Unraveling James

by L. L. Muir

  As soon as he was given a modicum of luxury, he would ask for an entire barrel of boiling water to dip his head into. But first, he had to win friends and influence people, like Dale Carnegie suggested. He only knew the title of the self-help book because his grandfather had once taken a course from the famous Scot. James hoped the title alone might help him negotiate the waters of Scottish politics.

  Politics first, wife later, he supposed.

  ~ ~ ~

  At breakfast, the inquiry continued, which convinced James that, although he was no longer in the pit, he was not a trusted guest, either. He’d been locked in a small room with a pallet, which was luxury enough after the hard ground of the pit, and he figured, until Duncan got used to him, and had his curiosity satisfied, he wouldn’t be wandering around the glen without a guard close by.

  “What have ye done to be banished from home?” the laird asked over a bowl of porridge. “How could they ever let such a fighting arm go? Why not just punish ye and keep ye?”

  James stuck to the truth so he’d have few lies to keep track of. “My father’s new wife took a fancy to me. I left of my own accord, to make my way in the world, and leave them to work out their own happiness together.”

  Duncan nodded, temporarily content. “So you wish to make your own way in the world? With what? Your height? Yer clan cry? Can ye ply a sword, or just heft it over yer head and hope the enemy flees?”

  James smiled and bobbed his eyebrows up and down for effect. “Laird Duncan, I happen to possess unusual fighting skills. And perhaps, if ye care to allow me to stay on here, I could turn the men in yer pit into fierce and fearless fighters. Given enough time, I can make a man all but unbeatable in hand to hand combat.”

  “I doubt that.”

  James laughed. “Give them to me and see. But first, I am happy to demonstrate, face yer finest fighters, and best them all. And when it’s done, I will teach them to do the same.”

  Duncan shook his head. “I am no fool. I will not allow ye to win my soldiers to yer own, so ye can take up arms against me, perhaps kill me in my sleep as ye admitted before and take my clan for yer own.”

  James folded his arms on the table and leaned over them, so he could lower his voice and not be heard by all the would-be eavesdroppers in the long hall that morning. “I will tell ye the truth, Stout Duncan. I am not an ambitious man. I do not want your army. I am no threat to ye…while I am welcome in yer house.”

  The man arched his back and flared his nostrils. “What do ye mean by that?”

  “Only that. Should I have to look elsewhere to find a home, a place in the world, then the two of us might end up on the same battlefield one day. Ye must believe that I will train an army. The question is, will it be yers? When we end up standing on the same battlefield one day, will ye be facing the men I have trained? Or will ye be leading them?”

  James could tell he was about to have his throat cut just so Duncan didn’t have to worry either way, so he backtracked enough to save the man his pride.

  “Don’t decide now, yer lairdship. Wait until ye’ve seen what I can do.”

  Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “I do not believe that a man like ye has not ambition.”

  James smiled. “Only one ambition, yer lairdship.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I intend to find an amazing woman and marry her.”

  Duncan exchanged knowing smiles with his wife, then he lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “She must be amazing?”

  James nodded. “An exceptional woman. If I must scour the entire country to find such a woman, I will.”

  “Oh, but if ye’re so occupied with training this army of yers, perhaps the amazing women of Scotland should be brought to ye.”

  “Army of mine? Nay, laird. Army of yers.”

  “We shall see, Son of Fergus. We shall see.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The air stirred around Phoebe’s skirt like someone had just rushed into the room. But when she turned her head toward the curtains, no one was there. Neither were the curtains.

  She and Wickham were suddenly standing outside surrounded by trees, and instead of the firm plaid carpet beneath her feet, a years’ worth of decaying leaves softened the ground. The sun shone practically straight down on their heads between the Christmassy treetops of giant pines, telling her it was midday.

  Somewhere.

  She looked at Wickham with new appreciation. “How did you do that?” Her body shook, she laughed so hard. But when she stopped laughing, the shaking continued.

  “Deep breaths, lassie. Aye, just like that. Breathing is the hard part, aye? Everything else is secondary.”

  “Oh, sure. All I have to do is keep breathing and everything will be okay?”

  He winked. “I have found it is usually so, lass.”

  “Can I let go now?”

  He nodded and slowly dropped his hands away like he thought she might fall. But her legs were okay. And the only thing still rattling was her breath.

  “Where are we?”

  “Near Aberfeldy, I reckon.”

  “What do you mean, you reckon?”

  “It is hardly an exact science, lass. Whatever my sisters may have led ye to believe, this is not a finely scheduled cruise ship, aye? It is hit and miss, and pray ye’ll have more the former and less of the latter. Some things we still must leave in God’s hands.”

  God’s hands. Right. Okay.

  “Keep breathing.” He looked around with his brows pinched together, then his face cleared. “This way.” He offered his elbow and they stalked along through the trees for a minute before he stopped and faced her. “I am surprised ye are so light on yer feet, lass. I was under the impression that ye might be a wee clumsy. And ye’ve yet to stumble, though we’ve been hiking without so much as a deer path.”

