Warrior of My Own

by Knightley, Diana

  With a huge effort and almost unbearable pain, I swung a leg over and flounced to the ground. It was absolutely freezing. I yanked my tartan tight around my head, tight under my throat. Frosty breath in front of my face.

  “Kaitlyn, what are ye doing?”

  “I am not riding on a horse with someone who plans to desert me to die all by myself. I won’t do it.”

  “You’ll die here, Kaitlyn, tis too cold for ye—”

  “I don’t care. I’m going to stand here and wait for my husband to come and rescue me. Because that’s what he does. He saves my life. He doesn’t say bullshit stuff like I’m not going to be married to you anymore because you’re better than me, and he sure as hell doesn’t plan to desert me. Unlike you. You can just go on your merry way. You wanted to leave me, consider it done.”

  By now I was shivering pretty noticeably. From the cold, the stress, the shadow of Magnus over me.

  From up on the horse Magnus said, “Kaitlyn, you will freeze...”

  I stared straight ahead. “I know. But it’s worth it to not be on a horse with a kidnapper anymore.”

  The horse began high-stepping in a circle. Magnus pulled it back in front of me.

  “What do you want me tae say?”

  I stamped my feet, half-petulantly, half-freezing. “My husband would know what to say.”

  His face stormed over.

  “He would rescue me, then he would hold me in his arms while I cried. And he would tell me he was sorry for all the asinine men of the world. And he would tell me he loved me, and that he would never ever leave me. Until he comes I am not going anywhere.”

  Magnus glared at me. He spun the horse around and galloped down the path by twenty feet, then yelled, “Hie!” turned the horse and galloped back. He pulled short in front of me. “Kaitlyn, get on the horse.”

  “No.”

  “Kaitlyn, I am nae askin ye, I am tellin’ ye, get on the horse.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  He swung the horse around. He galloped away, bellowing. He swung back, kicking up a cloud of frosty dust and pulled short in front of me again. He dismounted, dropping in front of me, and stood there for a second, breathing heavily.

  I continued to look straight ahead, my view his Adam’s apple.

  He stood there.

  I stood there.

  Finally I grabbed him around the chest, buried my face in his tartan, and burst into tears.

  He wrapped his arms around.

  “Mo reul-iuil.” He held me close and tight, his arms around my head, his cheek pressed to my hair.

  I nodded, rubbing my tear-stained face up and down on the front of his shirt. “I want to go home.”

  “I know, mo reul-iuil. I know.”

  “With you though, I want to go home with you.”

  “Aye, me too.”

  I held him harder.

  Finally he rumbled, “Tis hard tae come home from battle.”

  “I know. It is for me too.”

  “I didn’t protect you, I promised.”

  “I know.”

  He held me tighter, warmer, closer.

  “But it’s okay now.” I snuffled into his shirt. “It’s okay.”

  I felt him nod against my head, and I knew he was coming back from the battlefield, finally. My hands were wrapped inside my plaid, I reached up and held his cheeks and looked up into his eyes. “We’re going to be okay. We’ll do what Barbara always says to do, ‘Begin each day where you are.’ We have to begin. We have to get home. And we have to do it together.”

  “I have tae get ye to a warm house.”

  I hugged him, my body fully shivering now.

  “I need ye tae ride behind me and hold on, so we can go fast.”

  Chapter 29

  We pulled up to another cottage and Magnus dismounted from the horse to inquire inside. We were advised to ride down a field to another house, because as Magnus put it, “The house was so full of bairn, I canna imagine they have a floorboard tae spare.”

  The next house was much like the others — an older couple lived there, with more animals than it seemed wise to keep in a small space. It smelled horrific. They gave us a spot near the fire, but seemed irritated by our presence.

  While Magnus went out to see to our horse, the woman of the house bustled around me, cranky and fitful. She hovered, working near the fire, where I was perched on a tiny stool. She didn’t want me there, but I didn’t want to give up my spot. I needed it, plus Magnus had arranged for me to sit here. I accidentally bumped her elbow which irritated her further.

