“I hope we’ll have an occasion to celebrate soon,” he said, smiling back. “I’d very much like to see how that dress looks on you.”
“Well, we’d better catch those thieves, hadn’t we?” she said, grinning. “I think that would be a pretty good reason to celebrate, don’t you?”
“There’s usually a celebration for a successful harvest,” he said thoughtfully. “With any luck, we’ll have sorted the thieves out by then. In the meantime…” He stifled a yawn. “I’d best get some rest.”
They headed up to their rooms, saying goodnight in the corridor. Nancy found herself suppressing a rather uncharacteristic urge to kiss him — and her heart pounded faster in her chest as she realized that he was looking at her oddly, too, as though he was struggling with his own feelings. But in the midst of the worries about the food raids, and with his exhaustion from the patrols, plus the armful of clothes she had to contend with… the time just wasn’t right, and he seemed to sense that too, just giving her a formal little bow before retreating to his room for the night.
She folded her new clothes reverently and put them away once she’d gotten into her room. She couldn’t wipe the broad smile off her face as she looked at the new things — they were perfect, just the kinds of things she’d have picked out for herself. Now, with the boots she’d been given by Maggie, and her new sets of clothing, she felt like she really belonged here. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a little wistful as she tucked herself up in her bed. The only thing that would have made the evening absolutely perfect… would be crawling into bed with Malcolm to keep her company.
Blushing a little at that rather scandalous thought, Nancy drifted off into a deep sleep. This time, the dreams that stirred her slumber had a lot less to do with drowning or food thefts… and a lot more to do with a certain coppery-haired Scotsman who had been weighing rather heavily on her mind these last few weeks.
Chapter 32
“This must be the coldest day yet,” Nancy complained to Anna as they trekked back into the castle for dinner. It had been a blustery, cold afternoon, the dark, dismal autumn weather making sword fighting a lot more of a grind than usual. They’d been training all afternoon — there was little else to do with the men on patrol, and things with the food raids still in a curious stalemate. “I miss summer already. Bring it back.”
“I don’t think even Maggie’s that powerful.” Anna chuckled. “But it’ll be summer again before we know it. And autumn’s quite nice. We’ve got the harvest festival to look forward to yet… plus, once winter sets in, everyone brings out their best stories for the long nights.” Anna’s eyes gleamed. “I’ve got a few myself, actually. It’ll be nice to have an audience member who actually gets my references.”
“Will there be a harvest festival if the thefts aren’t dealt with, though?” Nancy asked with a frown.
A shadow passed over Anna’s face at the reminder. “Good point,” she admitted. “We’ve still got a week or two before it all starts, I suppose… let’s just hope the men find the thieves and sort them out before then.”
They ambled into the dining hall together. Donal and Malcolm were both on patrol — the nights were closing in earlier and earlier these days, and the men tended to either have a very early or a very late dinner. It was nice to spend more time with Anna, though. Nancy was enjoying getting to know the tough, clever soldier — she had a wicked sense of humor when you got through her guarded exterior, and a kind heart.
They ate together, talking happily of the future they’d both come from. Nancy had stopped thinking about how she was going to get home — for now, her focus was on averting a famine. After all, there was plenty of time to work out how to get back to her own time, if that was even possible — at the very least, she was going to get a message to her dad. But tonight, for some reason, she found her thoughts returning to her father, to the family she’d left behind, and she raised an eyebrow at Anna as their laughter died down.
“Do you ever miss your family? Back home, I mean?”
Anna shrugged, taking another bite of a piece of bread. “My family’s here,” she pointed out, one hand resting on her belly.
“I mean — you know, your parents. You have a brother, right?”
“I do miss them sometimes,” Anna admitted. “It’s weird that they don’t… exist, you know? They haven’t been born yet, they’re not anywhere.”
“Do you ever worry that they think you’re dead? I think about my dad a lot. He’s going to have nobody to look after him now I’m gone.”
