by Lynn Kurland
She looked into the fire. "Perhaps 'tis that I have no faith."
"In me?"
She looked at him and wished with all her heart that she might feel some of the hope that he seemed to.
"I'm afraid to hope."
He sighed. "But—"
"Can you fault me for it?"
He studied her for several moments in silence, then shook his head slowly. "I suppose I can't. But that doesn't change what I plan to do."
She put her face in her hands. "If you survive the journey, how will you rescue me? And if you rescue me, how will I remember you?"
"There's no reason you can't remember the future."
"But I can't remember tomorrow!"
"You have to believe you can, Iolanthe."
"I can't believe something that's impossible!" She shivered. "Besides, if you save me before I'm murdered, I'll never have been a ghost and I'll never have met you anyway. There'll be nothing to remember."
"I don't believe time works that way," he insisted. "What's done is done, and I don't believe that if we stepped around time and made a change in the past that it will change events that have already happened."
"But it will change my future," she insisted.
"It might. But it won't change anyone else's," he said. "You'll still be known."
"It makes no sense!"
He sighed in exasperation. "Then write it down," he said. "Write down your memories of the past six hundred years. When I bring you forward, you'll still have that book. Even if you don't remember, you'll still have it written down."
"Foolishness," she said in despair. "'Tis naught but foolishness and I cannot believe you're willing to take this risk."
"I love you," he said simply. "And that's worth taking any risk."
She found there was no point in arguing with that. For her, loving him meant she didn't want him to go. They were at cross purposes, and nothing would change that.
"You could help me," he said slowly, "by telling me of your family."
"So they don't slay you the moment you walk through the hall doors?" she asked darkly.
"Something like that."
"And if you manage to find me and rescue me, what will you do then?"
"What do you mean what will I do then? I'll grab you and we'll run like hell."
"Where to?" she asked. "When to?"
He seemed to have no ready answer for that. "I hadn't thought much about that, actually. Would you want to go back to your home?"
"Never." The word was out before she knew she intended to speak it.
"Well, that solves that." He looked at her. "How about a house on the sea?"
"Unfair. You tempt me with what my heart desires most."
"My house in Maine is on the shore."
"You didn't tell me that."
"You never asked."
She sighed and looked into the fire. "I don't know what I would want."
"You have your pick of any century. What would suit you best?"
"You cannot be in earnest."
"Why not?" he asked placidly. "We may not want fourteenth-century Scotland, but there's no reason we might not want some other time. Or pick your country. If you could live in Scotland in any century, when would it be?"
"There's not much choice," she said grimly. "Clan wars or wars with the English? And 'tis only recently that I've learned what happened after the outlawing of the plaid." She shook her head. "If I were to live there, it would be in your day. At least there are tourists to keep my people alive in the north."
"All right, then," he said. "We'll come back to the present. If you like, we'll live in Scotland. If you'd rather, we'll go live on the shore in Maine."
"In the Colonies?"
"Don't make it sound like it's just short of Hell. There's a lot to be said for America."
"Is there?"
He shot her an amused glance. "We'll live in both places; then you can decide for yourself."
She laced her hands together. "Doesn't it matter to you? Where your home is?"
"Home, Iolanthe," he said slowly, "is people, not a place. If you'll allow it, my home will be with you. Wherever. Whenever."
She met his gaze and felt her damnable tears start again. He blinked a time or two himself, then managed a roguish smile.
"Since I'm hoisting a sword in your defense, how would you like to give me the details I'll need?"
"You're assuming I don't want to be a ghost anymore."
He hesitated, but so slightly she would have missed it had she not been watching him so closely.
"Yes, I'm assuming that. Now, details, if you don't mind. It may mean both our lives this time around."
Well, if he wanted to delude himself with the possibility of actually rescuing her from a man who had murdered her six hundred years earlier, she supposed the least she could do was humor him. What would likely happen was he would spend a nasty night in the forest and find himself with a healthy case of the ague. He'd come back to the inn, and she would end up nursing him as best she could. At least then she could avail herself of the chance to tell him he'd been a fool.
Unless he actually succeeded.
And the hope that bloomed suddenly in her heart from that was almost too painful to be borne.
She waited until she could breathe normally again, then began to speak.
"I'll tell you of my family," she said quietly. "And believe me when I tell you that these are the things that only those who lived them would know."
"You and Duncan."
"Aye," she said. "Though he would likely tell the stories with more charity than I will."
He looked at her briefly. "I'm sorry to make you do this."
"Nay," she said with a wave of her hand. "'Tis best you know the truth." She sat back, gathered her thoughts, then plunged in. "My father, Malcolm, married quite young. My mother bore him first a son, Alexandir, and then me a pair of years later."
"And then no more?"
She shook her head. "No bairns of my mother. My father's love, if he'd ever felt it, soured almost immediately. 'Tis nothing short of a miracle that I was ever conceived. My sire had a lover in the village and 'twas in her bed he sought his pleasure almost from the start."
"Great guy."
