Malcolm muttered irritably under his breath about superstitious old idiots the whole walk to the blacksmith. Nancy followed beside him, resisting the urge to giggle. They were both stubborn in their own way, both equally dismissive of the other’s idea of how the world worked… not that she was going to point that out to him. Not when he was in this kind of mood. She was fairly proud of the compromise she’d devised… it seemed to cover all the bases, and should, she hoped, put off any problems with the villagers who didn’t believe in faeries.
And hopefully, if they were lucky, it would also put a stop to the thefts. Though she did worry a little what the so far unknown group of faeries would do when their food supply was cut off…
Chapter 30
John was working when they arrived, hammering away at something on his forge, but he quickly put down the work and headed over to greet them when they arrived.
“Back again, are ye? How’s it all going?”
“Not too well,” Malcolm admitted irritably. “More thefts last night, despite the dogs.”
“A shame,” John said, frowning. “I’ve still not been hit at all.”
“It’s all the iron,” Malcolm said, gesturing around the forge. “You know as well as I do that the Fae won’t go anywhere near a place with this much iron.”
“Speaking of,” John said, gesturing to his table. “I’ve been busy.”
Sure enough, there lay a stack of iron ingots like the one in Nancy’s pocket, ready to be affixed to walls around the village to scare off the faeries. But Malcolm heaved a deep sigh. “It’s good solid work, John. Thank you. But unfortunately, we’ve just been talking to Father Caleb, who’s a little concerned that iron is a bit superstitious.”
“It’s not a superstition if it bloody works,” John said blankly.
“Aye, true enough, and that’s what I told him, but he was having none of it. Thankfully, Nancy worked out a compromise,” he added, flicking his eyes toward her gratefully. “It was good she was there. I might’ve just stormed out in a huff without her quick thinking.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me if you did,” John chortled. “Every man’s got his breaking point, and that Caleb is surprisingly stubborn when he wants to be. What’s the compromise then, lassie?”
“Iron crosses,” Nancy explained. “I figured it would be easy enough to add a crossbar to the ingots… Father Caleb says he’ll come down and bless them all, and then we can nail them up in every house to ward off demons.”
“No such bloody thing as demons,” Malcolm muttered to himself. “Only Unseelie Fae that idiots don’t recognize as such.”
“Nevertheless,” John said thoughtfully, “it’s good thinking. The ones in the village who keep the old ways will know that it’s the iron that’s important, not the cross, and the ones who think Faeries are a load of hogwash will believe it’s got more to do with the cross and the blessing than the material it’s made from. Good thinking, Nancy,” he added, tipping her a wink. “We’ll sort out all this nonsense yet, with your quick mind on our side.”
She blushed, a little overwhelmed by the compliments. “It was an easy enough solution.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Malcolm told her, smiling. It was clear that talking to the blacksmith had calmed him down a little. “What do you think, John? Is it doable?”
“Give me a challenge next time,” John scoffed. “I’ll have all these looking holy as Father Caleb, never you fear. Might take a little more time, though, is the only concern. When’s the priest coming over? Does he need to bless the whole process, or just the end result?”
“We told him a couple of hours, so give him whatever you’ve got by then. Meanwhile, he’s letting the villagers know what we’re doing. Hopefully this works,” Malcolm sighed, gritting his teeth. “If not, I’m not sure what our next step is. We can always set patrols around the town at night, but that’ll be a short-term solution at best… and with our guard staff depleted, these thieves might start targeting the castle.”
“They could do that?” Nancy was shocked. Somehow, the castle felt like an inviolable bastion of safety… but when she thought about it, there had to be a reason for the guards constantly posted, the defenses that were in place. The castle could be attacked — could be taken, even, though the thought of that was too frightening to consider.
“Aye,” Malcolm said grimly. “Depending on how many there are, and how clever… the Sept is strong, but like any fort it has its weaknesses. And depending what these creatures are, they could attack from any side, not just the land bridge.”
“No sense getting worried about that yet,” the blacksmith cut in bluntly. Malcolm seemed to wake up from something like a trance, shaking his head a little as though to clear it. “Let’s go step by step, shall we? I’ll start turning these bars into crosses so Caleb can bless them, and we’ll get as many as we can up in the doors and windows of the town before nightfall.”
“It might be worth feeding the dogs tonight, too,” Nancy pointed out, thinking of something that Marianne had said. “If they’re not hungry when the thieves turn up, they might be less likely to be silenced with a food bribe.”
“Aye, a good point,” Malcolm said, nodding. “We’ll let them know on our way out. See you soon, John.”
“All the best, Malcolm. Don’t let him get too stressed, Nancy,” John added, giving her a wink.
She grinned back, liking the blacksmith a lot more than the priest. He seemed to sense there was something between her and Malcolm — a kind of energy between them — but he wasn’t being rude about it, or coarse. She appreciated that. As they headed off, he was already working on the first of the iron ingots, getting ready to affix a crossbeam to it so that it could be blessed.
“We’d better head back to the castle,” Malcolm said. “Not much more we can do here for today, and besides, I wouldn’t want us skipping lunch again.”
