by Tia Isabella
Sara tapped her toe on the ground. “Well it’s true, Dugald. You don’t have to be a big, hulking brute to fight, you know!”
“In fact,” Maya added with haughty indignation, “women are very good at picking off the enemy one by one. Because we’re smaller, we’re easier to camouflage behind a tree or whatnot.”
Dugald held up a silencing hand. “I surrender, milady. I canna believe it, but I do surrender.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
Dugald flushed. “Nay milady, I willna ever—”
“The Lady Maya does no’ lie.”
Five stunned faces looked high and low, to the left and to the right, but none could see who had made that assertion. Argyle paled once more as he jumped to his feet and took his sword in hand. “’Tis a wizard who speaks, my lord! Mayhap ‘tis Nick the Arse, looking fer thy wife! We must flee! We canna fight that which we canna see!”
Maya rolled her eyes. There was somebody here all right, but he most definitely wasn’t a wizard. “Calm yourself, Argyle. There is no wizard here.” Maya ducked beneath the dining table and pulled a very hung over Harold the Sotted out from under it. The man reeked of alcohol. “There is only a minstrel here who literally drank himself under the table.”
Argyle sighed a breath of relief, but Thomas didn’t have quite the same reaction. He flew to Maya’s side, picked up a thoroughly surprised Harold the Sotted by the neck of his tunic, and pierced him with his black gaze. “How much of my wife’s tale did ye hear, Harold?” His words were growled with an unmistakably menacing undertone.
Harold drew his hands up to his head, wincing from the pain that the laird’s raised voice had caused to ripple through him. “All of it.”
Thomas’s nostrils flared. If this tale got out, ‘twas possible others would accuse his wife of witchery. He warned the minstrel through gritted teeth. “But ye will no’ repeat it, ye ken old mon?”
Harold nodded quickly, effectuating his release. The minstrel thanked the MacGregor for his compassion then turned to Maya. “I assure ye that yer secrets are safe with me, milady. After all, we time travelers must stick together.” He threw her a glazed over yet knowing wink, as if the two of them shared some intimate secret.
Maya rolled her eyes heavenward, praying for patience. The last thing she felt like doing was catering to the overactive imagination of the village drunk. “Yes of course, Harold, we must. Now run along, will you. I’ve much to discuss with my husband.” She cast a disgruntled glance at Thomas, silently pleading with him to be patient with the old minstrel.
Dugald took Harold the Sotted by the arm to lead him away. Harold, still no doubt partially drunk from last eve’s merrymaking in the great hall, dramatically winked once more at Maya as Dugald led him away.
Maya thew her gaze to Sara and chuckled at her best friend’s bemusement. Sara obviously found Harold funny. Well, he was humorous, she conceded—in an annoying, drunkard sort of way. Maya grinned as she listened to Harold sing to himself while being led from the hall.
Just sit right back and hear the tale
A tale of a fateful trip
It started on this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.
Maya stopped grinning. She looked at Sara and paled. “Oh my God!” they screeched in unison. “Harold, you’ve really been there!” Maya bellowed.
“Dugald bring him back here immediately!” Sara demanded.
Thomas’s eyes widened as he snapped his head around to study his wife’s face. “How can ye know that, love?”
“Aye, how can ye know?” Argyle screeched.
“He’s tae much in his cups,” Dugald rationalized with a roll of his eyes.
Maya, however, wasn’t distracted. She marched over to where Harold the Sotted stood. She placed her hands on her hips and regarded him. “I knew it! Damn if I didn’t know that you sang those wretched songs at my wedding to the tune of Gilligan’s Island! You…you…copyright infringer!”
Sara shook her head with a chuckle. “Great way to give him hell, Maya.”
Maya turned to Sara and grunted.
“Halt this at once,” Thomas demanded with a raised hand. “What is Gilligan’s Island and what has it tae do with the future?”
Maya considered her husband’s confused appearance for a moment then answered him. “Remember the tale I told you of the thing called TV?”
“Aye.”