  She laughed lightly. “Probably because I’m paying very close attention.”

  “Ah. Right, then.” And they went along for a bit.

  “I suppose we’re still in Scotland?” She paused to step carefully over a felled tree—a move that would have been much easier in jeans and tennis shoes.

  “Aye, lass.”

  “I was just wondering...”

  “What’s that, then?”

  “Will everyone speak English?”

  Wickham stopped liked he’d bumped into a brick wall. He bit his lip, concentrating on the foliage-covered ground ahead of him, then up at her. “Ye’ve none of the Gaelic?”

  She swung her head back and forth slowly. “I moved to Scotland less than nine months ago. So far, I’ve figured out Hiya, and that’s probably not Gaelic.”

  He smiled. “Nay.” He chuckled, but it sounded a bit nervous. “Dinna fash. I need to think a moment, is all.”

  She nodded and waited patiently, wondering if her lack of a proper Scottish education was going to be a deal-breaker.

  “I wish my sisters were about,” he mumbled, then concentrated again. “How do ye feel about learning the language?”

  “I had planned to, eventually, but that won’t really help me now, right? I mean, I’m not going to be around here long enough to get fluent, am I?”

  He closed his eyes and nodded, and waved her concern away like it was a fly. “If ye plan to learn—and ye make a solemn vow that ye will—I think I can work with that.”

  Oh, great. She couldn’t believe she’d put her entire life into the hands of someone who couldn’t make sense in the middle of a crisis.

  She grimaced. “Maybe we should go back, you know, before it’s too late.”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Dinna be silly, lass. It is already too late. Already he searches for ye.”

  Her chest took an invisible blow and her heart started pounding. “He’s looking for me?”

  “Aye. He. And ye wouldn’t wish to leave him wasting his life searching for a lass that ran away, would ye?”

  She wiggled her head. “No. Of course not.”

  “All right then.” H
e turned and faced her. “Ye must vow that, no matter where, no matter when ye are, that ye will work hard to learn the Gaelic tongue. That ye will never give up. Ye must master it, aye? Yer life, now, may depend upon what ye do in the future.”

  “Okay. I promise. Even though it’s ridiculously hard.”

  He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at her. It was a threat, but a very handsome one.

  She kind of bobbed her head in a circle. “No matter what.”

  He gave a single, exaggerated nod, then lifted his hands up to the sides of her temples.

  “What are you—”

  “Wheesht.”

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping still. She suddenly felt like the ground was shifting again, but she didn’t want to look, afraid it would give her motion sickness if she opened her eyes and found herself somewhere else. But she did say a little prayer that he wasn’t going to make her take a long detour to a language class when she was so ready—so ready—to start her new life.

  His warm fingers fell away. “All right, Phoebe girl. Ye can open yer eyes.”

  She opened them and could have cried, she was so relieved to still be in those woods.

  “What do ye reckon? Can ye understand what I’m saying?”

  She grunted. “Yeah.”

  “Go on, then. Let me hear ye speak. I cannae leave ye here to play the mute, aye?”

  “The mute? What are you talking about? I can speak just fine. The question is, how am I going to communicate with anyone but you?”

  He grinned and shook his head. “It seems as if ye’ll be keeping that promise, lass. In the future, ye’ve learned the language. All I’ve done is taken that learning and...borrowed it for a wee while.”

  “Borrowed from my future?”

  “Aye. Like a bank loan, ye might say. Dinna forget to keep yer promise, for the borrowing will not last forever, ye ken?”

  He took a step away from her, turned, and pointed down the incline. “Ye won’t have to wait for long, I think. But I must leave ye here.” He gestured to his clothes. “I’m a wee bit ahead of the fashion.”

  “You can’t leave me. I still don’t know Gaelic!”

  “Aye, lass. Ye do. Ye’re speaking it even now. As am I.” He stepped close again, took a firm hold of her upper arms, and pulled her close to kiss her forehead. “Be happy, Phoebe Jones. Take hold of it with both hands, and dinnae ever let go.” He stepped back again. “Ye must—for all those poor souls who are not as lucky as you and I.”

  He disappeared mid-wink, leaving her all alone in the place that might or might not be in the past.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Breathe. He said that’s all she had to worry about, and since she didn’t have anyone else standing around offering her advice, she sucked in a deep breath and started walking.

  Doing the hard part.

  Doing the hard part.

  Inhale, exhale.

  Inhale, exhale.

  Watch where I’m going...

  The forest grew abruptly thinner and within another twenty feet, the trees stopped completely—and she could see why.

  At the bottom of the hill, before the next rise began, sat a large wood fort like nothing in the old westerns on TV. This one was surrounded by a massive fence made with the missing sections of the forest—the trees that had been stripped bare of branches and whittled to a point at the end.

  “How do you whittle a stick that big?”

  A blue ribbon of water—somewhere in size between a small river and a large creek—ran down the center of the glen and underneath the walls of the fort, then out again. Looking down on it, she could see maybe a hundred people moving around like busy bees.

