies didn’t like her. That despite her height, she sometimes felt very small.

  I watched her grow up. When she was about sixteen, she married the boy I’d often seen her with at Notre Dame de Paris. That’s when I finally realised who she was.

  Mary, Queen of Scots.

  One of the most famous women of all time.

  And for some reason, I was dreaming of her.

  I never knew much about her before the dreams started, but once I figured out who the beautiful girl was, I did some research. Her life became an obsession. I spent hours in the library, until the librarian told me to get a life. Of course, I didn’t listen.

/>   Every time I dreamed of her, I looked up what I’d seen in the history books. And every time, I found the same thing: what I dreamed was true. It had really happened.

  This time, there was nothing to research. I had only seen a brief moment of Darnley hitting her. Lord Darnley, her second husband. When she’d first married him, I’d been happy for her. Her first husband’s death had hit her hard; Francis had been a friend and confidant most of her life. She’d married her best friend. Darnley seemed like the perfect man to pull her from her grief. He was charming, full of energy and a match for Mary’s quick wit. He was taller than her, making him the perfect dance partner.

  I turned on the tap again and splashed some more cold water on my face. I needed to get back into the present. I had an exam today and I couldn’t afford to have my head in the clouds. Especially not clouds shaped like Mary, Queen of Scots; a woman who was executed five centuries ago.

  I quickly put on my white Academy uniform and ran a comb through my auburn hair. It was slightly darker than Mary’s, but I was sure that if the two of us had children, they would end up redheads.

  I groaned. I wasn’t going to have children with Mary. I was never even going to meet her. Her time was out of bounds. She was a fixed point of history and even the most experienced time agents weren’t allowed to meddle with her timeline.

  Besides, I was still a student. A Seagull, as third-year students were called. It was a miracle I’d made it this far with being distracted half of the time. Luckily, I’d been able to choose medieval history as my focus last year. It gave my obsessions a reason, and as long as they let me write my essays on Mary, I got excellent grades.

  Which wouldn’t stay that way, if I messed up this exam. I hurried out of the room and down to the dining hall. Most students were already leaving, but the buffet wasn’t completely cleared yet. I grabbed myself a bacon roll and a mug of coffee before heading to my usual table.

  “Morning Drake,” Seamus greeted me. “You’re late.”

  “And you forgot something in our dorm,” I replied with an eye roll.

  “What did I forget?”

  With my mouth full, I pointed at my chin. “Your beard.”

  He threw a sugar cube at me. It landed in my coffee. Yuck. I liked my coffee black and strong. No sugar, no milk. Just pure caffeine.

  He ran a hand over his smooth cheeks. “Not all of us want to look like a mug. You should shave again sometime.”

  I didn’t tell him that I did shave. My beard just grew back much faster than I wanted to, so I’d resigned myself to a wild warrior look. It wasn’t as if I was trying to impress anyone. The girls at the Academy didn’t tempt me in the slightest. Not when I dreamed of the perfect woman almost every night.

  “Are you ready for the exam?” Seamus asked, looking at a bunch of papers next to his plate. “I’ve been up for hours, revising, but I bet that they’ll give us questions completely unrelated to what I’ve been studying.”

  I hadn’t been studying at all. Unless the exam was going to be at least partly about Mary Queen of Scots, I was going to fail.

  I shrugged and finished my bacon roll. “It’ll be fine. You always get top marks.”

  “So do you. You study the most of all of us.”

  I almost choked on my roll. If only he knew. I’d never told anyone about my dreams. Yes, since we shared a room, he knew that I had very vivid dreams. I let him believe that they were nightmares. Telling him that I was dreaming about a woman dead for centuries would make me sound crazy. Especially if I told him that everything I saw in my dreams had really happened. Even before I read about it.

  It was crazy and I knew it.

  The bell echoed through the dining hall, signalling the end of breakfast. I gulped down the last of my coffee. It was time to fail an exam.

  Chapter 2

  Ten years later

  Seamus sat on my desk, his long legs stretched out in front of him. His green eyes sparkled with mirth as he told me about his latest trip to Ancient Egypt. I’d only half been listening. Something about a riddle and Pandora. The important part of his tale was that he’d taken a student.

  “What now?” I interrupted when he started talking about snakes. “What are you going to do?”