Nancy started, glancing into the sky and realizing with surprise that the sun was already nearly at its zenith. Had they really spent nearly three hours here? She supposed, with breakfast at Maggie’s and the walk into town, as well as talking to the villagers and visiting with Caleb and John… time just seemed to fly by when she was in Malcolm’s company, she supposed with a little smile. So they headed out of town, stopping long enough to check in with a few of the villagers. Malcolm advised them to feed the dogs well before nightfall, to make sure they weren’t susceptible to bribes from the thieves, whoever they may be. From what Nancy picked up from the gossip she overheard, there were a few schools of thought about what was causing the thefts — some thought it was vermin still, some thought a local group of robbers, and some — troublingly — seemed to be of the opinion that the problem was witchcraft. Nancy was uneasy about that word ever since she’d been told by Anna what it often led to. She certainly didn’t want to be tried as a witch herself… but then again, what else would medieval people call the ability to swim underwater for long stretches with no breathing? Hopefully, Father Caleb would quell those particular rumors. It would help, she imagined, that they were distributing iron crosses to deal with the problem.
“Should’ve brought horses after all,” Malcolm said regretfully as they headed out of the village, the sun warming their skin as they walked. “Sorry about the long trek.”
“Oh, it’s a nice walk,” Nancy said dismissively. Then, feeling emboldened by the pleasant morning they’d spent together: “Besides, I’ll take any excuse to spend more time with you.”
He flushed to the roots of his hair and Nancy grinned to herself. They walked on for a little while before Malcolm spoke, and though he made no reference to what she’d said, she knew that her compliment had hit home. Maybe she wasn’t quite as bad at flirting as she’d thought she was… she’d just needed to wait for the right man to come along and show her how it was done.
“We’ll come back tomorrow and check how the iron crosses are going,” he said, clearly talking through his plans out loud. “Hopefully more dogs w
ill arrive from Donal’s kinsmen — most of them should get the messages today, and I’m sure he made it clear it was urgent. If the thefts continue, we’ll mount patrols in the village until they can be dealt with.”
“It’s a solid plan,” Nancy reassured him, sensing he was worried. “I’m sure it’ll work. We’re doing all we can, at least.”
“Aye, but if it’s still a problem when the harvest comes in, we could be in serious trouble by winter’s end. The Sept and the village don’t have the kind of money they’d need to bring supplies in… we’d have to resort to rationing, probably, and even then it’d be a close call. The Sept would share all it had, of course, but still… we’ve a hundred mouths or so to feed ourselves, it’s not as if we have a huge amount of food to spare.”
“It won’t come to that,” Nancy promised firmly. “We’ll get it sorted before then. We’ll track down whoever’s doing this and send them back through the burgh at the bottom of the Loch if we have to.”
Malcolm chuckled. “I’m glad you’re on our side, Nancy.”
“I’m glad I’m here too.”
Chapter 31
The next few weeks passed pretty much according to Malcolm’s predictions. They rode down to the village the next morning to discover that all the houses with blessed iron crosses had been safe and sound from the thefts… unfortunately, they learned, the raids had continued to target the unprotected houses, doing considerable damage as well as stealing food, almost as though there was some malice relating to the crosses. John suspended all his other work, dedicating all his labor to producing as many iron crosses as possible, but it was time-consuming work, and each house needed a cross not only for each door, but for each window, too. Malcolm organized a few lads from the village to work for John as apprentices during the crisis, hoping that their assistance would speed the process up a little at least, though it was a one-man operation and there was no second anvil for another blacksmith to work on, even if there had been anyone with the training.
As the leaves began to turn from green to auburn, Nancy found herself spending more and more time on the road between the village and the castle. She was getting much more confident at all the skills associated with riding a horse — with tack, with care, even with feeding. She spent some time in the stables, helping the grooms care for the horses. She took to riding out to surrounding farms, too, visiting with the people out there to ensure they knew to keep a sharp eye on their supplies, given what was going on in the village. The more she got to know the people of this area, the more she liked them… and the more wistful she felt about the prospect of going back home, leaving everything she’d discovered here.
With harvest time drawing closer and the raids continuing in the village, Donal made the decision to send patrols out each night to circle the town with torches. Faeries didn’t like fire or iron, and his men had plentiful supplies of both. Brendan led many of these patrols, with Malcolm taking the rest… an unfortunate side effect of this, however, was that Nancy saw much less of him. She offered to join the patrols herself, but was gently dissuaded by Malcolm, who thanked her for the offer, but said she’d need to be a bit better with a sword before she came along with soldiers.
“I’ll teach her to fight,” Anna said brightly.
They were eating a late lunch together — it was often the only meal Malcolm and Nancy had in common these days, with him often out well before sunset to start patrolling and sleeping right through the early morning breakfast meal. Anna’s hand was resting on her bump, which had gotten subtly larger over the last few weeks — to Donal’s clear concern. He clenched his jaw at the offer.
“Not in your state,” he warned her, frowning.
She scoffed. “Donal, I’m not going to burst. I can give orders. Half of sword fighting training is just getting instructions yelled at you. I can do that in my sleep. Would that make it okay?” she teased him, a combination of vexation and amusement in her eyes. “Perhaps we could set up a bed in the courtyard for me to recline on while I bark orders at Nancy?”
