His eyes were shining. “Fascinating. I don’t suppose you’d mind spending a few hours with me?” He gestured to the parchment and pens that surrounded him. “I’d love to record a bit of the knowledge you’ve brought with you…”
Douglas hit him across the back of the head with a rolled-up piece of paper. “You daft idiot, we have to finish this project first. There might be an attack, you know Brendan’ll have our hides if he’s caught out with no prior warning…”
“This’ll be done by tonight, one way or the other,” Jamie protested, rubbing the back of his head. “Forgive me for takin’ an interest in our guest, she’s only the most remarkable visitor we’ve had in a hundred years…”
“Don’t mind him, Miss Anna,” Douglas apologized to her, clearing a space for her to put the tray down. She did, grateful not to have to balance it precariously any longer.
“No, I’d be more than happy to talk,” she said, an idea occurring to her. “Perhaps we could organize something of an information exchange. I don’t know much about the Sidhe — I could tell you about my time if you’ll tell me about yours?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Douglas promised. “We’ve got almost too much information—”
“— most of it conjecture,” Jamie put in, rolling his eyes. “The Sidhe are a hard people to get a solid understanding of, try as we might. Much of our work is arguing which interpretations are correct…”
“Sounds like academia to me,” Anna said, smiling.
“Oh, aye. I’d offer to lend you a book or two, but they’re all in Gaelic, I’m afraid. But if you come back with questions, we’ll be more than happy to answer what we can.”
“I’ll take you up on that,” she promised. “But only once you’ve finished whatever you’re working on. I wouldn’t want to intrude.” The truth was she was desperately curious about what these men knew and was delighted to find that they’d be willing to answer her questions — but she didn’t want to get too curious too quickly. After all, these were clever men — they’d be bound to notice if she asked too many specific questions about, for example, escaping back to her own time through the burgh at the bottom of the loch. She’d come back later, having prepared a list of questions that would get her the information she wanted without coming right out and asking… and that way she wouldn’t appear over-eager for the information, just a regular amount of curious.
“I still think the translation is moon, not wolf,” Douglas was saying to Jamie — the two men lapsed into a fierce argument, and when they began to slip in and out of Gaelic, Anna knew it was time for her to go. Hopefully by the time she visited them tomorrow, they’d be less distracted with their work on whatever it was that was going on tonight. Everyone around here seemed to take the full moon a lot more seriously than she was used to. Where she was from, it was a consideration only if you were conducting stealth operations by night… nothing more. Here, it seemed to have a mystical significance.
She carried the empty tray back downstairs, having left the bowls of porridge for the men to eat when they got a chance, and the pastries, too. From the look of them, they were too dedicated to their work to spend much time on keeping body and soul together. She hoped they’d get at least some sleep and nourishment into them. There was something very likable about them both — the genuine, if bickering friendship they seemed to share, and the way they looked at her and spoke to her as an equal, unclouded by preconceptions about her gender. She thought of Donal and couldn’t help but scowl. He was lucky he was so goddamn hot, that was all she could say.
Back downstairs with the tray, she dropped it off in the kitchen then glanced around the room. Much of the chaos of earlier had died down — now, early preparations for lunch were the main activity of the room, with most of the breakfast dishes already washed and put away. Blair ran a tight ship, that was for sure. Anna knew a few officers who could take a tip or two from this fierce woman. She wandered toward the back of the kitchens, to the pantry — and to her surprise, heard a voice speaking a familiar name.
The door was ajar, and she peered through it, sensing there were people in there who didn’t want to be disturbed — and sure enough, there were two people in a rather unmistakable embrace. To her surprise, it was Amelia, the girl she’d met yesterday in the laundry — she had her arms around the neck of a man in a guard uniform, who Anna recognized with a start as Malcolm, Donal’s adopted brother, the tanist of the castle. She should leave them alone, she knew — but still, she couldn’t help but linger, curious to know what they were talking about. After all, despite the intimacy of their embrace, everyone involved was still fully clothed. Amelia must do an excellent job of keeping this particular relationship away from the rumor mill, Anna thought with an amused smile playing across her face. The gossip mill seemed to know what everyone was doing with everyone, but she hadn’t heard a whisper of this.
