by Julianne Lee
It was very thick, and dark. The track here was barely discernible, and took him over fallen logs covered deep in moss. He almost felt like a horse in a steeplechase, there were so many obstacles in the path. Then he hopped over a row of toadstools.
Toadstools. He skidded to a halt in the grass, panting hard. Sweat trickled down his back and along the sides of his jaw so it tickled, and he wiped it with his sleeve. Turning, he saw the fungus made a circle. Like the one where he and Lindsay had seen the faerie. He wondered, and looked around. The faerie folk were real. He knew it. Had seen it. Could one be living here? Could it be the same one? But there was nothing and nobody about. The forest was quiet, the fauna gone still and silent at his intrusion. Nobody home but us chickens. He shook his head and continued his run.
From the time Lindsay left Eilean Aonarach, the journey took a little over three weeks. By then summer was waning, the weather had begun to lose its warmth, and the days were normalizing toward the equinox. After many days of keeping an eye out to sea in hopes of spotting Hector’s boat, Alex heard a shout from the south of the keep. There was a boat.
He ran to an arrow loop over the barbican to find a sail approaching the quay, and his pulse surged. He shouted to the servants to present themselves to aid Hector and his entourage, then amid the scurrying ran down the stairs and out to the barbican. Breathless with excitement, he arrived at the quay just as Hector was helping Lindsay from the boat. He came to a halt, stunned, and stared.
She was gorgeous. Light rust-colored silk to her ankles, the sleeves tight to her forearms, where they widened so dramatically they nearly brushed the ground. Over that was a tunic of red wool so dark as to be nearly black, shorter and short-sleeved. At her neck were the rubies from Carlisle, glittering gold and blood red against her pale skin, and a headdress the color of her dress covered her hair and framed her face in reddish-brown silk and a drape of gold chains. Her naturally red lips picked up the color of the stones in the necklace, and he barely resisted the urge to kiss them then and there.
For a year she’d been a convincing boy, had moved like a boy and had sounded like one. But now, dressed as she was in silk and gold, and layered with linen beneath, she displayed an innate elegance. An aristocratic grace so refined she put to shame even the king’s mistresses. Alex marveled, and knew everyone who saw her would admire her as much. While her belongings and Hector’s were unloaded from the boat he said, “Miss Marilyn.”
“Sir Alexander.”
He reached out to take her hand and kiss it. Then he straightened and looked into her eyes. She gazed back, her eyes the softest and deepest blue of any he could recall seeing. Her happiness was plain. It made him smile. “How was your journey?”
“Tiring.”
Hector said, “Greetings, brother. My journey was tiring as well; I thank you for asking. Never mind me. I’ll go find my way around and eat whatever I might discover.”
Jerked back to himself, Alex greeted his nominal brother with great, sincere joy. It was good to see him, for he was what passed for family in this century, and Hector had proven to be a good friend as well as a stalwart brother. “So, Hector, did all go well?”
“Smooth as morning milk. And you can see the results are remarkable.”
Alex looked at Lindsay. “Indeed they are.”
His former squire blushed.
Inside the castle, they were met by the head chambermaid. Alex said, “Mary, take Miss Marilyn to the guest bedchamber.”
“Off the anteroom?”
Alex hesitated. It would be so sweet to put Lindsay in one of his private rooms where she could come and go to his bedchamber unseen. But the very proximity would cause everyone on the island to assume she was sneaking into his bed at night. Even now, the light in Mary’s eyes seemed to assume his intention. The assumption was correct, but that was beside the point. He wanted to at least appear to do this by the book. So he said, “No. The larger one off the receiving room. Let Sir Hector take the private bedchamber.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And see Miss Marilyn is made comfortable. I notice she’s traveling without attendants of her own. Assign one of your girls as her maid. Whatever she wants, see she gets it.”
“Aye, sir.” Mary peered at Lindsay as if trying to place her face.
