by Becky Banks
“Hi,” I said, and paused, realizing I hadn’t thought about what I was going to say. If I told them, “Your clan chieftain asked me to stop by before I leave town,” they might think I was crazy. I assumed it would be like walking into the White House and saying the president had asked to see me.
“Hallo, ’ere to do a tour?” one of the two women said. She was an elderly woman in a cardigan with a Castle Laoch logo and a tartan skirt. Her partner at the desk was nearly identical.
“Not really, no,” I said. “This might be an odd request, but your clan chief, Mr. Rowan MacLaoch, asked me to stop by.”
Rather than the rebuff I expected, the taller woman said, “Oh, you must be the Ms. Baker he spoke of this morning. Yes, he is expecting you, though today he is at the administrative office down the road. I’ll ring him and let him know you’re here.”
“Would you like to tour the castle whilst you wait?” the second woman asked while the other used the phone in the small room behind them. “We’re closing in a bit, but you’d be welcome to roam. It could be a while before he gets home.”
“Ah. Thanks, I’ll do that,” I said, thinking it was odd that she referred to the castle as the chieftain’s home, as it seemed in a permanent state of being on display, and nowhere had I seen closed doors or personal affects.
I made a donation—larger than requested, hoping that a bit of that goodwill would come back to me—and set off toward the main floor.
The upper floor was divided in half by the grand staircase—to my right was the large, open sitting room the size of my apartment, and beyond it, the dark dungeon. My body gave an involuntarily shudder at the memory of the place, and I turned in the opposite direction.
I meandered through the rooms, reading the plaques and taking note of the history. The place had seen every generation of MacLaoch since they had arrived in town over eight hundred years before.
The last room was a large, circular one, its long, slatted windows letting in what light there was from the overcast day. In spite of the soft lighting, the room felt heavy. I was surrounded by artifacts, each one passed down through the clan and stored lovingly under glass. The ones I passed by the door dated from the early eleventh century. Ceremonial pewter quaiches, ram’s-horn brushes, and goblets were identified with neatly typed cards set in black velvet. Some cards described the history of the piece in detail, others simply said, “brush, 1500 AD,” or “silver tea set, 1650 AD.”
There was something about the room that drew me in. It felt as if another person were in the empty room with me—as if I were back in my dream, the woman in it gently guiding me toward something. I made my way slowly to the back of the room, scanning the glass cases, reading each card, seeing if I remembered anything.
I tried to rationalize my thoughts—I must simply be having déjà vu.
I reached the final case, and found what I had been subconsciously looking for under glass and perched on the top shelf—small and placed between two larger artifacts, a simple gold ring. The exact gold ring from my dream, its Celtic twists on the band interlacing the clan crests and Scottish thistle.
My breath caught in my chest and I just stared. And stared.
Oh my, oh my god. The nicks and dings in the ring were where I remembered them. I put my hand to the glass, as if that simple action would cause the glass to give way, allowing me to hold the ring again. To place it on my finger and have it warm that place again.
Again? No. It would be for the first time.
And the last, I felt someone else say, yet I was completely alone.
The description style of the ring was different than those of the other artifacts in the room. I could see it in my mind’s eye, even as I read the words:
With this ring, I thee wed . . .
One (1) gold—solid—ring; imprinted/engraved with MacLaoch Clan Crest, interspersed .15mm with thistle over wedding knot; 4.5mm diameter; 2mm band width. This ring is assumed to be the wedding band of the fabled Lady MacLaoch of Castle Laoch of the early 13th century. According to the legend, Lady MacLaoch became betrothed against the wish of her clan to that of a sea-going man by the name Minory. It is assumed that after her return to Castle Laoch, following the death of her betrothed, Lady MacLaoch placed the ring in a copper box and interred it in the lower sea wall. It was discovered during the 19th-century refurbishment of the decrepit wall . . .
The sun sank deeper in the sky while I stood entranced by the ring. I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me, but I did feel the slow hum wake in my blood, telling me the current MacLaoch chieftain was standing right behind me. I looked up into the reflection of him watching me.
Without turning, I said softly, “This ring . . . ” That was all that I could manage. As if saying the words out loud would render something important impossible.
“Aye. What is it about the ring?” the chieftain said from behind me, his voice barely audible, the two of us still like ancient statues, both having trouble finding our words.
I continued to stare at him, and he at me. The soft hum dissipated into a feeling of warmth and familiarity—had we done this before? No, but he had come unbidden into my dream the night before. The man on the beach who had clasped me so lovingly—I knew who he was. He was standing directly behind me, and if the reflection on the glass did not deceive me, he knew it too. But how, I could not fathom.
“The ring,” I said, finding my voice again, though this time it was shaky. “Did this really once belong to Lady MacLaoch? The one the legend is about?”
“Aye, it did,” he said, matching my tone. “But,” he added, sounding, it seemed, incredulous, “how’d ye know tha’?”
I turned finally to look at him, no glass between us.