“Are you sure you can’t come tonight?” Amelia was pouting, batting her long eyelashes at Malcolm. It seemed to be working.
“It’s Donal, you know how he is.” The man sighed. “The occultists have said there might be some kind of Unseelie activity tonight, so everyone’s on call to go marching out into the dark at a moment’s notice.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’d be missed, Milly,” he chastened her, leaning in to press a quick kiss to her lips. “You know how he gets. That temper of his... that and his bravery make him a great fighter, but that and his stubbornness are why he’s got so few allies around here.”
“Aye, he could do better with the folk in the village,” Amelia agreed. “The mayor thinks he’s an arsehole.”
“Milly!”
“I said the mayor, not me! He’s got precious few allies, that’s all, he could afford to be a bit nicer to his tanist. Or to get laid,” she added with a giggle.
“Oh, aye, I agree with you there. He ought to find himself a wife. A woman’d settle him down somewhat. And maybe help him form some alliances without putting his foot in it,” he added, chuckling. “He’s trying to find someone, but there aren’t many eligible women of his standing around…”
Anna stole away from the doorway to the pantry, feeling a little guilty for eavesdropping. Her heart was beating hard and she rolled her eyes, irritated with how profoundly just hearing a conversation about Donal had affected her. So, he was in search of a wife, was he? A woman of his standing, a woman to help him with diplomacy and his workload in running the castle… and though she knew it was stupid, she couldn’t help but fantasize about the idea of that woman being her.
Chapter 29
She spent the rest of the morning pottering about in the kitchen. She’d never been much of a cook, it was true, but there was no shortage of low-skilled jobs to do… she peeled potatoes, chopped onions, and pottered back and forth taking peelings to the rubbish. There was a kind of composting system in place, where food scraps were collected in a great bin and taken across the land bridge twice a week to surrounding farms, who used them to feed their livestock or fertilize their farms. In return, the farms helped feed the people of the castle. Anna was enjoying learning more and more about the castle as she spent time around it and was glad more than ever that she’d taken the initiative to grab a set of servant clothes and join the ranks of the servants. She’d have gone absolutely stir crazy in her room by now if that had been the only option. Perhaps she’d have learned to embroider, or something, she thought with a smile… but no. The kind of woman she was, she needed to be moving and working to be happy.
Lunch was delicious — and she felt all the better for having helped cook it. She sat with the servants this time — Maeve was nowhere to be seen, presumably off in the castle somewhere, attending to her own tasks — and listened in on the gossip mill. She half expected to hear something about Malcolm and Amelia’s little dalliance, but sure enough, Amelia was too clever to have been caught just yet… the girls talked briefly about the eligible bachelors of the castle, with Malcolm’s name coming up briefly. Mu
ch of their focus was on Brendan, however.
“He’s so dark and handsome,” Emily sighed. Anna found herself agreeing — the stern-faced guard captain was certainly a good-looking man.
“What about Laird Donal?” Amelia said suddenly, giving Anna a casual look as she spoke. “He’s rather handsome, isn’t he, Anna?”
There was a certain energy to the question that Anna picked up on immediately — the other girls were watching her answer a little too carefully for the question to have been coincidental. What was going on? Did they know about her crush on him somehow? Women were ridiculous, she thought, unable to fight the blush that was rising on her face. Mind readers, the lot of them.
“He’s fine,” she said guardedly — but the blush on her face spoke volumes. The girls collapsed into giggles. “What!” she demanded, laughing a little herself. “Am I wrong to have noticed?”
“Of course not.” Amelia giggled.
