“You okay?”
“I think so. I don't really believe that I'm here completely, so the idea of being stuck is sort of ... academic.” She tried to force herself to think about it, then made a dismayed sound. “I got a grant to come study this castle! I'm never going to publish that book.”
“Also, family,” Marianne said drily.
“Shit. Them, too.” Guilt ran through her like a fire. “My mom and dad... my brother... what are they going to think happened to me? Are they going to find my body or whatever?”
Marianne shook her head. “Your body's here with us. You’re still in it, babe. We never get found. Cora's my cousin — she went missing a few months before I did, and it was a big mystery what had happened to her body. They found her car and her handbag, but her body itself was gone. Safe and sound back here, of course, as I found out, but… everyone in the future? No news, not ever. That's probably the worst part... knowing that our loved ones never got closure on where we went.”
Delilah took a deep breath, and a spoonful of her oatmeal, which was delicious — rich and thick, with a faint hint of honey. Her parents would lose their daughter with no clue what had happened to her... her brother, alone in the world...
“Nope,” she said firmly, taking another spoonful of porridge. “I'll just write 'em a letter.”
Marianne laughed. “Postage from the fifteenth century's gonna be a bitch.”
“Fiona's phone made it to the twenty-first century,” Delilah pointed out. “I'll put a letter under it.”
“It'll rot, won't it?”
“Not if I use the right stuff.” She tilted her head to the side. “Did you really not think of writing a letter to your families? I can help with that. I know what survives and what doesn't, I know how to make sure artefacts will make it through history... it's kind of my field of expertise.”
“That's brilliant,” Marianne said, eyes aglow. She leaned across the table, lowered her voice a little. “Look, I don't want to spook you or anything, but there's something else you need to know about all this. We all — well, it seems like all the women who come back here — and like I said, there's six of us now, so it's a reliable pattern — we bear a resemblance to a Scottish woman who went missing. An extremely close resemblance. And they're usually women who died tragically, so keep an eye out for that. I'll introduce you to Audrina later — she's probably the best person to talk to about it all. She was the first of us,” she added.
Delilah's eyes widened at the thought of being dumped in this strange place with no information whatsoever about what had happened. How on Earth had she figured it out? It had taken Delilah almost a full day even with multiple people telling her exactly what was happening.
But Marianne was still talking — she was grateful to have her there, stopping her from spiraling too far into her own reflections. “In the meantime... you need new clothes.”
“What's wrong with my jeans?”
“Not invented yet,” Marianne said drily. “And they stick out a bit, too. Women tend to wear dresses. I think it's bullshit, myself, but the new Laird is paranoid about the women of the castle looking weird at all. We've had a whole lot of trouble with the Church, and the English, and witch hunters —”
“Witch hunters!”
“We're twenty-first century educated women, for the most part,” Marianne said drily. “We tend to draw attention. So dress the part, yeah? Big billowy skirts, that kind of thing. They're kind of fun once you get used to them. We look about the same size, you can borrow some of mine until you can get the tailor to make you a few.”
“Won't be necessary,” Delilah said automatically. “I can sew.”
“Modern dresses won't cut it,” Marianne objected. “It'll need to be —”
“I sewed a dozen medieval gowns last year for a festival, I'll be okay.”
“Oh, man, you're one of those nerds. Fantastic.” Marianne grinned at her — the woman had such an infectious smile that Delilah didn't even mind being called a nerd. “You'll fit in straight away. Can you sword fight, too?”
“I can, actually,” she admitted, a rueful grin on her face.
Marianne whooped, startling the men nearby again. So much for not drawing attention, Delilah thought with a little grin to herself. Marianne didn’t seem the subtle type.
“You can! Fantastic! Spar with me sometime? Eamon always goes easy on me no matter what I do, big oaf.” Her face fell. “Ugh. But the Laird doesn't like us sparring. Says it draws too much attention, especially if people already suspect we're witches.”
Delilah shrugged. “So we spar where nobody's around. In college I wasn't allowed swords. Had to sneak into the gym in the dead of night to keep my hand in. We've got a whole countryside to practice in, right? It’s not like anyone can track us with the GPS on our phones or anything…”
Marianne was grinning broadly. “Oh, I like you. Can't wait to introduce you to Karin. She's been teaching us all to box.”
What a strange little coven of women she'd fallen into, Delilah thought remotely as they finished their breakfast and Marianne excused herself — she had a riding class to teach down in the village, apparently, but she extracted a promise from Delilah that they'd steal some wooden swords and do some sparring later that day. At dinner, she'd be introduced to all the other women who'd been dropped back in time. Before Marianne left, though, she'd ducked upstairs to her room and come clattering down with a huge armful of brown fabric — a simple but well-made dress, which she pressed into Delilah's arms then went clattering right on out the door. So Delilah retraced her steps to the little guest room she'd spent the night in, smiling to herself. She'd have to get hold of some paper, start making a map of the upstairs. The records had been rather thin on that front. She changed quickly, unsure of what to do with her jeans — finally, she folded them, along with her jacket and shirt, and left them on the bed. She was loath to get rid of them — the only clothes she had from the future. Not even my favourite pair of jeans, she thought irritably — and now she was stuck with them forever. Well, maybe she could figure out how to make jeans. Denim couldn’t be that far away on the inventing front, right?