Alex explained, hurrying to guide her perceptions before the recognition would be complete, “Miss Marilyn is Sir Lindsay Pawlowski’s sister.”
Mary’s eyes lit and she smiled. “Aye. A strong family resemblance. Welcome to Eilean Aonarach, Miss.”
Lindsay murmured thanks. Mary hurried to comply with her master’s orders, and Lindsay glanced back at Alex with a slight frown as she followed the maid. He knew she wouldn’t like sleeping in that windowless room, but there was nothing for it. Regardless of what they might actually do during this courtship, she couldn’t openly stay in the lord’s suite until she was married to him.
Soon. Soon everyone would know what she meant to him.
Meat was on the hearth and smelled nearly ready, so Alex went to his own chamber to clean up. Then he met Lindsay and Hector in the common room in the apartments to escort her up the stairs to the Great Hall. As they ascended to the room where Alex’s knights awaited dinner, heads turned at the sight of the woman on Alex’s arm.
As one, the assemblage stood and bowed. Alex struggled to disguise his pleasure at the wide eyes of the men who gazed upon Lindsay. He couldn’t allow anyone to see him smile, for a whopping lie had to be told before he could let anyone know how he felt about her.
Lindsay reached out to snag the sleeve of his tunic. Her tension was palpable, and there was good reason for it. This could go very badly if she were recognized.
Alex stepped forward, composed his face into the most somber expression he could manage, and hoped he could pull this off. Lindsay was right; he wasn’t a good liar. “Men, I’m afraid I have some bad news. Sir Lindsay, our youngest knight, is no longer with us.”
Complete silence fell, and Hector filled it. “Allow me to tell the story, brother, for I was there and saw the terrible thing with my very eyes.”
Alex nodded and gratefully stepped back to stand with Lindsay so Hector could continue. He gazed at the floor in what he hoped was a somber posture.
“After meeting the poor lad’s young sister on the mainland, and on our way to bring her here, during our travels over steep terrain we were beset by robbers. They were enormous villains, strong and determined to have us.” Hector gestured to indicate just how big and terrible those men had been, and his voice rose and fell with the drama of his tale. “In the struggle on the high path through the mountains, the brave young knight lost his footing. Though I reached for him, and nearly caught him, I couldnae hold him. His fingers slipped from mine and he went over the cliff, falling to the bottom of a deep gorge where it was impossible to descend to retrieve his poor, broken body.”
The utter seriousness of Hector’s demeanor nearly made Alex laugh. He bit the inside of his lower lip until he thought he could taste blood. A dark murmur riffled through the gathering at Hector’s news, and the laird let it die before going on.
“He was a brave young man, and we’ll miss him terribly. He fought well and killed many enemy in the fight against King Edward, was wounded and nearly died in the crucial battle for freedom from the English at Bannockburn, and he was a good and true squire, and loyal knight, to my brother and his own foster brother, Alasdair an Dubhar. Let it be known he died protecting his sister from a foul robber, who, I assure you, fell with him in the struggle and now burns in hell. Sir Lindsay Pawlowski surely lived in grace and resides in heaven.” Heads nodded.
“As for his sister, though her heart was broken to lose her brother, and she would have ended her journey at once to return home, I’ve convinced her to visit with her foster brother for a time. So sad to come all this way and not see the delightful and comely castle of Eilean Aonarach.” The knights, squires, and kitchen maids laughed.
Ale
x smiled at Lindsay and said, “For which I am mightily grateful. It’s been so long since I’ve seen this woman, who was very young when I left the eastern mountains for the last time. So, all of you, I wish you to make the maiden Marilyn Pawlowski feel welcome.”
A murmur riffled through the room.
Sir Orrin muttered something, just loud enough for the men near him to hear and laugh. Alex figured he’d better call him on it. “What did you say, Orrin?”
The knight stared at Lindsay for a moment, then shifted his weight like a chastised schoolboy and said, “A woman traveling alone. I welcome her with body and soul.”
