by Silver James
****
The troops had long since passed from sight and the people gathered in the courtyard to see them off dispersed but still Becca stayed at the window, hoping to catch some stray glimpse, some whispered echo of Ciaran. Shadows lengthened, the sun sliding past midday. Clamoring down from the bench, she wandered around the room listlessly.
Becca needed to get dressed. She finally opened the wooden cupboard and noticed some of Ciaran’s clothes were still there. Without thinking, she pulled out one of his shirts and put it on. It swallowed her, but she didn’t care. It carried his scent and her skin craved the feel of fabric that had once touched his. Rummaging around, she found a soft leather strap and wrapped it around her waist like a belt. She rolled up the sleeves and searched for footwear. His boots were obviously too big.
She grinned lasciviously. She couldn’t wait to find out if the old wives’ tale was true—the one about the size of a man’s shoe and hi... She forced her salacious thoughts away from that riddle and back to the situation at hand.
His shirt fell almost to her knees but Becca also needed something to cover her legs. There was a pair of trews in the armoire, but they would swallow her. Not to mention, she’d probably set the castle on its collective ear if she showed up dressed as a man. She eyed the gowns for a brief moment. Just not her style. At least not until Ciaran returned. As a last resort, she bunched, knotted, and hitched the mantle until it made a passable skirt. She looked like a fashion disaster but didn’t care. Screwing up her courage to face the outside world, she was saved by a soft tap at the door.
“May I come in?” Siobhan’s voice called.
Becca rushed to the door and pulled it open. The older woman’s eyes were red-rimmed. Becca’s heart went out to her. Siobhan was married to the master-at-arms and likely felt even more bereft than she did. Once Siobhan got a good look at her attire, a wicked smile creased her face, chasing away any lingering sadness.
“Ah, cailín,” Siobhan chortled fondly. “Yee can’t go wanderin’ around dressed like that.” Despair welled up in her chest and she saw a shadow of her own feelings flit across Siobhan’s, too. “Do you miss him that much, then?”
Becca nodded. The flood of tears she’d been holding back for so long suddenly broke the dam of her self-control. She sank to the floor, tears streaming down her face as sobs wracked her body.
Siobhan joined her. With their arms wrapped around each other, the women bawled until they had no more tears. Becca finally hiccupped and giggled. A bit embarrassed yet relieved by their crying jag, they washed their faces in the basin of tepid water and put on brave expressions.
“Yee still cannot go traipsing around in the Taoiseac’s clothes.” Siobhan’s tone and the hands firmly fisted on her hips were insistent. “’Twouldn’t be seemly for you to go about dressed like a ragamuffin.” She arched a brow. “Nor dressed like a man.”
“But the dresses, the gowns... They’re too fine for me,” Becca protested.
Siobhan looked shocked. “Do yee not understand, cailín? When the MacDermot returns, the two of you will be wed, and you’ll be the mistress of the castle.” That almost made Becca start bawling again. “Nay, cailín, he’s a good man and ’twill be gentle with yee when it comes to the tuppin’,” Siobhan hastened to reassure her. “’Tis obvious for all to see that he cares about you, and I’m thinkin’ you might feel the same about him.”
“It’s not that,” Becca stammered as she drew in a ragged breath. How was she going to explain to this woman what the real problem was? How could she explain that she was from hundreds of years in the future? “I don’t know a blasted thing about running a castle,” she finally blurted out. Then she thought a moment. What the hell was tupping? If it was what she thought it was, she wasn’t going there.
Her partial confession rocked Siobhan back on her heels. She stared at the girl, shocked. “Y’er well bred, cailín, ’tis obvious to see by looking at yee. How can it be that yer dam dinnit teach yee what a mistress would be needing to know?”
Without thinking, she exclaimed, “Because my mother lived in a two-story ranch house in Aurora, Colorado.” As soon as the words burst out, Becca clapped her hands over her mouth.
Siobhan stepped away from her, the woman’s hands going to her chest in a protective gesture.
“I’m not from here,” she admitted, daring to trust this woman. “I’m not from now.”
