While Callum belted his sword around his waist and slung his cloak over his shoulders, Cassie pulled off her sweater and stepped into a dress, tugging it up over her shirt and pants. Cassie saw Callum watching her and she wrinkled her nose at him. “The lord prefers it.”
She put the sweater back on, a cloak over the sweater, and then snapped her quiver onto a heavy backpack, the contents of which she didn’t share with Callum. She slipped the straps of the backpack through slits in her cloak before buckling them across her front. Callum pulled an arrow from the quiver. It was shorter than the yard-long Welsh longbow arrows, but then her bow was shorter too.
“Why were you hunting with a recurve bow instead of a compound one, a crossbow, or even a gun?” Callum said.
“My grandfather is a traditionalist,” Cassie said.
She picked up her bow and Callum picked up his gun from where he’d left it on the bed. He slid it into its holster at the small of his back.
Cassie watched him, her lips pressed together. “You haven’t fired it.”
Callum turned around. “You checked?”
Cassie nodded but didn’t ask forgiveness for meddling with his things. Callum gazed at her for a few seconds before he realized she wasn’t going to.
He shook his head. “Too many complications would ensue if I used the gun. It’s not worth it.”
“Not even during the ambush?” Cassie said.
“Especially not during the ambush,” Callum said. At Cassie’s raised eyebrows, he added, “David and I talked about this. He’s been here since 1282, and while I’ve only lived in the Middle Ages for six months, I can see that what he says is true: you can’t fix everything, even if David is going to try. If I’d opened fire on the MacDougalls when they attacked us—what then?”
They both thought about that for a moment. “The noise alone would’ve brought everyone up short,” Cassie said. “You could have given your company time to sort themselves out.”
“True,” Callum said, “but after my clip was empty? The MacDougalls would have seen I was out of bullets and attacked. And then, if I survived, just by its very existence the gun would have called attention to me, to King David, and to everything that we are.”
“Saving the bullets wouldn’t have done you much good if you were dead,” Cassie said.
“That is the weak point in this argument,” Callum admitted. “My death isn’t the worst thing that could happen, though. And I didn’t feel like I was going to die. Not on that road.”
“What if using the gun was the only way to save someone else?” Cassie said.
Callum sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll decide what to do when the time comes. If it comes.”
They left Cassie’s cabin with darkness falling, but a warmer breeze filled the air and the rain had stopped completely. It was May, after all. It couldn’t rain all the time. Or could it? After they’d traveled a mile, a pitter-patter started on the leaves above their heads. Callum tried not to groan. Cassie’s lips twitched, but she said nothing.
In fact, she said nothing about anything, even when Callum tried to draw her out with questions. She wouldn’t elaborate on her life in Scotland or the possibility of leaving it behind. In fact, she didn’t say more than three words the entire walk to Mugdock. She appeared completely comfortable with no communication at all, didn’t ask him anything about himself, and held her face so still, Callum couldn’t begin to discern what she was thinking.
After a while, he let it go. He didn’t know her or her circumstances, other than that she’d done pretty well for herself, considering that she’d been dumped here with no warning and with no one to help her. By rights, she should be dead, or at the very least, should have had to sell herself to survive. But she hadn’t, and that meant it wasn’t his place to press her.
Callum took Cassie to be somewhere in her twenties, which meant she’d been less than twenty-five when she’d come to the Middle Ages. At twenty-five, all of Callum’s needs had been taken care of by the army and his personal life had alternated between nonexistent and screwed up.
He glanced at Cassie, wondering if anything he’d said or done so far was right. He was out of practice with women, having spent most of his time with men since he’d come to the Middle Ages. Peasants and whores aside, no unmarried girl was ever allowed to spend time alone with a man, so he hadn’t yet figured how to get to know one. Until now, he’d had no land or money of his own to offer anyway. While Cassie seemed unconcerned about her reputation, they were violating all sorts of medieval rules by spending so much time alone together. Callum hadn’t yet figured out what, if anything, he was going to do about it.
The rain squall didn’t last long, stopping by the time Callum and Cassie came out of the woods onto lower ground. Cassie pulled up before they reached the small village, above which rose Mugdock Castle, which was situated on a rocky outcrop on the western end of Mugdock Loch. Towers lit by torches shone above a stone curtain wall. A wooden palisade extended around the whole of the mound, encompassing a much larger space below it. The sneer forming on Callum’s lips told him that he’d spent too much time in English castles. He’d already adopted the English prejudice against the primitiveness of Scottish settlements.
Cassie hadn’t seen his expression so Callum quickly rearranged his face before she could. “Do you think the MacDougalls are here?” he said.
Cassie studied the castle. “See how many men patrol the battlements?” And then she answered her own question. “Dozens. It’s too many compared to other times I’ve been here.”
“Is it safe for you to be here?” Callum said. “For us?”
“I’m wearing a dress today. Lord Graham won’t turn me away,” she said.
Callum couldn’t tell if she was deliberately misunderstanding his question or really thought that a dress would take care of any threat.
