“What happened to this wall?” he asked from mild curiosity and for the sake of conversation.
She walked along it, and he followed. “You’ll notice some of the village houses are stone. When this castle was last used for purposes of war the outer curtain was breached. See, over there by the drawbridge, where sappers dug a mine under it then set fire to the supports so it collapsed. The assault still failed and my . . . our Matheson ancestors retained the keep. The MacDonells were eventually beaten back. Rather than repair the castle, though, since the strategic value of such a stronghold had become not worth the rebuilding, they turned the fortress into little more than a very large house and began taking the stones from the outer curtain for other uses. Over the past century, they’ve used almost every stone, and the outer bailey is now grazing for sheep.”
Dylan looked around as if he cared. “I see.” He kept an eye on her, and within reach of her, lest she stumble on those stones and fall into the icy water of the loch. But, not wanting to appear to be hovering, he picked up some flat stones from the rubble underfoot and began skipping them across the water.
“Oh!” she cried, and reached for a rock he had in his hand. “Look!” She showed it to him. It looked like a donut. “A Goddess Stone!”
“A what?”
“It’s a stone with a hole worn through it. It’s magic!”
Oh, brother. “Really?”
“Indeed. Look through this hole and you can see if there are any faeries nearby.”
Suddenly he was interested. “Really?” He put the rock to his eye like a monocle and looked around. Sure enough, there was Sinann, perched in the crotch of the willow right behind them. He waved. She stuck her tongue out at him.
Caitrionagh giggled. “You’re funny.” Then she put her hand to his chest and he froze, the Goddess Stone forgotten. Her eyes looked straight into his, and he could suddenly hear his heart pound in his ears. She murmured, “I need something,” and opened his shirt front. He held his breath. Her hand went inside his shirt. His mind flew to figure her out, what she was up to, but could grasp nothing. Still her fingers sought inside his shirt.
Then she grasped his dirk and pulled it from its sheath under his arm. “Hey!” he said, disappointed. He watched as she cut a piece of branch from the tree. Then she cut from the thin branch two pieces the length of her finger, and handed the knife back to him. She stuck one of the pieces between her teeth and handed the other to him.
Sinann’s voice in the swaying branches overhead made his eyes narrow, but he didn’t look up. “She’s playing with ye, lad!”
“Ah.” He slipped the Goddess Stone into his sporran, took the piece of willow branch, and put it between his teeth the way she did. “A toothpick.” He chewed one end so it flayed like a brush. “Beats the snot out of picking your teeth with a knife, eh?”
She laughed and let him escort her into the castle. “Beating snot out? Such a way you have with words, mo caraid!”
He laughed and glanced back at the tree, but if Sinann was still there he would need the stone to see her. He said to Caitrionagh, “Tell me what that was about last night.”
She paused in her chewing on the toothpick, thinking. Then she said, “You shouldnae put much store in it.”
“So you didn’t mean what you said?”
“Nae.” A smile played at the corners of her mouth. “But if the castle were to know that, we would be watched far too closely to suit me. I’d much rather let them all think I barred my door against you every night and never spoke to you if I could avoid it.”
Dylan kept his expression neutral, but his heart lightened. “Am I to take it, then, that you would not bar your door against me?”
She turned and tapped him across the arm with the remainder of willow branch in her hand, as if it were a whip. “I said not to put much store in it. I simply prefer the prying eyes look elsewhere. That is all.”
Dylan nodded as if he believed her, but saw the flush in her cheeks that told him things she wouldn’t say with words.
Winter struck in earnet soon after Dylan took delivery of his black wool coat and kilt of rust-and-black tartan, and he was glad for the warmth of the heavier kilt in addition to the coat. The people of Ciorram took to their homes, and there was no longer any unnecessary traffic to and from the castle. Aside from the occasional trip to deliver food to Marsaili and her family, Caitrionagh never set foot beyond the gatehouse by the drawbridge.
