My Heart Stood Still

by Lynn Kurland

  And then he saw them, two tiny specks a great distance in front of him.

  He kicked his poor horse into a gallop, apologizing out loud as he did so. The gelding gave his all, and Thomas found himself drawing nearer. For the first time, he really believed he might manage what he'd set out to do. In the distance, he could see Thorpewold rising up against the horizon. If he could only catch Charles and Iolanthe. He could take Charles. He couldn't let himself believe anything less. If he could just catch them, which couldn't take more than another half hour. He rode, willing his mount to keep up the grueling pace.

  And then his mount stumbled and pulled up lame.

  Thomas didn't think. He merely jumped down off his horse, grabbed the spare clothes, and switched to Duncan's. He kicked Duncan's horse into a gallop. The chestnut hadn't had the burden of a man for three days and leaped ahead as if he'd just come from a nice warm stall, fully rested and fed. Thomas pushed the horse as fast as he would go. He felt victory within his grasp and found himself feeling more hopeful than he had in days.

  And then from nowhere came a whizzing by Thomas's ear that set his horse to rearing. It was all he could do to stay in the saddle. He heard another twang, felt his horse shudder, and looked down to see an arrow protruding from the beast's neck.

  He barely had his sword from its sheath before another man was bearing down on him, swearing in something that sounded remarkably like English. Thomas ducked, then heaved himself off his horse before it went down in a tangle of legs and whinnies. The other man's horse tried to leap over the fallen horse, but it tripped and went down as well, crushing its rider underneath it as it fell. It struggled to its feet, then trotted off toward Thorpewold as if nothing had happened.

  Thomas looked down at the fallen guardsman, saw him wearing Charles's colors, and considered his options. Then he noticed the compound fracture of the other man's leg. The kindest thing he could do would probably be to finish ahead of time what rampant infection probably would later.

  He took a deep breath, then slit the man's throat. And that, somehow, was just too much for him. He turned aside and lost the remains of tree bark he'd been eating for the past forty-eight hours. He stood, dragged his sleeve across his mouth, then looked up and scanned the countryside around him for any more assaults coming his way.

  He saw nothing.

  Not even Charles or Iolanthe.

  He sheathed his sword, grabbed his gear, and began to jog. Iolanthe said she'd been murdered at sunset. It was just past noon now. He still had time.

  Four hours later, he had the castle in his sights but no plan in mind. It wasn't as if he could just walk up and force his way inside. He found some cover, stripped off his plaid and put on a dead English-man's clothes. He bundled up another outfit and tied it around his waist. He stood, adjusted his sword, then put his shoulders back and faced the road that led to his castle. He stepped onto it without hesitation.

  And the déjà vu almost knocked him over.

  He had to hunch over with his hands on his thighs and simply gasp for a few moments until the dizzying assault receded. Once he thought he could walk without reeling, he started up the way to the keep as if he had the right to. He looked around him and saw nothing but land stripped of vegetation. Then he blinked.

  And saw the way lined with people.

  Knights and peasants. Men, women, and children. Old, young. There were probably fifty or sixty people there, lining the road, staring at him. Thomas froze in midstep. A year ago, he would have thought he had just lost his mind. Now he knew better.

  He walked up to one of the peasants and tried to make his accent as Chaucer-like as possible.

  "What business have you here?" Thomas asked politely.

  The man looked at him in surprise. "Can ye see me?"

  "Well, of course I can."

  He soon found himself completely surrounded by souls that were apparently very surprised they could be seen. Thomas wondered absently if he was going to spend the rest of his life with this gift. One thing he could say for himself: He would never be bored.

  One of the knights stepped forward. He spoke in French, which helped greatly.

  "What business have you here?" the knight demanded.

  Thomas looked at the keep. "Lord Charles has taken the woman I love and intends to murder her. I'm here to stop it."

  "Is that so?"

  "It is. And none of you will hinder me."

  The knight snorted. "Hinder? Rather we should aid you. The bloody bastard slew me for givin' him a cross look."

  "And me for spilling his porridge," said another.

  "Me for no reason a'tall!"

  Thomas found himself inundated with tales of murder and mayhem. Not a soul stood about him who hadn't been done in one way or another. The connecting thread through the stories was the identity of the man doing the slaying.

  Too bad Charles didn't see very clearly. His life would have been hell otherwise.

  "We'll aid ye," said another knight, stepping forward and drawing his sword.

  Thomas considered. "Can you make yourselves visible?"

  There was a resounding chorus of ayes. Well, there was something to be said for that. It was one thing to be a single man assaulting a medieval castle. It was quite another thing to arrive with an army. .

  Never mind that the army wasn't corporeal.

  Thomas formulated a plan. He laid it out for his new contingent of ghostly helpers, then thanked them kindly and continued on his way.

  The guards didn't even bother to shoot at him. They heckled him from atop the walls, and he only nodded in appreciation. The more helpless they thought him, the better. As long as they didn't pull up the drawbridge, he was in business.

  He paused at the barbican and faced a guardsman with a drawn sword.

  "State your business," the man said.