“Let me do the talking,” Cassie said. “You’re dressed all wrong. They’ll know you for English just by looking at you.”
Callum opted not to mention the bow along her back, which surely showed her for being out of the ordinary too. “I speak Gaelic and medieval English,” he said.
“Oh.” Cassie looked Callum up and down, as if seeing him for the first time. “I’ve been treating you as if you were a child. I’m sorry.”
Callum laughed. “I didn’t notice. Up until a month or so ago, everyone treated me that way. It’s easy to confuse ignorance with stupidity, especially when a man can’t speak the language. People have a tendency to talk louder, as if I were deaf or a difficult three-year-old.”
“It’s more than that. You don’t project yourself,” Cassie said. “I’m not used to it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Men in Scotland are taught to fill up every room they’re in,” she said. “They’re forceful and loud. You’ll have to be careful that they don’t confuse your lack of bravado with weakness.”
“I don’t mind if they do,” Callum said. “A man viewed as weak is a man underestimated. Currently, I’d prefer to come across as your companion rather than as a threat to Lord Patrick.”
Cassie actually laughed. “You want him to see you as my sidekick?”
“I’d choose to be your protector, but I don’t think you need one,” Callum said.
Cassie ignored that. “How much do you want me to tell him about you?”
“What if you were to say that I’m a Mackay, from the far north, and that I’m sympathetic to the Scottish cause, whomever they choose as king? Would he believe it?”
“Only if you could name your ancestors,” she said.
“Donald,” Callum said. “Every single Mackay is named Donald or Hugh.”
She pursed her lips. “That you speak Gaelic will help, but I wouldn’t mention how or why, or where you come from in Scotland. If King David really doesn’t care who gets crowned king of Scotland, it would be better just to say so. You’re here as his representative, not your own.”
Callum nodded. H
e would rather not lie, but he happened to be good at it, a product of working for MI-5 for four years after he came home from the war.
Cassie led Callum through Mugdock’s village, no more than a cluster of huts that huddled at the base of the mound upon which the castle was built. With darkness nearly complete, except for some stars that blinked in and out from behind the clouds, the only light came from a few open doorways and the torches at the castle gate.
Cassie marched right up to the doors. “I’m here to see Lord Patrick,” she said in Gaelic.
“Nobody in or out after nightfall, those are our orders,” the man said.
“I’m not nobody,” Cassie said, rendering the double negative even in Gaelic, completely flummoxing the man.
“Lord Patrick will want to see us.” Callum stepped closer to Cassie and into the light. “I guarantee it.”
Whatever Cassie thought about the conceptual space Callum took up, he did have size to his advantage. The guard at the gate was eight inches shorter and had to look up at Callum. They exchanged a long look before the guard took a step back, pushing with his shoulder at the door behind him to open it.
Inside the palisade, the bailey showed evidence of night coming on. A few people trotted here and there, but the blacksmith works were dark, with just a dim glow from a banked fire. The door to the inner bailey was open, revealing bright lights within. From the sound of voices beyond it, the evening meal was in progress.
“What is this? You were told to let nobody in tonight.” A man of obviously higher rank and authority stalked towards Cassie and Callum.
“They insisted—”
The second man cuffed the first man upside the head. “Get back to your post.”
“Yes, sir.” The underling obeyed, though not without shooting a glare at his superior from behind his back.
Cassie watched the guard go and then said, “Hello, John.”
John grunted. He seemed to accept that Cassie wasn’t going to call him ‘sir’ or ‘my lord’ or whatever the man might be used to from other people. “What do you want, Cassie? You shouldn’t be here.”
“I brought someone to whom Lord Patrick will want to speak,” she said.
“He’s busy.”
“With the same business as this, I think,” Cassie said. “When he finds out that you sent me away, which he will eventually, he’s not going to be happy with you.”
That sounded good, but Callum was feeling more nervous by the second about how easily Cassie sashayed in here and said what was on her mind. He hadn’t heard anyone—much less a woman—make such bold statements about what she wanted since he’d come to the Middle Ages. Well—apart from David, who could say whatever he pleased. Though even he could take lessons in assertiveness from Cassie.
While Callum wore a sword and Cassie held her bow (a goddamned recurve—Callum still couldn’t believe it), neither of them could hold off the dozens—maybe multiple dozens—of men currently filling Mugdock Castle. Callum made sure he didn’t reveal his uncertainty by shifting from one foot to another and instead stood staunchly beside Cassie as she gazed steadily into John’s face.
John, however, didn’t blink. “All right, then. But not in the hall. You can wait in the south tower.”
John led the way up the hill to the inner gate, set in a stone curtain wall with four towers that protected the keep. They climbed the stairs to the main floor of the tower to the left of the gatehouse. John pushed open the door, revealing a single square room. A stairway went around the exterior of the tower, rather than around the interior. Once John closed the door on them, if he chose to bar it, Cassie and Callum would have no way out. Callum glanced at Cassie, but she seemed unperturbed by their accommodations and entered the room.
Mistrusting where trust didn’t seem warranted, Callum didn’t follow her. Instead, he leaned against the frame of the door and folded his arms across his chest. John opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and then said, “You might have a long wait.”
