“Dylan.”
“Mom.” He moved the mouthpiece away from his face and chewed quickly to avoid a lecture on phone etiquette.
“How are you, sweetie?”
There had been a time when her endearments had irked him to the bone, but he’d long since outgrown that sort of impatience. He swallowed. “I’m fine.”
“And that nice little girl you’re dating? Ginny?”
“She’s fine, too.” He sucked a little on a small chunk of apple left in his mouth.
“How are things going between you two? Has she moved in yet?” Mom, being a former hippie who not only had attended Woodstock but claimed her son had been conceived there, had always assumed that living together came before marriage. Nevertheless, she had never shaken her roots and so assumed that marriage was the inevitable consequence of moving in. It puzzled him that cohabitation was such a necessary first step in her view, and he had no intention of marrying soon in any case, no matter how “nice” or “little” Ginny was.
Impatience crept up on him now, and he stifled a groan. “No, she hasn’t moved in, Mom.”
There was a knock on the backdoor, and he moved the cheap cotton curtains to peek out the window over the sink. Speak of the devil, it was Ginny. She leaned against the railing, waiting for him to answer the door. Time to get off the subject of her moving in. Now.
Brightly, he said, “So, Mom, what’s on your mind this lovely morning?” He rested the phone on his shoulder, tied the towel around his waist, and went to let Ginny in. She gave him a quick kiss, then went to sit on the low wall of the balcony, fifteen feet above the dojo floor behind her. Uh uh. He frowned and shook his head, so she sighed, gave him a pouty lip, and moved to safety on the arm of the sofa. He couldn’t help but smile. He loved that pouty lip, and checked the wall clock to see if there might be time to dally some before leaving for the Games.
She wasn’t dressed for the festival, wearing jeans and T-shirt instead of the period costume he’d expected, and he wondered why but couldn’t dwell on it as his mother continued, “Wednesday is your father’s birthday.”
He knew that. Though he’d forgotten, somewhere in the back of his brain the information had lurked. His voice went a little sarcastic, despite an effort to control it.
“Yeah. Family get-together?” Please say no.
“Of course.” There was a pause. Dylan couldn’t think of a response. He looked over at Ginny and wished she could give him an excuse to hurry off the phone. Mom said, “I think if you two would just talk. . . .”
Temper surged and his restraint broke. “He doesn’t talk. He grunts. And he drinks. Then when I go home he smacks you around for fun.”
“That won’t happen again. I made him promise.”
“He’s promised before. Mom—”
“No, really. He’s serious this time. We’ve been to counseling—”
“Both of you?” His jaw clenched. They’d had this argument before.
She hesitated, and he knew the answer was that she’d gone but Dad had not. She said, “It’s so hard for him, Dylan. You don’t know the pressures he’s under.”
He snorted. “What I know is that he’s put my mother in the hospital twice. What I know is he’s a worthless bastard who should—”
“Dylan Robert Matheson!”
Dylan bit his lower lip and took a deep breath. There was a long silence as he struggled to bring his temper under control, then he said, “I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have said that. But the fact remains that if you don’t get out of there he’s going to kill you one day.”
There was another long silence. His voice softened as he said, “You know it’s true.”
Mom still wouldn’t reply. Finally, Dylan said, “Okay, Mom, I’ll come see y’all on Wednesday.”
His mother sounded relieved, as if this solved everything. “Oh, good. I hate to see you two feuding.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” Dylan’s glorious day was on the skids, and the sun was barely up. “I’ll see you Wednesday.”
When he hung up, he had to take a moment to clear his head and center himself. He went to give Ginny a proper greeting, but she seemed reluctant to take it any further than a kiss. She backed off quickly and held his hands away from her.
Huh. But he let it go. This day was not shaping up well at all. He forced himself to relax enough to head down the creaky stairs along the far wall to the wooden dojo floor. “Come sit with me while I work out.” If she didn’t want to go back to bed with him, he needed to proceed with his morning routine.