“ODHRAN!” Siobhan yelled at the top of her lungs. She dashed across the room and tore open the door. Grabbing the burly guard, she ordered, “Bring me Odhran the Druid now!”
A few minutes later, the old Druid was pushed through the door. Disheveled and stunned by the suddenness of his summons, he stared at the two women. Siobhan dismissed the guard, telling him to go get something to eat and not to come back until he was called. His dissent died on his lips as she firmly shut the door in his face. Siobhan whirled to face Becca. “Tell him,” she ordered. “Tell him what you just told me!”
Becca’s brain whirled. Had she made a huge mistake? “That I know nothing of running a castle? I’m just a peasant girl, Siobhan. How could I know what I’ve never been taught?”
“Bah,” Siobhan spat. “Do not hide the truth, cailín. This is too important. Now tell him.”
She remained silent, so Siobhan turned on the Druid. “Then you tell her, Odhran. Tell her what is Imrama Anam.”
Becca sucked in her breath, suspecting she was about to learn something very important.
“Why that lesson, Siobhan?” The old man tilted his head, his gaze darting from one woman to the other.
“Because she asked me,” the woman hissed.
The Druid took her right hand and led her to the bench still positioned under the window. “Sit, child, and tell me. How do you know of Imrama Anam? This is not common knowledge these days.”
“I don’t know anything,” she replied. “That’s why I asked Siobhan. I don’t know who I am or where I am.” After a moment, she added in a quiet voice, “Or when I am.”
The Druid silently stared into her eyes for a long moment then nodded his head. “She speaks the truth, Siobhan. She knows nothing of the old ways, though there are traces of power within her.”
Odhran spoke then, keeping his voice soft, spinning a spell, entrancing Becca. He told her of the old religion and the gods of the Celts, of the Tuatha dé Danaan, the mythical people now called faeries who settled Ireland and then withdrew, leaving the land to the mortals. Odhran told her of Imrama Anam, the journey of the soul as it traveled through eternity seeking Tír Nan Óg, the Land of the Ever Young. He revealed his own thoughts about her predicament and questioned her about the voices in her head.
“Oh, hell.” Becca jumped up to pace the floor. “I’m screwed. I didn’t major in quantum physics, and I sure didn’t study history. I know enough to understand that if I mess up here, then the whole future is out of kilter. This can’t be happening,” she groaned. Then her stomach growled.
Odhran and Siobhan stared at her, totally perplexed. “Quantum physics,” Becca reiterated. “The study of... Oh, never mind. I’m so hungry I can barely think. Look, the point is that where I’m from...when I’m from, there is a theory about time travel. If a person goes back in time and changes things, then things are also changed in the future.”
Odhran beamed. “Exactly. That is the whole point.” He smiled proudly, the professor praising a student who finally understands.
“No,” Becca argued. “You don’t get it. It always changes things for the worse.”
Siobhan exchanged a long look with Odhran, then left. Odhran patted Becca’s hand. “Cailín, the timekeepers will not allow that to happen.”
“Timekeepers? Who or what are they?” Becca was losing this argument. Even so, it was important she at least try to win.
“The timekeepers. Certain Tuatha dé Danaan shepherd our souls through our lives. It is they who make things right when they go wrong. Your being here is not a random act, Becca. In fact, I th
ink you were plucked from your time for a very specific reason.”
Becca’s mouth opened and closed several times, making her look and feel like a fish out of water. She grinned at the analogy. She was a fish out of water.
Siobhan returned with a platter laden with bowls of stew and crusty bread. She passed them out then settled on a stool by the fire to eat.
Becca was so hungry she all but swigged the soup from her bowl. When she’d finished, she looked at the older woman across the room. “I really am fifty years old,” she told Siobhan, flashing a sly grin. “And old enough to be his mother.”
“He doesn’t need a mother,” Siobhan reproved, but with a chuckle lurking just below the surface of her gruff words. She arched an eyebrow and stared at the bed, her meaning plain to see. “Let us hope the young pup can teach his old dog new tricks.” Her lips quirked in a lascivious smile.
“Siobhan!” Becca blushed crimson all the way to the roots of her blonde hair.
