Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Amuch-needed bath and clean clothes cleared out all of the cobwebs from Esme’s head. When she went downstairs with Elspeth for the evening meal everyone kept giving her odd looks while trying not to look like they were staring.
“I guess everyone knows I slept for three days, huh?” she said to the chambermaid, who grimaced.
“Pay no heed to any gossip you hear, my lady,” Elspeth said after she glared at a couple of whispering kitchen maids. “Whatever these silly wenches say, ’tisnae your fault the days and nights have quickened.”
Blame the outsider, Esme thought as she approached the platform where the other women from her time were dining.
Ava stood and gave her the same warm, welcoming smile she had just after she’d come into the spell trap. “I’m so glad you came down tonight.”
Esme glanced at the window slits as the darkness outside paled to daylight in a few seconds. “You mean, this morning?”
Murmurs of surprise swept through the hall, and collectively all of the maids serving the meal hurried back to the kitchens, followed by several guards. Everyone else looked as if they’d lost their appetite, including Olivia and Grace.
“If no one wants those berries, I’m going to eat the whole bowl,” Esme mentioned as she reached for the oatcakes and cream pitcher.
Ava exchanged a look with Olivia before she said, “You mentioned after you woke up that you needed to speak to our armorer. Why is that?”
“I’m not going to hit him over the head again, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she assured the other woman as she heaped blackberries onto the oatcakes and poured cream over them.
“’Tis fine, my lady,” a deep voice whispered from behind her. “What need you say to me, Mistress?”
Esme looked up at the giant clansman she had attacked in the lists.
Rory McKeran had the most beautiful features she had ever seen on anyone, male or female.
The way he smiled at her made her wonder if he’d forgotten how she’d cracked him over the skull with a log.
Or maybe he was trying to psych her out with some kind of weird medieval payback.
She had to stop reading into things, she told herself firmly.
“Hi, my name is Esme Martinez. In the world outside I’m a reporter with Monterey Today.
” Her gaze shifted to his head, which looked fine, but she still tried to sound apologetic as she said, “I’m sorry that I hit you over the head in that practice fighting place.
Nobody told me you guys do that, so I thought you were trying to kill Darro.
Also, thank you for the sling shot. How did you know I wanted one? And why are you whispering?”
“I passed by your chamber when you spoke to the chieftain about the weapon you desired.” His smile disappeared. “My mortal weakness is my voice. If I speak too loudly, it cracks stone, and causes walls to collapse.”
He was the clansmen with the most dangerous power, and she’d clubbed him with a log? Esme almost made the sign of the cross over herself. “I’m really very sorry about hurting you, Armorer.”
“I seek no vengeance, Mistress Martinez,” he assured her. “You’ve my thanks for defending my brother. Although ’twasnae needed, we’re happy to welcome any lady with a warrior’s courage. In that sense, all women from the outside world are much the same.”
Although he kept his voice low, it seemed easy to understand him. She also liked that he was kind enough to not only forgive her, but praise her for attacking him.
“You’re too nice to someone who knocked you out,” she assured him. “And please, call me Esme. You’ve already healed up, haven’t you?”
“Aye, the wound’s gone.” He touched the back of his head and then regarded Ava. “Might I share your meal, my lady?”
The laird’s wife handed him a plate before pouring a mug of brew and adding some honey to it.
Esme watched the interaction between them and got the impression they were more like best friends than acquaintances.
Since Ava was somewhat reserved around everyone else, Esme wondered how she had grown so close to the armorer.
Then she noticed the similarities in their features, particularly the eyebrows, nose and jaw lines, which were almost identical.
She doesn’t just like him. She could be related to him.
Over the meal the women talked about foods they missed, keeping the conversation very light and quite wholesome.
Esme played along, mentioning chilaquiles with green sauce as her favorite brunch dish.
As they discussed what they could and couldn’t make with the ingredients available in the spell trap, Rory only listened and ate a huge bowl of porridge with chopped apple.
Despite the roaring fires in all the hearths, the air grew noticeably colder, until every word they said added a puff of white breath in the air.
The rest of the clansmen and vassals in the hall left, and a few maids returned to clear the trestle tables.