Nobody in the room moved, not even Hector. Everyone knew it had been said only partly in jest and also that it was a deadly insult any way one looked at it. They waited to see what Alex would do.
The lord of the castle stared hard at Orrin, sauntered a few steps toward him, then said with a keen edge to his voice, “Miss Pawlowski’s father was my foster father. He was as fine a knight as I’ve ever known, and his daughter’s reputation is utterly above reproach. Her escort turned back toward home at Lindsay’s death, and so now she is under my protection. Make no mistake, I take that responsibility most seriously and will dispatch without hesitation any man who suggests Sir Lindsay’s sister is less than pure of heart, pristine of body, and of perfect grace in the eyes of God.” He looked around the room and found nobody willing to challenge that. “And the first man to treat her as other than a lady of finest breeding will taste my sword. Orrin, I say you should look to your own state of grace rather, and not be slandering an innocent woman.”
Again, no reply.
Alex’s voice suddenly light and cheerful, he called out across the room, “So. Someone bring us our meat. Miss Pawlowski has had a long, tiring journey and needs to refresh herself and rest.”
The knights, and their squires standing by, returned to their seats and their private conversations, and glances at Lindsay made it clear many of those conversations were about the dead knight’s beautiful sister. Alex, Hector, and Lindsay took places at the head table at the end of the hearth. Alex looked around at the admiring stares in the room, and he smiled. If only he could tell them all she was already spoken for.
Lindsay seemed relaxed in the relative safety, away from the men against whom she had always been on guard. Now she was able to laugh and joke, and when she looked at Alex it was with the eyes she had once dared not show when others were around. His attention could be fully on her, and throughout the meal he feasted his eyes. For the first time since they’d met he was permitted to look at her in public without guarding his expression, and he reveled in it. The smiles came easily this evening.
Over the next days as they established their relationship, they spent long hours in the public areas of the keep and on walks along the seaside cliffs, talking in low voices of the future and of the past. Alex found himself opening up in ways he never had before, and told stories of his flight training and shipboard practical jokes, of buddies who had died and of the prospects he’d had back home. Those were all gone now, and flying seemed like a dream he’d had from which he’d awakened. Lindsay spoke of her ambitions as a writer, also gone.
“You can still write,” he told her. They were on the battlement atop the keep, looking out over the silver water to the south. Alex leaned against the stone and turned to drink in the beauty of her profile as she stared into the distance with a stillness he found astonishing. The September sunshine peeking between clouds was golden on her skin, slanting even in midafternoon and precious for its scarcity.
“Write what? Who would read it? And who would bother copying it to be read? There’s no printing press. And nobody here would take seriously anything written by a woman in any case.”
“You could write it for posterity.”
She snorted and glanced at him, then returned her gaze to the horizon. “And have it destroyed as fanciful nonsense immediately upon my death? There’s something to work toward.”
“Why do you need it to be read? Why not just write it?”
Her voice took on a duh tone he’d learned over the past year to ignore. “There’s no point if nobody reads it. For that, I might as well just sit around and think. That’s no way to live.”
“There are worse things.”
“Like bashing in skulls with a mace for a living.”
That stung. “It got us where we are. More important, it’s kept us alive.”
He waited while she thought it over. Then she said, “I suppose there are even worse things than being a soldier.”
There was another very long silence, then Alex said, “I wish you could be happy.”
Now she looked him in the eye. “Don’t expect me to love this place the way you do. I don’t understand these people, and hope never to understand them. They’re dirty and rude, and they frighten me.” She looked down at her hands, which had knotted together with her tension. Slowly she unclenched her fingers. “When I was fighting, sometimes I found myself glad to kill them, they disgust me so. And I hate myself for that.”
He had been as glad to kill his enemies, and hated only the enemies. It puzzled him she could be so confused about something so simple. “You think folks in the twenty-first century were more pure of heart? More honorable?”
“They didn’t smell nearly as bad.”
