by Jane Stain
For the past half-hour she’d been looking for any sort of shelter where she might spend the night and not be attacked by wild animals. What kind of wild animals did they have in Scotland in the twelve hundreds, anyway? She didn’t have a clue, but she didn’t want to leave her throat bare.
At long last, she found a bush the size of a car and crawled in between its branches and lay down with her back against the trunk. It was so uncomfortable that she lay there a long time before she finally fell asleep. To alleviate the boredom, she ate another portion of her cheese and apples while waiting for sleep to take her.
~*~
In her dream, Sasha entered Turnberry Castle. She could tell it wasn’t a normal dream. In normal dreams, she wasn’t given a tour. It was a grand place full of warm fireplaces and views of the sea cliffs, and she couldn’t wait to get there.
Kelsey took one look at Sasha’s face and became all concerned.
“What’s wrong?”
Sasha leaned out one of the arrow slit windows to feel the impossible warm sunlight and smell the fresh sea breeze.
“Seumas came with me to see Brian, and the Druid told him all about time travel.”
Kelsey was suddenly right behind. Her voice sounded concerned, but not panicky. She didn’t get it.
“Isn’t that good? At least you don’t have a secret from him anymore.”
Sasha turned around so that Kelsey would see how worried she was, how afraid, how much she needed to come join her and Tavish.
“No, he thinks I’m a sorceress — and I guess I am, right?”
Kelsey vehemently shook her head.
“No.”
Sasha put her hands on her hips. Feeling foolish as soon as she did so in light of Deirdre’s habit, she instead gestured back and forth between the two of them, then around in include the castle.
“Well what do you call this thing we’re doing right now?”
Kelsey opened her mouth to speak, closed it, grunted, and then spoke after all.
“I don’t know, but we’re not practicing sorcery.”
Sasha turned to pace into the next room of this luxurious upstairs castle suite.
“Well he thinks I’m a sorceress, and you should’ve seen him, Kelsey, talking about sorcery earlier. I just barely convinced him I wasn’t a witch. And now he thinks I am, and … I left there, Kelsey. I’m six hours east on my way to Torhousekie standing stones — because the children were playing a game about how Galdus is going to get you and Fergus says Galdus is buried at Torhousekie and then I remembered what Brian said when he saw you with the sword. He said, ‘Galdus?’ Remember?”
Kelsey raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah, he did say Galdus.”
Sasha nodded.
“So tomorrow I’ll go check it out, and after that I’m coming to stay with you guys there …”
~*~
Sasha woke up in the middle of the night, shivering with cold right through her wool blanket and needing to relieve herself. The latter was easy to take care of, the former not so much. She dug through every last compartment of her purse, hoping it was still in there. All sorts of things she would normally be happy to find gave her no joy at all: chewing gum, a favorite lipstick, breath mints… Aha. Triumphantly, she wrapped her hand around a matchbook from Jack in the Green, a cool club near campus. She left it in her purse for now.
Okay, how hard could it be to build a fire?
She looked around her surprisingly easy-to-see surroundings for firewood. When she first woke up, it had seemed pitch black, but now she could see fine under just a few stars and the moon. Who knew?
She gathered all the firewood she could find and put it in a clear area a bit away from the bush where she’d slept. Carefully, she took the matchbook out of her purse, knelt down beside the firewood, lit a match …
And the wind blew it out.
Inspiration struck. She took the blanket and put it over her head and then lowered herself over the wood… And it was pitch black.
Oh well. She lowered the matchbook down close to the wood under the blanket out of the wind and lit a match by touch. Yay! She could see, and the match didn’t blow out. She held it next to the wood… And had to let go before it burned her fingers.
Okay, she needed to light something else with the match, something that would light easily and stay lit long enough to light the wood on fire. She hated to go outside of her little blanket tent into the wind, but it felt like if she didn’t get a fire lit she would freeze to death.
Ooh, there were a bunch of dry leaves all over the ground. They were only slightly damp. No damper than the wood, really. She looked gratefully over at the bush’s large leaves, glad her bed had been dry.
She gathered a bunch of leaves and put them in the middle of the circle she’d made with her wood — and finally saw some flames. Not much, though. Not enough that she felt like she had to raise up her blanket tent away from the fire.
Then she coughed.
Ugh, it was getting smoky in here.
She tried something she’d seen in a movie once and blew on the smoky leaves that were close to one of the pieces of wood. That made a satisfying flare of light, so she tried that again. At least this time the fire was staying lit and wasn’t going out.
But it was getting way too smoky. She was going to have to take the blanket away and let the wind in. She felt the wind mostly coming from her left, so she moved in that direction to try and block it from getting the fire. In desperation, she held out her arms under the blanket and made sort of a wall that could block the wind from getting to her tiny smoky little fire.
Blowing on it had helped. She knelt down and kept gently blowing on the smoldering leaves near the damp wood as much as she could between breaths of smoky air.
Uh oh.
Almost all the leaves were burned up, and the wood still wasn’t really burning, just smoking. She made a mad dash for more leaves, having to go pretty far away this time because she had gathered all the leaves that were close by already. She ran back with an armful of leaves, wondering how she was going to put them on the burning leaves without smothering them.