  She seemed to think I was a massive inconvenience. I felt it too but I couldn’t even imagine how to help. There was one pot and filth everywhere but I had no experience with cleaning pig sties in the eighteenth century.

  Magnus returned. He and I sat on small stools without much to do but warm by the fire. Magnus held my hand. Then he leaned forward into my lap, wrapping around my arm. His forehead on my shoulder. I bowed my head so I could hear his words.

  “Our lives, mo reul-iuil are full of too many apologies. I daena believe I would have left ye, I would have stopped myself, surely, but I have spent many a long hour in the past days thinking ye would be better without me.”

  “You cannot think it without meaning something so awful I can’t even bear it Magnus. I am not better without you. Because we’re together now, entwined and entangled, like that tree today in the woods. There isn’t any going back.” The warmth of the fire popping and crackling in the fireplace spread only about five feet away but we were within the circumference of the heat. Almost comfortable for the first time all day. And the warmth was spreading into my body, coursing through my blood, warming my heart. The anger from earlier, at the predicament, at his reaction, at my past few days, began to dissipate.

  Magnus was doing the best he could. This was all so complicated and he had done so much. He had to fight back from the battle and now he had to rationalize back into my arms.

  He needed help.

  I pressed my lips to his forehead. “Did you mean it when you said we were cursed?”

  “Och, aye.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that the path you are on, coming forward in time — to me, might be a part of God’s plan? Why do you think you’re going against him?”

  His forehead grew heavier on my shoulder. “I daena ken.”

  “Exactly.” I whispered into his ear. “You don’t know. God has never spoken to you outright. You pray to him all the time, but he doesn’t answer, not directly. So how do you know? Maybe it’s God’s plan for you to come to the Island in 2017 and meet me. Maybe we’re supposed to get married and have children. Maybe you have a genetic purpose or—”

  “Genetic?”

  “Like your bloodline, your children.”

  “Maybe our bairn are a part of God’s plan?”

  “Maybe. The truth is you don’t know. All you can do is try to live and be good. And I think you are. You didn’t plan to do any of this. You didn’t build the time vessel. You didn’t come to Florida to do anything wrong. You aren’t building an army, or transporting guns, or conspiring to take over the world. You’re literally just trying to keep the vessels from falling into the hands of someone who wants to do bad things with them.”

  He raised up slightly to see my face. His brow drawn, listening.

  “And you’re keeping your vows. I think that means the most to God.”

  “Perhaps I haena displeased him?”

  I shrugged. “You can’t know.”

  “You are right, I canna know.” He stared deep into my eyes, then asked, “Would ye pray with me Kaitlyn?”

  I nodded.

  He knelt on the floor beside his stool and I knelt beside him, shoulder to shoulder. And he began to pray, murmuring, in words I didn’t understand, his voice low and rumbling in the room.

  And though I hadn’t prayed in a very long time, I said my own. I prayed to keep him safe, to keep him strong and sure. And I didn’t
ask to go home. That seemed too much like bargaining, and possibly impossible, but instead I asked for guidance wherever I was.

  When we were done we stood and he kissed me on my temple. And then pulled me into his arms and held me for a long long time. The anger, the fear, the anguish, all left him and he had returned to the kind of strength we needed to get through this together.

  * * *

  When our focus returned to the room we were in, the woman of the house seemed satisfied by our prayer.

  She drew Magnus into a conversation, speaking long and sharply about a great many angry things. Her husband grunted in reply, but only when he had to, but she was all exasperated expressions and furious gestures. I had no idea what she was talking about, but it was much like she was saying, “kids these days, with their gyrating and rock-and-roll,” or, “the neighbors with their fornicating ways.”

  Magnus placated her as well as he could, saying something that sounded a lot like it meant, “Yes ma’am, I agree with absolutely everything you say.” When her back was turned, he gave me a sad smile with a shake of his head and I crossed my eyes and stuck out my tongue in return.