I’d say this for the MacLaoch chieftain—the way he was dressed then, I would not have mistaken him for anyone but the clan’s chieftain. He was a man of impressive bearing, hands relaxed in the pockets of his tailored black slacks; the black sport coat he wore pulled snugly across his shoulders, flattening his light-blue, collared shirt.
I gave him a small smile in greeting. “I know that because I can read.”
MacLaoch squinted at me. “Explain,” he said, the mood shifting away from the metaphysical and back to the present.
I pointed into the glass case. “It says right here . . . ” Again I lost my train of thought as I looked into the case. The card next to the ring just said Antique Ring. That was it. Nothing else.
I scoured the case. Perhaps the simple act of looking away had caused the card to fall into a nonexistent crack, or to spontaneously combust.
MacLaoch came up close behind me and looked over my shoulder into the case. “Ye were saying?” he said quietly.
“It was . . . there just a second ago . . . I’m pretty sure,” I mumbled, baffled that I could have seen that text on my own.
MacLaoch leaned against the case next to me, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his body. “No. We have never put the true description of that ring anywhere, except with the insurance company.”
Insurance company. The description I saw earlier had been detailed down to the millimeter, just like an insurance description.
And yet, there I was, shoulder to shoulder in another awkward situation with the MacLaoch chieftain. How would I explain that with any semblance of normalcy?
“I must have been mistaken, or remembered it from something similar, and made the connection.” I gave a small wave, dismissing the whole thing. “You asked me to stop by? If it is in regards to the research I’m doing, or last night . . . ” I trailed off as MacLaoch just watched me—as if he had a thousand questions for me as well.
“Come,” he said, and strode from the room.
I took a deep breath. I was not excited about what I felt was coming next.
CHAPTER 16
I followed the chieftain out of the artifacts room a short distance, then stopped as he opened a narrow door that he had to turn sideways to get through. The stairs leading upward we
re merely notches in the stone wall and only a bit wider than the door. MacLaoch seemed to simply disappear up into the stairwell and, after a moment’s hesitation, I followed.
By no small feat, I was able to close the door behind me and nearly scaled the dark staircase as though I were climbing a rock wall. The room at the top was surprisingly open and bright; the floors were made of a rich hardwood and the walls were solid stone, though tapestries and large rugs covered most of the surfaces. A handsome wood desk with a computer workstation filled the center of the room; bookshelves anchored the far wall and the wall under the windows. The windows took up the entire wall to my left and, from where I stood, I could see out over the castle gardens. The space felt very much like it was MacLaoch’s personal office. If I wasn’t mistaken, behind the far door would be a kitchen—it was a push door, no knob—and the smaller of the two rooms to my left would be a bathroom and the other a master bedroom. This was the den of the MacLaoch chieftain, his home.
MacLaoch was pulling together papers on his desk and gestured me into a chair in front of him. I sunk into the plush leather chair as he handed me what looked to be some sort of official report.
The report was moderately thick, about half the size of my master’s thesis. I automatically started skimming the report, thinking more about the note in my jacket pocket I had yet to give him. Then some text stopped me, refocused my attention fully on the report. I read back through the pages of the report, flipped again to the beginning. I read the title page thoroughly one more time for good measure. I was looking at the history of a man named Iain Eliphlet Minory.
“How?” I asked. “Is this from my records request through Deloris?” I heard the volume of my voice rise. I remembered distinctly that Deloris had received a phone call from the historian saying that the documentation that I held in my hands did not exist.
“Aye, our historian sends all requests tae do with the Minory and MacLaoch lineage though me. And since ye and I are well acquainted,” he said, with more inflection than necessary, “there’s no need tae have tae go through Deloris. Go on, read about your great-great-granddad.” He sat on the edge of his desk.
My great-great-granddad. My mind repeated his words, each one landing like a lead weight in my lap. I read the title page yet again, and felt warming in my cheeks. I’d led the MacLaoch chieftain to believe that my family’s spelling was exactly like that of the man in my hands and the one I’d read about in the letter from his uncle. No doubt the clan had the full history of this Iain; they probably even knew if he sat to pee. But, technically, he was not my ancestor—one little letter made sure of that, and all of this I had explained in the note I wrote to the chieftain. The one still in my pocket.
“This,” I said, not knowing the best way to start, “isn’t my great-great-granddaddy. You see, I had learned before I hiked over here the other day about the Minory and MacLaoch tale, and when you and I met, I was a little flustered with everything that had happened. I really didn’t think I’d see you again, nor even fathomed that you were the chieftain of this clan, so I pronounced his name to my gain.” I finished quickly and painfully.
MacLaoch became like stone. “Aye? And what is your great-great-granddad’s name, if it’s not Iain Eliphlet Minory?”
I had not thought that the chieftain’s demeanor before had been warm and welcoming; in fact, I had felt the opposite. However, I was suddenly aware that there was a level of subzero possible from the man. I was suddenly out of favor—in the few moments of being together with the ring, we had brokered some trust and now, just as quickly, every ounce of it had been revoked.
I tried to speak, yet no words came out. I snapped my mouth shut but still felt foolish. I could see my research and all the goodwill of the clan and their historical documents getting closed off to me. Swallowing, I found a croak of a voice. “Iain Eliphlet Minary,” I coughed, my voice scratchy with anxiety. “It’s with an a not an o.”