And her fire had gone out.
She fished out the matchbook and counted how many matches she had left. Thirteen. And she would have to spend at least one more night out in the open before she got to Kelsey. She needed to be smarter about this.
Using the blanket as a bag, she went far and wide, foraging all around the area for as many leaves as she could carry, then stacked most of them a few steps away from where she was making her fire.
She hadn’t been too careful about gathering the leaves, and a whole bunch of small sticks were in the pile. She discovered kindling wood by accident because of this, and after that it was pretty easy to keep the fire going. The big wood even caught in one place, but it was still more smoke than fire. Maybe if she—
She sat up straight.
What was that noise?
She looked all around but didn’t see anything moving.
Darn, she couldn’t see outside the little ring of light from her fire. Wasn’t fire supposed to keep animals away? She definitely heard a twig snap. Her heart raced, and she looked over toward the bush. It would provide some protection, unlike sitting out here with her back exposed.
She hated to leave the fire, but all of her instincts were telling her to go back into the bush. She grabbed her purse and crawled in there, suddenly gasping for breath in a panic at what was coming.
Aon Deug (11)
The scent of smoke was getting stronger now, so he was going the right way. He hurried a little. The scent was of damp leaves burning, rather than wood. The fire couldn’t be very warm, and the weather was cold this time of night. He could see his breath. Aye, he was getting quite close now. She was probably camped inside the great bush where he and Alfred had slept the summer they made their trek out here as children. It was a common campsite. Everyone knew it.
He went over the rise, and there it was, her fir
e — if it could be called that. But she wasn’t by the fire. She was inside the bush, trembling.
His throat had become hoarse long ago from yelling out her name, and now he took a long drink from the water skin he carried before trying it again.
“Sasha, it’s me, Seumas! Come oot!”
He couldn’t believe his eyes. Instead of coming out, she was crawling around to the other side of the bush. By now, he was close enough that he no longer had to yell, thank the Saints.
“Where are ye going? Ye dinna hae tae hide. ’Tis only me. Come on oot, Sasha.”
It slowly dawned that it was him she feared.
His hands sank to his sides, and his lungs deflated. His anger was why she wasn’t out by her fire, why she sat trembling in the bush, probably with cold as well as fear.
He approached slowly, not making any sudden moves, until he could make quick work of salvaging her fire and building it up so that it was actually warm. Once that was done and it no longer threatened to go out, he built another fire a few feet away so they might sit between the two and be warm on both sides. He sat down on the far side of the fires facing her, so that she could see him well. Then he took off all his weapons and cast them aside.
He cleared his throat, drank some more water, and tried his best to let his apology be heard in the tone of his voice.
“I ken that I went away angry. I’m sae sorry. Howsoever, never in a thousand years would I hae guessed ye’d leave the safety of oor castle town on yer own. When Eileen got home and ye weren’t there, she didna worry. She figured ye and I had made peace and ye had gone oot with me. But when Alfred arrived and said he’d been with me… It was then she telt me ye had asked aboot Galdus shortly after ye and I parted. And I kenned ye had come oot here all on yer own tae seek oot Galdus’s burial place for yerself. I came tae make sure ye were warm enough, and now yer hiding from my fire. Please come oot and warm yerself. I wull back away if ye like, but ye mustna get ower cauld. Ye wull catch yer death.”
He got up and backed away, true to his word, and sat down again at a safe distance.
“There. Now ye can come oot with na worry.”
She did crawl out then and make her way between the fires to sit down and warm herself, thank all that was holy. But she still didn’t speak. She didn’t even look at him, just sat between the two fires, shivering less and less.
Any moment now, she would ask him to leave. He rushed into the rest of his apology, earnest to get it out while he could — and only barely daring to hope she would accept it and agree to travel together.
“Sae glad ye are warming yerself. I’ve had many hours tae think, walking here alone. And the more I thought, the more I realized the ring o truth was in yer voice when ye assured me ye were no a sorceress. Sae even though the workings o sorcery surround ye, I dae believe ye. I mean ye na harm, I—”
At last she spoke, cutting him off.
“I believe ye as well. Now go and get yer weapons and come ower here where it’s warm! Ye had me at,” she imitated his voice, “‘now yer hiding from my fire.’” And then she burst out laughing.
At the sound of her laughter, an overwhelming wave of relief washed over him, and he slid over to her on his bottom, so as to keep his face level with hers and eliminate any doubts that might be lingering in her mind, about whether he meant her harm. The rocks and twigs stuck to his kilt and cut into his buttocks, but he didn’t care.
At last, he was by her side.
Her smile and her dancing eyes were radiant in the firelight, inviting his kiss.
His heart leapt!
Just to be sure, he moved in slowly, keeping his eyes on hers, which smiled more and more the closer he got.
And so their lips met — gently, tenderly. But they soon turned it into a wanting kiss, a promising kiss. A kiss whose fire rivaled the blazes on either side of them.
At first, he thought Sasha was giggling as she kissed him. He’d never had that effect on a woman before, but there was nothing about Sasha that didn’t surprise him, so he went with it.
