Chapter 13
He was a verray
parfit gentil knyght.
—The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343?–1400)
English poet
The last word had yet to die away, when two hawk-like men burst forth from the stand of trees at the other end of the glen. They raced toward them, hooves thundering at breakneck speed, their mighty swords drawn, twisted grimaces on their dark faces. Her heart hammered furiously. Dear God! They would be cut down like ripe corn. She suddenly felt herself grabbed about the waist and rudely dropped to the ground.
“Stay there and dinna move, no matter what happens.”
Like she could go anywhere with her ankle throbbing like a drum and prickly gorse jabbing her in the backside.
Alysandir let out a bloodcurdling war cry and spurred his horse into a dead run. What happened next would be forever imprinted upon her mind. With her heart pounding triple time, she watched how his magnificent little stallion held a straight course, throwing up clods of turf as they raced across the clearing.
It was two of them against one of him, and she realized he was all that stood between her and bloodthirsty marauders in search of booty. She didn’t like thinking of herself as a battle prize, and she could tell they would not be as chivalrous as Alysandir. She held her breath and thought of covering her eyes, but she had to watch no matter how bloody it became.
Alysandir dropped his reins to dangle free as he drew the huge sword and held it in both hands, high over his head. He rode between the two men, slashing first the one on his right, with a full stroke that sliced across the stomach, and then to the left. The second brigand’s roar was reduced to a ghastly gurgle as the great blade sheared with a deep hack between his neck, shoulder bones, and ribs.
Blood spurted and sprayed everywhere, covering the silvered blade of Alysandir’s sword and dulling the shine of his mail shirt. Both men toppled to the ground while their horses kept running.
As easily as a scythe cuts wheat, he had stopped the attack, which lasted only a few minutes. It could have been a scene from an epic film. Except that this was not a movie but the real thing, with a Highland warrior-knight doing what he was bred to do. In her time, this would have been considered barbaric, criminal even. But he was of another era when people lived by a different code and when a good horse, a keen eye, a strong arm, and a deadly sword meant the difference between life and death.
She rose to her feet awkward and wobbly as a newborn foal, not thinking about her scratches as she watched him, her mouth still dry and her thoughts in a jumble. She hoped he would not, in the aftermath of battle, forget he had tossed her into the briar patch and ride off into the sunset without her.
He leaned forward, caught up the reins, and turned his horse around in a tight arc. Without ever slowing, he thundered back the way he had come, transferring his sword to his left hand as they galloped at breakneck speed toward her. She was terrified he did not see her and that his horse would cut her down like a scythe to grain.
At the very last moment, the horse veered slightly to her left and Alysandir leaned down, almost touching the ground. Without realizing she did so, she lifted her arms, her gaze never leaving his face as he swept her off the ground and up into the saddle before him. His sword came to rest across her lap, and the blood upon it still ran warm as it trickled down her leg.
He did not slow down until they approached the thick stand of trees just ahead, and only when they were swallowed into the screen of dense growth did he slow Gallagher to a walk.
In college, she had written a paper on “The Warrior Mentality,” and she recalled that warriors, as well as modern-day soldiers and athletes, could become so “super-charged” with rising hormone levels during a battle that they could actually go into trances. They could enter into a kind of altered consciousness—so that their sense of pain was subdued and their sense of well-being highly elevated. They were often highly charged in a sexual way as well…
“I am sorry ye were witness to that,” he said. “’Twas an inescapable encounter.”
She nodded, thinking for a moment before she said, “Sometimes it is impossible to escape from danger, no matter how badly we want to.”
“I am no’ as barbaric as I seem. There was naught I could do to prevent the outcome.”
“I know,” she replied. She decided not to tell him she would never be able to wash the stain of what she witnessed from her mind. Yet, in spite of the horrific scene, she did not think killing came easily to him.
“Ye are a wise lass, and ye dinna seem to have a fondness for complaining. ’Tis no’ an ordinary thing to discover in a woman. How come ye by it?”
“There are so many things to complain about in this world that I find it difficult to choose just one.” She turned slightly to see how her attempt of humor went over with him. She was pleased to see the slightest uplift at the corners of his mouth.
He gazed at her curiously. “Would that I could carry with me such a clean conscience.”
“I’ve heard it said that conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage,” she said, without telling him that was actually a quote by an eighteenth-century author, Thomas de Quincey. When he did not say anything, she continued, “I know you don’t like killing, and it is obvious that you wrestle with devils each time you must take the life of another. Be careful that you do not overthrow more than your enemies.”
