by Jane Stain
"You represent me on this trip. If the opportunity arises to make a pact, then take it, but you will have succeeded if you just introduce the idea. Understand?"
Tal looked longingly at the chisel his brother held idly in his hand, wanting to make more. But Breth wouldn’t understand that, so he appealed in another direction.
"Yeah, I understand all right. You get to stay here and enjoy the company of your wife and our parents and everyone we hold dear and I have to go off with this… stranger and try to make peace where there isn't any. You definitely drew the longer end of the stick."
"I know, and someday I'll try to make it up to you.”
Jaelle leaned over behind her husband to speak with Tal, and for once her voice wasn't too loud.
"We're not asking you to marry the girl, Tal. Just go with her and find out what you can about whether the Gaels are open to a treaty with the people or not. You’ve been looking for an excuse to get away ever since Breth became head chieftain. Now's your chance. Don't waste it."
Tal smiled at his sister-in-law. She always spoke her mind, and he liked that. It was easy to trust her, knowing exactly what she was thinking.
"Well, I suppose I can stand to go."
Breth beamed a smile at both of them.
“Thank you."
Tal clasped forearms with his brother.
“I’m not going to say you're welcome, but yes I'll do this. I don't really have a choice, do I?"
"You always have a choice. In fact, I understand better and better the choice Drest’s former men made when they went off on their own. I'm coming to understand them, and in the years to come, I think more and more of us will also come to understand them."
Tal let go of his brother’s arm, but held his gaze.
"Don't get soft on me, Breth."
Breth raised his eyebrows at Tal’s unnecessary wearing of the baggy knee-length trousers Picts are noted for in Roman writings.
"We have quite a few years until that happens, rest assured. But we need you even now, you know. Don't do anything stupid while you're gone. Come back in one piece. And if you have to bring the girl back here in order to do that…"
Tal laughed and gave his brother a punch in the upper arm.
“For the land's sake. I'll do it, but just because you say so."
Breth gave him an arm punch back, again careful not to smear the woad.
Jaelle reached out her hand from where she sat.
Tal gave it a squeeze, and then he turned toward Deirdre, who was obviously waiting for Breth to quit speaking so that she could jump in and boss everyone around. Ha, well here's one pleasure he could take. He could steal that opportunity from her without seeming disobedient.
"Come on, Deirdre. The woad will only last two days. We need to get going. This way."
Deirdre tried to stay ahead of Talorac, asserting her role as leader and telling him in no uncertain terms that she really didn't have any interest in his conversation. But two things conspired to make her drop this strategy.
Number one, she could feel him staring at her naked woad-painted butt. And while she didn't fear him at all, nevertheless… it was a bit difficult to hold one's head up and be a stoic leader under those circumstances—
“A dozen bloodthirsty barbarians approach from the south!” Galdus cautioned Deirdre in her mind. “More lurk immediately west. Take this next canyon north before you head west, and you will avoid them if you hurry.”
Deirdre struck a sudden listening pose for a moment with her chin on top of her staff and pretended to hear the barbarians with her own ears.
“We need to turn north up this canyon,” she huffed aloud to Tal even as she resumed running. “We’re being followed from the south. A dozen Romans, from the sound of them.”
But the fool man kept going west.
“Nah, they’ll expect that. We’ll go down the stream in the canyon so they lose our tracks and then continue west.”
She grabbed his hand and tried to pull him north up the canyon.
“No! There are more waiting for us to the west! We need to go this way! Quick!”
Talorac pulled his hand away and resolutely splashed down the stream.
“You know what? You may need me, but I can do what I need to do on this trip without you. Fare well.”
Deirdre cursed.
Both Talorac and Galdus laughed at her, and then Galdus hissed a warning in her mind.
“He’s headed right for the barbarians to the west. There are too many. He’ll be captured. Or killed.”
Splashing down the creek and then up the rocky west bank after Talorac, Deirdre pleaded with the druidic spirit inside her dagger.
“He’s woaded, though. Can’t you hide him from them?”
“Only if you’re touching him.”
She cursed again and pushed herself to run her fastest up the hill, where she could see branches moving in evidence of Talorac’s passing by.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before!”
Tal wondered at the sound of Deirdre huffing up the hill behind him through the trees until the first Roman broke through the trees ahead of him and their swords were clashing.
The Roman was a good fighter, and Tal could hear half a dozen more behind the man, going left and right so as to surround Tal.
He cursed.
Deirdre would run right into them!
Tal backed away down the hill toward the girl. Land’s sake, why had he been so stubborn? Now the barbarians were on higher ground. They had easy downward swings at him, while he had to swing upward at them. Not an easy way to fight one man, let alone six.
And then he heard her voice directly down below him and looked down to his left to see the hole where a tree's roots had been, before it had been knocked over by the strong winds that had passed through last year.
“Jump! Jump down here!”
