by Jane Stain
They called out greetings.
Well, the people greeted Breth, and Jaelle tried her hardest not to stare at them.
They didn't return the favor though. They were staring at her openly. And she supposed with good reason, seeing as how she was wearing a Roman tunic and anachronistic blue jeans.
But Breth was her insurance policy. They did stare at her, but then they looked at him and he looked at them as if to tell them ‘She's under my protection.’ It made her feel warm and fuzzy inside, even though he didn’t even introduce her.
They honored this, and it wasn't even a close thing. She didn't feel threatened.
But she didn't dare wander far from him.
Things were still awkward between her and him, though. The bounce of the helmet in its bag against her rear end was more reassuring than ever.
Aside from the smoke coming out through its thatched roof, the broch resembled a tall stone hill with a tiny wooden door. Inside, she heard goats bleating, cows lowing, and chickens clucking.
Breth knocked.
“It’s Breth come home with news.”
The door opened, revealing a brown-haired Pictish warrior, brandishing a big sword. Another wooden door stood immediately behind him, and stone walls shut him in on both sides. Invaders would have to fight their way through this small space before entering the broch.
Jaelle looked up. Sure enough, holes in the wooden ceiling provided defenders an opportunity to dump on the invaders before they got in.
This new warrior lowered his sword and laughed, then hugged Breth, looking at Jaelle curiously over Breth’s shoulder.
“Welcome home. There was a bit of worry you wouldn’t make it, with all the trouble that’s started—”
Breth pulled back from the hug and cut off whatever the man was saying, both with words and with a gesture toward her.
“Aye, we saw some trouble of our own. More about that later. For now I want to get our guest settled. Send Deoord up with more suitable clothes for her.”
Again, he hadn’t introduced her, but at least he had called her a guest. That was encouraging, right?
The guard nodded once in acknowledgment and then stepped out of the little alcove. Breth took her inside and closed the outer door. Only once it was closed did he open the inner door.
Tiny rays of sunlight peeked through the cracks in the ten foot thick stone walls, trying to light the room and failing. Perhaps to make up for this, four small stone enclosures near the center of the room held fires, and their smoke went up through the driftwood ceiling, which must be the floor on the next level.
Down here on the first level, the dirt floor was tightly packed, and Jaelle’s feet didn’t stir any dust at all as she walked on it. The thirty foot diameter room was full of little lean-to dividers with bedding inside. Chickens scratched all over, and goats were tied to the stone wall.
A few people lingered here, mostly women chatting with each other. They glanced over her way frequently, but in these relatively close quarters they made a point of not staring. At least there was that.
Breth took Jaelle’s hand and led her through another door to a stairway between the inner and outer walls. It was only about a foot and a half wide. She guessed there were no fat people at this time in history. Except the Romans. She’d seen actual drawings of them in addition to reading the texts she had described to Breth as pictures.
“Watch your step,” he said as he walked up ahead of her slowly and placed her hand on the wall. It was stone and irregular. “The steps are as bumpy as the walls, so be careful.”
“Can’t we light a torch or something?” She said as pleadingly as she could while trying to keep up with him.
He laughed.
“Your feet and your hands will get the job done without your eyes if you only allow them to, Kitten. Just take your time. We’re going up all five floors.”
About ready to drop from exhaustion after staying up basically all night and then walking for miles, Jaelle had to take the stairs exceedingly slowly in order to avoid tripping. She looked longingly at the three wooden doors they passed on their way up. Finally, they were at the top, where another wooden door waited.
Breth opened it and gestured her in.
“This is where I sleep, and so do any guests. If anyone woke up in the middle the night and saw a stranger… Well, just understand you’re in this room with me for your own protection.”
Jaelle looked around. Her eyes had adjusted on the way up, and now she could actually see by the scant sunlight coming through the cracks between the stones that made up the walls. There was only one room up here, and though the first floor was 30 feet across inside the thick walls, the structure tapered almost to a point up here, so that this room was only 8 feet across. Items of clothing and accessories hung from pegs driven into the chinks in the walls. The wooden floor was covered with bedding except for a small hole in the center, where the smoke billowed up from below and exited through the thatch roof.
She was so sleepy she almost didn't care where she was so long as there was bedding, and there was plenty of it here. But self-preservation told her to resist the idea of letting her guard down for the night with a man she just met, gorgeous or not. Hospitable or not. Having fought off Roman attackers with her or not.
At least, not without talking first.
All right. Truth be told, Jaelle’s big mouth just took over. It was only later on she rationalized why.
“So I bet you bring a lot of women up here.”
This must have caught him off guard, because he laughed the smallest bit, and this time it was friendly.
“Not as many as you might think.”
She pushed some of the bedding aside with her foot so that she could walk around the room and get her bearings, but there weren’t any other exits. She settled near the door and sat down on what looked like burlap blankets.
“That isn't any kind of answer.”
He raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms, leaning on the curved wall on the other side of the door. His face was frank and open now, at least.
“Do I really owe you an answer?”
She lowered her chin in mock dismay, only realizing afterward it was a flirty thing to do ― and then doubly shocked at what her mouth said without consulting with her.
“Well I am a woman alone with you in your bedroom. Usually by this point a man and a woman have at least admitted to each other if they're married or not.”
He looked deep in her eyes with his blue ones, making the rest of the world disappear until she was drowning in those blue pools of sincerity.
“And are you hoping I'm married … or not?”
A rush came over her whole body, the kind of exhilaration she felt when she was aboard an airplane taking off.
“A little of each, actually.”
That won her an approving grin. Which made her jaw drop in awe. At close range like this, she watched while the blue woad leaves on his face bloomed into flowers and then sprouted berries when his smile grew more intense and happy.
“Why do you hope I am married?”
She looked upward as if imploring God for strength ― when really she just needed a break from those eyes or she was going to do something she regretted.
“Let’s just say I don’t have the highest confidence in men right now. One of you recently disappointed me in a big way, and I don’t want that to happen again. The easiest way to avoid it seems to be only hanging out with men I can’t have.”
He shrugged, his handsome face amused.
“Sorry, can’t help you there. I’m ready and available, poor you.”
Her face must’ve shown her shock at his assumption that she would sleep with him, because just as a thin dark-haired man opened the door and came in holding a bundle of clothes, Breth stifled a laugh, slowly shaking his head no as he gestured for the man to hand her the clothes.
“Aw lass, we shall each stay on our own side of the room. There is plenty of space for that. Put
on some of our local clothing and then come down one floor and we’ll give you something to eat.”
With that, Breth grabbed some clothing off the circular wall and the two men went out the door and closed it softly behind them.
Jaelle was torn between using the helmet to go home now while she had privacy — and being curious about what sort of food they would give her. Curiosity won out, so she took off her jeans and the Roman tunic so she could put on one of the dresses from nearly two thousand years ago. Mostly out of modesty, she left her padded bra on, though she did like the way it lifted her.
There were three dresses in the bundle, all knee-length. For tonight she chose a plaid one that resembled the sheath dresses her mother was fond of, except the skirt had side slits for easy mobility and the short sleeves were composed of many small petals. She marveled at how even in the first century AD, five different colors had been woven into the plaid: green, blue, brown, orange, and even a black thread was woven in. After thinking on it for a moment, she realized she had been discrediting the abilities of these people again. This was an island, after all, so the black thread could’ve been died with ink from a squid.
She found shoes in the bundle as well, handmade of course, and composed entirely of leather. The souls were surprisingly thick and tough.
She fastened the belt and scabbard on over these clothes, but left the sword on top of her jeans. Much more importantly, she once more tucked the mouth of the leather bag with the helmet into the belt.
Salivating, she opened the wooden door and descended carefully in the darkness, knocking when she came to the next wooden door.
After a few moments, Breth opened it. He had scrubbed the woad off his pale face and hair, and he had donned some of those knee-length breeks and a linen shirt. His once again friendly blue eyes were wide — with admiration? — as he looked at her and spoke, this time reverently.
“Come on in and sit down, Jaelle. The food is ready.”
He gestured toward a table with three plates of food on it.
She sat down in the nearest chair, trying not to stare at the food with too much fascination. It was a lost cause though. The food smelled good, but it was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. It was a salad of sorts, but with no lettuce and an unfamiliar dressing. Bits of what must be fish had been tossed into it. There wasn’t any tableware in evidence.
Breth sat down and poured wine into wooden cups from an earthenware pitcher.
“Go ahead and dig in.”
While she was dying to, she just had no idea how. She waited and watched.
Breth shrugged, grabbed at the salad with his fingers, and took several bites before she dared to join him.
The salad was good, if a bit odd — and messy, eating with the fingers. She didn’t see any napkins. She stole a glance at Breth.
He was licking the dressing off his fingers between bites when he caught her looking and winked at her. His smile was friendly again, even more friendly than right after their victory in battle.
This was nice, but confusing.
Deoord was seated across from her, and when she looked up into his eyes, they saw inside her in a manner that wouldn’t allow her to look away.
She heard Breth talking to Deoord.
“Can you tell anything else about her?”
Deoord continued studying her without blinking.
“I think she’s been spirited to our age in order to help defeat the savages who are building that wall to cage us.”
What?
How could this man know that just by looking at her? Or did she smell like something from the future? She felt panicky and irrational under the small man’s scrutiny, and the urge to smell her underarms for the scent of her deodorant was nearly overpowering. But that was silly, so she tamped it down, her eyes still held in Deoord’s gaze.
Although he was staring at her, the small man was still speaking to Breth as if she weren’t in the room. Ordinarily, she knew her tongue would call him out for being rude, but somehow his stare had quieted even her tongue’s mind of its own. And that was saying something.