Ginny stayed where she was. Dylan shrugged it off though it put him out. She sometimes liked to make the point that she wasn’t required to take orders from him, even over a simple request. He knew she would come down eventually, if only just to talk to him. She was easily bored and couldn’t stand her own company for any length of time.
Bluish morning light filtered between the white vertical blinds on the storefront windows. He left the lights off, preferring the cool calm of semidarkness.
The poise on the old, loose-jointed physician’s scale in front of the mirrored wall clattered over its notches and claimed 184 today, up an entire pound since he’d last weighed. He pinched the tight skin over his belly and decided the new weight must be muscle, from the increased workouts in preparation for the Games. Much new business could be had from people watching the sword demonstrations, so he needed to be fast, sharp, and trim.
The apple core landed in the trash can under the practice swords, next to the rack of wooden quarterstaffs. Across the room, high on the wall, hung an ancient, glass-fronted display case where he kept his collection of period broadswords. Most were replicas, for originals in good shape tended to be far beyond his price range, but even the replicas were expensive enough and nice examples of metal craft.
He picked out a staff from the rack. The dark one was the straightest, and its finish was smooth with age and use. He went to the center of the floor, set the staff down, and began to stretch. Feet apart, he bent at the waist, back level, and slowly bounced then touched the floor. Again. Slowly, never jerking, he concentrated on his breathing as he repeated until the muscles began to loosen. Then the same thing, feet together.
His muscles sang as the blood rushed to them. Goose bumps rose, and his skin tingled. For fifteen minutes he worked and warmed all the muscle groups. He was awake now, and eager for his workout. Done stretching, he put his feet together and straightened, one vertebrae at a time. Then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Ginny’s fingers dug into his ribs from behind, but he was too relaxed to give the desired startled jump. He did, however, say “Ow.”
She giggled, then straddled the bench press nearby. Her fingers fiddled with her sunglasses, opening and closing the temple pieces, then twirling them.
“You’re not dressed,” he accused, meaning the costume.
“Neither are you.” Her gaze went to his crotch, where a bulge was forming under his towel. It fled in a hurry, leaving Dylan annoyed at her and at himself.
He frowned. Something bad was up. He could smell it.
She then continued, “How can you do that karate stuff—”
“Kung fu.”
She sighed. “That kung fu stuff, with no clothes on?” The sunglasses clacked open. Closed. Open.
“Why do I need clothes?” He picked up the staff and began his formal exercise.
“Doesn’t it, like, feel funny?”
An eyebrow crinkled at her. “No. If I let it feel funny, then I’m not doing it right.” Ginny was cute, adorable, witty, and a blast in bed, but completely oblivious to the martial arts and sword fighting by which he made his living as a teacher.
He concentrated on the form. Step, block, step, thrust, turn . . . He said, “Besides, today I represent Clan Matheson in the Games. I’ve got to wear a kilt, and I’m going to wear it in the traditional manner: no drawers.”
“You’re going to do karate—”
“Kung fu.”
“Yeah, that . . . in a kilt?”
Step, block, retreat, retreat, block, turn . . . “No.” His breathing was getting heavier and it was hard to talk now. “Swords. It’s a sword fighting demonstration, all choreographed. Real broadswords, not foils. Bigtime dangerous if you don’t pay close attention to what you’re doing.” Ronnie, Dylan’s assistant, would wear breeches in the demonstration because they both felt he would be more comfortable in pants, and therefore at less risk for making a mistake.
“Ah.” Ginny was silent for a moment as she watched him. Clack, clack. Open. closed. Lunge, lunge, turn, block . . . Then she spoke. “Dylan . . .”
He really didn’t like that tone, and knew he was going to hate what came next. “Yes?”
Clack, clack. “I can’t see you anymore.”
Whoa. That brought Dylan to a standstill, like a sock in the gut. He hated this a lot more than he’d thought. He stood, his breathing already heavy and becoming heavier. He tucked the quarterstaff behind his right arm and gazed at the floor a few feet ahead—not at her. Though he knew he didn’t want to hear the answer, he had to ask, “Why?”
