Warrior of My Own

by Knightley, Diana

  He was digging through a sack for something. “Och aye, well ye winna be needin’ tae worry about it come shortly, because ye will be on your own.”

  “Wait—” I glanced around. “You can’t leave me here? You can’t! I’ll die out here. Take me to the houses at least. Then leave me, I’ll figure it out from there — oh God. It’s cold. You can’t leave me.” I burst into tears curled around my knees. “You can’t leave me. I’ll die. I don’t want to —

  Suddenly down the trail, a dust cloud on the road, galloping horse hooves, coming closer—

  The men looked around. Some mounted their horses. The sound of hooves drew closer, thundering, one man drew his sword — over the rise, crashing down the roadside — Magnus. His sword held high, his sound a bellowing, his face enraged. He charged toward us.

  All of my captors mounted their horses. They rode to meet Magnus about thirty feet away from me and their blades crashed, clanging and wild. Magnus’s blade sliced the air in big arcs. He killed a man in three swings. He swung his horse to the next man, fought him while more surrounded him, their blades clanging in the frozen air. The horses screamed, spinning in circles, trampling.

  One man lay still in the dirt. One man was injured on the ground holding his leg. Another man fled on his horse. Magnus dropped to the dirt to fight the last man and McBulbous.

  I had to help. I was woozy when I stood, but it was Magnus against two men. McBulbous had his back to me. If I attacked him, grabbed his arms, or knocked him to the ground I would be a helpful teammate. As soon as I grabbed McBulbous’s arms though he swung his elbow into my nose knocking me screaming and stumbling to the ground.

  But then he decided not to fight anymore. He mounted his horse, urged the injured man to mount too, and they rode away.

  My nose was on fire, blood poured down my chin. Cramps were still doubling me over. I was sobbing, fear-anguish-freezing, my husband was still fighting the last man in front of me, and all I could do was scramble from the middle of the battle to keep from being trampled and collapse on the cold ground.

  The last man shouted something and lunged for his horse. He mounted it, already at a gallop, and fled the scene.

  * * *

  Magnus reached me in three steps and dropped to his knees, pulling my head into his lap. “Kaitlyn, are ye okay?”

  He checked my nose and patted around my stomach, then lifted my skirts to see my legs. “There is blood everywhere.”

  “I know. I’m on my period, my menstrual cycle—” I had no idea if he knew what I was talking about. “My nose hurts. I have terrible cramps. I’m really thirsty.” I turned my face into his kilt, clutched the fabric to my face and cried, desperately.

  “Och, aye.” He gently pulled me off, laid my head on the ground, and rushed to his horse returning with my backpack.

  As he rushed back I managed to croak out. “You have it. I thought you might be — like an apparition or something.”

  He dropped down and pulled my head back to his lap and unzipped the top of the pack. “Kaitlyn, a man lies dead in front of ye, and I am an apparition?”

  He unscrewed the top of our water bottle and held it to my lips so I could drink. I gulped down most of it, and then turned and spewed water all over the ground, groaning and crying.

  Magnus expression was actually fearful and that scared the hell out of me. “We canna stay here; tis growing verra cold and I have killed a man. Can ye move Kaitlyn?”

  “Maybe.” I sat up with a heave and then felt woozy. My head spun and I collapsed back down.

  Magnus zipped our pack, scooped me into his arms, and raced me, jostling, to his horse. He shoved me up to its back, “Hold on,” and mounted behind me. He pulled me around the waist into a sitting position, turned the horse, directed us toward the cluster of small houses and forced the horse into a full gallop. The wind was shockingly cold as it rushed toward me. I huddled over the neck of the horse.

  He called in through the window at the first house. A woman came out and answered him in a sharp tone. She gestured down the small path and Magnus turned our horse in that direction and pushed it into another gallop pulling to a stop just at the door.