“Gilligan’s Island is on this contraption. Harold could only know that had he really been there.”
Dugald and Argyle gasped, excited by this latest development. Maya turned her full attention back to the quickly sobering Harold the Sotted. She smiled mischievously up at him. “Call me a skeptic sweetcakes, but I need some more proof.”
Harold moaned in pain as he grabbed at his aching skull, his hangover growing worse by the moment. Finally, he relented with a nod. “Aye, milady.”
* * * * *
Harold the Sotted darted his eyes back and forth between the two ladies. He must look like a recently arrested felon with police detectives working him into a cold sweat from either side – just like on one of those TV shows in the future, he reckoned. “I’ve tol’ ye four times now, milady. I stayed there for nigh a year, but I came back tae me home as soon as I could find the black clouds.”
“So you’re saying that it’s possible to travel back and forth between the two worlds?” Maya asked the question in excitement, her mind already reeling with the possibilities.
“Aye, but I canna commend it. Ye never know when the clouds will come. I was stuck in yer time nigh unto a year.”
“But it can be done?” She nibbled on her lower lip.
“Aye.”
Thomas shook his head and glowered at Harold. “Me thinks this a fine tale, but one that could ha’ been made up just from listening tae my wife from under yon table. Will ye no’ ask fer more proof than this, wife?”
Maya stared at her husband distractedly then inclined her head. She grinned over to Harold. “You heard him, sweetcakes. It’s time to play twenty questions.”
Argyle drew himself in closer to the table. “This is a game from the future, milady?”
“Oh yeah,” Maya grinned. “Let the games begin.”
A few minutes later, Maya drew a seat up next to Thomas as Harold was seated on her other side. She folded her arms across her chest and prepared to quiz the Sotted on what he knew.
Thomas’s mouth curved wryly when he beheld the all-powerful look on his wife’s face. ‘Twas noticeable that she couldn’t wait to let the games begin, as she had called it. “Shall we commence, little laird?”
Maya smiled at her husband then turned her attention back to Harold. She could hear Thomas’s faint chuckles beside her. She decided to ignore them. “Now then Harold, I take it that you have watched TV before, have you not?”
“Aye.”
“Prove it. Tell me something that only another time traveler could know.”
Harold the Sotted sat contemplatively as he scratched his whiskers. His head was spinning, his mind reeling—a side effect from the deplorable state of sobriety he decided. “Well I must confess, milady, that I dinna watch much of it. I liked Gilligan’s Island, fer the comely Ginger could catch any mon’s fancy. Aside from that show, I dinna care fer the TV o’er much.”
Maya searched Sara’s face. She could tell that her best friend was only slightly more convinced, just as she herself was. After all, he hadn’t said much, but he did know who Ginger was.
It figures, Maya thought with a sigh. The man was a pervert. “Please continue, Harold.”
Harold sipped from the cup of water that had been placed before him. He nodded his head as he sat back in his seat, reminiscing with a smile of times past. “I dinna care fer TV o’er much, but I was an avid reader of yer books. Read every day I did.”
Maya squirmed in her seat with brewing excitement. Perhaps she and Harold had something in common after all. “Really, Harold? Who did you read? Krentz? Joy?
King?”
Harold shook his head. “Nay, milady. Me favorites was Hustler and Penthouse. Even passed up the cups a few times when I had coin only fer one or the other.”
Maya reddened. She dropped her gaze to her lap, causing Argyle to press her for details. “Hustler and Penthouse were no’ tae yer liking, milady?”
“No!” She grimaced. “The are pure and utter male filth!”
“Filth?” Thomas leaned in closer to his wife. She was obviously embarrassed about something, but he had no idea what over. “What manner of books are books of male filth?”
Maya stirred restlessly on her chair. Thomas would no doubt find her answer shocking, but… “They are books that have pictures of naked women in them. The women are generally shown having sex with men or with each other.”
Thomas nodded, but said nothing. Maya grinned as she watched her husband’s face turn even more scarlet than hers had.