  “I sure hope that’s not as civilized as it gets,” she murmured. Then she remembered what Wickham had said about his clothes.

  Holy cow! How far back did you have to go to be pre-kilt?

  A scene popped into her head from the movie Braveheart, where the heroine’s family was living under a stick roof and she and her parents stood in the doorway watching the rain come down in a very Scottish downpour.

  Phoebe just knew she was going to get pneumonia and die after her first medieval storm. Seriously, she couldn’t live in a stick house. She couldn’t!

  Her hands started shaking again, but she remembered the cure, and took deep slow breaths even though she wanted to start gulping and bawling.

  “Dinna be silly, lass. It is already too late. Already he searches for ye.”

  That was it. She just had to find him, and she could get out of there. And it seemed reasonable that he’d be pretty easy to find if he was already searching for her. Maybe it was true that all she needed to do was breathe.

  She realized the two-legged forms of civilization were also moving around outside the fort. A large wagon lumbered toward the open gates, pulled by oxen and followed by a thin man with a whip attached to a long pole. A handful of men, dressed in blue, moved around the wagon to get out of the fort, then they congregated again and turned toward the hill she was standing on. It took her a few seconds to remember she wasn’t watching a scene in some movie—she was watching them coming for her. Her first instinct was to run, but she resisted.

  Breathe. Breathe. Nothing to do but breathe.

  Since Wickham had pointed her in the direction of the fort, she figured she didn’t have anything to fear from the people inside, so she wasn’t a complete idiot for just standing there. Six men, and she in a skirt? If she did run, they would catch her as soon as she tripped—and tripping was a pretty safe bet.

  Regretfully, she had no way to defend herself. But even if the Muirs had let her choose one thing to take along, it probably would have been an incredibly tall and intimidating Scot named James. Now there was a weapon.

  The men fanned out like they expected her to run. She rolled her eyes, folded her arms, and sat down so they wouldn’t have to wonder anymore. Besides, it looked like it would take them a while to reach her. Also, she didn’t want them to think she was scared. She was, of course, but she wasn’t about to let them know that. Then she had the brilliant idea that if she acted like a princess—probably stuck in an era of princesses—they might just treat her like one.

  False bravado might not work for long, she realized. She was about to find out if Wickham had been telling the truth, that somehow, she really could speak Gaelic—because every thought in her head sounded like plain old American English to her.

  Princess. Think Princess.

  The soldiers relaxed and slowed, obviously relieved she’d stayed put. When they finally reached her, one of them moved forward while his buddies hung back with their metal-tipped spears at the ready.

  “Our Chieftain, Laird Stephan, insists ye be his guest and enjoy his protection in the fort below.”

  She wanted to point out that the only people she currently needed protection from were the six of them.

  “But first, ye’d best tell me who ye belong to so we do not offend the wrong man by speaking to his woman, aye?”

  “Who I belong to?” She had no idea what the safe answer would be, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t I belong to myself. It probably wasn’t smart to say she was alone in the world, either. So she fudged. “I’m, uh, waiting for my man to come find me. Not sure where he is right now.” She just hoped her outgoing Gaelic filter was up and running as well as the incoming, because she understood him just fine.

  “Yer name?”

  “Phoebe Jones.” At least that should translate.

  “And yer husband?”

  “I am not married.”

  “Yer father’s name?”

  “Ferris Jones,” she said. What did it matter? “From Wales.”

  “Wales?”

  Uh oh. Is it too soon for Wales? She grasped for a quick distraction. “Believe me, he won’t be offended if I’m your guest.”

  He nodded, satisfied with her empty answers, and gestured for her to start down the hill. The weapons no longer pointed directly a
t her, but they were there in her periphery, poised to direct her if she forgot their destination. The men were kind enough to go slowly and she assumed they knew what speed women could walk down mountains, with skirts around their ankles. She couldn’t have moved any faster without hiking her skirt up around her knees, and she knew better than to show anymore skin than she had to.

  Thoughts on fashion led her to another realization, that if she really was in the Time that Kilts Forgot, that meant the Muir sisters were wrong—the man she was looking for might really be some Viking pirate...

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  None of Phoebe’s school classes in Ohio covered much of Scottish history. She remembered the date 1066 was important in England only because she’d practically tattooed it on her arm once when prepping for a test. She’d been horrible at remembering dates. Accurate or not, the only things she knew about “Old Scotland” came from movies like Rob Roy and Braveheart. Of course, since she’d moved to Edinburgh and done a little sightseeing, she’d seen the monuments and statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, but she hadn’t retained much of the real stories.

  As they picked their way down the incline toward the fort, Phoebe glanced at the nearest soldier without taking her eyes off the terrain for long. If she tripped and started rolling now, she’d be dead before she reached the bottom.

  “I don’t suppose there are any castles around here?”

  “Auch, ye mean stone? Now, what do ye need stone for? If I were ye, I wouldn’t bother our chieftain with such a question. He would take none too kindly any suggestion that his fort is somehow lacking, ye ken?”

  “Yeah. I’ll try to remember that.”