“Well, you see . . .”
He hoped she wasn’t going to drag this out. “It’s okay. Just say it.”
“Um, well, I’ve been seeing Peter.”
Aw, jeez. “Who?” It was a struggle to keep his voice level.
“Peter Donaldson. You know him, I think.”
Yeah. Peter had been three years behind him in high school, and attended the Tuesday night fencing class taught by Ronnie. Peter was a nice guy, a poor but earnest swordsman, paid his fees in a timely manner, and just then Dylan wished to throttle the bastard. However, he held his temper.
“Seeing him?” Dylan didn’t even want to know what that meant. “How long?”
“About a month. You know, Dyl, I think it’s really cool you’re not upset about this.”
He finally looked at her, appalled. But she wasn’t looking at him. Instead she’d given up on the sunglasses and was picking at her fingernails. She held them out to the dim light from the front windows. He supposed she’d know how he felt if he began shouting. His voice was still level as he said, “Why?”
She thought long about that before answering, then said, “You’re awfully wrapped up in those swords and things.”
“It’s my business. It’s how I make my living. If I ignore it, I go under.”
“Nobody’s asking you to ignore it. But . . .” She looked around at the display cases, and her gaze rested on the Matheson crest hung by the office door. “Dylan, with you it’s always Scottish this and Scotland that. It’s like you don’t even know you’re an American.”
That stung. “Excuse me for having an ethnic identity.”
“But just how Scottish can your family be after three hundred years? Surely you don’t believe your entire ancestry originated in Scotland. You’re even part Cherokee. That’s what your mom says, anyway.”
He stood hipshot and leaned on his staff. “My maternal grandmother’s great-great-great-grandfather was a Cherokee. That makes me 1/128th Indian, which means nothing except that I tan real easy. If I ever tried to call myself an Indian I’d get laughed off the reservation. I wouldn’t even know about the Cherokee ancestor, except my mother went looking for Indian ancestry back when she was a hippie and thought it would be cool to be part of a fashionable minority.”
He shifted his weight, and continued in a tense voice. “A couple of the names I’ve found in my tree come from France, one from Germany, and one from England, but for the most part my ancestry is Scottish and some Irish. Wearing a kilt is, for me, no different from an African American wearing a caftan, an Italian American guy eating a cannoli, or a Latino speaking bad Spanish, regardless of how long ago, or not long ago, their ancestors became Americans.” His eyes narrowed and anger bloomed in his gut that he had to explain this at all, but he continued.
“Having said all that, bottom line, Ginny, my name is Matheson. That’s who I am, and it’s Scottish. I don’t know about you, but I kind of like having a cultural heritage that goes back millennia rather than centuries. American culture didn’t spring into existence like magic when Europeans set foot in the New World.”
She considered that for a moment, but continued, “Most guys I know wouldn’t be caught dead in a skirt.”
“Kilt.”
“But they look like skirts! They look . . . funny.”
He looked at her, wondering if he really knew this woman at all. She was in her mid-twenties, but just then she sounded like a teenager. Worse than that, a backwoods teenager. How in the world had he made it through six months with her and not known this? He had to clear his throat to find his voice, but found he had nothing to say.
She finally looked up at him, saw his eyes, and suddenly it was time to leave. “Uh, listen, Dylan, I gotta go.”
“Yes, you do.”
She picked up her purse. “I’ll let myself out.” He said nothing by way of reply, so she told him goodbye and let herself out the glass front door. The panic bar clattered, and the plate windows shook. Then she was gone. The door slowly closed, then clanked shut behind her.
Dylan stood in his dojo and struggled to keep the anger down. His gut twisted. It had been so easy for her. Ginny and Donaldson? For a month, and he’d had no clue. A month!
Rage won. He spun with the quarterstaff, windmilled it twice over his head, and flung it blind. It sailed across the dojo and crashed through the window of his office.