“Isn’t he an ex-SEAL?” Anna quirked an eyebrow. “Those guys don’t need anybody to look after them.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty tough.” Nancy smiled to herself. “But still. He thinks I drowned in a cave. That’s embarrassing. I’m way too good a diver for that to have been how I went out. So I’m thinking… if I can’t get back to see him, even for a second… I’m thinking I’ll write him a letter. A long letter, explaining everything that happened, and that I love him and I’m safe.”
“How are you going to post it?” Anna laughed. “Not many time-travelling mailmen around…”
“I figure if I write it carefully it’ll last a few hundred years and I can pass it down to my children, or whatever. Tell them what date and time to deliver it. Maybe it’ll get to him around the time I disappear, so he doesn’t worry for too long.”
Anna stared at her. “That’s actually brilliant.”
She smiled, flattered. “Yeah?”
“That’s such a good idea. I want to do that.” Her eyes widened. “I mean, why stop at one letter? You could write to him every day, if you wanted. Fill a whole book. Tell him about your whole life, day by day, so he doesn’t feel like he’s missed out.” Anna rested her hand on her belly. “I know if I lost this little one in time I’d sure as hell appreciate him sending me his whole life story the day after he disappeared. I’d still be sad, but knowing he was happy and lived a full life would make me feel better…”
“Him, is it?” Nancy smiled. “Got a scan done, did you?”
“Maggie reckons it’s a boy,” Anna said, shrugging. “I trust her. She might just be messing with me, though. Either way, I’m excited to stop being pregnant so Donal stops treating me like I’m a fragile creature made of glass. I know he does it because he cares, but I wish he’d care a little less, you know?”
“Yeah,” Nancy smiled, “I can imagine.”
“Hey, do you want to see something cool tonight? While Donal’s on patrol?” Anna’s eyes were gleaming. “There’s a secret path out onto the walls around the castle. There’s a full moon… we could go see the moonlight on the lake.”
“That sounds amazing,” Nancy said. They finished their meals hurriedly then slipped off through the castle, Anna leading her up the stairs to an unfamiliar passageway that seemed like it went within the very walls of the castle. But sure enough, there was a door at the end of the passage that led straight out onto the top of the wall on the far side of the castle. Between the turrets, they could see right out, over the dark waters of the Loch… which, sure enough, were illuminated by the bright moonlight that shone down from the full moon that shone down overhead.
“Wow,” Nancy breathed, staring out at the Loch. “This is… such a good spot!”
“Donal doesn’t like me coming out here at night because of the cold and the risk of falling,” Anna explained, rolling her eyes. Sure enough, the wall was a little narrow here, and Nancy could kind of see why Donal was worried… still, someone as sure-footed as Anna had nothing to fear. They stood, gazing out over the water for a long moment.
“Do you reckon Nessie’s out there somewhere?” Nancy murmured.
“Oh, definitely. On patrol, I bet. Pretty sure she’s nocturnal, mostly.”
Nancy scanned the surface of the water, searching for the gray outline of Nessie, making her patrols. She hadn’t seen her from up here before, but she had hope, with the brightness of the moonlight, that maybe it was possible. Bu
t as she watched, she became aware of sounds that didn’t quite seem like they belonged to the calm night. The sounds of splashing — but not the gentle wash of the waves against the jetty or the rocks. This was more focused — more deliberate.
“Can you hear that?” Anna murmured, her voice pitched deliberately low as she strained to listen.
Nancy nodded, frowning.
“Weird splashing. Could someone be — swimming?”
“Not this time of year. Or night. It’d be freezing down there.”