“I’d love to learn a few things,” Nancy admitted. “Not if it’s going to stress you though, Anna.”
“The only thing that’s stressing me is being told that being pregnant means I’ll die if I try to do anything more difficult than embroidery,” Anna said through gritted teeth.
“Watch out,” Malcolm murmured merrily to his adopted brother, giving Donal a quick grin. “We can’t afford a mutiny on our hands at the moment.”
“Damn right,” Anna said darkly. “Nancy, I’m more than happy to show you a few things. Women should know how to fight around here.”
So they added occasional sword fighting practices to Nancy’s daily routine. It was nice to be learning new things — there was a surprising amount of depth to the practice. It was a lot more like a martial art than she’d realized, and she found herself looking forward to training with Anna each day, to the incredibly strict woman’s voice barking instructions and corrections as she moved through a series of simple drills. Once or twice she caught Malcolm watching from a distance, then turning hurriedly away as though to disguise his interest… and if Anna had anything to say about it, all she offered was a mischievous grin twinkling in her eye before she continued to bark instructions at her willing pupil.
The leaves were well and truly turning when Malcolm came to her one evening after dinner. It was one of his rare nights off patrolling, and she was pleased to see him. As much as she’d enjoyed working with Anna on sword fighting, she had to admit, she missed their walks and rides down to the village quite a lot more than she’d been expecting to.
“Good to see you, stranger,” she said, grinning up at him.
They were standing in the entrance hall to the Castle — she’d been on her way out with an oat cake concealed in her pocket as a treat for the chestnut mare she’d become increasingly attached to over the last few weeks. Malcolm had caught her as she was headed for the door.
“Very good to see you,” he agreed, smiling at her. There was a bundle of something or other in his arms — she assumed it had to do with the patrols. Weapons, maybe, to return to the armory upstairs?
“Found anything on patrol yet?”
“Nothing of note. A campfire or two, here and there, but nothing that points to anything concrete about our band of robbers. No raids for five nights now, though, so we must be doing something right.”
“That’s good news,” Nancy said, grinning.
“Aye, but we’ve got to get to the source of the problem before winter. We can’t keep patrolling like this — the men’ll be exhausted long before the cold weather really sets in, and the cold makes it ten times harder. We’ll start having men fall sick and the like, and then we’ll be in real trouble.”
“There were no clues at any of the campsites you found?”
“Nothing at all,” Malcolm said heavily. “They could’ve just been camps made by wanderers in the area, for all we know. No sign of any more blades or anything, other than what you found in Marianne’s larder that time.”
“I visited Maggie this morning,” Nancy explained, eager to fill Malcolm in on everything she knew. Anything that would help. “She said Nessie’s unsettled. Something about the burgh being tainted, or something? She said it’s hard to get a straight answer from the creature, but there’s something definitely wrong. Possibly more creatures coming through.”
“I hope not,” Malcolm said grimly. “We can’t add any more patrols than we have already without stretching the men too thin. We’re already working too hard.”
“You are,” Nancy agreed, looking carefully at his face. He looked exhausted. “Look at you. You need about a week’s worth of sleep.”
“Aye, that’d be a good start.” He smiled, rubbing his tired face with one hand as he used the other to balance the bundle in his arms. It couldn’t have been too heavy. “And I wanted to apologize for not spending much time with ye of late. I hope you don’t feel abandoned.”
“Y
ou’re doing important work,” she demurred, but she had to admit, some part of her did very much miss spending time with him. It felt a little like she’d been abandoned, it was true. She knew she hadn’t been, but still, those inner feelings didn’t tend to be especially rational. “I don’t feel … that abandoned.”
“Well, to make it up to you… I visited the tailor in the village today. I estimated your measurements, with Anna’s help, so…”
“What did you do?” Nancy said, eyes wide as she looked down at the bundle in his arms.
“A few pairs of pants for riding, some shirts… a riding cloak like mine, I’ve seen you eyeing it… oh, and I know you don’t tend to wear dresses that often, but I thought… if there was a special occasion, or anything, you might appreciate…”
There was a rich, green fabric among the clothes in the bundle, and Nancy tugged it out, her eyes widening as it was revealed to be a long dress. The color was almost identical to the shade of her eyes, and she held it against herself, realizing the hem would fall almost to the floor. It had a beautiful high neckline and a gathered waist, and it was all she could do to stop herself sprinting upstairs to try it on right there and then.
“I know it’s no drysuit,” Malcolm was saying, smiling a little, “but —”
“I love it,” she gasped, hurling herself at him and pulling him into a hug.
He stiffened momentarily, clearly surprised, then put his arms around her cautiously, pulling her into him. It felt incredibly nice to be in his arms — almost too nice — and she pulled away after a minute, blushing. It was just a gift, a friendly gift from a friend, some clothes that would fit her better than the ones she’d borrowed from Anna, who was a good few inches shorter than her… no need to get carried away.
“Thank you so much, Malcolm,” she said sincerely, taking the bundle of clothing into her arms. “Truly. I can’t wait to try these on.”
Stranded By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 2 Page 19