But then his body was close enough to hers that he should’ve felt it if she were giggling. And he knew it wasn’t her.
With a sigh, he drew away and sat up.
“Did ye follow me here, Deirdre?”
The little girl stood across from one of the fires, leaning over and warming herself. She had a big smile on her face and a big cloak wrapped around her little body, so she seemed to be fine, but guilt racked him at not noticing she was following him before he got this far away from her mother.
Still giggling, she nodded her tiny head, bobbing her cute little blonde curls.
Seumas sighed and turned to Sasha.
“Wull, get yerself warmit up and then we can take her home. I hope ye restit enough. I havena, but I am more accustomit tae walking.”
Oh no.
He knew that look. Determination was blooming inside her. This could not be good.
She lowered her forehead and raised her eyebrows.
“Yer the one she followit here, sae if anyone’s takin her home, ye are. Howsoever, I’m gaun'ae Torhousekie and see aboot auld King Galdus’s sword.”
He raised his chin for extra authority and opened his mouth to tell her no, that it was too dangerous for her to be out alone.
But she did an odd thing and dashed her eyes over to Deirdre and back before she continued speaking. She also wrinkled her forehead at him and gave him an intense stare.
“I’m beginning tae think my grandmother was on tae something, when she telt me tae find the sword. It might be verra important, na only for me, but also for Tavish and Kelsey. I fact, I ken that tae be sae. It wouldna be…” She did that eye-dart thing over to Deirdre again, telling him she was guarding her words for the sake of not telling the wee one of her and Tavish and Kelsey’s servitude to the druids. “It wouldna be healthy for us tae na find the sword. Sae I’m going, whether ye come with me or no.”
He couldn’t let her go alone. She would die for sure. Traits that he had thought derived from her nobility — flawless skin, filled out cheeks, bright white eyes and teeth — now made more sense to him as the traits of a person who lived in a much easier time. A time when those machines she had spoken of did all the hard physical work.
She hadn’t discussed it, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she had never killed anything, not even for food. She had never worked at hard labor, and she certainly had never walked any great distance.
He held out his water skin to her.
“Here, ye must be thirsty.”
She rolled her eyes and took it from him grudgingly, but once she had started, she drank almost all the water before she handed it back and he gave it to Deirdre, who took a sip and handed it back immediately, wrinkling her nose at how silly Sasha was. He winked at the little girl.
“Thank ye,” Sasha said. And then her mouth formed a line on her face, and she looked thoughtful. “I brought food,” she gestured over at the bush, “but I didna hae anything tae carry water in.” She took hold of a stick that lay nearby and stirred the fire around as if it were stew.
Deirdre ran over to the bush and came back with a bag that she held open to show a few apples and a lump of cheese. She started to get out one of the apples, but he shook his head no at her. She put it back and sat down close beside Sasha, who put an arm around her and hugged her close.
He turned his water skin over and over in his hands.
“This is a cow’s bladder. Howsoever, ye can use any bladder as a water skin. The kind o animal ye can get depends upon the weapon ye have. What weapons hae ye?”
The line of her mouth deepened and her eyebrows furled again as she looked down at her waist.
“All I hae is the knife ye gave me.” Inspiration must’ve struck her, because she raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth in a smile when she looked up at him. “But I could use it as a spearhead, couldna I?”
Heh, she wasn’t entirely ignorant, but her knowledge was the kind
heard around campfires and in busy pubs — or read in the pages of a rare cherished book — not the practical kind of knowledge you needed to travel on your own.
His mind whorled with the implications, trying to imagine a time when even a grown lass such as Sasha didn’t know these things. He and Alfred had only been ten and twelve when the two of them traveled here on their own.
However.
He looked at Sasha’s proud face.
He knew her type, albeit among men. She wouldn’t listen if he tried to tell her she lacked skills. She was proud. It was one of the things he liked about her — that, and how impulsive she was. But her pride would get in the way if he tried to teach her directly. It was best to humor her.
So he nodded and gave her the closemouthed smile of someone who was impressed.
“Aye, that ye could. What wull ye use tae tie the knife ontae the long stick as a spearhead?”
She licked her lips and looked all around, as if she would find a leather strap in one of the trees. She was adorable, and it was difficult to keep a serious face.
Her eyes finally landed on her boots, and then she looked up at him triumphantly, smiling.
“I could use one o my shoelaces.”
Ridiculous. Those laces looked to be made of some fiber that would never shrink to tighten with water the way leather would. If she were anyone else …
But that was the point, wasn’t it? She wasn’t anyone else. She was Sasha the time traveler, wise in her own time and helpless in his.
But pride is a weakness that wounds deeply when pierced. No, he wouldn’t do that to her. Not if he could help it. He shrugged a little, and looked around at all the materials available.
“Mayhap ye had best dae sae before we settle doon for the night, ye ken?”
On hearing him call her bluff, she bit her lip and got up, looking around rather forlornly — and adorably. She first went over to the bush and examined its long branches. She did this for quite a while, and he chuckled and sighed. This was going to be easy. Those branches were way too flexible. There would be no way to stab at your dinner.