Deoord’s voice was contemplative.
“Hopefully she can give us an edge against them, being from the future and knowing the past—”
Oh, Lord help us.
Jaelle stood up and did her best to pierce both of their delusions ― and bring them both back down to Earth where they would once again speak to her as the mere human she was. It was unsettling, being revered.
“I don’t know how you know I’m from the future, and I don’t deny that. But although I do know the past more than most people of my time, I know it only in the big picture. The small details — such as who won which individual skirmish at Hadrian’s Wall and how — have escaped the historical record, largely because you Picts don’t … draw on parchment the way I was explaining to Breth before. The Romans do, and so all the records we have of what happened in this time were … drawn … by the Romans. I’m sure you won some battles, but those victories are not recorded. What’s more, the Romans have a name for this year in relation to all other years in a system of timekeeping that you are not privy to, and so you wouldn’t be able to tell me what year it is so that I could reference what little I do know. I’m sorry. I really can’t be of much use to you as a sage.”
Whereas before there had been noise and shuffling about in a general hubbub from below, all that was now dead silent.
Well, now the whole clan knew. So be it.
Breth smiled at her again in that friendly way she had enjoyed back when it was all she’d seen from him. Now it worried her. Would he be depending on her the way Deoord was trying to?
But with a pained look on his face, he calmly gestured for her to sit down again and waited while she did.
“Jaelle, not only do I accept your apology, I now apologize to you. I doubted you. I knew you weren’t a spy from the invaders, but I thought you might be here spying for the Gaels. Howsoever, Deoord is one of our druids I told you about, with supernatural powers derived from the forces of nature. He assures me you are from far in the future and do not mean us any harm. I just hope you’ll accept my apology and stay around long enough to see us defeat the barbarians.”
It moved Jaelle, seeing this strong warrior who was obviously the leader of his clan humble himself. And knowing what was in store for his people had her almost in tears.
She opened her mouth to warn him the Romans were going to win.
But Deoord tapped her shin with his foot, causing her to look at him again. Once he had her gaze, he held it with the power of his own and spoke hurriedly.
“I am unsure of when the fae will take her back, Breth.”
Say what?
Huh.
So Deoord didn’t want Breth to know that some druids had the power of time travel and had crafted things like this Roman helmet in order to facilitate time travel. And Deoord would be a dangerous person to cross.
Tearing her eyes away from the druid and again looking at Breth’s pained face, Jaelle stood up again.
“I accept your apology.”
Breth’s face broke into a grateful relaxed smile that made him more attractive to her than ever. He stood and began to make his way around the table — probably to clasp forearms with her, but maybe to give her a hug.
Almost impossibly weary now, she held out her hand to stay him.
“I was about to head for bed when I suddenly found myself here in your time. On top of that, I’m not accustomed to walking such distances. I fear that if I don’t go up to my bed now, I’ll go to sleep right here and fall out of the chair. Will you men excuse me?”
Breth gave her a sympathetic grin and spoke apologetically at first, and then more flirty even than she had been earlier.
“I will. But before you go, I just want you to know you look great in that dress.”
Deoord turned his mighty gaze upon Breth and glowered.
Undaunted, Breth beamed a smile, first at him, and then back a
t her.
Nine
Jaelle had to crawl up the steep hard stone stairs on her bare knees, but she made it without falling. When she was back to where she had left her jeans, she again thought of putting the helmet on and leaving. It was the sensible thing to do.
But Breth’s handsome smiling face and sparkling blue eyes appeared in her mind unbidden. Well, okay, and his naked body painted with the blue clay danced before her mind’s eye as well. He was magnificent. And he liked her. And now he knew her secret and things were no longer awkward between the two of them.
She wanted to spend as much time with him as she could before she left.
And, you know, she was learning so much about the Pictish people. That knowledge would help her in her work, which was important, you know. Just one more day. Surely that was within reason. She had a few days off before she needed to be at work again.
Having made the decision, she fell onto the bedding and rolled over once to cover herself up. Within seconds, she was fast asleep.
Jaelle was having one of those dreams where she knew she was dreaming. She knew because while she had only glanced at most of the broch as she passed through it, now her dream self was exploring it through her memories. Her choice of companion for this puzzled her, but at least there was no more talk of her companion’s recent wedding.
At the thought of a wedding, Breth’s ruggedly handsome face and dancing eyes appeared again unbidden. Eh, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Amber talked about her wedding some more.
Their friend Kelsey was here in the dream too. The three of them were floating up and down the walls of the broch right through the floors, looking around in wonder, glancing at each other from time to time with that amazement in their eyes that Jaelle had tried to share with Breth the day before, when it had fallen flat.
The three of them stopped for a moment on the bottom floor in the middle of the circle of small fires, and Amber hugged Jaelle.
“I’m so glad you’re okay. When you put on that helmet and disappeared, we were both worried sick. Looks like you’re doing well there though.”