In her mother’s absence she spent her days supervising the household staff. Each day she also set aside some time for her needlework. Dylan spent his own days within earshot, sometimes in a chair just outside the room where the women did the sewing, sometimes on the stone steps inside the kitchen that led to the animal pens in the bailey.
Sigurd the collie kept him company, and he taught the dog to fetch a deer bone he’d rescued from a soup pot one morning. Siggy was tireless in his retrieval, but when his arm wore out the dog would flop down by Dylan’s side to rest and chew on the bone.
At Christmas time Dylan found himself in the right place at the right time to sample every holiday dish in preparation. Caitrionagh seemed to enjoy feeding him, and he gained back some of the weight he’d lost in the fall. Since his arrival he’d been dismayed by the lack of anything sweet, and Dylan guessed the commerce in cane sugar from the southern American colonies had not yet made it this far north. The cravings had gone away weeks ago, and he figured his sweet tooth had died of starvation.
One frosty December day, Dylan was sitting in the kitchen, on the steps with Siggy stretched out on the step below his feet, watching Cait supervise the help. Her arms were up to her elbows with oatmeal dust, for she helped with the grunt work as well as the decision making. As he studied her, she reminded him of her father: born to take charge and tolerating no guff. But she leavened her orders with a charm she certainly hadn’t inherited from Iain Mór. Dylan followed her every move with fascination.
Then Caitrionagh brought him a bannock with something like pink cottage cheese smeared on it.
“What’s this?”
She smiled. “Ye’ve never eaten crannachan?”
He shook his head. “Where I come from it doesn’t get much better than peanut butter and strawberry jam.” He wasn’t sure peanut butter had been invented yet, but doubted he would cause a serious time anomaly by mentioning it and didn’t much care if he did.
Caitrionagh frowned. “Butter of peas and nuts? How strange.” She shrugged. “Try this.”
He took a bite and his eyebrows went up. His sweet tooth awoke, the happiest it had been since October. “Man, this stuff is great!” It was heavy, whipped cream with oatmeal and raspberry preserves, and there was a bit of that toasted oatmeal flavor to it. Cait had spread it on the bannock over a slathering of butter. It was the best thing he’d tasted since coming here. Cait dusted oatmeal from her hands and went back to work, satisfied by his reaction, and he watched her go. The sway of her hips under her wool overdress took his mind quite away from the crannachan. She turned, and smiled at the look on his face. He came back to himself, then remembered to swallow and took another bite of the bannock.
Siggy whined and slobbered, eyeing Dylan’s food. Dylan grinned at him. “Uh uh. Mine.” He took another bite, almost finishing it. “Mine, all mine.” But in the end he didn’t have the heart to take the last bite, so he handed it over to the dog. Siggy wolfed it, looked for more, and when he saw there was none, flopped back down on the step at Dylan’s feet. Dylan would have liked some more, too, but contented himself with watching Caitrionagh work.
These particular Mathesons being Catholic, Dylan had little choice but to attend Mass with them whenever the parish priest made it out to Ciorram, which was every month or so, not necessarily on Sunday. Though Catholicism was a mite alien to his experience, and though his former-hippie, former-Jesus-freak, finally-Methodist mother would not approve, he viewed mass as a chance to learn about Caitrionagh, her life, and her beliefs. Besides, Methodism w
ouldn’t even exist for another half-century, so he would be hard put to find a congregation if he were inclined to look. The intense conflicts between the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Catholics in Scotland being what they were at the time, Dylan was not eager to rock that particular boat.
So, to the end of fitting in, he acquired a sturdy linen cord on which he hung the ebony and silver crucifix he’d found in his trunk, which he wore under his shirt and never removed. In time he became somewhat attached to it, regardless of what his mother or the local Presbyterians might have said about the graven silver image.