  It was growing twilight, gray, almost dark, and the air was ice cold. I was shivering, fear and pain and temperature conspiring against me. Magnus called in from the front yard and a man appeared and they spoke a short exchange. I was clamped tight trying to keep from shaking to pieces. Magnus slipped from the horse, held up his arms for me, and carried me in a bundle into the house.

  There was a woman inside who buzzed around Magnus as he carried me in. There was no bed to offer me, but there was a fire at the end of the large room, another pig, more chickens, a goat — Magnus laid me on the ground in front of the hearth. He wrapped my tartan around my shoulders, and a bit under my head, like a sleeping bag.

  “When did ye eat last?”

  “I had something this morning, no water though, I really need the pain killer in the backpack. Maybe the vitamins. Some water...”

  “Kaitlyn, this is Madame Cunningham. She doesn’t speak English, but she has some soup for ye. I needs tae see tae the horse. I’ll get ye the backpack.” He spoke to the man then turned back to me. “There is a stream nae far, I’ll refill the water bottle.”

  He jumped up, spoke briefly to the woman, and disappeared through the front door.

  While he was gone, the woman approached me with a filthy rag making a clucking sound that I understood as, “What the heck happened to you? I mean, it's none of my business, but you should not let people bloody your nose like this.” Sadly we had no common language so I couldn’t breakdown and tell her about being people-trafficked by my mother-in-law.

  She used the dingy, smelly rag to wipe the blood from around my nose. Note to self: wash later with the hand cleaner I brought. She smiled kindly, which I supposed meant, you’re cleaned up now. And then handed me a ceramic bowl with a bit of broth inside. It had some leaves floating in it, also a few pieces of grain that looked like barley. She gestured for me to sip from the bowl.

  I was a little warmer. Barely.

  About twenty minutes later, Magnus blew into the room on a frost covered wind. He stamped his feet and blew on his fingers, “Tha I fuar an-diugh,” and slung the backpack down beside me. He blocked most of the room with the position of his body and unzipped the pack to fish out my bag of medicine. Then he pulled out the water bottle with the filtration straw. I sat up, unscrewed the lid of the Midol bottle, dropped four pills into my hand, slammed them in, and gulped them down with cold, fresh, delicious, and oh so necessary water.

  I hugged the water bottle to my chest.

  Magnus’s head hung. He reached for my hand. We both sat without speaking.

  There was too much to say. The past two days had been too full of drama and fear to put it to words. This wasn’t relief so much as a collapse. I could see it in Magnus’s eyes. He couldn’t talk or hear or think anymore. He had been in an anguish-propelled panicked motion for days and now he was shutting down. I was shutting down.

  The woman handed him a bowl of soup, he drank it quickly, and passed it back to her. I shuffled through the backpack for a tampon and a pad that I brought as backups for my new menstrual cup. Well, guess what? I wasn’t using the cup here. In this room the tampons and pads were familiar and Plan A. I stood and headed for the chamber pot. It was filthy and reeked of urine.

  Luckily it was fairly dark in this corner of the house. Magnus sat at the far end, in the flickering light of the fire, turned away. The older couple huddled in the other far corner, the other side of the fire. I lifted my skirts, pulled down my damp long-underwear, and my soaked-through panties, and peed while I pasted the pad to my panties thinking, Better late than never, but adding a question mark to the end, because was it? My skirts were trashed, stained and gross. I wiggled to dry myself and pulled up my underwear, dropped my skirts and returned to the fire. Magnus was leaned on the wall, legs akimbo, hand on his sword. I laid do
wn and put my head on his lap.

  I whispered, “Did Lizbeth’s husband survive?”

  He answered, “Nae.”

  “Oh. But Sean is alive?”

  “Aye, he has lived.” His hand was resting beside my head, but then his fingers went into my hair, entwining in it. He took a deep breath and moments later I fell asleep.

  * * *

  A few hours later I shifted, then turned to see him looking down at me. “Do you need to lie down?”

  “Nae, I need tae be ready...”

