“And you’ve been sent to negotiate this with Weatherby?”
“Aye, Laird Donal asked me to bring it up with him,” he said, shaking his head. “But I doubt my words will fall on anything but deaf ears.”
“Don’t count yourself out just yet,” Brianna said thoughtfully. “If you can get this aid to the refugees, it’ll be safe to travel the roads again, right? And you can take me up to the Keep?”
“That’s right,” he said, glancing at her with surprise. “That’s something you’re interested in?”
“I mean, for sure I want to meet the time traveling women who live in medieval Scotland and may or may not be witches, yeah,” she said, eyeing him.
He laughed, a pleasant sound in the late afternoon air, and she fought the blush that rose to her cheeks at having pleased him.
“I’d very much like to see a castle, too. So it’s in my interests to get this negotiation sorted out.”
“Unfortunately, it may be some time until we can reach an accord,” Robert said heavily. “Baldric’s a good egg – I know him from London, actually, and I’d trust him to strike a fair deal. But it’s Weatherby who’s in charge, unfortunately, and unless I can find some way to talk to just Baldric… I did try this morning,” he admitted with a rueful shrug. “Baldric made it clear that as much as he wanted to help with the refugees, Weatherby’s taken a personal interest in not helping them at all.”
“That’s a shame,” Brianna said – then tilted her head, looking at him curiously. “You do know I’m a professional negotiator, right?”
He blinked back at her. “What do you mean?”
“People pay me to negotiate for them,” she explained, fighting the urge to laugh at the quizzical look on his face. “Businesses, corporations, individuals sometimes… I used to do it for the police, too,” she added, though she quietly hoped he wouldn’t ask her too many questions about that particular element. “I could help.”
He looked intrigued by the suggestion… but then a shadow crossed his face. “I couldn’t ask you to do that, Lady Brianna. Not with everything you’ve been through this last day. You need time to rest, to recover from –”
“I absolutely do not,” she said, shivering a little. “Honestly, talking to you right now is the best I’ve felt since I’ve been here. I think…” She hesitated, wanting to confide in him but not sure how far she should go. “I’m still pretty sure I’m dreaming, that’s all,” she admitted. “And I’m finding it… very hard to reconcile that with how real everything seems to be, and with… you, and …” She shook her head firmly, feeling the dizziness beginning to spiral back in. “I think it will help, to have something like this to focus on. Something from my real life, back home, you know?”
“If you’re sure,” he said softly, looking at her closely. “If you’re sure the stress won’t make you feel worse.”
“Oh, I live and breathe for stress,” she said, drawing another laugh out of him. “I’m great at stress, don’t you worry. And I really think I can help,” she added, shrugging her shoulders. “It seems like a pretty easy negotiation. Weatherby wants the refugees gone, you want the refugees fed, he’s got food and you’ve got contacts among the Stuarts… I’m sure we can figure something out. You just need someone impartial at the table, someone who can help you work out what the best course of action is. Someone who doesn’t have a horse in either race.”
“Someone like you,” he agreed with a smile. “Lady Brianna, your help in this would be more than welcome. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” she said with a smile as they turned and headed back toward the manor. The idea of doing her work, here in this dream of medieval Scotland… it was downright bizarre. But it felt right. Maybe it would anchor her, help her work through whatever it was that had trapped her in this bizarre dream. At the very least, it would be good to do something familiar. Something she was good at.
Because it was feeling less and less like she was going to wake up from this dream any time soon.
Chapter 11
They spent the rest of the afternoon talking idly, and Brianna was surprised to realize that the sun was going down. Robert seemed taken aback by it as well – they shared a brief, pleased smile as they realized how quickly the afternoon had gone, and she couldn’t help the urge that rose up in her, fast as a whip, to kiss him again. It seemed like years ago that he’d kissed her on the bench… she’d been trying to avoid thinking about it, but as they walked back toward the manor house together, she couldn’t help but wonder what it had meant. He hadn’t mentioned it again, and neither had she… were they just going to pretend it hadn’t happened?