With his new job, his pay more than doubled to nine pence a day, and he was now able to insist on cash. At Christmas he spent some on presents, and received a few as well. From Iain he received a fine, foot-long dirk with a triangular blade and an etched silver hilt, which he now carried in a steel scabbard inside the straps of his right legging. From Caitrionagh there was a new sark of bleached linen she’d embroidered in intricate white-on-white at the collar and cuffs, which he now wore on Sundays. And from Sarah, some writing paper and ink. Those he kept stashed in his trunk, not sure how to address the issue of letters home, because there was nobody to receive them. Also, he was not entirely comfortable with the idea of exchanging gifts with Sarah.
At a little over a pound sterling per month, less the weekly penny he paid Seonag to launder his kilts, sarks, and bedclothes, and the other weekly penny he paid Gracie to bring him a bucket of hot water for washing every evening, by mid-January he’d accumulated two English pounds and a few shillings in cold cash.
The weather worsened after New Year’s, and the darkness seemed never ending. Now even the scant light that had come through the few windows was blocked by deep overcast. Fresh air was rare, respiratory infections ran rampant, and Dylan noticed the food was changing. Everything fresh was gone. Meat was now all salted or smoked, the oatmeal had that dull been around flavor to it, and even fresh baked bread seemed a mite hard and tasteless. Dylan started looking for bugs, and hoped the fact he never found any was a true indication there weren’t any.
It was the late evenings Dylan treasured. After the céilidh when there was one, with the castle quiet and no traffic on the West Tower stairs, he waited on his bunk in his sark, stretched out face-down with the book of poetry opened before him on the floor as if he were reading it, his chin resting on the mattress box. He rarely read anything, but only stared at the words until the carved door to the chamber would open just enough, and Cait would sit on the floor with her back against the stone opening to talk to him. He never moved from his bunk, and she never opened the door so far that she couldn’t slip it discreetly closed if someone approached from the hallway. Since the door was situated in the deepest corner of the alcove, Dylan could see anyone coming from downstairs and greet them before they might see the door, and if anyone came from upstairs Cait would see their feet before they were down far enough to see the door. Anyone who happened by would find the door closed and Dylan reading by candlelight, alone.
Sometimes he read to her from the poetry book. Sometimes she read to him. Her voice so close and quiet, and her hair glimmering in the unsteady candlelight, she read, or talked of things she loved and hoped for, and asked him questions about America.
“What are the red savages like? I’ve heard they’re ghastly murderers,” she said one night early in February. She hugged her knees and rested her chin on them, her eyes wide as if she weren’t sure she wanted to hear the gory details in answer to her question.
That was a hard one for Dylan. Indians in his own time tended to be as peaceful as anyone else, but he knew that while he and Cait sat in this castle there were attacks and skirmishes all over the colonies, and settlers lived in morbid fear of Indians.
On the other hand, this wasn’t far from the time when his white ancestry merged with his Indian ancestry. He had no clue of the circumstances of that union, but had always assumed it had been consensual. Rape in this century, in that place, would probably have never made it into written record to be found by his mother so many years later.
What he told Cait was, “It can be dangerous if one lives outside the large towns. The Indians don’t like us very well.” True enough.
“But you never killed one.”
“I never had to.” Also true.
“Do you miss America?”
He did, but what he missed were things she couldn’t comprehend if he told her. How could he explain television, or cravings for cinnamon-flavored jawbreakers? He missed french fries, but the Scottish people of this time didn’t even yet know what a potato was. He said, “Have you ever wondered what it might be like to fly?”
She chuckled, low and quiet. “Fly? Like a bird?”
“Just like a bird. So high and so fast that you could go halfway around the world in a day. Would you like that?”
Her eyes glittered with excitement. “Halfway around the world? I’ve never even been to England.”
“If you could fly, you could go to England in . . .” He made a guess, “oh, about an hour, I think.”
“How wonderful!” Her eyes glittered in the candlelight and her voice rose with excitement. “You should tell stories, you’re so—”
“Full of it, I know.”
“Full of what?”
“Manure.” That made her laugh, a little too loudly, and he shushed her. Then he said, “What if you could pick up a machine and talk into it, and there would be another person miles away who could hear you?”