Glass flew everywhere. The tinkling of falling shards was like accusation, and his anger at Ginny dissipated in self-reproach for the cost of that huge window.
“Damn,” he muttered. “I’m an idiot.”
CHAPTER 2
Shelter #3 at Moss Wright Park was where the administration tables had been set up for the Fifth Annual Middle Tennessee Clan Society Highland Games. Almost the entire park was filled with people of Scottish ancestry from all over the state, most in plaid of one sort or another. Some of those plaids were established setts of real clans, some fanciful, some in modern style, and others part of a traditional costume.
Dylan pulled his sword from the back of his jeep, hung the leather baldric across his chest, then slipped the scabbarded sword through the frog and secured it at his side. He headed on to check in, along with a scattering of others who wore brightly colored MacNotice-me tartan. Dylan didn’t particularly care for the modern colors that didn’t exist back when kilts were daily dress in Scotland. Day-Glo oranges and electric blues stood out from the crowd, mixed in with the more authentic greens, browns, and rust-reds. His was the Matheson sett of red with a fine mesh of black, dark blue, and dark green against it.
The enticing smell of food booths wafted past, and though he’d just eaten breakfast, he looked forward to lunch. None of the competitions and demonstrations had begun yet, but clusters of men were forming up yonder on the fields, and some men in kilts were setting up equipment. Painted lines defined fields for tossing cabers, exhibition sparring with swords, and other traditional pastimes. A set of bagpipes warming up in the distance sounded in short spurts of intermittent song that drifted among the rustling trees.
A squeal of delight came from somewhere nearby, and the corners of his mouth turned up. The Girls were here, though he was never sure this was a good thing. He’d expected the teenage trio and, though on any other day he would as soon they’d stayed home, today his torn ego welcomed a visit from the wide-eyed gaggle.
Cay, Silvia, and Kym were all Saturday morning kung fu students—not a one of them over seventeen—who had less interest in martial arts than they did in the teacher they all thought was just totally adorable. Well, maybe Kym had a genuine interest in the study.
Dylan got a kick out of the attention, and often wished he’d had that effect on teenage girls a decade before when he himself had been a teenager. The girls were sometimes amusing and sometimes a pain in the ass, but today he guessed it’d be a bles
sing to let them salve his ego. He smiled his best cute teacher smile as the threesome ran up to greet him.
“Hey, Mr. Dylan!” cried Cay. She wore a plaid skirt that was a uniform from private school and a red poet’s shirt she must have thought looked period. The other two girls wore jeans and tank tops. Their bra straps were visible, and it made him feel old that he didn’t understand this fashion quirk.
“Hey, yourself.” He adjusted the baldric on his shoulder as he walked. They followed like pilot fish. “Y’all been practicing real hard?”
They assured him they exercised their martial arts skills every day, like good little ninjas. “Which sword did you bring this time?” Kym peered at the scabbard as if to see through to the blade.
“A new one. Well, a new-old one. It’s a Scottish broadsword replica made in Toledo. Spain, I mean.”
Silvia giggled. “Hey, Dylan, show us your sword!”
He suppressed a smile and ignored the obvious entendre as he paused to draw the sword. The girls oohed dutifully over the shiny blade and steel basket hilt. “It’s a replica after one from the middle of the eighteenth century. See, there, they even engraved the blade with Jacobite mottoes.”
“What’s a Jacobite?”
Dylan opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Dang, how could he explain centuries of Scottish history to a teenager who barely knew where Scotland was and likely wasn’t interested anyway? He said, “They fought for Scottish independence from England.” Sort of.
Kym said, “Like the American Revolution, right?”
He considered that. “Yeah, I reckon. Only they lost.”
Her face fell. “Drag.”
Dylan chuckled, and imagined the Jacobites’ reaction to the defeat must have been a mite stronger. He scabbarded the sword and continued walking.
The girls followed. Cay said, “You’ve got great knees. What’s under that kilt?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Never you mind.”
“Oh, come on!”
Son of the Sword Page 2