Baldric was there to greet them when they got inside, and he and Robert moved away to talk in low voices, presumably about the negotiations. It wasn’t long before Robert came back to her, smiling broadly, Baldric at his side with a curious look on his face.
“Robert here has reminded me you’re a professional negotiator,” Baldric said slowly, fixing her with an inquisitive eye. “He’s suggested you join us at luncheon tomorrow for a discussion of what’s to be done about these refugees.”
“That’s right,” she said, lifting her chin. “I can help. I do it for a living back home, I might as well make myself useful while I’m prevailing upon your hospitality by staying here.”
“It sounds good to me.” Baldric shrugged. “I just hope you can handle yourself with Weatherby. He’s got some rather… archaic ideas of what women are and aren’t capable of.”
She frowned, glancing up at Robert, who shrugged his shoulders. “It’s okay,” she said after considering this for a minute, thinking back to her career. The upper echelons of big companies were, sadly enough, still heavily male dominated… and she’d encountered more than a bit of sexism in her time. She knew what to do about it – knew how to sidestep common traps, knew how to keep smiling in the face of their distrust. “I know how to handle men who think women aren’t worth listening to.”
“You’ll have me there,” Robert said firmly. “I’ll ensure your voice is heard.”
“Thanks, Robert, but you’re one of the parties I’m mediating between,” she pointed out, shaking her head. “I can’t have you behaving as though I’m yours to defend – it will undermine my credibility. If he’s going to be a snot, let him. I can handle myself, alright?”
“Spoken like a MacClaran woman,” Baldric said, chuckling. “For what it’s worth, I’ll be there, too, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t get too bad. He does listen to me occasionally,” the man said drily – and though she could tell there was a fair bit of old irritation there, there was more than a little bit of affection for Weatherby in Baldric’s face.
That made her feel better about the English lord, oddly enough. There was something about Baldric that she trusted implicitly – and if he had stuck around with Weatherby as long as this, then he mustn’t have been all bad.
She headed upstairs after they’d set a time for the luncheon, wanting to wash her face before dinner. Sure enough, a servant bustled in with a basin of water for her to wash in, smiling broadly and lingering in the doorway with a curious look on her face. “Yes?”
“Pardon, ma’am,” the woman said, flushing a little. “Is it really true you’re from the future?”
“I guess so,” she admitted, feeling a little bit ridiculous. “The twenty-first century.”
“Fascinating,” the servant breathed – and then, as if overwhelmed by what she learned, she dashed away with a hurried apology, leaving Brianna to smile to herself. Yes, this was all probably a dream, she reminded herself… but some parts of it were deeply charming.
Once she’d cleaned up a little – it felt good to wash the dust from her face – and used the chamber pot — a decidedly not so charming part of her dream — she headed downstairs, where dinner was being served in the main dining room. Robert was staying the night, too, she recalled – she was delighted to see him seated at the table, having re-braided his hair in the interim.
She took a seat next to him, not caring about the slight raise of Lord Weatherby’s eyebrows. What did she care what that stuffy old lord thought? This was all a hallucination anyway – she might as well enjoy herself and sit next to the man she found so attractive.
Dinner was delicious… roast meat and vegetables, hearty and warming, served with a couple of freshly baked bread rolls that were still hot in the middle and absolutely delicious with butter. Her appetite had been in overdrive ever since this dream had begun, and she felt a pang of worry as she set about her meal. Could it be that in the real world, she wasn’t actually eating? Was her actual body wasting away for hunger as she wandered in some kind of psychotic trance? Surely not… surely someone would have found her and taken care of her. Or not, a dark voice murmured. Maybe she was lost in the forest around the manor, freezing and starving to death as she wandered in a delirium… maybe this dream, whatever it was, was just her mind entertaining itself as it died… didn’t they say you dreamed of warmth just before you froze to death?