“Fine,” Callum said.
John shot a look at Cassie, who had unslung her backpack from her back and was inspecting the arrows in her quiver. Then he looked at Callum. He didn’t speak, just gave a quick jerk of his head and departed. Callum had the sense that what he would have said, if he’d said anything, was better you than me.
Damn straight.
Cassie moved to stand in the doorway with Callum and they looked out on the activity in the inner bailey. “The MacDougalls were here but I’m not sure they still are, and I don’t get the sense the prisoners are here either.”
“Why would you say that?” Callum said.
“I recognize that man.” She lifted her chin to point at someone just entering the great hall. He looked an awful lot like the last soldier Callum had fought at the ambush site, before he’d been felled by that unseen assailant. “The other men are all from Graham lands. It looks as if Lord Patrick called them here as a precaution, to help fortify Mugdock.”
Callum and Cassie waited a long time, maybe because Lord Patrick really was busy, or maybe because he was that reluctant to meet them. In that time, nobody who went in or out of the keep looked at them. It was as though they were invisible, and maybe they were, since the candle that had lit the little room had gone out within five minutes of their arrival. Callum took the wait as an opportunity to ask his new friend a bit more about herself.
“You haven’t told me the truth, Cassie,” Callum said.
“What do you mean?” she said. “The truth about what?”
“Yourself.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You pretend that you’re a simple girl, raised in the woods,” Callum said, “but you’re not. You’re well-educated; you speak elegantly and with a sophisticated vocabulary. And how does a simple girl learn Gaelic and medieval English so fluently, even if she’s had nearly five years to do it?”
Cassie looked out at the bailey, not answering. Callum thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then she said, “Indians aren’t savages, Callum. Or stupid. I told you that I went to college.”
“I-I-I didn’t mean that. I meant—I just—”
“Really?” Her chin jutted out and her eyes flashed. “Maybe you should stop talking now.”
Callum snapped his mouth shut, knowing he’d bolloxed that up beyond measure. To his regret, Cassie went quiet and Callum didn’t restart the conversation. If he had his way, she was coming with him wherever he went next, no matter how low her opinion of him. That meant he’d have plenty of time to drag her story out of her.
“I don’t like this plan anymore,” Callum said. “I think it’s time we made a new one.”
“Give him a few more minutes,” Cassie said.
Half of Cassie’s face was in shadow, but Callum could see enough of it to know that she remained relaxed. “You seem very sure of him. Why?”
“He’s—” she stopped.
“What?”
But then Cassie didn’t have to answer because at that moment, John came out of one of the lesser structures built into the curtain wall and hurried towards them. Another man strode beside him on longer legs, dressed in mail and cloak like the other soldiers. Lord Patrick Graham. Callum knew it without having to ask. Given his grey hair but relatively young face and well-muscled stature, Callum put him in his late forties.
“Christ on the cross, Cassie!” Lord Patrick said, even before he’d come halfway up the stairs to the tower room. “What are you doing here?”
Cassie bowed her head about three millimeters. “We need to talk.”
Lord Patrick let out a sharp burst of air and then transferred his gaze to Callum. “Who is this?”
“The personal emissary of King David of England,” Callum said, not giving Cassie time to answer first.
Lord Patrick’s lips thinned into a line. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Cassie leaned in. “Do you realize that King David was supposed to be in that party the MacDougalls ambush
ed, and that Bishop Kirby, the former regent of England, is dead? Do you understand what the MacDougalls have done and how much danger you’re in? What are the chances that their sins will spill over to you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I sheltered my kinsmen. That is all.” But Lord Patrick’s nostrils flared and Callum saw something that looked like fear in his eyes.
“What about the survivors of the ambush?” Callum said. “You’re saying that the MacDougalls didn’t bring them here?”
“We know they kept some men alive. I watched them march away,” Cassie said. “Please say Alexander MacDougall didn’t order their deaths after all?”
Lord Patrick clenched his teeth. “I had nothing to do with any of this.”
“How are you going to prove that?” Cassie said.
“To whom should I have to prove it?” Lord Patrick said.
“How about the King of England?” Callum said.
“You have called in every able-bodied man from your lands,” Cassie said. “You’re saying that’s for no reason?”
By way of an answer, Lord Patrick grabbed Cassie’s arm and pulled her into the darkness of the tower room. Callum followed. “Rumor has it that if King David decides not to take the throne for himself, he will choose Robert Bruce to be king.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Callum said. “King David had decided no such thing. With this act, however, with the MacDougalls seeking his head—”
“I know.” Lord Patrick ran a hand through his hair. “They have forced King David’s hand. He will come with an army. He cannot let this act go unpunished.”
“Your own Guardians promised safe travel for the king’s party,” Cassie said. “If this can’t be resolved quickly, Scotland may find itself at war with England.”
A shout came from the battlements. “They’re coming!”
“You need to leave. Now.” The words came out in a whispered hiss, though the only member of the garrison who could have heard him was John.
Exiles in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Page 9