A strange sound that felt like it shook the very foundations of the castle suddenly erupted across the lake, and the splashing intensified. Nancy shook her head, staring wildly into the darkness, willing her eyes to adjust so she could make out more of what was going on. There — a hundred feet or so from the jetty at the base of the castle, there were some shapes, moving in the water, interrupting the shine of the moonlight. The strange sound came again. It was almost like… a roar? Nancy’s eyes widened. Though she’d never heard it, she knew somehow, in her bones, that that was the sound of the Loch Ness Monster. Anna was clearly thinking the same thing — she shot Nancy a look that was part fear, part awe, and all razor-sharp interest in what was happening.
“Should we go down there?” Nancy breathed, staring down at the water. The jetty wasn’t so far from the area of the disturbance — they might get a better view from the end of it. But to her surprise, Anna shook her head, taking firm hold of her arm.
“We stay up here. If that’s the Monster having an altercation with something coming up from the burgh, we don’t want to get any closer to it than this, trust me.” Anna looked grim.
Nancy remembered the stories she’d told her of Nessie eating a whole fleet of boats — and their passengers. If Nessie was defending the castle, Nancy was absolutely not going to get in her way.
It seemed the men on the wall had a similar idea. They, too, had noticed the commotion — a few men were heading down the jetty now, torches raised, but they stopped well clear of the end of it, clearly concerned about interfering with the Monster’s dinner — if that was truly what was happening. There were shouts from down below, but nothing that seemed to shed any light on the situation — the men were as confused as Anna and Nancy about what could be going on. Something must have come through the burgh, that was clear… but why had the Monster only caught up to them here, on the surface of the lake?
There were high pitched sounds, too, mingling with the continued roars of the monster and the splashing of the water. They sounded almost like voices — high, shrill voices, barking urgent orders to one another. Surely that couldn’t be… unless it was faeries that had come through the burgh, faeries that were yelling at one another, trying to defeat the monster? Were they attacking the castle? Nancy felt a thrill of fear — almost two-thirds of the garrison were out right now, patrolling the village to keep it safe from the raids. She realized with a sick jolt that this was the perfect time to attack the castle — understaffed, underdefended, and in the middle of the night. They even had the full moon for extra visibility.
But they clearly hadn’t counted on the monster, which continued to roar and splash. Frustrated, Anna stood on her tiptoes beside Nancy as though being a little bit taller would magically help her see what was going on.
“Have they found anything? Can anyone see anything?”
“Hey!” Nancy yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth and calling down to the men on the jetty who were standing with their torches. A couple of them turned around, surprised to see her and Anna standing up on the wall. “Can you see anything?”
“No,” one of the men yelled back, shrugging. “We can just hear splashing. Maybe the Monster’s caught a big fish or something. You should go back inside,” he added. “Could get dangerous.”
“If you can’t see anything,” Anna yelled down, “how on Earth would it be dangerous for us from up here? He sounds like Donal,” she added at a normal pitch to Nancy, who covered her mouth to stop herself from giggling aloud.
They waited on the wall for another hour or so, but there were no developments — just more splashing and the distant roars of the monster. Eventually, the sounds died down — then the clouds covered the moon and there was even less visibility than before. Dejected, the men with torches turned and started tromping heavily back up to the wall — and Anna and Nancy, shivering a little in the cold evening air, decided to go back inside as well.
“What could it have been?” Nancy asked before they parted ways, her face creased with worry.
“Like the man said — it could’ve just been Nessie hunting some dinner. Or, it could have been an attack through the burgh. Impossible to tell.” Anna sighed. “We’ll find out more in the morning. Might be worth going to visit Maggie. She talks to the Monster, maybe it’ll tell her more about what happened tonight.”
“I will,” Nancy promised. “And hey — at least the castle’s safe.”
“That’s true. Safe. For now,” she added, a little darkly.
It took Nancy a long time to fall asleep, warm and safe though she was in her bed. She just kept thinking of the dark waters of the lake, of the high-pitched chattering voices… and of the distant roars of her friend Nessie. What had caused it to cry out like that? What kind of enemy could challenge even a creature so large, and so strong?
