by Bess McBride
I hurried, slowing only after about ten minutes when it seemed as if no one pursued me. I grabbed up the damp hems of my skirts and hooked two sides into my waistband so that I could free my hands. I strolled with my head down, wondering how to extricate myself from my situation, from sixteenth-century Scotland. I loved studying its history, its archaeological finds, but perversely, I found that I hated living in it.
I had lost my free will, my sense of safety, my autonomy and any obvious purpose. I had lost the life I had known, and I had lost the dagger.
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to think positively, to consider what I had gained.
I had gained some firsthand experience with sixteenth-century Scotland and its people, something I had only studied. What else?
Nothing.
I marched on, ignoring my exhaustion, the knot in my stomach suggesting I was hungry, my mouth dry from thirst.
I could not survive if I couldn’t get along. But I wasn’t wrong about Dylan. He had betrayed me. What I told him privately needed to remain private. In the future, I didn’t think I would be able to trust him to keep my confidences. I would have to keep my doubts and worries to myself. I certainly didn’t want them shared with a group of people I barely knew.
“Mistress Morrison, where are ye off to?” a warm baritone voice called out.
I whirled around to see Iskair walking up behind me. Beyond him, I saw several men walking away from us, heading back toward the castle.
“Iskair!” I blurted out. “You startled me. I didn’t hear you.”
“If I had been a Macleod, ye would have been far more startled.”
“I had to get away,” I murmured.
“Aye, I ken ye are unhappy, and no just about our plight. Come. Let us walk while ye tell me what it is that troubles ye.”
Iskair’s eyes fell to my skirts, but he said nothing.
“They were dragging in the mud,” I said.
“Aye, it is a common problem. Ye are no the first lass to hitch yer skirts.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
To my surprise, Iskair took my hand and tucked it under his arm as if we were strolling in Hyde Park. My hand hardly curved over his well-developed biceps, and I remembered how easily he carried the children. I felt perfectly safe in his company, Macleod-wise. Secrets about my origins were a different thing altogether.
“What troubles ye, lass?”
I didn’t know why, but I wanted to tell Iskair everything, and yet the secret was not mine alone to share. Cynthia had said Iskair should be told that we were time travelers. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to do it at that moment. Not only could I barely cope with the information myself, I didn’t want to see Iskair turn from me in disbelief.
“I feel distanced from everyone,” I said. “I guess I’m a bit lost.”
“Distanced...” Iskair murmured. “An interesting choice of words. I too have felt as a stranger with my own kind. Is that what ye meant?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Is it yer family that ye feel...distanced from? Or the clan?”
I drew in a sharp breath and released it slowly while I thought fast.
“Oh, just everyone,” I had to say. At some point, fairly soon, Iskair would probably be told that we were time travelers, that Ann and Cynthia were not my cousins, that Dylan was not my brother, that the Morrisons were not my clan.
I was lying to him, and I knew he would soon discover that fact. I hoped he wouldn’t hold it against me. For some reason, it was terribly important to me that Iskair didn’t hold my lies against me.
“I think Ann and Cynthia need to talk to you,” I said, anxious to rid myself of my guilt, to tell him the truth.
“I will look in on them as soon as we return.”
“It’s important.”
He paused and held me from walking on. “Is something amiss at the castle?”
I shook my head. “Not when I left.”
“If they need to speak to me on a matter of importance, perhaps we should turn back now.”
I looked back at the castle, the garret visible above the treetops. I could either walk with Iskair for a while longer or turn back and wait for his condemnation as he discovered our deceit, my deceit.
I doubted that my lies would trouble him overmuch. After all, I wasn’t particularly important in the scheme of things, certainly not in his life. But I wondered how he would feel about Cynthia’s deceit. Cynthia had shown a fondness for him, and I think he felt the same about her.
“Well, it’s important but probably not critical. I’d rather not go back just yet. If you think you need to accompany me, you can, or you can head back to the castle. I’ll return shortly. I promise.”
Iskair tilted his curly head of hair and regarded me with crinkled eyes and a wry smile.
“If I didna ken better, I would think ye are directing me about. I am no used to a lass giving me orders.”
I couldn’t help but respond to the twinkling in his eyes.
“Well, I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just telling you what I’m going to do.”
The light faded from Iskair’s eyes, and his expression sobered.
“Mistress Morrison, I dinna ken how it has been wi ye in the past, if yer sire gave ye free rein in England...or Constantinople...but these are troubled times in the Western Isles. Ye canna stroll about at yer leisure wi’out the protection of a man. Ye do remember ye and yer kin fled from Dun Eistean for a reason, no?
“Angus Macleod seeks to take his grandbairns away from ye. He searches for them now. If he does find us, he will attempt to kill the men and take the women as well—the bonny ones. Ye are such. Ye are in danger, and ye canna wander about as ye please.”
I heard the dire warning in his timbered voice, but all I could focus on was that he had called me “bonny.” I ran a hand to my hair, feeling a flush heat my cheeks.
“What is it to be then, lass? Do I accompany ye further, or shall we turn back and see what Ann and Cynthia wish to impart?”