  “Oh. Okay.” I laid my head back down on his lap. A moment later I whispered, “What do you need to be ready for?”

  “In case they come back.”

  Chapter 28

  The next morning we rose at dawn. It was icy cold crisp outside, but we trudged across the fields towards the stream where we were going to time-journey back to Florida. It was hidden there so we figured we could do it without being seen. I felt a lot better, well enough to journey at least. Ice cream at the end of the trip would fix me right up. The grass was so frosty it crinkled when we stepped on it. Everything shimmered and was so beautiful. I took out my phone and photographed the fields and took a photo of my husband, a sword on his back, big and powerful. In his own natural landscape, wrapped in a plaid. The only thing out of place was the backpack he carried by the straps.

  We came to the stream. A large tree to block us from sight. We scanned the area to make sure we were alone. Magnus unzipped the backpack to get the time vessel. I huddled close.

  He twisted the middle and absolutely nothing happened. He turned the ends so the markings would appear. No matter what he touched or twisted or pulled, the whole thing lay motionless, unlit, completely dead, defunct.

  “It’s broken?” I felt the blood rush to my head with panic.

  He didn’t answer. He kept twisting the dials, harder, angrier, desperately.

  “Why won’t it start?”

  “I daena ken.” His voice was like a growl.

  “Has it ever done this before?”

  “Nae, it has always worked.”

  “Maybe you aren’t—”

  “I’m doing it the right way, the same way, tis nae turning on. I will say the numbers.” He listed the numbers while we both held the vessel in our hands, but there was nothing happening with it. At all. He twisted again, furiously. Then shoved it back in the pack and and slung the pack over his shoulder. “We are cursed.” He stalked across the fields toward the cottage.

  “What will we do?”

  “We will return to Balloch then I will meet with Lady Mairead.”

  I was hustling to keep up with his long furious stride.

  “You think she will help? I mean, she paid those guys to kidnap me, I—”

  He stopped and turned to me. “What did ye say?”

  “They said she paid them to take me.”

  He watched my face closely, then shook his head. He turned and began walking again.

  “But maybe she’ll give you one of the other vessels?”

  “I am nae asking for help, I plan tae kill her.”

  * * *

  It was freezing cold, but we needed to get about four hours of distance in the day to get to the next village for the night. We went a different direction, across fields and a small stream, to a path that the farmer had described because Magnus was worried we might be followed or tracked. We were in the middle of the dawn of the eighteenth century, in a forest somewhere Magnus had never been before, miles from the next house, or village, or anything.

  We rode in silence.

  This was different from the silence of our ride together to Fort Clinch. That trip had been full of sighs and wanting to touch each other. And different still from the silence that first time we came to 1702, a ride full of fury and energetic refusing-to-speak. This silence was full of a big stinking pile of “what to say?” I’m sorry you were kidnapped? Thank you for rescuing me? I’m glad you didn’t die. These things were too big to need to be said. But they were piling in a pile so big it threatened to spill over and crush us under.

  Magnus’s voice shocked me, an hour or so into our ride. The morning was chilled, quiet, still. There was a mist floating around our bodies and the trail. Magnus was sitting straighter, paying attention to the path. “When I found ye, why were the men off their horses?”

  “I don't know, I think they were planning to leave me there to die.”

  He made a tch-tch sound to our horse and made it pick a treacherous path around a large boulder.

  “What did they do tae ye?”

  “Besides kidnapping, starving, tying up, and being just real assholes, nothing. I mean, if you’re wondering if I was raped, no, but it still sucks.”

  I sat for a second staring ahead of us, down the path, his arms around me but barely touching me.

  “And what if I had been raped? What if, Magnus? Would you leave me? Would you hate me? What about your marriage vows, those still matter, you don't get to decide I’m damaged goods—”

  His voice rumbled behind my head. “I am asking ye for the story of it, tis all.”

  Tears filled my eyes. “They didn't do anything. They told me you were dead. They made me believe that no one was coming for me...”