“Ye speak not words but thoughts and wisdom. ’Tis not the way of an ordinary lass. It makes me wonder if ye are an angel sent to change my warring ways, for ye did appear suddenly in the midst of a battle. Are ye a messenger, a spirit that protects and offers guidance? From whence came ye, mistress?”
She wasn’t certain if he was serious or teasing her. But, she knew she had to change the direction of things quickly. “I am no spirit but a woman born of an earthly father and mother, and mortal enough that I felt the prick of briars when you tossed me on my erse in the bracken.”
That actually produced a chuckle, and she almost swooned with relief. He did not speak of what happened again, but that did not mean he had forgotten it. She did her best to ignore the fact that blood, recently flowing in human veins, was now drying upon her legs. Silence, she decided, wasn’t half-bad, for it gave her time to take in the stark beauty of the hills lined up beneath the fading blue sky and the hidden hollows of the moors.
They had been riding for quite some time when they approached another burn, this one larger and slower flowing than the previous one. Bordering it were spiny clumps of yellow-flowered gorse and weedy fronds of green bracken, as dense as thickets. The nearby hills seemed gaunt and inhospitable, their gorges littered with rocks, reminding her of the place where she had fallen.
Alysandir drew rein and dismounted. He placed his sword on the grassy slope before he turned and pulled her from the saddle and into his arms. He stood looking down at her for a moment and then, without speaking, carried her to a boulder close to the gently flowing water.
He set about unsaddling his mount before he led Gallagher to the burn to drink. Alysandir rubbed the pony down with dry grass and then dropped to his haunches beside the water and washed himself in what had to be freezing water, for the air temperature had to be hovering around 60 degrees.
There was no conversation, and she was beyond thrilled to have this rare opportunity to watch a warrior of old, for this was history in the making, and she was in the midst of it. Speechless, she observed how he ministered according to the code of chivalry and viewed the sequence of his priorities: first the damsel, then his horse, and his own needs last.
He rinsed his sword and used sand and grass to clean the dried blood from the blade. She observed the beauty of the motions as he performed each task. She had a feeling those hands would stroke a woman’s body with the same practiced ease and mesmerizing skill, and the thought made her mouth dry. By the time he replaced the sword in his scabbard, his horse was grazing nearby.
She watched him walk to the edge of the burn, where he removed his bandolier and dropped it to the ground. Then he removed the chain byrnie and washed as much blood from it as possible before he placed it on the grass to dry in the sunlight. He pulled the shirt he wore beneath the byrnie over his head and she swallowed hard. She admired the finely hewn muscles of his back and the powerful forearms. The next moment, she was shocked into stupefied silence when he removed his boots and started to unhitch his chausses. She should have looked away.
It was an intensely sensual moment, and she felt lost in it. She wanted to touch him, to know the scent and texture of his skin, to feel the muscles of his warrior’s body, to discover if he was real. She had not realized he was watching her. Their gazes locked, and he made no move to break the visual connection—waiting for her to do what any lady would do and look away, but she was frozen in place and her body did not seem to speak the same language as her mind.
She thought she saw the faintest hint of a conquering smile, just before he gave her his back and peeled the tight trews away from his body. And there he was, naked as a needle, and she was forced to stare at his bare backside with the driest mouth and wickedest thoughts imaginable. It was a stunning display of male anatomy, and, to her way of thinking, if he didn’t mind baring it, she didn’t mind looking.
It sure beat R-rated movies, for none of the actors in them could compare to the beautiful specimen standing before her. She was amazed, actually, that she did not have one shred of embarrassment as she checked him out, stem to stern.
“Thou strong seducer, Opportunity,” as the English poet John Dryden had written. She was seduced, all right, and if Alysandir had so much as crooked a finger in her direction, she would have crawled, if need be, to get to him. There he stood, as magnificent as creation, as perfect as Adam, as beautiful as Lucifer before the fall.
When he entered the water, she was still captivated by his beauty. Everything about him conveyed power and stature. His was a body full of life and passion, and she could feel it reaching out to her. She longed to go to him, to strip as naked as he, and join him in the burn.
And freeze your erse off. What are you thinking?
He waded further into the frigid water and washed away the blood with wet sand. Gawking like a simpleton, she could not look away as he waded back to the bank. He was exemplary of a warrior at the peak of his virility, and every feature, down to the most insignificant muscle, was the standard by which others should be compared—from his commanding brow and Roman nose to his well-defined chest and stomach muscles, down to his shamelessly uncovered—she quickly turned her head away.
She would retain forever the memory of his potent and boldly naked form. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of him dressing, relishing the heat that the sight of his wet-slicked body sparked within her. She was overwhelmed with feelings she had never experienced before—sensuality, lust, and desire. His body left her breathless and craving more.
