The horse hadn't gone far — relieved of its rider, it seemed to be happily grazing on the grass along the sides of the dirt road. As she approached, she saw its head go up. Too dark to see much beyond its silhouette, but she knew the drill well enough. You didn't spend your entire adolescence absolutely obsessed with horses without picking up a thing or two.
"Now, look at you. Haven't you just caused an enormous ruckus? You big old doofus," she crooned to it like a lover as she edged steadily closer. "You stupid great lout. You moron. You absolute maniac." A gentle exhale of breath told her the horse was relaxing at the sound of her voice. Good. A calm horse was a manageable horse. "Now, I'm going to grab your bridle, and you're going to do me the huge favor of not being a prize jackass about it. Deal? Great." She reached her hand out, slowly, let the horse feel the approach before she made contact with its neck. Hot, even in the freezing air, and wet with sweat as well as rain. Cora frowned. "He was riding you hard, huh? No wonder you wanted a break. That's fair. That's fair enough, my sweet, my big dumb friend. What's your name, hey?"
The horse huffed, and she felt it crane its neck around to inhale her unfamiliar scent. The arch of its neck held her in a strange kind of semi-embrace, and she shut her eyes for a moment. Horses were comforting. No matter where she was, or what had happened to her, horses were something she could predict and understand. As though it sensed her worry, the horse nuzzled at her shoulder, its sweet, warm breath on her skin.
"I'm Cora," she told it quietly, stroking the soft velvet of its nose. "I'm having an extremely strange evening. Let's sort it out together, huh? You and me."
Chapter 3
Cora led the now-placid beast back up the road, reins looped securely around her hands — she'd be able to grab them tightly if she needed to, but they were loose enough to release safely in case the horse bolted again. A broken wrist was the last thing she needed. The man rose to his feet as she approached — still just a shadow in the dark, but she could sense the shock in his body language.
"What kind of witchcraft — ?" he murmured.
Cora stiffened, and the horse shied a little, tugging at the reins —
"It's not witchcraft, it's basic common sense, isn't it?" she crooned to the horse, putting as much menace into her voice as she could manage for the man's benefit. "Big nasty man, riding you so hard on such a cold night, he was begging you to throw him off, wasn't he? Wasn't he? That's right. No horse on Earth is going to put up with being treated like a thing."
"And what are those strange clothes you're wearing?" he demanded.
"Is that any way to speak to the woman who just saved you from being stranded in the middle of nowhere?" Daggers in her voice. She'd learned that from her mother — how to crack your voice like a whip, cut through the kind of bluster men were always indulging themselves with. This one was a little different to her usual fare — panicky new fathers, grumpy grandfathers-to-be, always reluctant to trust her, always frightened of something they didn't understand. But her faith in herself won out every time, and this strange Scottish man in the middle of nowhere was no exception.
He straightened. "Madam," he said, grudgingly. "Thank you for catching my horse. Now if you don't mind, speed is of the essence —"
"You're not having him back if you're going to ride him at that pace again," Cora said flatly. "You'll need to slow down, especially if you're carrying two."
"Two?"
"I'll need a lift, and to borrow a phone. I've been in an accident. Can't find my bag or my car anywhere and I need to get home. Is that alright?"
"Madam, it's not a good time." For the first time, she heard something like fear in his voice. "The Lady MacClaran — it's her time, she's in the delivery room and she's not in a good way. The castle hasn't had a midwife in months, I need to get someone from the village to help —"
Castle, Cora thought to herself, then put that one in the 'too hard' pile. "Well. Aren't you in luck? You've found your midwife."
The man hesitated — she could just make out the expression of confusion on his face. "You?"
"Trained, qualified professional. Over two hundred happy healthy little ones running around thanks to these hands." She tapped him gaily on the chest to prove her point. What on Earth was he wearing? Leather? Too hard. "Well? Come on. Taim's uv the ay-sunss," she intoned, in a truly awful imitation of his accent.
"Aright," he muttered. "Sure the Lord does work in mysterious ways." He swung aboard the horse and offered her his hand — she jumped up behind him with the ease of practice (like riding a bicycle, really) and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"I'm Ian of Clan MacClaran, by the way," he said gruffly.
"Cora Wilcox. Gentle with the horse," she warned.
He spun the horse around and coaxed it into a gentle canter, a swift, ground-eating stride, but not the hectic gallop of earlier. The horse settled down into the pace — a good horse, she observed, though she'd sensed that already.
"Where did you say we were going?" Cora called over the sound of the rain and the wind.
"Castle MacClaran!"
Must be one of the new suburbs on the outskirts of town. God, how far had she driven? "You couldn't have called for a midwife? Is a phone tower out, or something?"
"You sound like Maeve," Ian called back, and it didn't sound much like a compliment.
"Well, it just seems a bit archaic, with the horse and everything. Why didn't you drive, in a storm like this?"
"You ask too many questions," Ian said finally, in the tone men generally used when they didn't understand something.