Odhran swallowed the bread he’d been chewing. “Consider yourself blessed, cailín,” he sighed, looking her up and down. “What I wouldn’t trade to have back the body of my youth.”
Becca’s face flushed a deeper shade of red. Odhran’s leer was much too reminiscent of the looks Ciaran gave her. At the thought of him, her heart constricted. “Who is he?” she whispered. “Why do the too-ah...the twah...the faeries care what happens to him?” She couldn’t quite get her tongue around the Gaelic words, not fully realizing she’d been speaking Gaelic since she’d first fully awakened in Ciaran’s bed.
“What do you mean, Becca?” Siobhan asked, her gaze and voice both sharp.
“Those voices, the ones in my dream. They spoke of him. They said he’d know what to do, that things had gone wrong before because I was too young.” Becca paused, deciding how much to reveal. “They talked about a covenant. Some sort of binding.” She watched Siobhan’s face closely.
“’Tis the truth, then,” Siobhan sighed. The woman glanced at Odhran who still stared at Becca.
His gaze remained focused on Becca, trying to read meaning into her hesitant confession as he looked into her soul. “What else did they say, child?” he persisted.
“That Ciaran would die...and that he could not die without issue,” she whispered, the words dragged from the very depths of her soul. “They didn’t want him to leave until we’d...” Becca hesitated to finish the thought out loud. “Tupped,” she finally admitted, choosing the local terminology.
Siobhan and Odhran watched her like two cats waiting at a mouse hole. “Have you?” Siobhan asked pointedly. “Could you be with child?”
Taken aback, Becca was insistent. “No! We haven’t and I’m not. In fact, I’ve never...” Her voice trailed off. She was distinctly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation.
“You are still a maiden,” Siobhan confirmed, smiling.
“Old maiden,” she groused.
Siobhan burst out laughing. “How did you survive to the ripe old age of fifty with no one plucking your fruit? Either you were a hag or the men of your time were without wits.”
Becca was indignant. “I was not a hag. As a matter fact, when I was younger, I looked pretty much like I do now, thank you very much. And it wasn’t for lack of trying on the boys’ part. I just never found the one I wanted...” Her eyes clouded over with memories from her previous life. She managed a shrug meant to show she didn’t care. “Then, it was too late.”
Odhran patted her hand, the gesture meant to comfort. “Tell us, child.”
“I was in a car accident,” she began then realized the others looked confused. “A car. A vehicle with a motor. Uhm, a wagon that moves by itself without horses... Oh, God. I just did it. I just screwed up the space-time continuum. I can’t do this,” she wailed.
“Hush, cailín,” Siobhan comforted her. “Tell us of this accident.”
“The car...uhm, the wagon went off the side of a mountain. I was pinned in the wreckage and it took forever to get me out. The doctors... The healers said I wouldn’t live, but I did. Then they said I’d never walk again, but I did. It hurt like hell, but I kept getting up every morning and surviving one more day.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Day after day, for twenty-five years, I kept surviving. I went to sleep on my fiftieth birthday and woke up here.” She shivered. “Who am I, Odhran?” Her voice cracked and she had to clear her throat before she could continue. “Am I in someone else’s body? Is their soul in my body back in the twenty-first century living my life as I’m living theirs?”
Odhran shook his head. “Nay, cailín. You are who you are supposed to be. Ciaran and Becca were destined to meet. I suspect you’ve been sent back to right a wrong which occurred in this lifetime.”
“Oh, God,” Becca complained. “Trying to keep the space-time continuum straight is hard enough. Now you’re talking about parallel universes and lives. Stop it, Odhran. You’re making my head hurt!”
Odhran stood up. “Sleep, cailín. We will talk again.” He shuffled to the door and let himself out.
Becca stared at Siobhan. “When am I, Siobhan? What year is this?”
Awestruck, Siobhan shook her head. “You’ve come over a thousand years from the future. ’Tis nine hundred sixty-one, Becca. The twenty-seventh day of Mhárta, just before the new moon of Aíbreán.”