Argyle, on the other hand, appeared thoroughly enraptured by the possibility of such reading pastimes. “Mayhap ye brought back one of these books, Harold? Mayhap I could offer ye ale fer a quick look—” Argyle grunted from the jab to his side Dugald gave him. “Or mayhap no’,” he wheezed out.
Maya looked at Sara who was shaking her head absently and chuckled. She couldn’t approve of the Sotted’s love of skin magazines, but who was she to criticize? Besides, Harold’s tale was becoming more and more palatable to Maya as the minutes ticked by.
Okay, so he’d been to the future. But had he been to Tampa? Or perhaps the clouds had taken him to some place else altogether? She needed to find out how the clouds worked. “To what city did you travel, Harold?”
“Tampa. Same as ye, milady.”
Maya knit her brows together as she tried to think of a way Harold could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was Tampa he had lived in for a year. “Okay, if that’s the case, then you must know much of my city.”
“Aye. I met a comely lass there who showed me its many wonders.”
Maya grunted. She just bet he had. “Fine. Then what, pray tell, is the name of the parade that takes place there every year? A parade in which the men of the city dress as pirates and throw coins and necklaces to the crowd.”
Harold frowned. “Gasparilla.”
Maya and Sara gasped. “That’s right, Harold!” Sara remarked excitedly. She clapped her hands together and smiled.
Maya eyed the minstrel curiously. “Why do you look mad, Harold?”
Harold gave a loud snort as his anger came boiling to the surface. He bolted upright in his chair, slamming his fist against the table. “The lords of the Gasparilla Parade do swindle the kinsmen, milady! The coin is no’ real. I found out as much when I tried tae cash them fer drink at the place of wonder and dreams come true.”
Maya grinned. “The place of wonder and dreams come true?”
“Aye,” Harold confirmed with a look of awe in his eye. “’Twas known tae ye as The Wooden Nickel.”
Maya rolled her eyes. Sara laughed. Thomas, Dugald, and Argyle were perplexed.
“The Wooden Nickel?” Thomas asked.
Maya sighed and shook her head. “It’s a place in Tampa that serves hundreds of different varieties of ale, my lord.”
“Hundreds of different varieties”? The shout of bewilderment and awe came out in unison from the laird and his two men.
Harold nodded, the look of an all-knowing man of the world smothering his features. “A place of wonder and dreams come true, tae be sure.”
“Hundreds,” Argyle echoed in a whisper, “’tis tae much tae hope fer. And the books. By the saints, ‘tis—”
Maya raised her hand to silence Argyle and his musings. She threw her gaze toward Sara, asking her with a telling expression if she was convinced. At Sara’s nod, Maya addressed Harold once more. “Out of all the future has to offer, it’s a sad shame that ale and naked women were all that caught your fancy, Harold. Nevertheless, Lady Sara and I are certain of your truthfulness.” She sighed. “You’ve really been there.”
Dugald studied Maya for a long moment before reacting to her exasperated expression. “I canna ken why this does no’ make ye happy, milady. Are ye no’ glad that ye ha’ found another who has shared in yer experiences?”
Maya glanced at Harold thoughtfully before answering. She drew in a deep breath and turned to her husband. “The problem as I see it is this: now that we know it’s possible to go back and forth between the two worlds, what do we do with this knowledge?”
Chapter 19
Thomas loomed over the bed and glared down at his wife, his hands balled into determined fists at his sides. Any sane man would be frightened fierce were the MacGregor to stare at him so. He wore only the plaid gathered around his hips, leaving his chest bare and his tensely corded muscles quite visible. His nostrils were flaring, his breathing loud and heavy, his eyes like shards of black onyx.
Maya had refused to couple with him this eve, had in fact given him what the Lady Sara had called the cold shoulder ever since she had stomped off from the great hall after questioning the minstrel.
The woman actually wanted to go back to her future. Of course he had been forced to declare it otherwise! He was no fool, after all. Maya had said that she only wanted to go back with Sara to set everything to rights and would come back on the next black cloud headed to Scotland.