She really was getting into this. “My mother?”
That struck him. He’d not noticed before that she missed her mother, who was still in Killilan. “Yeah, your mother. You could pick up the pho . . . machine any time you wanted, and talk to her. And she could talk back.”
Cait pulled her blanket a little tighter around her shoulders. “And could you talk to your mother in America?”
His heart went heavy. Did his mother even know he was gone? That is, would she know in 286 years? Would Sinann ever send him back to his own time, or would he be dust centuries before Mom might realize his absence?
Cait said, “You must miss your family terribly.”
“I do.”
She gathered her feet under her to stand, then came to sit next to him on his bunk. He sat up, not entirely comfortable with her that close but certainly not wanting to send her away. The alcove was private enough to give a false sense of security, but not private enough to make this safe proximity for them, especially at night. She took his hand, which kept him from standing. Her voice low enough to not be heard even from the stairs, she said, “I hope you have found a place with us.” She kissed his knuckles where the scars were still pink.
He felt suspended in time, in that moment when everything changes and there is no going back. Nor wanting to go back. When he finally moved, it was to lean over and touch his mouth to hers. Her lips were tender, caressing. He was breathless, expecting her to back away.
She didn’t retreat. Instead, she reached up to run her fingers into his hair. He pressed the kiss, and as his mind turned to mush he wished the suspension of time would last forever. She opened her mouth to him, and he pressed further. He wanted to drink her in. Take her into himself so she would be his . . . a part of himself.
But his better sense crept back on him. He had to let go of her and stand, though his knees didn’t want to hold him. He cleared his throat and stared at the floor so he would be able to say what he had to. “You need to go in now. Alone.”
She said nothing for a moment, then cleared her own throat to say, “Aye. For in the event of a nighttime wandering by Artair or Coll upstairs, your absence from this bed would be as condemning as my presence.”
He looked into her face as she stood, and her eyes showed the same intensity he felt in himself. He said, “Good night.” She replied in kind. He kissed her again, then watched as she returned to her room and shoved the door shut behind her.
A great sigh escaped him, and he collap
sed onto his back on the bunk. He stared at flickering shadows on the ceiling until the candle guttered out, then he stared into the darkness for a long time.
Winter wore on. Dylan borrowed a bow and some arrows from Robin Innis, and on days when he could excuse himself from Cait’s presence he took them to the stand of oaks near the summit of the wooded north slope and practiced. Since in the Highlands the bow, dirks, and swords were still used for hunting more than were guns, it wouldn’t do to be so completely ignorant of the bow as he was. He needed to teach himself to shoot and hope he wouldn’t look too lame when he had to do it with people around. It was a long, tedious process that earned him a badly bowstring-slapped coat sleeve and some frustration looking for lost arrows in the snow.
Over those cold weeks, the life of the clan had its high and low points. A daughter was born to one of the tenants, but she was weak and died after only a few days. A great controversy then arose in the village, for the baby had been baptized by only the midwife and died before the priest could do it officially. Everyone in Ciorram had a strong opinion as to whether the baby had gone to heaven, which gave rise to shouting matches and hard feelings among the snowbound Mathesons. Dylan considered the question academic and found the high emotion on the subject an irritant. Then he saw the bereaved parents in the Great Hall one evening and decided, for their sake, that he hoped their little girl was in heaven.
A fever swept through the Tigh and village, taking with it Marsaili’s younger daughter, Sarah’s littlest son, and Nana Pettigrew’s old mother. The weather hardened, and the people of the glen grew silent and close. Sarah’s loss moved Sinann to redouble efforts to talk Dylan into an interest in the widow.
“She needs ye, lad.”
Dylan was alone in the Great Hall with his workout. The winter sun had not yet risen, the hearth was not yet lit, and the torches in sconces along the stone wall made no dent in the cold. His breath puffed out before him in dense clouds. These days a warm-up never meant working up a sweat, and he always did well if not shivering. He said, “She needs someone who loves her, that’s what she needs.”
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