She smiled without humor. "Aye. Now the trouble began when I reached my tenth summer. My brother, ten-and-two, was a strong, strapping lad even then. He had accompanied my mother to see her kin when they were set upon by our enemies. Duncan had been out riding the borders and stumbled upon the deed as it was happening. My brother had already fallen from wounds that were grievous. My mother had been set upon, in the way a woman ofttimes finds herself, by that band of misbegotten curs. Duncan slew them all in a mighty anger, but 'twas too late to stop the harm done."
"Oh, Iolanthe," Thomas said with a sigh.
She shrugged. "It was long ago, and my mother has long since found her rest."
"I'm sorry."
"My brother died a handful of days after the skirmish. My mother never recovered. She wasted away, and half a year later, she followed Alexandir into the earth."
"Leaving your father to his mistress."
"And their children, aye." She took a deep breath. "I was, as you might imagine, an uncomfortable reminder of my brother's death. My father, I think, after a year or two, forgot about me. I lived in the hall, true, but he never spoke to me or acknowledged me."
"And your half-brothers and -sister?"
She smiled at him. "What do you think, Thomas?"
"I think I'll give them all a piece of my mind when I see them."
"How gallant you are."
"No," he said, looking at her. "Desperate."
The intensity of his glance made whatever she'd been planning to say die on her lips. By the saints, the madman was truly in earnest.
"You are going to do this," she whispered.
"You're convinced only now?"
She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at him again.
"You'll need their names,"
she said quietly. "If you're to survive."
"Thank you."
"Duncan you'll know, though I suppose he won't remember you. He was a very practical man though, even then, with no great love for my father."
"I can't blame him for that."
"Neither can I, actually. My half-brother, Angus, is the eldest of the brood my father sired on his whore. The next was Grudach, his younger sister. 'Twas they, those two, who beguiled me into leaving with the English-man."
"How?"
She smiled bitterly. "They told me his keep was on the sea. You see, my sire had sent Angus out into the world, partly because the fool impregnated too many village wenches when he was at home and partly because he had a gift—so my father supposed—for making alliances."
"And your father thought you needed them?" Thomas asked. "Isn't your home pretty far north?"
" 'You can never have too many allies,' " she said, "which is the wisest thing my father ever said. He had, of course, learned the saying from his father. He never could have invented it on his own. The mistake he made was thinking his firstborn of that whore was equal to the task."
"Would you have been better at it?"
She blinked. "Why do you ask?"
"It seems to rankle."
"A sheep would have been better suited," she said shortly. "And nay, it never occurred to me. I was a woman, and my tasks were at home."
"It was a different world then," he murmured.
"Aye, it was." She cleared her throat. "Now, Angus had been about his task of traveling, and scattering his seed from one end of Scotland to the other, no doubt, when he met an English-man in Edinburgh."
"And you heard this from ... ?" he asked.
"Angus and my father."
"And you believed them?"
"What choice did I have? Angus said he'd met this man in Edinburgh, that the man was very wealthy, and that I was to be traded as the valuable prize to the man for making an alliance with us."
"And didn't it strike you as strange that a Brit would want to make an alliance with people three hundred miles away?"
"What choice did I have?" she asked again, sharply. "I had nowhere to go, no one to care for me, and no say in the matter. My father sold me. Angus told me the man's keep was on the sea. I knew I had no choice but to make of it what I could."
He was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said finally.
"Aye," she said, "so was I. It was only after I died that I learned I had been sold to pay a debt Angus owed the man."
"Who told you?"
"Duncan did. He'd overheard the conversings between the English-man and my father. Angus had promised the man that I knew the secret of our keep and would give it to him when we returned to England. Then, once he wed me, as my husband, he would be able to return to Scotland now and again and avail himself of the untold riches that the secret would provide him."
"The secret of time travel, or the jewels in the chimney?"
"Angus would have known neither, but he knew there was something of value in our keep. He likely made up whatever tale suited him. It apparently suited the English-man, for he took me readily enough."
"Why didn't Angus know the truth?"
"My grandfather William knew, and he told me, but I know he never told my father, nor Angus."
"William didn't trust either of them?"
"Not with his most rotten bit of meat. I daresay none of my family knew the particulars, save it was a secret that must be kept close, and when they had proved themselves, my grandfather would tell them."
"Did he ever?"
She smiled briefly. "He died before he could."
He nodded thoughtfully. "So, you went with the man. Did you know his name?"
"I never stirred myself to ask. I didn't pay him any heed until I was woken that morning and put on a horse to go with him."
"And you went because you had no choice."
"Aye. I tried to escape, but that went badly for me."
Thomas sucked in his breath. "Did he ... ?"
She wrinkled her nose. "He told me he wouldn't lower himself to bed a wench of Scots breeding. But he didn't mind hitting me, which he did quite frequently." She sighed. "We rode for what seemed a lifetime. He didn't bother with any refreshment once we reached his keep. He took me up and locked me in the tower chamber, saw to his men, then returned and demanded the secret of my home."
"And when you didn't give it to him?"
"He gave me the choice of the sword or starving to death."
Thomas was silent for several minutes. "You made a brave choice, then."