Alex chuckled. “There is that, I guess. If you think smelling bad is a capital offense.”
Lindsay chuckled and shrugged. “What I really mean is that I don’t know these people and I don’t think I’ll ever know them or understand them. I just don’t get how they can stand to live the way they do.”
“Look around, Lindsay. How else would they live? For most of them life is a contest to see who gets to eat.”
“I’ve gone without eating since we’ve been here, and I haven’t turned into a barbarian.”
“But, as you have pointed out to me in the past, you know another life is possible. They don’t.”
“You’re right, I do. I know I’m not like them, and I can’t be like them.”
Slowly, carefully, in a voice as scarce as the fall sunshine, he said, “I guess it’s a good thing you’re going to marry someone from your own time.”
There was no reply. She only continued to gaze out over the water.
* * *
After the equinox, a boat came from the mainland carrying four knights wishing to pledge loyalty to Alex. Also, they brought news of MacLeod’s intentions against Eilean Aonarach.
“The MacLeod claims your island,” said one as he planked himself atop a table in the Great Hall. His chain mail shussed and rowel spurs jingled. He was a Ross, cousin to the woman who had married Edward Bruce several years before but nevertheless quite landless. By his poverty, his attitude, and his manners, Alex pegged him as a very distant cousin.
“So does MacDonald,” replied the master of Eilean Aonarach.
“But MacLeod is gathering an attack even now.”
Alex sat up. “How do you know this?”
Ross pointed a thumb toward one of his men. “Fearghas here. His wife is a MacLeod and her brothers boast they will have land here by Samhain.”
Halloween. The attack would be soon. For a moment, Alex wondered why he was being warned, but then quickly answered his own question. Ross was landless, and would expect gratitude. But Alex feigned naïveté to force the knight to state his position in words. “What is it that brings you here, then?”
Ross blinked and stammered that the answer should be obvious. “I and my men will fight them with you. We hear you are a man of good sense and know the value of loyalty.”
“Loyalty must be proven.”
“It must also be fed, or it will die.”
“You would be my tacksman?”
Ross nodded.
“And if the attack doesn’t come?”
“It will. The MacLeods will not let this land fall to the MacNeils. The attack will come. After Samhain, after Martinmas, after Christmas
, but it will come.”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist or a crystal ball to know the man was probably right. Alex said, “Very well. Take your men to the barracks. Once you’ve proven yourself, we’ll talk again.”
“I would like—”
“I’m a reasonable man, as you said. We’ll talk later.”
Ross accepted that, nodded, and took his men into the bailey.
Hector stayed on during these weeks, enjoying the same hospitality he’d extended to Alex the winter before. Alex and Lindsay needed him to aid the game of making it appear the friendship between Sir Alasdair and Miss Marilyn had become a marriage negotiation.
There could be no courtship in the sense of hearts and flowers, for the sort of marriage that would make sense to the people around them was arranged only according to benefits of property and status. Alex and Lindsay let his knights and the villagers think she was considering marrying him for his money, his authority as royal vassal, and his prospects for the future as a knight in Robert’s service. But it was impossible to hide his joy in engagement to Lindsay. More than once over the next few weeks Alex was cautioned by Sir Henry to beware of his heart leading his head.
After three weeks of courtship, Alex and Lindsay became publicly engaged to be married. The wedding ceremony was set to take place in the chapel of his castle.
Alex found Hector in the quarters anteroom and invited him to sit before the fire. “It’s settled. We’re going to be married as soon as the banns have been said.” Another three weeks, and Alex thought he would lose his mind with the waiting.
Hector smiled wide and slapped Alex on the back. “‘Tis the wisest thing for the both of you, lad. You’ll keep out of trouble. Also, a woman like that will give you strong children.”
Children. Alex realized they would not only be possible now, but expected. It struck him breathless for a moment as he rubbed a finger across his chin, hard, as the future seemed to widen before him. He said, “Aye. She’s nothing if not strong.”