  He steered our horse around a fallen tree.

  “And they were just taking me as far away as they could get me, to leave me to die somewhere.” I burst into tears and folded over the neck of our horse and sobbed for a long long time. Magnus pulled the horse to a stop and sat still, behind me, not touching, while I cried.

  Then I recovered myself.

  And rose up again.

  Brushed the wet hair off my face. “Why are you being so mean?”

  The horse wanted to move. It sidestepped, and Magnus passed the reins into both hands and held it still. I felt him take in a deep breath. “Mean?”

  “You aren’t touching me, barely talking to me. It’s like you're mad at me.”

  “You haena been speaking tae me.”

  “Yeah, well...” I searched my mind for a reason and returned with, “I was busy feeling sorry for myself.”

  He urged the horse forward again, his arms around me, still barely touching. He remained quiet behind my head.

  After a few moments, I said, “Say something. Say something or I’m going to jump off this horse and run into the woods screaming.”

  “I canna find the words.”

  I watched the trail as the horse slowly picked its way along it.

  He added, “If I speak I may explode. I want tae kill someone.” He rubbed his right hand up and down briskly to warm it on his tartan-covered thigh. Passed the reign to his left hand and rubbed that thigh. “It is all I can do tae keep it in my chest, bound up inside, so I daena hurt ye farther.”

  “You want to hurt me?”

  “Nae Kaitlyn — what do ye take me for?”

  “It’s what you said.”

  “I have one purpose in life, tae keep ye safe, and I haena been able tae do it.” His breathing was heavy and fast, like he was keeping on top of a wave of pain.

  On the side of our path stood a very tall tree. It soared overhead and its trunk was double the diameter of the rest, but as we grew closer, I could see that it was actually two trees, entwined, very near the base. It must have happened many many years ago. Yet here they were still entangled. Now one. I wondered if I could find them in 2017? If I ever got back to 2017. “You rescued me.”

  “You were taken. They had plans tae kill ye or worse. I have brought this on your life. I daena deserve ye.”

  I scowled. “Magnus first off, there is not a person alive at any point in history who would look at you, Scottish warrior, capable of rescuing his wife from five men, and then me, disgraced YouTuber, and think I’m the superior person.”

  “My point is ye wouldna be in these difficulties. Your life wouldna be in danger. Tis my faults that are causin’ your destruction.”

  “Your faults? You sound suspiciously like
someone who is about to say to their wife,” I mimicked his low voice, because I was starting to get mad. “‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ and then recite a list of reasons why we can’t be together anymore. Is that what you’re about to do?”

  “If I stop time-journeyin’ maybe then I can keep ye safe.”

  “So you want us to stay here in the year 1702?”

  “Not us, only me.”

  I tried to twist around to see his face, but my sides were in so much pain I couldn’t turn. “I knew it. I knew you were about to say this bullshit to me. What are you going to do; what’s your plan? Wait, this morning, were you going to trick me into going into the future alone with the only time vessel? Or were you going to go with me and then disappear on me in the middle of the night?”

  I waited for a moment and when he didn’t answer I said, “I disagree vehemently with all those plans. Thank god the vessel isn’t working, or you might have accomplished it. Jesus Christ Magnus, think about this. You married me in front of God. You made a vow.”

  I scowled at the horse’s mane. “It’s a moot point now, we’re stuck in 1702. But what, is your plan to kill Lady Mairead for a working time machine just so you can get rid of me? You know what — I’d like to point out that you’re taking me against my will. If you want to desert me or send me away, alone, to what — live alone without you? You’re no freaking better than those guys who kidnapped me. Let me off.”

  He didn’t slow the horse.

  “Magnus, let me off the horse right now.”

  “Nae, tis too cold.”

  “I am not going with you. I will die right here. I might as well. Let me off this godforsaken horse. Right now.”

  My voice grew so grim he pulled the horse to a stop.