With each second that ticked by, I watched my research source closing up before my eyes. I realized I’d been clutching the document in my lap, and I forced myself to place it on the coffee table. Hands purposefully loose in my lap, I found when I looked back at MacLaoch something had happened with him. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the hard lines of his face and the stiffness in his posture had softened ever so slightly.
“Minary,” he said, trying out the name as I had pronounced it. “With an a?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He thought on this before saying, “This Iain Eliphlet spells his last name with the common spelling of an o, and I’ll tell ye that this clan knows of each and every Minory that ever lived. If there was another Iain Eliphlet and he lived on this scrap of land, even if his was spelled with an a, I’d know of it. Before ye dismiss him as not being your great-great-granddad, have a look.”
Hesitantly, I picked the report back up and started reading again. By the end of the report, I was glad this character possibly wasn’t my ancestor. The history of this man was less of the quiet hero that I was hoping my Iain Eliphlet Minary would be and more of a rap sheet.
This Iain Eliphlet Minory was a brawler, a drunk, and a gambler. He lived in Merchant City within Glasgow for a bit—maybe under the guise of working to send money home to his wife, Marion Anne Campbell Minory, and her children, five to be exact, from her first marriage (she was a moderately wealthy widow when he married her). More likely he spent his paychecks down to the last cent. The report ended with the equivalent of a modern-day arrest warrant and then documents saying the authorities assumed that he had died.
“He was a busy man,” I said under my breath, thinking that “busy” didn’t quite cover it.
“Aye.”
Despite the lack of great accomplishments by this Iain Eliphlet, there were a few dates and places in this man’s history that were notable, and they didn’t line up with that of what I knew of my Iain Eliphlet, his death being the biggest one.
“Well,” I began, “there’s a problem. This man died about twenty-five years before, and an Atlantic Ocean away from, the known death of the Iain Eliphlet I’m researching. So this is probably a strange coincidence of similar names, or possibly the first case of identity theft. This man might have taken the name of my ancestor to avoid his gambling debts, for example . . . ” My words hung empty in the room.
“Ms. Baker, have ye done research before? I mean, before ye started with your family search.”
I eyed him questioningly. “I have—quite a bit actually, for my graduate program and master’s thesis. What are you implying?”
“I’m implying nothing, though I’m trying to understand why ye have just dismissed important research documentation as irrelevant due to dates of death—”
“Mr. MacLaoch—”
“Rowan.”
“Mr. MacLaoch,” I said, refusing to use his informal name—I was not feeling informal at the moment—“I have spent hundreds, thousands even, of research hours for my master’s thesis, which was scientific research. Science tells me, and this is basic, that if a man is dead, he cannot take a wife and produce offspring. This applies to the entire animal kingdom, in fact.”
“Aye, if he was dead,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.
I just looked at him. “What do you mean if?” I asked.
“I can see tha’ you are fact based and take written documentation to be true—I suspect this is from your schooling—but with historical documentation, Ms. Baker, ye have to expect tha’ there will be some anomalies. Sometimes people will write what they think is the truth, but yet it is far from it.”
“There are anomalies in science, I am not unfamiliar with them,” I rebuked. “But what are you implying? That the man here in this report faked his death? What documentation do you have to prove that?”
“Ms. Baker, for a moment, pretend tha’ ye are in nineteenth-century Scotland, Glasgow, no less—a bit of a rough-and-tumble place at the time—and then think about tha’ man. Ye ha’ no c
oin, ye are dead thirsty for drink, ye dinnae or cannae go home, and the law and every other knee-breaker ye owe money to is looking for ye. Now, imagine ye are hearing about a place called America where every man can own land and be free. What do ye think happened then?”
“I don’t buy it. He faked his own death and slipped onto a boat headed to the Americas? He’d have to be on a ship manifest and if that was the case I would have found that in my research. I specifically searched ships’ manifests before coming here.”
“Aye, he would have had to come out of hiding at some point during his trip, I’ll give ye tha’, but, Ms. Baker, ye cannae assume tha’ you have looked through every ship’s manifest.”
“No, I haven’t, but I didn’t need to, because someone else has done that research. There are dozens and dozens of archives that have all been painstakingly transcribed and put into electronic format for research purposes. If there was written documentation that existed, I would have found it. The only things I was able to uncover were his wedding certificate, birth certificate of his son—my great-grandfather—a property deed, and his death certificate. I will add, his marriage certificate is dated just a month after this Iain Eliphlet in your report died. It’s not him.”
“Weddings were performed regularly on ships heading to the Americas then.”
“You are trying to stretch the truth for your gain. This man is not my ancestor.”
“Ms. Baker, the similarity in the name is not without cause. It is the same man—he got married on the ship and got off in America a new man.”
I just shook my head. “The dates are all off, and unless several of these clerks were having a bad day and forgot what date it was, there is no explanation for these two to be the same. They are not.”
“The dates are off? Explain.” He squinted as if trying to puzzle out why I was daft—which was annoying.