“I already know what they want to impart.”
I looked around at the bay, feeling suddenly vulnerable in the open.
“Then why do ye no simply tell me?”
“I can’t,” I said with a shake of my head. “I just can’t. It’s not mine to share, really.”
“Ye speak verra mysteriously, lass. My curiosity is piqued.”
Suddenly, the stillness of the shore was broken by the sound of shouts and shrieks coming from the direction of the castle. Gunshots echoed on the hills across the bay.
“Macleod!” Iskair roared. He pulled his pistol from his belt with one hand and grabbed my arm with the other. He dragged me off the beach and into the tree line, throwing me down behind a thick clump of bushes.
“Stay here! No matter what ye hear, stay!”
“Wait!” I squeaked breathlessly.
Iskair bent down and grabbed my chin, forcing my eyes to his. “Stay here!”
Then he ran out of the brush and took off across the beach in the direction of the castle, pistol at the ready, his sword clanking at his side. I cowered within the prickly branches of the shrubs, listening to the sounds of havoc.
Everything within me told me to run to the castle—to find Archibald and Sarah, Dylan, Ann and Cynthia, the babies...Iskair. I struggled against the overwhelming urge to run toward the people from whom I had felt distanced. I could offer no real help, but I could at the very least try to protect the children. I remembered the feel of Sarah’s sweet hand buried in mine, Archibald’s sticky hand clinging to me.
No, I couldn’t hide. I gathered up my skirts and crawled out from the bushes. I struggled to my feet and headed not onto the beach but through the thick tree line toward the castle. My breath came in anxious gasps, my heart pounding in my ears as I jogged.
At some point, I realized that the sounds of gunfire had ceased and that my own feet thudding on the ground was the loudest thing I heard. I tripped over
some tree roots and went flying. The last thing I remembered was my head hitting the ground.
I opened my eyes sometime later and sat up quickly, holding the back of my head. My head ached, and I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious. I had hit my head once before as a child, and I had been unconscious for about an hour, something that had scared my parents enough to rush me to a hospital. No concussion was discovered, and I was discharged without incident.
The castle! Iskair, the children, Dylan! I scrambled to my feet and listened carefully. A breeze moved throughout the leaves in the trees overhead, filling the air with a rustling noise. Through the branches, I could see the gray stones of the castle. Something about the eerie silence gave me pause. Whatever had happened was over. I heard no shouts, no cries, no gunfire—nothing except the leaves.
I wavered, suddenly uncertain what to do. It was one thing to run pell-mell into a noisy fray as I had been about to do before I tripped, another to saunter into the silent unknown. To my right, I could see that the bay held no boats. If it was the Macleods who had attacked, they had come overland or were now gone. How long had I been unconscious? I wasn’t close enough to see the door of the castle from my vantage point.
I had to do something! With a deep breath, I moved forward, treading carefully, my head throbbing. The base of the castle came into view, but I would have to skirt the circumference to make my way toward the front door, and that meant leaving the tree line and exposing myself to anyone in the garret above, especially if they weren’t Morrisons.
There was little I could do but move forward. With a deep breath, I stepped out into the open. The base of the castle at the side consisted of moss-covered rounded boulders piled at an angle. I could not hide from view of the garret, and there were several openings from which I could be seen.
I froze for a moment, pretending to be a deer, wishing I were a deer. No one shouted at me. No shots whizzed past my head...or hit my body. I unlocked my shaking legs and moved forward to skirt the side of the castle, working my way to the front.
Still exposed for all to see, I paused at the corner and knelt down beside the boulders at the base of the castle. Peering around to scan the entrance, I saw no one.
I struggled with my choices—return to the forest to hide for however long I could or stroll into the castle and possibly into the arms of violent men who wanted to kill me or take me prisoner. A logical woman would have returned to the forest to wait for reinforcements—again, a character trait I didn’t possess.
I rose to my feet and crept around to the front of the castle. Pausing at the base of the stairs, I listened for voices, cries, moans, but I heard nothing. I climbed the stairs, dropping to my knees once or twice when the trembling in my legs failed to support me.
I made it to the open doorway, nauseous and dizzy with terror, momentarily expecting someone to charge at me. Still, nothing moved. The ground floor appeared to be empty. I made my way toward the stairs and stopped to listen to the silence.
Where was everyone? I couldn’t even think of the worst scenario for the quiet. Wouldn’t think of it.
I climbed the spiral staircase slowly, pausing occasionally and forcing myself to breathe when I grew faint from holding my breath. The quiet in the castle terrified me more than the shouting and screaming had earlier. The smell of gunpowder still hung in the air, and I dreaded what I might find when I reached the great hall where I had last seen everyone.
At last, I crested the final step and peeked around the corner. What I saw made me slump against the nearest stone wall. Empty and silent, everyone had vanished. Possessions had been left behind, but no humans remained.
With the exception of one. A still form lying on the floor caught my eye, and I gasped. I recognized the tartan.