Horrible thoughts… and at any rate, the food seemed every bit as filling and satisfying as her breakfast had been, so she put them aside. Baldric and Robert were deep in conversation about some great adventure the two of them had shared in London, and she half-listened as she ate, amused by how well the two men seemed to get on. It was interesting to think of the two of them, paling around together – especially now, when they seemed to be on two sides of a fairly serious dispute.
She headed up to bed after dinner, offering Robert a formal little goodnight as he did. Part of her had been secretly hoping he’d escort her to her room, that maybe she could entreat him to come in for a little while… but that was a terrible idea, she knew that. He was technically a client of hers now, wasn’t he? He was if she was going to be negotiating a peace between these two, at any rate… and it wouldn’t do to sleep with him the night before the negotiation. She almost regretted offering to help with it now… but part of her knew that it was a good idea, and that it would help to ground her and make her feel less lost and insane.
That, or it wouldn’t help at all… another brief glimpse of her wandering through the forest, mad and ranting to nobody, and she shivered. No – she couldn’t let herself go down that path. Couldn’t let herself despair. If she really was insane and starving in the forest, then there was nothing she could do about it from where she was, now was there? The other option – that she was safe and sound in a mental ward somehow – was reassuring, too. The third option – that there was no psychotic break at all, and everything that had happened to her was actually real… well, she didn’t really want to give that one too much thought. That one made her feel more insane than both of the other two combined… though she had to admit, there was a thrill deep in her bones at the prospect that Robert was a real man, and not some hallucination she’d come up with to amuse herself. He was just too good to be true, wasn’t he? That was evidence that she was dreaming, she decided. That, and how oddly familiar he seemed… almost like she’d known him before. Was he just some combination of all the men she’d ever found attractive? That was possible… dreams tended to work that way, didn’t they?
Absorbed in thoughts like these, she tucked herself into bed, remembering to blow out the candles this time so as not to waste wax. The darkness that rushed in was absolute, and she shivered a little, chilled by the gloom… but at the same time, quietly enjoying how peaceful it was. No streetlights glaring in through her window, no traffic, no distant shouts of drunk people enjoying the city… the only sound was the rustling of wind through the trees in the distant night. And tonight, she slept much better than she had the night before, with only a few troubling dreams of long, winding city streets, covered in cobblestones, haunted by dark figures with sharp metal blades in their hands…
She woke late, realizing with a shock that the sun was well over her windowsill – it must be getting close to midday. That meant the negotiation was soon. Annoyed that she hadn’t woken up – and more annoyed that nobody had woken her – she hurried to get dressed, wrinkling her nose at the fiddly fastenings of the gown. Still, she noted with approval that she was a lot quicker than she had been. She was getting good at putting on hallucinatory gowns, she thought with an irritated scowl. Great. Put that one on the resume. She hurried down the stairs, a little amused by her concerns about being late… why was she so worried about missing an imaginary meeting?
She needn’t have worried. It seemed Lord Weatherby had gone out for a morning ride and had yet to return. Robert was sitting at the table, his jaw tight, clearly worried about what the negotiation would bring, and Baldric was pacing back and forth in what had once been a hotel lobby, clearly irritated by his Lord’s absence.
“Do you think he’ll be back any time soon?” she asked, worried about how annoyed Robert looked. It wouldn’t do to start this kind of conversation off in a negative way… and she smiled with relief as she saw Baldric point behind her, through the open doors to the manor. There was Lord Weatherby, riding through the gates on a great white horse with several men behind him on their own steeds. He swung down from the horse by the gate and gestured vaguely to a groom, who rushed forward to take the panting horse over toward the stables.
“My Lord, it’s past time for our luncheon,” Baldric said firmly, and Weatherby huffed as he looked at her.