Her voice was coming from the hole, but he didn’t see her. Still, he didn’t have much choice. It was either jump into whatever cover she’d found and hope the barbarians didn’t follow, or fight half a dozen of them from the low ground.
He jumped.
As soon as he landed, she grabbed him and tried to pull him closer in under the tree.
He fought against her at first. There was no escape that way! He would be trapped!
“Stop!” she hissed at him. “I can hide you! Be quiet and still, and they’ll run right on by!”
If she hadn’t predicted these men would be here and warned him not to go this way… But she had, and so much as he hated doing so, he did as she said. This time.
The second reason Deirdre gave up trying to stay ahead and aloof?
She was simply too gregarious a person to pull it off. She tried, but it just wasn't in her nature. And so after they had walked a ways from the tree-root hole, she paused for a moment and looked back at him, waiting for him to catch up and speaking to him in a tone that was at least conversational, if not exactly friendly.
Unfortunately, while trying to give him an opportunity to discuss what he loved doing, she chose a subject that was a little too offending to him.
"So you say you're not much of a warrior, then what is your calling?"
As he caught up to her, his handsome face showed resentment.
It was tempting to laugh at his expense and point her finger and bend over holding her stomach in amusement, but she resisted the urge. After all, the whole point of speaking to him was to have him speak to her in turn.
Chapter 5
Full of suspicion, Talorac watched Deirdre turn around and come back to join him. What new scheme was this? Nevertheless, her question was innocuous enough, so he answered her.
"I know it doesn’t seem like it, with me gallivanting all over the land with you instead of staying by my forge the way I would prefer, but I’m a smith."
She didn’t look the least bit surprised to hear this.
"Good, you’re proud of it. If you’re as good as they say, then your smithing knowledge wi
ll come in handy.”
She was quiet again, and that suited him just fine.
Because even though she ran like the wind and kept up with him pace for pace, even though she shared a joyous smile with him whenever they spotted deer, every time she spoke he wanted to leave her company, she was so haughty.
But on day two when the woad had almost worn off, his curiosity got the better of him.
"Can you tell me at least a little of the plan? Are we sleeping out in the heather when the woad wears off soon, or will we be staying at Broch Eleven tonight? If we do, I can show you a bit of my skill. They have a small forge there."
She looked on the verge of saying, “No, we’ll stay in the heather you idiot, because we’re doing things my way and not your way.” But she didn't. She drummed her fingers on her crossed arms for moment and then relented.
"Aye, we’ll stay with Broch Eleven’s druids tonight. Let's hurry up so we can get there before dark."
She rushed on ahead, and he didn't have the heart to tell her they would easily make it there before dark without even hurrying.
What kept him from lording his superior knowledge of the area over this insufferable know-it-all? Four things.
One, she made a very pretty sight running in front of him in nothing but her woad. He knew he shouldn't be affected by that. He'd seen half the women he knew wearing only woad, and they had never affected him like this before.
But it had never been her before. And she was quite something. It made his breath catch, the way her long blonde hair brushed against her back as she ran, let alone the way her hips swayed...
Two, in addition to the dagger she wore tied to her waist, she also had a wooden staff which she carried in her hand as she ran, but for the most part used as a walking stick. He could tell she knew how to use it as a weapon, and this pleased him.
Three, whenever the two of them talked, they bickered. It was much easier just to keep his mouth shut and hope she did the same.
And four, she was going to be gone right after this mission was done, so it wasn't much use getting her to know and respect him anyway.
They came to the big river and she paused before crossing, looking into the depths.
He followed her gaze into the water, looking for the threat.
"What do you see?"
For the first time, she didn’t act superior to him. In fact, she seemed uncertain when she spoke, and grateful that he was with her.
"I don't really see anything except the water. Will this much of it take the woad off us? Should we look for a shallower crossing point?”
What was she talking about? Didn’t she…
No, she obviously didn’t know. And he knew he was being stupid, but he raised his chin in the air and put on a bit of the haughty bit, himself.
"You’ve never worn the woad across a river?"
She put her hand on her hip and clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth to try and look indignant, but it just made her look young, and … pretty.
"No, I haven't. There's not much call for wearing woad into battle where I’m from … I mean, in my time."
He dropped the haughty bit and just talked to her, genuinely interested.
"And what time is that?"
But seeing his interest boosted her confidence back up, because she was back to looking down her nose at him.
"Thirteen hundred years from now."
Before he realized what he was doing, he smirked at her as if they were both six.
"Oh, so you think that makes you better than me, is that it?"
She crossed her arms there on the bank of the big river, and the setting sun made her hair shimmer like gold.
"It does, in a way. I come from a time when people know much more about how to do things."
"That’s funny, I thought you just asked me whether or not we can cross the water with our woad on. Doesn't that mean I know something you don't?"
She balled her fists and growled just the tiniest little bit. It was adorable. And then she relaxed and frowned as if she were about to be punished, she looked so uncomfortable.