She couldn't help but laugh. "Nay, the coward's choice, surely. I'd seen men starved to death in my father's pit. A quick death, no matter how painful, seemed much more bearable."
"I'm sorry."
"Nay, you needn't be. I don't think on it much now. Though I used to," she said, turning her face away. "Every moment of every day for what seemed like centuries." She paused. "It likely was centuries."
"I'll stop it this time."
She looked at him. "I hope you can."
Silence fell. She found that she had nothing else to say. What else was there to say? He was determined, and there was nothing she could do to dissuade him.
And in the secret, innermost place in her heart, she didn't want to dissuade him. If he succeeded, it would be miraculous.
"Will you change your mind and come with me? To the Highlands?" he asked.
Of course, that didn't mean she could bear to watch it.
She shook her head. "I cannot."
It was a very long time before either of them spoke again.
Chapter 25
Thomas knocked on Iolanthe's door. There was no answer, but he hadn't exactly expected one. He wouldn't say the night before had ended badly. They'd spent most of the day in the sitting room talking about her family. The entire time he'd sat there, he'd been almost drowning in the realization that it was possibly the last time he might see her. The odds of success were, in reality, not really very good. He was going to an incredibly inhospitable place where dangers of the unanticipated kind might assault him at any turn.
Then again, didn't that describe Everest? If there was an unfriendly place on earth, that was it. Man wasn't made to linger at 29,000 feet. Yet he'd managed it. He'd survived the cold, the hunger, the weariness, and the altitude. If he could survive that, couldn't he survive the Middle Ages?
Then again, Everest hadn't been coming at him with a sword.
He sighed. There was no use in comparing the two. The only thing he knew for sure was that thinking about failure was a sure way to ensure the same. He shook aside his doubts, picked up his bag, and descended the steps. He reached the entry hall, then came to an abrupt halt.
Ambrose was in his usual place, leaning negligently against the sideboard. But next to him was a broadsword. A bright, shiny, new broadsword. Thomas looked at his ancestor.
"Nice," he said.
Ambrose snorted. "Nice? Lad, this is perfection. Best not practice with it, though. You're liable to nick Jamie, and then you'll find yourself in his lady's sights."
Thomas slung his bag over his shoulder, then walked across the floor to touch the hilt. He looked at Ambrose.
"You didn't have to do this."
Ambrose only smiled. "I know. But we wanted to, Hugh, Fulbert, and I. Duncan designed it. A man of many talents, that one."
"He certainly is. But who made the blade?"
"A smith in the Highlands." Ambrose smiled. "One quite used to unusual customers, I daresay. But he takes our gold and delivers to our door, so none of us has any complaints."
Thomas ran his finger over the finely tooled sheath. "I don't quite know what to say."
" 'Thank you' will do, my lad. Use it well."
"Thank you. And I'll do my best."
"You'll have to do better than that."
Thomas nodded in acknowledgment, then hesitated, unsure just how he should say good-bye. He looked at Ambrose, but sa
w nothing but encouragement in the older man's eyes.
"Watch your back," Ambrose said.
Well, maybe that was all that needed to be said. Thomas nodded confidently, then picked up his new sword and headed out the door. He tried not to think about the complete weirdness of the fact that in one hand he was carrying a duffel bag and in the other he was carrying what for all intents and purposes was a medieval broadsword.
He stowed his gear in the car, then jogged down the driveway and out onto the road. It wasn't so much that he was in a hurry as it was he supposed that after two months of not really working out, he'd better start. Who knew what sorts of tortures awaited him up in Scotland?
He slowed to a walk once he reached the road leading to the castle. This was a place that deserved a little more time taken with it. He looked at the surrounding countryside, memorizing the general layout. Six hundred years would have changed the foliage but not the bone structure. With any luck, he'd be slipping in and out of the place—in the past, of course—without any undue problems.
Like finding himself a helpless captive right alongside Iolanthe.
He shook off the negative thought. He'd managed impossible tasks before. He could do this one as well, especially when so much rode on his success.
The customary Highlanders decorated the outside of the castle walls. Thomas nodded to them and received respectful nods and not a few suggestions on what to do to Iolanthe's father, should he meet him. He filed those away for future reference. He wouldn't have thought the garrison would know what he was up to, but maybe word traveled faster than he supposed.
Thomas continued on into the bailey. The MacDougal was standing there with his arms folded across his chest. Thomas was prepared for another onslaught of nastiness.
"Ye willna succeed," the MacDougal said.
Thomas stopped. "You would think," he said slowly, "that you would be overjoyed if I did. If the lady isn't a ghost, the lady isn't here to be top dog. Then you are."
Connor MacDougal opened his mouth, then shut it suddenly. He gave Thomas a glare, then walked off, muttering to himself. Thomas shrugged. The only thing that would have surprised him would have been if the MacDougal had been pleasant. At least the status quo was still the same.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and continued on his way. He checked all the rooms in the tower but found them empty. The garden was nothing but dirt and dead weeds. Thomas turned back and had almost walked out the gates when he realized the one place he hadn't looked.