“Ah, yes. Quite. Our chat about the refugees. Well, let’s get it over with,” he said, sounding irritable, and stomped through to the dining room where Robert was looking at him with real anger in his face. Biting her lip, Brianna followed, worried about how this conversation was going to go. She’d hoped that Weatherby could at least be civil for a few minutes, long enough to come to a solution… but that didn’t seem likely.
“Right,” she said firmly, sitting at the head of the table between Weatherby and Robert, who were eyeing each other with clear dislike. “Now, we’re here to talk about what’s to be done with the refugees. Let me go over what I understand of the situation,” she said firmly as Weatherby opened his mouth, “and when I’m finished, I’ll give you two a chance to contribute anything that I might have missed, or any points that I might have wrong. Okay?”
“Fine,” Weatherby grunted. Baldric took a seat beside his lord, giving her a quick smile as he did. It felt good to have the knight on her side.
“So – these refugees arrived a few weeks ago, a little over a hundred of them. They came from a neighboring county, the lands of Clan Stuart, where a disastrous harvest has meant that there’s precious little food to go around.” She deliberately left out the detail that it was the English presence in the county that had contributed to this particular situation – she didn’t want to get bogged down in semantics, and at any rate, she knew that Weatherby would refuse any culpability for the actions of his countrymen – and fair enough, too. “Clan MacClaran are at capacity and then some, trying to care for as many of the refugees as they can, but there are far more than they can hope to house. The villagers, too, aren’t having much luck, as they’ve their own people to feed. The refugees, desperate and frightened, have unfortunately taken to crime to feed themselves and their families – they’ve been stealing from neighboring farms, including farms on Lord Weatherby’s lands, and even robbing travelers on the road between the castle and the manor. Is that about right?”
“That’s the situation, aye,” Robert said firmly.
Weatherby nodded too, grudgingly.
“Right. So, what I’d like to do is hear from both of you how you would want the situation to resolve in an ideal world for you.”
“Well, I’d like the brigands and robbers to be—”
“Thank you, Lord Weatherby, but I’d like to hear from Robert first,” she said, cutting him off.
He looked so shocked at that as she gestured quickly for Robert to speak – he did so, a grin dancing around his eyes even though he kept his expression solemn. Baldric, too, had hidden a smile under his gauntlet. It seemed Lord Weatherby didn’
t get cut off very often.
“What the MacClarans want is simple,” he said, spreading his hands. “The Stuarts need food, plain and simple – that’s the only reason they’re turning to crime like they are. They’re desperate – and more than willing to work for their keep, for that matter. All Weatherby would need to do was offer some aid to the refugees – in exchange for any work he might need done, I might add, there’s willing hands aplenty – and the problem would resolve itself.”
“How much aid?”
“Food for about a hundred men, women, and children,” he said frankly. “And I know full well he can afford it—”
“Let’s not get into that,” she said quickly. “Lord Weatherby? What’s your ideal outcome here?”
“I want the highwaymen gone,” Weatherby snapped. “And I’m not interested in giving out free food to make it happen. That’s a recipe for dependence, MacClaran. I’m not having it.”
The two men stared each other down, and Brianna felt her heart sink. This was going to be more difficult than she’d thought.
Chapter 12
The two men were staring each other down across the table. She could tell from the tense look on Baldric’s face that Weatherby was close to snapping… and from what she’d learned of Robert, his clenched fist and tight jaw indicated that he didn’t have much patience left either. She cleared her throat, trying to distract them both – sometimes in situations like this, the best thing to do was to waffle a little to give everyone a good chance to get control of themselves. But she was only a few words into another summary of the situation when Weatherby cut her off, his hard eyes narrowed and fixed on Robert.
“The problem with you MacClarans,” he said, his voice dripping with scorn, “is that you don’t understand that the more you give people, the more they feel entitled to. If I respond to this outright burglary and looting by giving them what they want, it’s just reinforcing that that behavior is what works. When I train a hunting hound, I don’t feed them when they behave poorly – I feed them when they behave well.”
Highlander Returned: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 9) Page 8