She returned to her lunch, feeling a combination of amusement and embarrassment. It was fine if the servants gossiped about her, she supposed — in a strange way, it made her feel like part of the castle. For all that Maeve had told her a hundred times how welcome she was, it was little touches like this — like being the subject of gossip — that had actually made her feel at home. That, and helping out with work around the place. There was a reason new recruits got chores assigned to them straight away, almost before they got uniforms.
But the conversation soon turned to what had been going on in the castle that day. It seemed that there was some kind of activity — the soldiers were being asked to mobilize, getting ready for a potential sortie out into the forests around the lake. Anna tuned in, very interested in any skerrick of military information — after all, she may have been doing her best to be a good domestic worker, but military strategy was far more her speed. It was interesting to watch the way Amelia conveyed her information — carefully, assigning it to a range of different sources, cleverly designed to disguise the fact that she’d learned everything she knew from Malcolm that morning in the pantry. A very clever young woman.
“I heard they’re arming up with iron,” she said, eyes gleaming. The servants all exchanged meaningful glances.
“What does that mean?” Anna asked.
“It means Unseelie Fae, usually,” Emily explained. “Cold iron is the only thing that hurts them — they’re immune to all other kinds of harm.”
Interesting. Anna touched the dirk that was still tucked in her clothes, very glad of her choice. If there were monsters out there — and what reason did she have to believe that there weren’t? — she was glad to have a weapon on her that could harm them.
“It just means we’ll get dragged out in the middle of the night,” one of the men was grumbling. “I hate being on supply duty for the guards.”
That was interesting. It seemed, from the way the conversation continued, that servants went along with the guards and soldiers, carrying their supplies with them on hunts for Unseelie creatures. Anna resolved right there and then that she’d be a part of that company, come hell or high water.
After the meal, she helped the servants clear the tables, and spent some time scrubbing plates. She was much slower than the others but counseled herself that she’d get quicker in time… but still, there was something dissatisfying about this work. There was a buzz of activity in the castle — the soldiers were getting geared up, ready to go out hunting for a foe to defeat. It was making her feel trapped. She could offer so much more to the castle than just her domestic labor… it was galling to know that she was stuck here scrubbing plates when she could be advising on strategy, helping the men hunt down whatever strange creature — or creatures — were out there in the darkness. And besides — she could learn so much! She consoled herself that at least she’d be present for the hunt… she’d be there as a servant, of course, but that was better than not being there at all.
Will Donal try to stop me? she wondered. He might be annoyed if he realized she was trying to involve herself in military maneuvers, especially after their argument the other day. But surely, if she stayed in line with the servants like a good little woman (her lip curled at that thought) he’d be happy enough to let her be there. At any rate, he didn’t have to know about it. She was all but invisible in her servant attire — he’d hardly recognized her the other night in his room, after all. And it would be dark. She’d keep her head down (not hard when you were five foot tall) and hopefully he wouldn’t even know she was there.
But she’d have her dirk on her. Just in case.
That was a thought — perhaps she ought to check out the weapons, see if there was something a bit more threatening than a dirk, especially if they were going to be hunting. A ranged weapon could be useful. Some iron throwing knives, perhaps — she thought she remembered seeing something like that. Blair wasn’t around, so it was easy enough to slip away from the servants who were washing up — they’d probably work more quickly without her, anyway, she thought with a reluctant smile. She wasn’t exactly the most effective servant around.
But as she stole along the corridor toward the armory, her heart sank. It didn’t look like she was going to be able to get in there any time soon. There were at least a dozen men loitering around in the corridor — all of them guards, all of them possessed of that buzzing energy that she’d noticed in the men in the dining hall. Of course. They must be arming themselves for the hunt tonight — exactly what she’d thought of doing, she thought with a rueful smile. Still — if she couldn’t ‘borrow’ any weapons, maybe she could at least get a bit of information while she was up here. She ducked into an unused room down the hall from the armory, leaving the door open a crack so she could peer out into the hall. Sure enough, within a few minutes, Brendan had emerged from the armory, holding a black dirk like the one she’d borrowed in his hand. The men around him had them, too. It seemed she’d made a good choice of weapon.