Cora rolled her eyes, glad he couldn't see her, and took comfort in the steady rocking motion of the horse beneath her. At least they'd be wherever it was they were going soon, and she could at least get dry. She'd kill for a long hot shower. But first, she'd give the aid he'd ridden out in such desperation to find.
Why ride a horse, though? It just made no sense. Something about it was bothering her more and more the longer she thought about it. Were they an Amish community, or something? No phones, no cars... God, she hoped there'd be electricity, at least. Cora had assisted with a home birth early in her career — a New Age kind of family who wanted nothing "unnatural" at the birth. That meant no medicine, no devices, no electrical lights of any kind...she'd ground her teeth as she sterilized her equipment in water boiled over a wood fire and strained her eyes trying to see what was going on by candlelight. All the while, she'd quietly prayed for God to watch over this daft woman who wouldn't accept the help of modern medicine. Thankfully, the birth had gone off without a hitch — it helped, of course, that the mother was all of twenty-two years old and in the best shape of her life, though the father had proudly ascribed their success to the lack of technology in the delivery room. When she'd left, they'd been debating about whether or not breast milk was vegan.
Well, everyone had survived that experience just fine. So what if she was headed for another low-tech delivery room? She could do this. She was a trained professional with years of experience — and after all, women had been bearing babies for thousands of years without any kind of technological assistance whatsoever. Whoever this Lady MacClaran was, Cora would help her bring her little one into the world. Then, once mother and baby had rested a little, she'd get to the bottom of exactly where she was and what had happened to her car.
It was comforting to have a plan. Cora leaned against Ian's back and waited to see what strange new place he was taking her to. This was certainly not the boring weekend she'd been getting ready for.
Chapter 4
“You have to be practical, Coraline,” her mother had instructed her testily on the odd occasion they actually spent more than a few minutes together. She hated, hated, hated being called by her full name — it was so clunky, so awkward and embarrassing. But her mother insisted on it — she’d chosen it from a long list of names in a book, and she didn’t much care what her daughter felt about the matter. As soon as she’d been able to, she’d changed i
t on every piece of important paperwork that existed — just Cora on her driver’s license, just Cora on her birth certificate, just Cora on all her social security documentation. When people asked what it was short for, she said it wasn’t short for anything — and felt a pang of satisfaction at defeating her mother’s silly aesthetic preferences at last.
“It’s essential to be practical, because being romantic — being artistic — being spiritual —” her mother spoke these words as though they were profane — “has never gotten any young woman anywhere. Do you want to be dependent on luck or good fortune to carry you through life, Coraline?”
“No,” the nine-year-old Cora had said, swinging her legs despondently. Her mother always did this — suggested they do something that sounded fun, like going out for ice cream on a Saturday afternoon, then turned it into an opportunity to just sit and lecture her about life for twenty minutes. Cora suspected that this was what her mother thought parenting was. Not leading and guiding and listening, but just lecturing every now and again, and waiting expectantly for all your lessons to be put immediately and flawlessly into practice.
“No, you don’t. Do you want to rely on your beauty and your charm, to fool some man into supporting you, paying all your bills and organizing your life for you?”
“No,” came the dutiful response. They hadn’t even ordered their ice cream yet. Her mother was clearly on a roll.
“No, you don’t. Because beauty fades, Cora, and men are useless. Unreliable, arrogant, bullying fools, the majority of them. Certainly there are a few who aren’t all bad, but I’ve never met one. Not one who wasn’t married, anyway.”
“What about my dad?” Cora asked. This was a brave move — her mother hated even remembering that Cora had a father, let alone talking about him.
“He was the worst of them, Coraline.” And then, unexpectedly, her mother’s voice had softened, and Cora had looked up from fiddling with the hem of her shirt to see her mother’s hazel eyes full of softness. “The only good thing your father did was help me create you. You are a miracle.” She hesitated. “Coraline, I’m not a good mother. I never will be. I know you need a lot — a lot that I can’t give you. But I hope I can give you this. This is the thing I do best. This is what I can give you.”
She reached out and took Cora’s hands in hers.
“Cora, you are strong and smart and capable. You are going to be tempted to be lazy, in your life. If the only thing you learn from me is this, then I’ll be happy: work hard, and pay close attention. Never let up. There is nothing you can’t achieve — no situation you won’t be able to control — if you hold to those two ideas. Work hard, and pay close attention.”
Cora had looked up at her mother and nodded, very seriously. These ideas made sense to her. She was already outdoing her classmates at school by virtue of the fact that she listened closely to the things the teacher said. She knew more about the world around her because she investigated things — climbed trees, looked closely at plants. It helped her know more about people, too — she learned all kinds of things from listening to strangers’ conversations on the bus. Body language, too. Right now, she could tell her mother was trying extremely hard to connect with her daughter, to give her a gift, from the intensity of her eye contact, the way her hands were shaking just slightly. And because of that insight, she was able to give her mother the answer she needed to hear.
“Thanks, Mom. I will.”
Her mother had smiled, a real smile that touched her eyes. Cora had smiled back and tightened her hands around her mother’s on the table, enjoying this long moment of silence with her mother, who was almost always too busy to spend any time at all with her daughter.