  "I'm here to kill Lord Charles."

  "Are you now?" the man asked with a laugh.

  "I am," Thomas replied.

  The man briefly looked as if he just might be for the idea, then apparently he thought better of it. He smiled pleasantly.

  "Come in, then," the man said, waving him in. "We'll see to your comfort right away."

  "I have some friends who want to come, too," Thomas admitted.

  "Bring them as well," the guard said pleasantly. "We've space enough in the dungeon for many."

  But space for ghosts waving swords and farm implements? Thomas smiled to himself as the guard soon found himself facing two score of armed knights and peasant men he hadn't seen the second before.

  His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the ground.

  "Too easy," said one of the knights grimly. "There'll be sterner tests than this before us."

  "Yes, well, let's try to surmount them quietly," Thomas said. "I'd like the element of surprise to be on my side."

  The knight waved him away. "Be about yer business, man, and leave us to ours. We'll see to the garrison."

  Thomas left him to it. He himself dispatched three men on his way to the tower, but once he was on the steps, he found himself alone.

  With his memories.

  He struggled for air as he trudged up the same steps he had climbed only once before.

  Or had it been more than once?

  Had he been up these steps countless times? Was he stuck in some kind of cosmic vicious circle that only continued forever because he failed each time? Was someone trying to tell him that he wasn't going to succeed?

  He pushed aside his thoughts and staggered up the few remaining steps. He stopped on the landing and heard... nothing.

  He leaned against the door frame and panted, despair crashing down on him.

  Had he come too late?

  Chapter 30

  James MacLeod considered himself a fairly learned man. After all, he'd been laird in his day, and he'd passed a goodly number of years in the Future with all its methods of learning just there for the taking. He'd also traveled a great deal in various ce
nturies. Up until a se'nnight ago, he'd believed that he'd seen and done much that any man would be proud to call to mind.

  And then he'd seen his great-great-granddaughter and found that she was a ghost.

  And then he'd begun to write down her memories.

  It was, he supposed, a bit like traveling through time. The painful thing about her memories, though, was the things she had missed. The sights, smells, tastes: all the things he had taken so for granted.

  He set his pen down, realizing that Iolanthe had stopped speaking some time earlier: Jamie looked down at the book on his desk and realized that there were but two more pages. One was already covered with Iolanthe's delicate scrawl, and he quickly flipped past it. She'd obviously taken great pains to write something there and 'twas no affair of his what she said. The last page was still blank, and he found that he was loath to write anything else there. He looked at it and felt impressed to leave it as it was. Perhaps when she was restored to life, she herself would fill it with her own words written in her own hand.

  That the rest of the book was finished at all was something of an accomplishment. He'd been at it for hours at a stretch, relieved by others in his family for hours at a time as well. He suspected there wasn't a soul in the keep who hadn't taken down at least a few pages of Iolanthe's tale.

  "What do you think will happen?"

  Jamie looked up, startled by the sound of her voice. "What?"

  She fixed him with those pale, grayish violet eyes of hers, and he realized she was near to weeping.

  "If he succeeds," she whispered, "what will happen?"

  "Ah," Jamie said, scrambling mightily for something to say to stave off her tears, "I wish I knew, my girl."

  "Will it be painful, do you think?" she asked, looking away.

  "I couldn't say," Jamie managed. "Traveling through time has no pain. Perhaps it is like unto that."

  She nodded thoughtfully. "Aye, my laird. Perhaps you have it aright." She sighed. "I can only hope 'tis done quickly."

  "Some things are better done in haste," he agreed.

  She looked at him and smiled. "Thank you for aiding me with my tale."

  Jamie put his elbows on the desk and knocked his pen on the floor as a result. He leaned over to pick it up.

  "It was my pleasure," he said, straightening. "Now about the... other..."

  She was gone.

  "Iolanthe?" he called.

  There was no answer.

  Jamie sat there in silence for several minutes. He took her book in his hand, flipping through the pages and looking at the various scripts there.

  He hoped it had been without pain for her.

  He took a ribbon and bound the book closed. He looked about his thinking chamber and considered where he might store it until she would be able to read it again for herself. If her memories had remained her own, she would enjoy rereading her tale.

  But if she lost them, the book would be vital.

  In the end, he slipped the book inside his desk drawer, shut it, and stood. There was nothing more he could do. He turned off the light and went to bed.

  Chapter 31

  Will you starve, or will you be put to the sword?" Iolanthe MacLeod stood in the English-man's tower chamber and felt as if her heart might shake the very walls surrounding her with the force of its pounding. A slow death or a less slow one. Where was the choice in that? She'd seen men starve to death in her father's pit, and it wasn't pleasant. Perhaps there would be pain with the other, but it would be over much sooner. And it seemed a braver way to die, if one had to die.

  The man facing her drew his sword. Perhaps he thought he offered her a merciful death. She felt herself tremble and she suddenly found her thoughts less on what she would never have and more on not shaming herself by falling to her knees or weeping. She was, after all, a MacLeod, and a MacLeod always died well if he could.

  So she lifted her chin, stared her murderer full in the face, and let his sword do its foul work unhindered.