Thomas was taking no chances. Mayhap his wife would realize that she loved her Tampa clan more than she had come to love him. Nay, ‘twas too much to risk.
Maya had said not a word to Thomas since his shouted denial in the great hall. Most husbands would find this treatment preferable to his lady’s wicked tongue, but he did not. He would rather she shout and scowl, for at least then he could know the extent of her anger.
Thomas feared that Maya’s silence was an attempt to trick him into thinking she would eventually relent to his commands, when in fact she was probably plotting even now to run from him. So, naturally, he had tripled her escort. Now three soldiers followed at her heels as opposed to merely Argyle.
Thomas snorted in triumph. She thought she could run from him, did she? Soon she would accept that she could never get away.
Maya lay in bed reading from a thick book of Latin. She had decided that, like it or not, it was a language she should come to be literate in if this was where she was to live. It was the language used by scribes and scholars and the only language that virtually all documents were written in.
She was aware of her husband’s menacing presence shadowing over her, but she refused to give him the benefit of her audience. The bastard had put more guards on her! Watchdogs! It was enough to make her seethe.
But this time Maya seethed on the inside. She had made up her mind and was sticking to it—she would not react to her wretched husband and his wretched dictates. But she would be damned before she would let him think that they could continue on as they had before he had decided to lock her up and throw away the key.
It was bad enough when Maya was ordered to not leave the keep without Thomas after she had wandered down to the village, but now she couldn’t even walk through her own blasted home without three men tripping over her. It was too grave an insult to overlook.
She knew she was beyond fury—too irate to have a rational discussion with her husband about anything at the moment, so she bit her tongue and said nothing. He could stand over her and glower to his heart’s content, but she wasn’t budging.
And what was he glowering over? Sex! Ha! He was acting like a little boy who’d been denied his favorite toy.
What upset Maya the most about the whole situation was that she had already changed her mind and decided against risking a trip to the future before Thomas had brought down the rafters with his show of temper earlier today and ordered more guards to watch her. History was clear on one score, after all—the fourteenth century was where Maya and Sara were meant to be.
Even Sara agreed. She and Maya wanted to send someone to the future, most likely Harol
d or Argyle, to collect some of their belongings and to inform Sara’s father of their fate, for they themselves could not go.
What if something was to happen and they could never return?
No, it couldn’t be risked.
They needed to find someone who could go, but who would not mind staying there for all time if fate dealt them that unexpected hand. Of course, as pissed off as Maya was with her husband at the moment, she wasn’t so sure that she’d mind fate dumping her in the twenty-first century forever.
But her baby—Thomas’s baby, their baby—she couldn’t bear the thought of her husband’s strong arms being denied the right to hold his first child. Never seeing him coo and coddle to their tiny creation, never seeing the immense satisfaction that she knew he’d radiate just from looking at his child…no, she couldn’t stand it.
Nor could she stand, however, the risk of her unborn child dying. This was the Middle Ages after all and child mortality rates were astronomically high. It wasn’t at all uncommon for a baby to die before it lived a full year. That was more than Maya could handle emotionally. Especially if her little one was to die of something that could be easily remedied in the twenty-first century, such as a fever. It boggled her mind to think of the good that even one bottle of Tylenol could do in this world.
Maybe she should attempt to explain these concerns to Thomas. Perhaps he would relent and allow someone from the clan to travel forward if he was aware of the good it could bring to his people. They might be remedies that weren’t meant to appear for hundreds of years, but Maya had no qualms whatsoever about changing the future if it was to be of benefit to humanity.
Maybe she should tell Thomas about the baby. He would never allow suffering and death to come to his own child if he could help it, after all. Maya thought over that idea for a moment, then discarded the topic from her mind altogether. No way could she tell him yet! He’d probably triple-quadruple her guard if he knew she was pregnant.
Maya looked up at her husband and gasped, startled out of her reflective state. The brute had gone so far as to force the book from her hands and snap it shut with a resounding boom.