Chapter Nine
After another cautious scan of the great hall, I hurried forward to the figure on the floor. Sprawled out with his pistol still in his hand and bloodied sword lying near the other, Iskair’s pale face looked lifeless. Tears streamed down my face as I dropped to my knees at his side. I touched his face, the pulse at his neck, and heaved a sigh of relief to feel the pulse ticking in his throat, his skin still warm.
I ran my hands over his body, pulling his jacket aside but seeing no blood on his shirt. A growing circle of dark wetness soiled the mustard yellow of his tartan, and without hesitation, I lifted the hem of his kilt. A hole in his right groin oozed blood at a steady pace, and instinctively I pressed down with the heel of my hand on what I recalled from first-aid classes to be a pressure point above the wound. Blood seeped down onto the cold stone floor.
I glanced over my shoulder again as if whoever had attacked the castle, the Macleods I presumed, were on the point of returning, but the eerie silence continued.
I had no medical training other than first aid, and I hated to remember that I had slept through my biological anthropology classes. Iskair’s skin was cold, clammy, and I wondered if he was going into shock from blood loss. I had choices to make—release the pressure point and attempt to treat his shock or release the pressure point and find something to cover the wound. Neither were good choices.
I released Iskair and jumped to my feet, running around the room gathering whatever things I could...most of them lengths of cloth that had been left behind. I grabbed up my own arisaid, still spread on the floor. I didn’t want to think about the fate of the babies. I saw no other blood on the floor but Iskair’s.
I ran back to his side, bundled up a few of the plaids and rolled them up under his legs to elevate his feet. I wrapped my own arisaid around his cold body, lifting him from side to side to protect him from the cold floor. I then ripped off a square bit of my own skirt hem, rolled it up and pressed it against his wound. With my spare hand, I reapplied pressure to the point above his injury, and I watched to see if my makeshift bandage soaked through.
I held still for an agonizing ten minutes while I watched Iskair’s face and his wound. I hoped it wasn’t my imagination when I noted a faint tinge of peach returning to his normally bronzed face. I didn’t lift the bandage, to prevent renewed bleeding, but my hand remained dry. I released the pressure on his groin. No blood spilled out onto the floor that I could see.
Iskair wore no undergarments, and I shuddered to see how close the wound had come to his reproductive organs. If he survived, he would probably still have children, but I wasn’t sure that he would survive with pistol shot imbedded in his groin.
I wasn’t sure what my next step would be, so I continued to keep the bandage on the wound. If I attempted to dig the pistol shot out of his wound, I might restart a bout of bleeding that I couldn’t stop. If I left the shot in there, I imagined it would prevent whatever vein it had lodged in from healing—not to mention that I assumed the shot to be lead.
I waited, unable to make the decision—another one of my character flaws. I struggled with decisions, terrified of making the wrong one. In this case, I supposed I could forgive myself since Iskair’s life hung in the balance.
Under normal circumstances, I probably would have called for help, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I stared at Iskair, wondering what had happened. If he had been right and the Macleods had managed to follow us to the castle, then they would have taken Archibald and Sarah and probably the women...as Iskair had said they would. But surely they would have killed the men.
My heart dropped to my stomach as I thought of Dylan. I really didn’t think he could have survived hand-to-hand combat with a sixteenth-century warrior Scot.
Another scan of the hall verified there were no more bodies. I hadn’t seen any on the ground floor or outside the castle. I looked up as if I could see through the stone ceiling to the next level.
Dylan, Rob, Kenny, Euan, the rest of the men and the old men—where were they?
A moan brought my attention back to Iskair. His eyes fluttered, then closed again. Clearly he suffered even in his unconscious state. But that he had almost opened his eyes encouraged
me. At least he wasn’t in a coma.
With my free hand, I brushed the sweat-dampened brown curls from his forehead as I knelt beside him. Dark winged eyebrows and long lashes gave his face a romantically dashing look. His lips in repose were full, the bottom more so than the top. The thick silky beard and mustache did not cover his handsome mouth. I wondered how he had managed to keep his classically straight nose unbroken and unscarred.
Brown eyes met mine, and I reared my head.
“Iskair?” I said softly. “Are you awake?”
“Aye,” he said in a raspy voice.
“How do you feel?”
“Pain.”
“I can only imagine,” I said, looking down at the blood on the floor. “The bleeding has slowed, but I think you have pistol shot in you.”
He lifted a hand to cover mine.
“Dinna tell me ye have pulled up my kilt?”
“Well, I had to. You were shot in the groin. You’re lucky you still have your parts.”
An awkward half smile passed across his mouth.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Macleod.”
“Where is everybody?”
Iskair tried to lift his head, but the effort seemed to be too much. His eyes fluttered, and he passed out again.
“Iskair?” I whispered, a sob in my throat. I wondered if he had lost too much blood, if he was dying.
“Iskair?” I called again, leaning close to his face as if I could breathe life into him. “Wake up! I know it hurts, but I need you to wake up.”
Still, his eyes remained close. I laid my cheek against his, the position awkward given that I still held on to his wound.
“Iskair,” I said into his ear. “I’m frightened. I don’t know what to do to help you. I’m sure the bullet needs to come out, and I don’t think I can go digging around in the wound. I might make things worse. Please wake up.”