  Finally, she gave us a thick soup for dinner. We shared a beer. As I fell asleep in Magnus’s arms he whispered, “I could tell she was a judging ye as nae godly enough. Thank ye for praying with me.” and I was reminded that my husband had been looking out for me, always. And would for all time. Definitely. “I will get you home, mo reul-iuil. I promise.”

  Chapter 30

  The next afternoon we arrived at Balloch and headed straight for the Great Hall though I was a complete wreck. My hair had dreadlocks in the back, my eyes were tinged black, my clothes were stained. I stunk too, plain and simple.

  Magnus was soon in a conversation with a group of men about rescuing me. And I stood to the side, unnecessary.

  Lizbeth rushed in once she heard we were there and hugged me like a long-lost sister.

  I said, “I am so sorry about your husband.” We sank onto a bench holding hands. “I tried to save him.” Her head was bowed. “I tried to comfort him as he died. I’m just so sorry Lizbeth.”

  “Thank you, Kaitlyn.” She pushed her hair back from her forehead. Her eyes were swollen from tears, her face pale. “He was a terrible husband in many ways, but he was my own, and kept me from the trouble of gettin’ another.” She sounded a lot like her mother, Lady Mairead.

  She waved her hand of my worry. “You have been through an ordeal, what has happened tae ye?”

  “These men grabbed me and stole me from the battlefield. They took me really far away and—” I burst into tears.

  “Did they hurt ye Kaitlyn?”

  “No, not really. It was just so scary. They told me Magnus was dead, and I just — thought that was the end of it for me.”

  Lizbeth clucked, not in a mean way but in a there, there way. She pushed my hair from my wet cheek.

  “You daena have an end tae ye, because ye are a part of my family now. You are a Campbell, the wife of Young Magnus, the sister of Lizbeth and Sean. The niece of the Earl. Your family resides in Argyll most of the time. Have ye seen it yet sister, our home there?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “It is beautiful on the edge of Loch Awe. I miss it greatly. But now we are here under the Earl of Breadalbane’s protection in Balloch Castle on the south bank of the Tay, and we have great power, Kaitlyn. You are protected by us.”

  I nodded and swallowed down my tears.

  “Did Young Magnus kill your captors?”

  “He killed one of them, the rest escaped.”

  “He must be regrettin’ going alone. Sean would have gone with him gladly. But tis nae matter, ye are home. I will need ye tae attend me during the wake. I have taken a break, but must go back. You will needs be cleaned up before ye come.”

  “How, I don’t have any more clothes?”

  “I will send someone with ye and a dress to change.” She stood and spoke with one of the young women milling about the room. Then she whispered to Magnus and soon I was ushered upstairs to my room to change.

  Chapter 31

  An hour later I was shown to the family chapel. It was a small room, but with ceilings that swept very high, and two long stained glass windows. Tapestries and paintings along the sides. Near the altar stood two heavy oak tables and in the middle of one lay Lizbeth’s husband, Rory.

  He looked scrubbed, his clothes clean. A shield on his chest. A sword beside him. I winced when I saw him, remembering pressing the cloth to his wound, trying to keep him alive. Maybe if I hadn’t been kidnapped I could have saved him, but then again first aid might not have been enough and there was no hospital.

  On the other table lay another shield and sword upon a body that was covered over in a cloth.

  Lizbeth gestured to sit on the bench beside her. She whispered, “There lies Ewan. The Earl was able tae recover his body.”

  “Oh.” I gulped trying to push down a feeling of panic. Images flashed in my head: Ewan’s forearm across my throat. My husband beating him nearly to death. Ewan’s struggle as his throat was cut. I wanted to run from the room. I closed my eyes and alternately stared at my hands in my lap, anywhere but the front of the room.

  On my other side sat a very young woman who gave me a small prim nod. And we sat there in front of the two bodies. I thought about all the women through history who had done this, watching over dead husbands. All the sadness and tragedy and loss, but also, as in the case of Lizbeth, the beginning of a hard scramble again — to find a new warrior and protector. And how it had always been the same.