  She expected agony.

  What she felt, however, was merely the brush of cool steel against her ribs.

  She looked down, saw that her dress was torn, but there was no blood gushing from a life-ending wound. She realized what had happened and felt the strong desire to curse. What kind of fool was this, that he couldn't end her life with a single stroke? She'd heard the sudden banging on the door as well, but she hadn't expected her executioner to be so inept that being startled would cause his thrust to go wide.

  The banging continued, much louder, until the door burst asunder and a man stumbled into the chamber. Her erstwhile murderer turned to face him, blocking her view.

  "Merde," snarled the English-man.

  Well, that word she knew. She could curse in three languages, and though 'twas a simple skill, it was one she was rather proud of. Then the two men began to speak in that despised peasant's English her grandsire had insisted she learn.

  Ye never ken when it'll serve ye, my gel, he would say, with that damnedable glint in his eye.

  "You don't need her," the other man said. "Release her."

  Iolanthe felt her mouth hang open of its own accord. She was to be released?

  The English-man laughed shortly. "And have her scurry home and bring her kin down upon me? Never."

  His answer was unsurprising. What was surprising was that someone had come to rescue her. Iolanthe looked around her abductor to see who that someone might be. One of her brothers' friends? A cousin she'd never marked? One of her sire's enemies with foul designs upon her person?

  But it wasn't. It wasn't any of them.

  If she'd been a maid given to weakness, she might have felt her legs grow unsteady beneath her.

  He was, despite how filthy and travel-stained he looked, the most handsome man she had ever clapped eyes on. Tall, aye, and broad. Dark-haired with eyes so vivid a blue she could see their color from where she stood across the chamber. His face was finely fashioned with the beginnings of a beard, though she suspected by its length that it wasn't his custom to wear one. But none of that was what was so startling.

  It was that she recognized him.

  That in itself was almost enough to make her wish for a sturdy chair beneath her backside, that she might contemplate the mystery in comfort.

  She had spent the past ten-and-four years of her life wishing for a braw lad to come and rescue her from her sorry state. Almost from the moment she'd begun wishing for such a thing, the vision of a man's face had come to her with a clarity that was almost frightening.

  This man's face.

  And now he'd come.

  His strong hands were empty, but she saw the hilt of a sword peeking over his back. That made her frown. That was how her kin ofttimes wore their blades, when they needed their hands free for other business of death. Was the man a Scot? His clothing bespoke otherwise. He sported things she'd only seen English-men wear, but 'twas ill-fitting. It might not be his. Who was he then?

  "I know," the man said slowly, "the secret of the MacLeod keep."

  Iolanthe gasped before she could stop herself. The man hesitated, but he didn't look at her. He continued to look at her captor.

  "Release her, and I'll give it to you."

  The English-man scoffed. "I'll have the secret and then kill you both."

  "Will you?" the man asked, amused. "I think not." The English-man swung his sword, and Iolanthe clapped her hands over her eyes so that she might not see her rescuer be cut in half. But instead of a scream, she heard metal on metal.

  And then the sound of a mighty battle. She pressed herself back into the alcove and watched as the two men fought fiercely in a space that was much too small for such a contest. The English-man fought like a man who was sure that a score of men waited without, ready at his slightest command to burst in and destroy whatever troubled him.

  Her rescuer, which was all she could call him, fought with less skill but more determination. She was tempted to wonder about the fact that he didn't look as
if he'd grown to manhood with a sword in his hand, but the direness of her situation left her little time for that. Speculation could come later, if she was alive to indulge in any.

  It was beginning to look as if her defender might need aid. She cast about for a solution. It might be possible to snatch the English-man's dagger from his belt and stab him with it whilst he was otherwise occupied.

  She watched and waited, then leaped forward and ducked under the English-man's arm. She pulled his dagger free only to have him whirl on her and swipe viciously at her with his sword. Blessing all the miserable years spent ducking blows and like slashes from blunted swords wielded by her evil half-brothers, she dropped down and found herself still with her head atop her shoulders. Before the English-man could sweep backward with his blade, her rescuer had dealt the man a mighty blow to the head with the flat of his sword and sent him stumbling.

  The English-man straightened, roaring like a stuck boar. Iolanthe didn't wait to see if her rescuer would be equal to fending off that attack. The moment the English whoreson's back was turned, she plunged her blade into his sword arm. He howled and dropped his weapon, but before he could turn on her, he found himself with a face full of sword hilt. Iolanthe watched her rescuer slam the hilt of his sword again into the English-man's nose. The crunch was a very satisfying sound.

  The man slumped to the ground with a groan.

  "Roll him over," said the man—in Gaelic, no less. "We'll tie him up and leave him."

  "But—"

  The man looked up at her, and Iolanthe found her protest dying on her lips. She stared down at him and felt as if her very soul had shuddered.

  Despite her dreams, she was certain she had never seen the man before.

  Yet for a frozen instant, she felt as if she had been in this place before, with this man kneeling at her feet, facing the question of life or death.

  "Would you rather finish him?" he asked. "Could you do it?"