“Now. Even more important question. What kind of ice cream are we going to get?”
They had laughed together, and spent the rest of the afternoon in peace. But Cora hadn’t forgotten what her mother told her — and the more she relied on those two simple precepts throughout her life, the more she learned how absolutely essential they were to leading a useful life. Cora prided herself on her rationality, her pragmatism. It became her biggest strength through a lonely childhood, her sharp and practical mind — yes, of course it was sad that Mom was working late for the fourth night this week and she’d been left to make her own dinner, but what was the use of getting all upset about it? So instead of crying herself to sleep, young Cora made herself useful. Found things to do. Finished all her homework, tidied up the house, cooked herself dinner and even left a serving for her mother. She had hung onto that practicality through a turbulent adolescence. It had guided her to all the best things in her life — her faith, her career, her abiding fascination with plants and herbs. And though her mother never said anything, or even indicated that she remembered anything about that afternoon in the ice cream shop, Cora knew that she was making her mother proud.
Jacqueline Wilcox had died only a few years ago. She had been an incredibly successful businesswoman in her time — Cora had always suspected she should have just stuck to that. Having a daughter had been an afterthought to her life. But she’d cared for her, in her own strange, distant way. She’d given her everything she needed, provided for her, while somehow managing never to spoil her. She’d taught her to be good with money, to be organized and dependable, to manage her time well and to work hard. The funeral had been almost entirely frequented by Jacqueline’s work friends, who smiled and nodded to Cora and knew very little about her. She supposed it was a little strange, that she was a midwife when her mother had been a corporate executive. But the spirit of both professions boiled down to the lesson she’d taught her all those years ago. Hard work, close attention.
And now, Cora clung to her practical spirit like a lifeline as she entered the gates of what was, no question, an actual castle. Not some storybook Disneyland nonsense — no shining white bricks or paths paved with gold, no cartoon mice hanging about. Just huge, stone walls looming up above her, topped with — crenellations? Was that the right word? There were even slits cut in the walls, the kind she knew were designed so that archers could fire arrows at attackers without opening themselves up to counterattack. She’d read a book about castles as a child…but that had all been storybook stuff. This was — immense. Unbelievable.
Ian reined in the horse to a walk as they approached the gates to the castle. There were two men standing guard — but there were no flashlights or vests labeled SECURITY here. Just two wild-looking bearded men, as tall as Ian, broad and muscular, wearing some kind of armor pieced together out of — what was that? Leather, maybe, and some roughly sewn fabric, and a considerable amount of chain mail. They both made a kind of salute to Ian and let him ride through — he acknowledged them with a nod and kept riding. It was the nod of a man with other things on his mind — the nod of a man who was used to being in charge.
Cora glanced sideways at the long, wicked-looking weapons that stood within easy reach of the guards, and felt suddenly, sharply grateful that she was on the back of Ian’s horse.
The courtyard of the castle passed in a blur of dimly-lit activity. A few of the people who rushed up to them were carrying torches, but not enough for Cora to make out much of what was going on. Ian dismounted abruptly and offered her his hand — she hopped down with a good deal more grace than he had managed. The horse was taken away by a handful of men she assumed were grooms — she stroked its neck as it went, making a note of its markings out of habit. You never knew exactly when you’d need a friend, after all.
Ian was shouting — she could have sworn his accent got thicker when he raised his voice. It was difficult to follow at the best of times, but now, with dozens of voices echoing from the castle walls and the stone walls of the keep itself, it was almost impossible. Cora stood steady by his side, arms folded across her chest, trying to look the part of a professional midwife who experienced this kind of thing all the time. It was still raining, of course, and they were both wet through — a couple of women gestured toward a well-lit door o
n the other side of the castle courtyard, and Cora needed no further prompting to get under shelter.
Ian grabbed her by the wrist. She met his eyes coldly.
“Where d’ye think you’re going?”
“I don’t care what kind of renaissance fair re-enactment game you’re playing here, you do not lay your hands on me like that, you hear?”
Ian narrowed his eyes, but released her wrist.
“That’s better. I’m going inside, where I imagine it isn’t raining, to wash my hands. Is that alright with you?”
“No time. We’ll go straight to the birthing chamber —”
“We will not,” Cora said sharply, cutting him off. “I’ll need to wash my hands first at the very least, I’m in no state to deliver a baby.”
“Babies,” Ian muttered.
Cora stops for a second and gives him a look.
There was a murmur among the group of people standing around them — servants? Was that what they were? They were certainly dressed like medieval peasants. Could this be some kind of… re-enactment thing? Some kind of historically accurate make-believe? There had been a young man in one of Cora’s classes in high school who was fanatically obsessed with something he called “Larp” — it stood for live-action role-playing, and as far as Cora could make out, it involved a lot of running around in the woods with fake weapons and complicated costumes. He’d tried to get her to go with him a few times — she’d always politely declined. Now, of course, she realized he’d been trying to get her to go on a date with him. That would’ve been an experience, certainly. They could have had a medieval-themed wedding.
Highlander Warrior_A Scottish Time Travel Romance Page 2