  Until finally changing in my lifetime into something else. Where a bereaved widow could say, “I don’t need anyone, I can be on my own.” But then oh to never have anyone call you mo reul-iuil again. No one to whisper in foreign tongues into your ear. And yes, I spent a long time in that chapel thinking about how close I came to losing Magnus...

  Chapter 32

  Later Lizbeth and I returned to the Great Hall for dinner and beer. She asked, “What do you think of your other sister, Maggie, Sean’s wife?”

  “Is that who that was? I hadn’t met her yet.”

  “She will be most of the time at the wake, or with the babies in the nursery. When she is with us, she will keep her eyes cast down. She is pious and goodly and I’m grateful for her every day because she might be our family’s one chance tae redeem ourselves before God. I am certain he will be a’holdin my mother against us.”

  Magnus and the other men were in high spirits and looked quite drunk. Sean kissed and hugged me hello and made many remarks about the bruises around my eyes. Magnus pulled me aside for a moment, his hands on my waist, pulling me close to his front. “I am sorry mo reul-iuil, I tried the vessel again today. Tis nae working.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I daena know, I will keep tryin’. Tomorrow is the burial. I want ye tae know, ye are nae invited.”

  “Why not?”

  “Women daena go tae burials, tis unseemly.” He grinned at my shock.

  “Not even Lizbeth?”

  He shook his head. “She is expected to sit here and think long on her husband. I imagine she will keep ye company with jokes and merry stories. I am expected tae go.”

  It made me a little panicky. “How far away will you be, I mean, not far, right? I don’t — I wish we had a phone.”

  “Nae far and I will leave orders that one of the boys will ride tae me if something is wrong.”

  I nodded. I could see in his eyes that this was the best he could do. He couldn’t skip the funeral to stay with the women. It was his brother-in-law they were burying after all, his cousin.

  He pulled me into his arms and kissed my forehead. “Begin where we are?”

  “Begin where we are,” I agreed.

  We sat at a long table and listened to long stories about battles fought. Most of the words I barely understood but there was a great deal of miming that went along with it. I understood even
more as I drank. There was a lot of laughing and Magnus held my hand.

  I tried to put my fear and worry away. I was stuck, but not for long. Magnus would fix this. I needed to find comfort in the simple things, like being a part of his family, here in his house, safe, fed and tipsy, kissed on my forehead by him, part of him, entwined.

  * * *

  The following day Lizbeth and I sat in the nursery with her children, Jamie, who was four years old, and Mary, who was two. Maggie was there with her son, Gavin, who was one years old. There were also lots of other women and children. We played with the kids a bit. I taught them the Itsy Bitsy Spider nursery rhyme, possibly ruining forever the entire history of the world. And then for fun I taught them how to do the dance that goes with the song, YMCA. Everyone laughed, though Maggie demurely covered her mouth and seemed a little shocked by it all.

  Then I told them about funny animals I had seen, usually on video or memes, but changing the story so that it was, ‘An animal I saw did this...” Until Lizbeth, laughing, said, “There are so many animals where ye are from. I would love tae go see it someday. When ye have a baby, Kaitlyn, we’ll come to visit. Maggie and I will make Sean take us. What would it take tae get tae the New World?”

  “God, like months I would think! It’s so far away, better let me come to see you.”

  I told her about my house on the Island and about chef Zach, and that was how we whiled away the time. Me regaling her with stories about my life, but with almost every single word changed. Sometimes I sounded really bizarre stuttering and correcting myself so much.

  * * *

  The men returned. Their mood even more jovial than the night before. The Great Hall was full to capacity and really truly warm for once. Bagpipers played and men danced and sang. Some stood and told long sweeping stories, and the audience cheered and banged their cups. Lizbeth, the wife, was mostly inconsequential sitting off to the side. She had shared his bed, but the men who shared the battlefield got the floor, the memories, the pats on the back.