Yes. This was a good way to go about it. Lose herself in the minutiae of her situation until her mind could come to terms properly with the huge upheaval that her life had undergone. Trust the subconscious to work through it on its own time.
The dress was comfortable, at least — the fabric looked rough, but was of finer quality than she'd expected, and the stitching was exquisite. Just uneven enough to reveal that it was hand-sewn, and not pressed by a machine. She'd done that a few times herself. Sewing had always been rather a soothing pastime, and it had always made her feel closer to the medieval women she played in re-enactments. Maybe she'd ride down to the village and buy some fabric from someone, if she could get hold of whatever currency was in use. Or would she have to trade? She'd need to find some way of passing the time, after all — or would the castle find her a job? What skills did she have? Storytelling wasn't exactly an uncommon talent in medieval times — there weren't many other ways of spreading news. And her strange accent might draw too much attention if she tried to make a career out of storytelling…
Well, she had a dinner date, at least — she was looking forward to meeting the other women. But what was she to do with all the time she had now? How much time exactly? Impossible to say. Watches weren't exactly a commodity around here (she growled with the realization that she'd never be able to Google little details like that again.) But she could eyeball the sun in the sky — which she did, stepping out onto the courtyard again. This really was the castle she'd spent so much of her life thinking about, she reflected with a smile beginning to creep across her face. She'd never in a thousand years thought she'd see it like this. It was almost — wonderful, really. What folklorist worth her salt wouldn't be a bit thrilled to be taken back in time like this? Almost made up for never seeing her family again. Almost. She put that particular idea aside for th
e time being — no sense making herself cry in public. After all, like Marianne had said, it was in her interests to draw as little attention as possible.
There was an enormous pile of wooden swords standing by the part of the courtyard in which a handful of young men were sparring with one another. She watched for a little while, curious about their form, and was delighted to realize that the forms she'd studied had survived more or less intact to the twenty-first century. A result of all the manuscripts about sword fighting that were circulated — there were so many of them that a few had survived, and they'd been legible enough to piece together ancient techniques. Delilah moved through the courtyard, her hands itching to pick up one of the swords — but then she remembered what Marianne had said about the Laird not wanting women to fight, for fear of attracting attention. Ridiculous, really — women had fought with swords for as long as men had, at least — but she didn't much fancy getting on the wrong side of the castle's leader on her first day. She hadn’t even met him. What would he be like, she wondered? Stern and gruff? Young and handsome?
So as she walked past the pile of swords, she simply scooped one up. It was the work of a moment to conceal it in the rather large skirts of the dress — with the hand gripping the weapon tucked amidst the folds of the skirt as though to hold its hem up out of the mud, she wandered over to the gates and waved to the guards with her free hand. One of them blinked down at her — she couldn't recognize him from this distance, but the look of recognition on his face suggested that he might have been one of the men who'd carried her in the night before.
“Feeling better, lassie?” he called.
She grinned at that little epithet. The cab driver had called her that. Something wonderful about the idea that it was an expression so ancient that it was shared between two men from five hundred years apart.
“Much better, thank you!”
“Out for a walk? You'll be careful, hear!”
“Aye,” she called back, feeling daring enough to try out her Scottish accent. The SCA ran accent classes now and again, and she'd always enjoyed learning new ways to inhabit her characters. “I'll be — oot and back in a wee shake of a lamb's tail!”
She heard a chorus of laughter from the battlements, but the gates obligingly swung open for her to leave. Had her accent truly been that bad? Feeling a little sheepish, she strode out of the castle and headed for the thick trees that stood beyond the road outside. All she needed was a clearing she could work in. Nobody would come across her in the trees, right? Not with the road running through the forest like that. She'd keep off the beaten track as much as possible — and if anyone stumbled upon her, well, she'd just make up a story. She could improvise, after all. She'd done plenty of that with the SCA. Who would have thought so many of those silly skills would come in handy? Not her brother, who always teased her for her nerdy hobby. Well, the joke was on Sam. Not that she had any way of telling him so. How frustrating, to be so unexpectedly right about something, and so completely incapable of rubbing it in her brother’s face.
The wooden sword was surprisingly comfortable in her hand — smooth and well-polished by hours of sparring, she assumed, looking at the wooden blade to confirm her suspicions. Sure enough, it was covered in nicks and scratches, testament to the clashes it had been through. How many men who'd wielded this sword in practice had gone on to kill other men with real steel, she wondered, a little sobered by the thought. It was easy to forget the real purpose of sword fighting when you were hung up on the technique of it all. She found a little clearing not far from the road, but far enough that she was confident in being hidden, and started running through the drills she'd learned with her new sword. It was a little heavier than the ones she was used to — or was she just out of practice?
God, it felt good to do something familiar and physical like this. Delilah felt a lot of the stress of the last few hours beginning to melt away, replaced by the drumming of her heart in her ears and the breath in her lungs. She was so hypnotized by the pattern of her drills and the quiet of the clearing that she hardly noticed the sound of breaking twigs behind her — until she feinted then spun around, the sword extended, and uttered an undignified yelp of surprise at the man standing at the edge of her clearing with his arms folded across his chest.
