by L. L. Muir
Just what he wanted to hear. “Aye. Okay.”
“Open the gate,” she shouted, and he managed to keep his seat despite the start it gave him. The guards said nothing, but he heard the squeak of hinges that needed oil and the creak of heavy wood shuddering under the command to open. Not long after they passed under that shadow, the horse’s steps drummed across the drawbridge. The water beneath made it sound like the rumble of a small band of raiders, not three people out for a lark.
They turned sharply to the right and followed the path he’d taken with Harris, Gilliard, and Bull the day before, to inspect the wall.
Surely she hasn’t decorated the wall!
They couldn’t have gone more than a few hundred yards before his horse slowed and stopped. It turned, then, and he felt Sophie’s leg nudge against his own as she moved next to him.
“All right. You can take it off now.”
He took a deep breath of dread and pulled the black cloth off his head. It took a dozen blinks before he was able to see clearly. He looked all around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The third horse, he was surprised to find, carried nothing more than a pair of baskets. The curtain wall was, thankfully, the same color and texture of the day before.
“Notice anything?” She grinned beside him even though he hadn’t immediately noticed her surprise.
He looked again. All that stood before them was the wall, some thirty yards ahead. “More guards than yesterday,” he said, though he was a bit surprised by that. They were to have a minimum of men stay behind while the rest took the first run at the quarry, and yet, more men manned the wall than the day before.
When he narrowed his eyes, he could see them more clearly, and if his eyes were not playing tricks on him, the men looked different, too. More substantial than the scrawny fellows of yesterday. And these were better outfitted as well. Some had chain on their shoulders, but all had their helms in place.
“More guards.” She grinned. “A few more than necessary this morning, but I wanted you to get the impact. Before some of them came down.”
“I dinna ken what I am meant to understand, lass. Perhaps ye should explain it to me.”
She nodded, still smiling, still incredibly pleased with herself. “I had an idea in the middle of the night. Then, this morning, I ran it by Phillip and Ian MacKenzie. They...approved.”
“Aye? And what was this plan?”
“That the men at arms should go with the rest of them. How many times have you mentioned that hauling rocks would make everyone stronger, and you can’t argue that your men at arms were a little lacking in the arms department. Right?”
“Men-at-arms, lass, means men-with-weapons.”
“Yeah, but you still weren’t happy with how wimpy they looked, right?”
He nodded to the wall. “And ye mean to tell me that Inverbrae’s guards have grown so much muscle overnight? At yer insistence?”
She rolled her eyes, then leaned closely to peer into his face. “What. Men?”
Completely and utterly confused, he looked back at the wall again. One of the guards with chain on his shoulders lifted an arm...and waved his fingers. Not his hand, but his fingers. It was hardly a masculine—
“Saints preserve us,” he breathed. “What have ye done?”
“Well, you have to admit, they’re a lot more intimidating that most of your one hundred and thirty-nine.” She leaned back in her saddle and surveyed her handiwork. “You can’t even tell their wearing skirts, but pants can be made for them.”
“No.”
She sobered instantly. “Why not?”
“Because they are seventeenth century women, that’s why not. You can’t simply implant women’s liberation ideas into the sixteen hundreds, lass. Have ye not considered what damage the two of us might do if we, in fact, change history here?”
“You said yourself that this place is relatively isolated.”
“Aye, but—”
“And I haven’t said anything about equal rights for women. I’m saying that a woman also has a duty to protect her children, her home. Regardless of the century, women have been filling in for their menfolk when the need arises. And I thought it was pretty clear. Inverbrae’s need has arisen.”
He couldn’t argue that, but he wasn’t finished pointing out the problems with her strategy. “The men will laugh at them.”
“No, they won’t.”
“Ye seem so sure of it. But ye don’t ken these men, these times—”
“They won’t laugh if you don’t laugh. And you’re the one who went on and on last night about these people only wanting our respect. So show them some respect.” She lifted her chin in the air and waved her arm over her head to signal the guards. “Besides… God said it was a brilliant idea.”
They were swamped by a wave of shouting and rumbling as the women on the wall began howling and beating on their shields with their swords. If they weren’t careful, they’d be chopping off their own hands!
“God said it was brilliant? You speak to Him directly do ye?”
She gave him a narrow look. “Godfrey Torvaldson. He said Viking armies depend on a large number of shield maidens.” She swept her arm before her. “Behold, Laird Ogilvy, your shield maidens.”
He had to admit they were quite intimidating, except for one or two who continued to wave at his wife. It was damned certain they weren’t waving and grinning at him.
Sophie waved her arm again and quelled the shouting. The shield-banging ended soon after. She faced him and smugly waited for his full attention. “It is all about taking the product you have and presenting it in the most appealing way, milord.”
He watched while she lost the battle to contain her joy. He seized the moment and leaned across the space between them, lifted her chin, and kissed her tenderly before sitting back in his saddle once more. “Lady Ogilvy, I commend you. This is far and away the best use of capitalism I’ve seen through the centuries.” He waited until he had her complete attention. And after she sobered a wee bit, he continued. “But please, I beg ye to explain to yer shield maidens... Under no circumstances...are they to wave!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sophie couldn’t have been happier. She’d imagined her little reveal dozens of times since she’d shared her idea with the MacKenzies, and none of those versions were quite as wonderful as the real deal.