“’Tis safe to look now.”
She expected to see him dressed in his trews and chausses, not with his body gleaming and his plaid wrapped low around his slender hips. Fascinated, she watched him walk toward her, and she fervently wished he would drop the plaid… no she didn’t. She was her own worst enemy, and she was beyond thankful when she found her rational voice.
“Why aren’t you dressed?”
He threw back his head and laughed at her. “To keep my clothes dry,” he answered, and swept her up into his arms. Pure instinct sent her arms curling around his neck. His skin was cool and damp, and he smelled clean, like the air after a rain. She had to resist the urge to touch his chest. She sighed, thinking this was like a dream or something out of a movie, only better.
He turned and carried her toward the burn. “You aren’t going to drown me, are you?”
He paused and gazed down at her upturned face. “Not with water, but I’m tempted to pour a little more mead down yer throat. With yer mouth gaping as long as it was, it has to be… parched.”
She became suddenly conscious of the fluid movement of his body against hers and the press of her hipbone against his battle-hardened muscles. Her arms were still around his neck, and her head found a resting place in the cove of his shoulder. She had not realized until this moment, when she felt safe and comfortable in his arms, just how very weary she was. After all, it wasn’t every day that she traveled five hundred years.
He stopped and slowly lowered her until her feet touched the ground. “What pleasures ye, lass?”
Everything you’re doing, so far.She wanted to tell him that whatever she found pleasurable was illegal, immoral, or fattening, but she decided to temper her words to the time period and hope for a little sensual indulgence. “Oh, books, fruit, music…”
He cut the list short when he threw back his head and laughed heartily, and she wondered why she had the feeling it wasn’t something he did frequently. She looked at the dancing water and shivered with anticipation. “It looks very cold.”
“Aye, verra cold, but there are ways to warm ye quickly once ye are oot.”
She didn’t doubt that for a moment. She decided not to tell him the wild imaginings going on in her mind. “How many ways are there?”
“An infinite number, lass… numerous as the stars in yer eyes.”
She understood how a flower must feel the first time it unfurls its petals.
“’Tis good ye are no’ a coy lass, I am warmed by the bloom of desire in yer eyes. Do ye prefer to remove yer clothing and bathe yersel’, or do ye want to leave some o’ yer clothing on and let me wash the blood off of ye?”
Well, if that isn’t the proverbial between a rock and a hard place, I don’t know what is.“That doesn’t sound like much of a choice to me.”
“’Tis borne of necessity, lass, for ye canna stand on yer own, so either way, I will have to help ye. Soaking yer ankle in the cold water will ease the pain and help the swelling.” He pulled the surcoat over her head, and she felt a cool waft of air wrap itself around her.
“What if you put me on that flat boulder jutting out over the water?” she said pointing, “I can sit there and soak my foot. Do you have some sort of cloth or a kerchief I can use to wash off the blood?”
“Aye,” he said and placed her on the rock, his surcoat beside her, and then fetched a cloth from his pouch.
By the time he returned, she was shivering from the cold, but it did ease the pain. He wet the cloth and bathed her face. She had never known face washing could be so sensual, and when he paused long enough to trace the shape of her lips with his thumb, her pounding heart kept tempo with her shallow breaths. Inside, everything felt warm and liquid. He attended to a couple of scratches on her arms and wiped the dried path of blood from her legs.
She would never have believed something so innocent could be so arousing. To have a man touch her like this—there was something undeniably sensual about it. She leaned back on her arms, her head back, her eyes closed, until she suddenly became aware that he was no longer washing her legs. His hand was resting warmly on her left thigh.
She opened her eyes and saw that he was watching her, but nothing in the clear blue depth of his gaze gave any hint as to what he was thinking. But his hand was warm, his touch light, and it was terribly erotic.
“I think you’ve gotten it all,” she said, her voice low and breathless. “My ankle is feeling better, but my foot is going to freeze.” She pulled her foot out of the water and felt everything turn liquid inside as he began to dry her foot with his plaid. Afraid it might come unwrapped and fearing her reaction, she squeezed her eyes shut.
His hand stilled, and its warmth seeped into her skin. “Have ye never seen a naked man before today, lass?”
“I saw Michelangelo’s David.” Isobella, you’re an idiot!
He studied her closely. “I am beginning to think ye havena the wit to be a spy.”
She was frantically searching for a way to respond when his horse saved the day by coming up to Alysandir and giving him a shove with his nose. Alysandir picked up the surcoat and pulled it over her head and carried her back to her previous perch before he gathered his clothes and disappeared. While he was away, she put on her shoes. A pair of athletic socks had never felt so good.