“Alright, we’ll talk more about it when we’re gathered up tonight, but I’ll give you all a preliminary briefing so you can get ready,” Brendan was saying to his men. She recognized the tone of voice of a commanding officer briefing his troops — her spine tingled with the urge to stand at attention. Old habits died hard, it seemed. “Reports from the village are of a creature that eats sheep, that’s all we know. A couple of sightings of a huge black shape with glowing eyes, but not from anyone who’s particularly reliable. They thought it was a wolf until they found a carcass — the bite marks are far too large to be a regular creature. It’s struck a few times over the last few months, but the pattern is pretty clear — it’s the full moon. Occultists have confirmed that there are Unseelie creatures who hunt only at the full moon, and you know how hard it is to get those guys to agree on anything.” There was a chorus of chuckles from the men, and Anna found herself grinning, thinking of Jamie and Douglas. “So, keep the iron on you, keep your wits about you… keep safe. We’ll meet in the courtyard just after nightfall. That’s all.”
The men dispersed. Anna waited for them all to be gone from the hallway — Brendan was the last to leave, and she watched him as he locked the armory door with a key that he kept on his belt. No chance of borrowing any ranged weapons, then, she thought with a frown. Ah, well. At least she had her dirk — and some information on the beast they’d be hunting. Something wolf-like, but bigger than a wolf — something that hunted on the full moon. It was a little frightening, she had to admit, waiting for Brendan to leave the hallway. But she’d gone on much scarier missions in her time as a soldier.
Never fought a werewolf though, did you?
Don’t be stupid, she scolded herself, hurrying down the hallway toward the staircase once Brendan had left. It was just a big wolf, that was all. For all they knew, there was nothing supernatural about it. It could just be a wolf… a big one, true, but just a wolf. Nothing supernatural about sheep getting hunted. Still, her spine was tingling, and she was glad that her weapon was made of the material that was rumored to
be deadly to Unseelie Fae. She was going to get some firsthand information about these creatures tonight, one way or the other. Perhaps she’d have an interesting story to bring back to Jamie and Douglas, she thought with a grin.
Whatever happened, it felt good to have a mission again — a military mission, a mission more befitting a soldier than a spy. She’d help hunt down this creature, whatever it was, learn more about the Fae, and — if she was lucky — get one more step closer to getting home. With any luck, one day she’d wake up and think about all of this as some kind of bizarre dream. But for now, if she wanted to be sharp for the night mission, it would be good to get some sleep. She headed for her room, keenly aware of the cold iron dirk pressing against her back. Sleep now. Then hunt tonight.
This creature, whatever it was, had no idea what it had coming.
Chapter 30
For some reason, she’d always been good at getting to sleep before something important happened — whether it was a deployment or a mission, or even an important presentation in her more recent line of work. No matter how nervous she may have been, no matter how much adrenaline, she was somehow always able to get a good sleep. She’d always assumed, in her Army days, that it had to do with being exhausted all the time — but that didn’t seem to be the case now. Maybe it was a deeper instinct — her body knew that she’d need all the rest she could get in advance of whatever was about to happen, so it automatically dropped into a restful sleep. Whatever the cause, Anna tucked herself up in bed and shut her eyes — and immediately fell into a deep, refreshing sleep. No dreams of handsome, aggravating Lairds this time — just sleep.
When she woke up, the last of the light was beginning to drain from the sky, and she knew that it was time to get going. She dressed quickly in her servants’ clothes again, adding another layer — a jacket of a kind that she’d seen the servants wearing on colder mornings, or when they worked outside at night. It was surprisingly warm, and she realized it was lined with sheepskin. Good, she thought — not only would it keep her warm, it would also serve to disguise the dirk she had tucked inside her clothing. She moved the weapon to the outside of her clothes, knowing that it would save valuable seconds if she was called upon to draw it if it was closer to the surface. Ready for action, she trotted down the stairs, finding the castle abuzz with energy and anticipation.
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