Becca automatically translated the date without stopping to wonder how she did so. March 27, 961. Okay, so it was the tenth century, the beginning of the medieval period. She could cope with this. She’d have to. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her waist to keep from shaking apart.
The burly guard had not reappeared, so Siobhan called for him and others to come as well. Becca turned her back on the room, retreating to the window to stare out into the inky darkness while servants emptied the cold water left in the tub and then removed the tub itself. The fire in the hearth died to embers. Becca shivered again, this time from the cold. Another servant appeared and stoked the fire. In a few minutes, the fire blazed in the grate, and at last the room was empty but for Siobhan and Becca.
The woman joined her at the window. “Odhran is right, cailín. You need to sleep. This has been a momentous day.”
“Will he be all right?” Becca asked without turning around.
“Aye, cailín,” Siobhan assured her. “Ciaran is the boldest, most cunning warrior in the land, descended from the legendary Fenian Warriors. ’Tis why King Conchobhar comes to him first. Niall says Ciaran is charmed in battle. No enemy can touch him. No weapon can harm him.”
Becca put her arm around Siobhan’s shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Ah, yee might be thankin’ me now, but wait ’til tomorrow,” the other woman replied tartly as she moved toward the door.
“What do you mean, Siobhan?” Becca glanced over her shoulder and quirked a brow.
“Tomorrow you learn how to be mistress,” Siobhan warned.
“Don’t count on it,” she promised as the door closed behind the other woman.
****
The troop rode hard all day. Cheery evening fires burned surrounded by tired men lounging near the heat. Horses snorted and stamped in the dark. Bhruic lay next to Ciaran, his head on the big man’s knee. The dog’s wide, soulful eyes stared up at his master. “Aye,” Ciaran admitted to the wolfhound. “I miss her, too, though I hardly know why.”
Niall finished setting the perimeter guards, and he dropped to the ground beside his commander. “All is quiet, Taoiseac,” he reported. His voice sounded as tired as he looked. He wrapped his mantle tighter against the chill March night.
Ciaran stared at the fire but acknowledged Niall with a brief nod without looking up.
“’Tis only the O’Brien,” Niall reminded his clann chief. “Bent on thieving cattle and not much else.”
Ciaran lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug, his attention elsewhere.
Perplexed, Niall pushed for an answer. “If not the O’Brien, then what troubles you, Taoiseac?” Ciaran final
ly raised his eyes and stared at his second-in-command. Niall sucked in a deep breath as he recognized Ciaran’s despair and for the first time since Niall had known him, fear as well. He automatically reverted to his role as mentor. “What troubles you, Ciaran?”
“Who is she, Niall? Why has no one raised a hue and cry?”
“Becca?” Niall asked, already knowing the answer.
Ciaran flashed him a disgusted look. “Who else? She’s well-bred, though ill-used, and left to die. Why has her clann not set the countryside ablaze looking for her?”
“Mayhaps, she comes from too far away?” Niall gave the notion some thought. “Think you she is an O’Brien?” That idea vexed him. Had the O’Brien come not to raid but to reclaim their kin? That would mean an all out war for he was fair certain Ciaran would not give her up.
“Mayhaps. But there is something, Niall, something I can’t name.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
Ciaran stared into the fire, marshaling his thoughts. “I first thought her witch, now...” Niall waited without speaking, letting the other man form words from his chaotic thoughts. Ciaran finally sighed softly. “Tuatha dé Danaan, Niall. I think she’s faerie.”
Niall snorted. “We’ve both touched her, Ciaran. She’s real. She’s flesh and blood!” He paused while formulating another argument, finally adding, “Had she been a daughter of Danu, think you a mortal could have so abused her?”
Ciaran pondered that. All but immortal and powerful, the Tuatha dé Danaan were full of magic. They could scarcely be harmed by mortals. Then an unrelated thought struck him. “Suppose she was outcast?”
Niall opened and closed his mouth several times, but no words of wisdom tripped off the tip of his tongue. Finally, he could only shrug, waiting in silence once again for Ciaran to continue.
“She spoke strange, Niall, when we first found her. And, even now, she does not seem to fit in. Odhran sensed a trace of power in her.”