"Aye, you know something that I don't. If you don't mind, please tell me."
And she was so contrite that he simply did, no longer wanting to pay her haughtiness back.
“So long as we go slowly and don't linger in the water too long, the woad and goose grease will stay on just fine. This part of the river is gentle enough. But we shouldn't swim for any distance, nor cross where the river is rapid."
She was doubtful, but she walked down the sandy bank of the river and waded in, speaking toward the water.
"Come on, then."
He put on a teasing tone, but not too heavy.
"As you wish."
She didn’t react to his teasing. No, she was too intent on the task of wading through a river. She did have shoes on, so she wasn't as awkward as she could have been, but she wasn't nearly as surefooted as he was in the wild, that was for sure.
It was fun to watch her pick and choose her footing, hands up in the air with elbows bent and swinging this way and that is if reaching high could keep the water low to avoid getting her belly wet. Very fun to watch.
Chapter 6
At last, Deirdre climbed out of the river, shaking her legs to try and get as much water off them as possible. The water was cold! In her travels with Sasha and Seumas and their children, she'd always been in the cart.
She wasn’t going to tell Talorac, but this was her first time actually wearing the woad as armor for any length of time. Oh sure, she'd applied it before, hearing Galdus think the incantations that would make it armor and not just blue goose grease. And she'd used the armor to spar with her trainers in the secret dungeons late at night when no one was the wiser. But she'd never been on an actual woad journey like this. It would've been so much fun if she hadn’t had Talorac along.
He was still crossing the river, so she found a flattish dry rock in the sun and sat down to let the early June sunlight dry her.
The woad armor took away the cold, but she didn't want to drip water and leave even more of a trail for others to follow. She'd been warned about that, just not told well enough what would take the woad off and what would be all right.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized Alasdair had been in quite a hurry to get her here. She tried not to show how nervous she got as they approached Broch Eleven.
It was time to tell Talorac why he in particular had been chosen to go along with her to see the Gaels.
She swallowed the big lump in her throat. She had always been outspoken. Precocious, her mother and grandmother had called it. Sasha had loved her for it, aye, and Seumas had as well. She didn't need Talorac to fawn over her so. No, all she needed to do was convince him to do this favor for her. And not tell anyone about it.
She stole a sideways glance at him as they ran through the brush.
Unlike her, the closer he got to Broch Eleven, the more confident he looked. Of course he did. More than likely, he’d been here many times and knew these people well from gatherings where their migration paths intersected. He was in his element — or so he thought.
She bided her time, keeping the conversation glib and standoffish. It suited her just fine.
As usual, he spoke to her just in passing while he stared ahead in obvious pleasure toward the broch, which they now could see in the distance up on top of a hill.
"So you don't use the brochs at all in your time?"
She didn’t look at him either.
"Nay, the brochs are ruins in my time, which is 800 years before Jaelle’s time. A contemporary of hers raised me, you know."
This got his attention. He actually turned and looked at her with interest this time, instead of with the disdain he usually tried to cover his attraction with.
"Really? How did that come to happen? That must be a good story."
Now she pretended indifference. This was sort of a fun game the two of them were playing, not saying what th
ey wanted to and not admitting their attraction to each other. She looked off into the distance and sighed as if it was tedious to tell him the details of her life that she loved the most.
"How much of the story do you know, about how Jaelle came to be here?"
He puffed up his chest with self-importance.
"I know that Jaelle and her ex-man Drest are both from 2000 years into the future. I know that the helmet which brought her here was crafted by druids in order for them to send him to do their bidding."
Deirdre pretended to be chewing this over, deep in thought about whether or not to tell him more about how Jaelle’s contemporary, Sasha, had come to her time.
It worked. He wanted to know, and so he would tell her more. Aye, indeed. He shook his head slightly and took a quick breath, then spilled more of what he knew.
"I know that her ex-man Drest, John in her time, comes from a family where every fourth-born son must serve the druids and that he and his brothers and his cousins all left their betrotheds on their 18th birthdays. Jaelle was one of those betrotheds but wasn't left until later. Howsoever, I know she has many friends among those betrothed women whose men left suddenly with no explanation."
Hiding the smile she felt inside at the ease with which she was manipulating him, Deirdre nodded sagely and gave the Pict a look of respect.
Silly man.
He accepted her admiration and respect at face value. Much easier than manipulating women.
Again, she paused with a thoughtful look on her face as they walked ever closer to Broch Eleven and the tasks that awaited the two of them there.
At long last, she tilted her head in imitation of having made a decision to confide in him.
"Very well, I suppose you need to know why I brought you along and not a dedicated warrior. Howsoever, you cannot tell anyone, or both of us will suffer. Do you understand?"
As she knew he would, at this he looked injured in his pride. He put a hand on his heart and looked at her with a hurt expression, pleading with her to believe him, to take him into her confidence, to make him her ally — to make him her accomplice, if he only knew.