  He grinned. “She’s graduated now; she’s no longer a student. There’s nothing that will stop me from being with her. She’s going to do her teacher training and then she’ll return to the Academy. Imagine how amazing it will be to work next to the woman I lo…like.”

  I stared at him, surprised. “You love her.”

  A blush spread across his meticulously shaved cheeks. “Maybe. I don’t like using words like that. They’re not enough to express what I feel.”

  He adjusted his glasses. He’d taken to wearing them a lot recently. Maybe it had something to do with his new girlfriend. Some women liked men wearing glasses. I guess it made him look sophisticated. More intelligent than he really was.

  “Don’t look so grumpy,” he chided me with a smile. “It’s not like you haven’t had the opportunity to find a partner for yourself. Half the female teachers are lusting after you. Some of the men, too.”

  I scowled. “You know I’m not interested.”

  “Yes, because you’re in love with some mystery woman. Why don’t you finally tell me who she is? We’ve known each other for thirteen years, yet you still keep that one a secret.”

  “It’s because it’s complicated. And I’m not in love with her.”

  Last night’s dream belied my words. I’d seen her undress to put on the rough clothes of a washerwoman, exposing her lithe body. She’d lost weight after her recent miscarriage, but she was beautiful nonetheless. Her red locks fell to her chest, framing her full breasts; a sharp contrast to her pale skin. I woke up with my cock tenting the duvet. Even knowing that she was in peril, that she was about to try a daring attempt to escape Lochleven Castle, didn’t lessen my desire. I’d jerked off to the image of her maids pulling Mary’s dress over her head, slowly revealing her in all her glorious nakedness.

  I’d seen her naked before, many times, but it wasn’t the absence of clothes that made her so enticing. It was the way she held herself, the complete confidence that even though she was nude, she wasn’t ashamed or feeling vulnerable. She was a Queen inside and out, no matter the fact that she’d been forced to abdicate only days earlier. And I loved her for it.

  “You’re thinking of her now, I can see it,” Seamus said quietly, a smile curving his lips.

  My gaze flicked to my crotch.

  He laughed. “Not there. The way your eyes glazed over. I know how a man in love looks. I see it in the mirror every day.”

  “I thought you didn’t like that word,” I retorted, strangely angry at him knowing me so well.

  Seamus shrugged. “Sometimes. But you, my friend, are in love. Deeply. And you should act on it. Or forget her. Either or, you need to get a grip. I’ve heard that students have complained about your lectures. That all you focus on is Mary Queen of Scots. You know there were other people in her time? The students need to learn about them too, no matter your obsession with Mary.”

  I groaned. I hadn’t realised there’d been complaints. I thought I was a good teacher, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Not that I’d taken this career path because I loved teaching. After graduation, I’d started as a time agent apprentice, but after half a year, I had to return to the Academy. The dreams had stopped as soon as I left this building. And that was torture. As much as it hurt to dream of her every night without ever being able to talk to her, to touch her, it was better than the loneliness. Mary was my best friend, even though she didn’t know I existed. Pathetic.

  “I thought you should know. Better you change your ways now before it comes to the headmistress’s attention.”

  I nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate it. Really.”

  Seamus laughed. “I know you do.” He checked his watch. “We better get to class, the bell rings in two minutes.”

 
I couldn’t suppress another groan. Usually, I’d base my lesson on the dream I’d had. Today, it would have been Mary’s daring escape from Lochleven Castle. The first attempt, when she dressed as a washerwoman, failed, but several months later, she finally succeeded. It had been a brilliant plan. Together with her allies, she managed to get most of the island’s inhabitants drunk, while at the same time a friend destroyed all the boats, leaving only one for Mary to escape. Of course, her freedom wouldn’t last long, but I hoped she’d had some happy days during that time. It hurt me to watch Mary suffer.

  Most of her adult life had been suffering. There was little left of the happy girl running through the French palace. She’d experienced more pain and loss than most people would in their lifetime. Just shortly before the day I witnessed last night, she’d miscarried twins. I didn’t want to imagine how she felt. I was just glad I didn’t have to dream of that moment. Her son had been taken away from her, and now she’d lost her twins. Her current husband was in exile, her previous two husbands dead. Yes, Mary knew loss.

  The bell rang and I pulled myself out of my dark thoughts. I had to focus on something besides Mary. At least for the next hour while I held my lecture. Then, I could reminiscence again about a woman’s life I desperately wanted to be a part of.