Chapter 33
In the morning, Nancy got up bright and early, concerned about the commotion last night and wanting to hear if any more information had come to light about what had been going on. She dressed quickly, bolting down the spiral stairs which were now as comfortable to her as the regular kind, and trotted into the dining hall. To her dismay, Malcolm and Donal were nowhere to be seen — but she perked up a little when she saw a familiar face, slumped over a bowl of porridge and looking absolutely shattered by exhaustion. Brendan — looking like he’d been burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. She moved up beside him, wary of disturbing him, but also very interested to find out what had been going on at the Keep overnight.
“Brendan, you look exhausted,” she said gently, to alert him to her presence.
He started a little, as though he’d been half asleep, and gave her a tired smile as he recognized who she was, gesturing to the bench beside her.
She settled in with her own bowl of porridge. “When was the last full night of sleep you got?”
“When did the patrols begin?” he asked blearily, rubbing at his forehead. “The rest of the men are exhausted, too. Can’t keep this up much longer. Worst part is, the raids keep happening.” He heaved a sigh. “They’re so quick. We have to keep changing up the pattern of the patrols, or they take advantage of the gaps. We got cocky a few nights ago and pulled a few men to give them some rest, and three houses got raided.”
“The iron isn’t working?” Nancy frowned, thinking of how hard the blacksmith had been working on the crosses.
“Oh, it’s working. The more iron a house has, the less likely it is to be raided. The dogs are helping a little, too.”
Nancy nodded — she’d helped bring down a few more dogs that had been sent from neighboring clans, kinsmen of Donal’s. There was a dog in almost every yard now. There was something almost pleasant about it.
“They bark when they hear things in the woods, which gives the patrols warning of where they need to head to next. But it’s hard to tell how much of it’s warding off thieves, and how much of it’s just jumping at shadows.” He rubbed his head again, taking another dejected mouthful of porridge. “Sorry. I’m not exactly happy company at the moment.”
“It’s okay,” she said gently. “You’re doing the best you can with what you have. Did you hear about what happened last night? Here, I mean?”
“Oh, in the Loch with the monster? Aye, the men briefed me when I got in from patrol.”
“Did they find anything out about what happened?”
“Just some splashing and screeching. Nobody could see anything, for all that there was a full m
oon. Hard to see much out there in the dark waters.” He heaved a sigh. “With any luck it was a false alarm — just the monster catching some fish.”
“I don’t think so,” Nancy admitted, loath to give him more bad news. “I was out on the wall when the attack started — I could hear something like… high-pitched voices, chittering. That, and Nessie roaring.”
Brendan sighed. “Aye, a few of the men reported similar things. And the Monster doesn’t generally roar unless something is wrong. Add it to the list of problems we can’t do a damn thing about, I suppose. Pardon my language.”
Nancy rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard so much worse.”
“I ought to go visit Maggie, ask her if she saw anything,” Brendan muttered, getting to his feet — then swaying a little as his exhaustion hit him.
Nancy steadied him, rising to her feet beside him, half convinced he was going to collapse onto the table in front of him. “No, you’re not,” she said firmly. “You’re going to go on up to bed and have a nice long nap. At least for the rest of the day, you hear me? If you’re going to exhaust yourself like this at night, the least you can do is get some rest during the day. You owe it to your men. What good will you be to the castle if you get exhausted then catch your death of a cold?”
“You’re right, of course,” Brendan admitted, rubbing his face. “But —”
“I happen to be on my way to visit Maggie myself,” Nancy said firmly. “So I’ll ask her about what happened last night, and I’ll report back to you. How does that sound?”
“That sounds good. There’s a meeting with the village council tonight, so information will be most useful. Thank you, Nancy.”
“You’re welcome. But I won’t be making any reports before about four in the afternoon, so if you want the report sooner, you’d better spend the day asleep, you hear me?”
“Fair enough, fair enough.” He raised his hands, chuckling. “There I was thinking you were a gentler woman than Anna.”
Stranded By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 2 Page 20