The daylight outside began to darken to night again, making it obvious that the length of a day had now dwindled to about an hour and a half.
“I think I’d better direct the chambermaids to bring in more wood,” Ava said, rising to her feet.
Olivia and Grace also made excuses and left with her, leaving Esme alone with the armorer.
She eyed his empty bowl. “If you’re finished, why don’t we take a walk?”
Esme considered asking Rory to take her to Darro’s chamber, but that was probably in the garrison hall, which was off-limits to all females unless they had been invited. She also wasn’t sure where he had gone or what he was doing now.
“I’ve been interviewing everyone about what they know of the spell trap and this Bodach creature that cursed the clan,” she told the armorer as they made their way through the passages, where annoyed-looking vassals were lighting the torches.
“While I was unconscious I had a very strange dream, too. Would you mind answering some questions?”
He nodded. “Come to the forge,” he whispered. “’Tis warmer there.”
Rory took her down to where he worked on making weapons, which was an enormous room filled with all sorts of interesting swords, daggers, shields and the hundreds of tools he used.
Esme became filled with awe when she inspected the size of his heaviest hammers, and discovered they were longer and their handles thicker than her legs.
The huge anvil on which he hammered things had two pointed ends and had been attached to a block of granite with chains as thick as both of her arms put together.
“If the spell trap keeps restoring everything you use, why do you need to make new weapons for the clan?” she asked as she bent down to look inside the huge hearth where he heated the metals he worked on.
“The original armory and forge werenae part of the stronghold,” Rory said.
“I feared with the power of my voice I might damage the stronghold, so I asked the laird permit me to work beyond the walls in the forest. We built the first forge a half-league from the outer wall. As ’twas my duty to oversee the armory, I kept most of the weapons there, too.
Other than the blades they carried, and some Alec kept stored in the garrison hall and his chambers, none of my brothers had adequate weapons when we were cast into this place. ”
“You must be afraid all of the time, being here.” She saw a flicker of that pass over his stunning face and became filled with sympathy for him. “I know it’s hard to trust yourself, mano, but you haven’t made this place fall down in nine hundred years.”
“Only I made a wall collapse by talking in my sleep. It fell on the Seneschal and his lady Grace.” He looked at her. “Did Lady Ava tell you how differently we dream in the spell trap?”
“She mentioned it, yes.” She thought of the odd events in her dream, and wondered if he would understand them better than she did. “Would you mind hearing about the last one I had?”
“’Tis why you wished speak with me, aye?” he asked, smiling.
She told him about the beautiful woman with green eyes and the scarlet gem jewelry, the ancient forest and how she walked in and out of the trees as if they were doorways.
“I think she lived there a long time before the humans showed up,” Esme said, and described the changes in the landscape around the forest before she said, “When they finally came, she didn’t like what they did to her home.
She used little wooden creatures she hatched from eggs to kill a lot of the people.
Then some different humans came. They wore embroidered robes and didn’t try to hurt her or her woods. ”
“The female ’tis melia,” Rory told her. “A kind of Fae who dwell in forests and use trees to contain their homes. The robed mortals, they’re druids. They’ve long kept the peace in the mortal realm.”
Esme described how people stayed away from the melia after that, and the way the red-black gems in her jewelry paled to white over time. Finally she told Rory about the handsome man who came to bargain with the woman, and took her necklace before thrusting it into her mouth.
“I saw the man change his appearance—he looked old and ugly, and had black-red eyes, like a monster.” She didn’t want to detail how the melia had died, but she mentioned it briefly before talking about the fair-haired young woman in the golden gown who took her out of the dream and helped her wake up.
“The blonde woman,” Esme said, “she’s Torra MacBren, isn’t she?”
“Aye. She possesses Dun Talamh since her body ’twas destroyed.” He went over to a table and sorted through some blades there. “Why do you reckon you dreamed such, Esme?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It seemed important, and I needed to tell you about it, although I’m not sure why.
It may have been the blonde sending a message through me for you.
” She thought for a moment, trying to bring back the details at the end of the dream.
“Yes, I remember her telling me to talk to you.”