Bram had to be convinced, which she’d expected. But in the end, he thought her idea had been good. Commendable, even. She’d been dreading all morning that he wouldn’t get it, and that he’d pull all that macho crap just to prove women weren’t capable of contributing to a medieval society. But he wasn’t as backward as she’d feared.
It was probably the shield maiden thing that really sold it.
Without her noticing, Bram had turned his horse back the way they’d come. Sophie pulled herself out of her daydreams to stop him. “Wait! There’s more!”
“More?” He looked a little nervous, but then, what member of her family or her friends didn’t look nervous when she told them she had an idea?
“Yes. I thought maybe you’d like to go on a picnic?”
He perked right up and looked closer at the baskets. “With food?”
“Yes. With food.” She could feel herself blushing, like she was asking him out on a date or something. “I... I was thinking that I’d like to see that loch again, in the light of day. With dry clothes on.”
He nodded dramatically. “I can think of no better place to discover what awaits in yon baskets, aye?”
“Yon basket?” She rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing we’re leaving tomorrow. The place is wearing off on you.”
His smile fell away for half a second, then came back again, though it wasn’t the same. “Aye. If I stayed much longer, I’m certain it would end with Godfrey challenging me in the coliseum.”
Her mouth fell open just imaging it. She thought it was a great idea. But Bram stretched over and closed her mouth for her.
“Not on yer life, Sophie Pennel.”
As they rode off in search of the lake, she hid her disappointment that he’d called her by her own name again, and not Lady Ogivly. Not his lady wife. She couldn’t see what it would hurt for just one more day…
~ ~ ~
Sophie laughed out loud at the look on Bram’s face when he opened the first basket, and all it contained was a blanket. He made a face at her, then marched over to a thick spot of grass and spread it out. Then he gestured dramatically at the huge plaid square and told her to sit. When she did, he planted a kiss in the middle of her head before going for the other basket.
“It smells good,” he said, then dropped to his knees on the blanket and took off the lid. “I assume ye were too busy addressing yer shield maidens in the outer bailey to do the actual cooking yerself, aye?”
“You assume correctly, sir. I asked the cooks to give us a little bit of everything they could think of. I honestly have no idea if it’s even edible.”
He pulled out an apple and showed it to her. “We shall not starve at least.”
After a lot of silliness and a little bit of tasting, Sophie left the rest of the strange concoctions to Bram, who was more than happy to play clean-up crew. And while he did his duty, she leaned away from the blanket and plucked a long stem of heather and brought it back to her lap, to play with the tiny little bells.
“You said something funny back there…”
“Aye? And what was that?”
“You said it was the best use of capitalism you’d seen through the centuries.”
He froze for a second, but didn’t look at her. “Aye?” Then he went back to chewing the meat off a leg he’d claimed was from a goose. Since it looked like a turkey leg to her, she thought he might have been teasing.
“So, that makes me wonder if you haven’t been completely honest with me.”
“Oh? I see no reason to dissemble, lass. Ask me what ye will.”
“Okay. I want the truth. Have you seen other centuries, besides this one? And the twenty-first. And the twentieth. Because I think maybe you know Wickham Muir better than you let on. Maybe you guys run around all over the place, saving civilizations, making women fall in love with you, altering history...”
He stopped eating, sat up, and drew back his arm to throw what was left of the goose leg into the loch. When he looked at her again, he was stone cold sober. “Are ye in love with me, Sophie?”
He hadn’t come closer, taken her hand, or used the opportunity to assure her that he felt something similar. He just asked, like he was asking if she’d remembered to bring in the garbage cans from the street.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “Just answer the question. Am I right?”
He finally opened his mouth to speak, but a horrible boom sounded behind them. Since it had come from inside the walls of Inverbrae, silly conversations were forgotten, along with the picnic baskets as they sprinted to their horses.
He moved to help her mount but she pushed him away. “Don’t wait for me! Go!”
The warning blast of a horn sounded three times. Then repeated at intervals. If the quarry was as close as everyone said, the men there would have heard it.
Sophie managed to climb into the saddle and Bram finally stopped watching over his shoulder.
“Please, God,” she prayed aloud. “Don’t let it be bad!”
Judging by the cloud of dust rising into the sky from the far side of the castle, her prayer was a little late.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Bram’s guts twisted and retwisted with dread as he rode through the outer gates. He bellowed for one of the guards to go fetch his wife from the loch before he remembered they were all women. But no matter. If they intended to be guards, they would have to get used to following orders.
That bloody horn sounded again. He found the young trumpeter standing over the inner gate. “Enough,” he shouted. “If they could hear ye at the quarry, they’ve heard by now. And if ye keep on, ye’ll attract other clans!”
The lad nodded, and the horn quickly disappeared.