It was none other than Gavin MacClaran. And the look on his face wasn't much more positive than the one he'd worn the night before, when he'd stared at her as if she was a monster then slammed the door against the very sight of her.
And here she was, in the woods with him. Alone.
Chapter 7
Delilah tightened her grip on the wooden sword in her hand, staring down Gavin MacClaran as she did. She could see at a glance that he was in a much better strategic position than her — his guard uniform clearly included significant armor, though to her practiced eye it was clearly the kind of armor that was designed more for blocking arrows, not blows from a sword. Nevertheless, it would do both jobs... especially as she was working with a blunt wooden sword, not steel. He wasn't wearing his helmet, at least. That was something that may work in her favor. If she could get a decent shot at his face in, she might be able to blind or otherwise incapacitate him for long enough to get away... or maybe she could crack him on the head hard enough to knock him out. Perhaps? He was likely to be an experienced swordsman... she'd need to be clever if she was going to get such an easy shot away...
Delilah shook her head a little. Why was she fantasizing about a battle with this man? All he'd done was stand there looking at her. First exhaust the diplomatic options, she cautioned herself, feeling a bit ridiculous for going down the path of violence so quickly. But she didn't lower the sword. If he was there to harm her, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. At the very least she’d give him a scar or two to think about before she was dead and buried.
“Good day,” Gavin said steadily, his green eyes not leaving her face. He hadn't done anything as gauche as putting his hand on the hilt of his sword, but there was a certain energy to the way he was holding his right arm that worried her. It was a little too ready to strike, for her liking at least.
“Hi. Gavin, right?”
“Ah. Yes. We haven't met, but — yes.” He was staring at her with an incredible intensity. It felt as though he was only half aware that he was even speaking. “Gavin MacClaran. And you, I've heard, are...”
“Delilah Cortland,” she provided, helpfully. Did her surname mean anything around here? Perhaps there was a Cortland castle… but no, Cortland was her father’s name. His ancestry wasn’t Scottish.
“You stole a sword from the guard.” It wasn't a question. His eyes hadn't left her face, but he gestured a little to the wooden blade in her hand.
“I borrowed it,” she corrected him, narrowing her eyes a little. “There was a huge pile of them that nobody was using. I was going to return it when I was finished.”
“Why?”
She blinked. “Why borrow a sword? To practice.”
He scoffed a little at that, and she realized with a flare of irritation that she didn't actually know anything about this man. His last name was MacClaran — like Fiona, like Marianne, like Mary — so presumably he was to be trusted. But he wasn't exactly doing a good job of seeming trustworthy, with his green eyes full of anger and suspicion and fear... what was that, anyway? Why was he glaring at her like that, as though she was wronging him deeply by just being here? Did it have something to do with what Fiona and Mary had been saying, about the resemblance she bore to his long-dead wife? Well, it wasn't her fault if she looked like someone else, and he could damn well be polite.
“Did I say something funny?” she asked levelly now, putting as much ice into her voice as she could muster, and the mocking smile that had been on his face died away, replaced again by that cold suspicion.
“What does a woman need with a sword?”
“Same thing a man needs.”
“You don't honestly think you'd stand a chance against a man in ha
nd-to-hand combat?”
“Depends how good he is,” she snapped back. “I’d do pretty well against someone arrogant enough to think men are naturally better fighters than women, I reckon.”
There'd been a guy like this in the club when she'd joined — a real creep of a guy, always carrying on about how wonderful medieval women must have been, how great it would be to have a wife who knew her place. He'd made no secret of the fact that he didn't think women should train with the men to fight with swords, and spent classes making sexist 'jokes' to make the female members of the club uncomfortable. She and the other women in the club had eventually gotten him kicked out, and the satisfaction she'd felt at seeing his helpless anger was still a warm memory she returned to now and again. Gavin was laughing the way that guy had used to laugh whenever female classmates made any kind of mistake with the training. And without thinking about it, Delilah raised her sword and pointed it at the green-eyed man's throat.
“I'll take you on.”
He stared at her. “Oh, sure, lass.”
“Don't call me that. What, scared a woman might beat you?”
He bristled. “Scared I'll harm ye, actually.”
“Leave your sword in its scabbard. C'mon.”
“To first blow?”
“First to three strikes, or to disarm the other.” It was the standard way of sparring when she trained with the SCA — the suggestion came to her naturally.
“Fine.” He nodded, accepting her terms.
“Ready?”
He gave a stiff little bow, then unbuckled his sword from where it was attached to his hip. It was about the same length as the practice sword she was holding, the dull black scabbard protecting her from the sharp of the blade — still, it didn't look like a particularly pleasant thing to be struck by, and she danced back a little, finding the lightness in her feet and the balance with her wooden blade. They circled each other, his eyes still full of that curious anger that seemed to be a natural response to looking at her. It was probably a stupid idea to duel him, she reflected, a little apprehensive about the outcome here.
Highlander Cursed: A Scottish Time Travel Romance Page 6