Inside the walls, a trail of women pointed and he found no need to slow down and ask where the trouble lay. Around the keep to the left, beyond the stables up to the top of the market street, people stood aside and urged him onward, then to the right.
He pulled his horse up short in front of a heap of rubble the size of a small house. Through the settling dust, he could see that half a tower house still stood but with one wall stripped away. A hundred women were already organized in lines, moving the massive stones from one to the next, eating away at the pile as quickly as they could, breaking their backs with the doing.
The pointed Celtic helmets were cast aside, but some of the taller lasses, still wearing chain, helped fill those lines. One woman, weeping silently as she clutched a small dusty child, reluctantly handed off the limp form to an old stooped woman and joined the others.
A young lad with wet trails striped across his dirt-covered face, stop beside Bram but kept his eyes on the chaos. “Bairns were playing in the tower, milord. Some are still inside. At the top. No ken how many lay beneath the rocks.”
Bram waved to four guardswomen who were hurrying to join the lines. “Come with me!” To the lad he said, “Send three more, son. To the market stalls!”
He and the first four ran down the cobbled street to the abandoned market. “Anything flat and strong,” he said, hoping they understood. “Large and flat!”
The women began dismantling lean-to’s.
“Here!” Bram pushed baskets of food away from a cart and piled flat bits of wall onto it. “Put them here. We’ll roll it all back!”
Three more volunteers appeared. “Poles,” he told them. “We need long poles to brace the tower walls!” Two horses headed up the street. One carried Sophie. He didn’t have time to explain what was happening, but she didn’t stop to ask. Instead, she continued through, following the first woman toward the tragedy.
He pointed at two women. “Stay here. Keep looking. More flat pieces.” He nodded to the others. “Come with me! Push!”
With so many of them surrounding the cart, they made it up the slight incline with little trouble. More dust had settled. Children could now be seen looking down from the gaping maw of the top floor. There was only a trace of the floor below them. A woman shouted at them to move away from the edge.
A flash of tartan caught his eye, and he found his wife organizing a small army of her own in the doorway to a low wooden structure. “Bring the injured here,” she shouted. She knelt before the old woman and began examining the lifeless body still in her arms. “He’s still breathing! Take him inside!”
Several of the women cried openly now as they passed the huge rocks along. It was just as Sophie said, Bram realized as he and his crew carried their shoring pieces toward the tower. Women have always been filling in for their missing men.
One of his volunteers started to remove her helmet, but he stopped her. “With falling rock, ye’re better off with it, aye?”
She nodded and settled it back in place, then waited for his instructions. Since so many of them were tall, they were able to hold their flat treasures high while others propped them up with longer poles of wood. What he wouldn’t have given for a bit of modern scaffolding!
While he and the others worked to shore up the base, he listened to the drama unfolding around them. Young mothers gathered on the outside of the tower and spread blankets between them, holding them together like a layered trampoline. Then they tried to coax the bairns to jump. But to be fair, it was a twenty-foot drop. One of the bigger ones tried to convince his friends as well, but he could talk none of the others into giving it a try.
“Ye must do it, Ranald! To show them it will work!”
But the lad refused. “I cannae leave them alone!”
The staircase was rubble after six feet. What lay on the ground had to be the rest of it, exposing the tower like a layer cake with a large piece cut out
of it. But since the staircase was typically the most well-made part of a castle—the most intact of any Scottish ruin—Bram worried for the rest of the structure.
If the children moved wrong, they might bring the whole thing down upon their heads. So he told one of the young mothers to explain why they must hold very still.
An older woman shook her head and nudged the younger aside. “Young Ranald,” she shouted. “We are going to play a game.” She had the bairns’ attention instantly. “We are all going to lie down on our tummies, aye? And spread our legs and arms apart.”
“Like trees?”
“Aye. Like trees, ye clever lad. And the one who can stay still the longest wins a…” She looked about her and urged suggestions.
“A pony,” Bram shouted. “And if ye all lie verra still, we’ll find a pony for each of ye.”
The women murmured and whispered with worry. The old woman shouted, “Ranald? Are ye there?”
A young muffled voice replied. “We’re lying on our bellies!”
The entire crowd chuckled with relief.
Bram shouted again. “Can ye tell us how many ponies we’ll need, Ranald?”
There was a long silence, followed by his excited shout. “Six!”
The woman with the helmet approached him. “What about a ladder, milord?”
Bram shook his head. “Even leaning a ladder against the wall might push it all over.” What they needed was a cherry picker the power company used.
“What we need,” one woman mused, “is to build a tower beside it and let them walk across, aye?”
Another woman scoffed. “I doubt the laddies would wait a month, Edwina. Pony or no.”
Bram shook his head. “But it needn’t be a stone tower, aye?” He turned to the first woman. “We need ladders. All the ladders we can find. No matter the size!”
Bram went in search of a drink of water and someone to gather tools. He found his wife weeping happy tears with the woman who was holding her son again, only now he was alert and smiling. The women were no longer moving stones, but were resting on the ground and stretching their backs.