He returned a short while later. “What ye witnessed earlier was brutal, and I ken I have washed away only the bluid and no’ the memory. Ye fear me now, no?”
She crooked her head to one side to better look at him. “No, I don’t, but I am in awe,” she said, with sincere honesty. “It was both the most spectacularly beautiful thing I have ever seen and the most barbaric.”
She saw the pained expression in his eyes and knew that whoever the dead men were, killing them was not something he wanted to do or enjoyed. To the contrary, it seemed to have subdued him considerably. He was not only a man of courage but also a man with a noble conscience.
For the first time in her life, she understood the true meaning of the word “hero.” It wasn’t an NFL player or a rock star, a narcissistic CEO or an actor with an inflated sense of self, and it certainly wasn’t a foot-long sandwich. Alysandir was simply a remarkably brave man who had committed an incredible act of extraordinary bravery, a man of great courage and strength of character who gladly risked his life for others without consideration of the danger to himself or thought of reward. And when killing was necessary, he did not take pleasure in the act but carried the burden deep inside where others could not see.
“Who were they?”
“Puir Highlanders driven to rogue thievery out of desperation.”
“Because warfare is all they know.” She said the words without thinking. When she glanced at him, she saw his surprise and some sort of understanding passed between them, although neither of them addressed it.
“Aye,” he said at last, ’Tis all they know and the only way they have to survive.”
Killing was a way of life here. She recalled that the ancient Greek geographer Strabo had written that the Celts were “madly fond of war, high spirited, and quick to do battle, but not of evil character.” Warfare was one of their major pastimes, and if an enemy did not present itself, they were content to war with each other. Naturally, it would be even more manifest when they were faced with starvation.
“I know you had to kill them, and I’m glad that you did not enjoy it,” she said.
“Aye, kill them or let them kill us. That is the way of it. Kill or be killed. There is no midpoint, mistress. Had they killed me, ye might have been spared, but if ye were, ye stood a good chance of finding yersel’ flat on yer back. Either they would have kept ye to use fer their own pleasure, or they would have bartered ye to be used by another.”
Survival of the fittest. “That possibility entered my mind. I do not judge nor do I criticize what you did. I know it is part of the way of life you lead here.”
His gaze penetrated deeply, warming her. “Ye are a strange lass and far more accepting than most. Although it is rare for a woman to witness such as ye did, it is rarer still to find one who is not horrified or one capable of accepting it as a way of life.”
“Yes, I would imagine most women would not consider that a form of entertainment.”
“I do not know that last word.”
“Entertainment… it means amusement, as in seeing a play or playing music.”
He said nothing as he dropped down on his haunches and picked up her foot. “’Tis a strange shoe ye wear.”
She glanced at the North Face cross-trainers and said, “Yes, I suppose it is.”
He lifted his dark head, and their gazes met and held. Without a word, he turned to rummage through the bag attached to his saddle and withdrew two round things that looked similar to a biscuit.
“Will ye have an oatcake?” he asked, and offered one to her.
A distrustful look settled over her brow. “Persephone was dragged into the underworld for eating just a pomegranate seed.”
He chuckled. “Aye, ’tis true, well enough, but there are no seeds in my oatcake and I find myself far too weary this day to drag ye any further than to put ye astride my horse.” He offered it again. “What say ye? Starve or eat?”
She held out her hand, thinking she would soon take a bite from history. Blaah! It tasted exactly as she had imagined it would, only worse, like cardboard—really old, musty cardboard with a hint of leather. She refrained from asking just how old the oatcake was, but it did hold the hunger pangs at bay.
Later, he saddled his horse and she found herself surrounded by his warmth as he gathered the reins and mounted behind her. This time, when his arms came around her, she knew she was in the hands of a very brave man, more than capable of protecting her.
Before long, a thin grey cloud of water droplets gathered and a fine, white mist floated down upon them. He stopped long enough to take a plaid from the back of his saddle and to hand her the mead flask. “I know, have a nip. It will warm my insides.”
His eyes gleamed, calm and blue as a tranquil sea. “’Tis a good memory ye have, mistress, when it suits ye.” He mounted, put the plaid around himself like a woman’s shawl, and then brought the edges forward to wrap around her, tucking the edges beneath his powerful thighs.
“We are one now, lass,” he whispered with a warm breath brushing her ear. A melting of warm desire enveloped her. She had no idea a Scot five hundred years in the past could, or would, be so seductive. She was becoming way too comfortable with him, so she stiffened and said in a rather prim voice, “We are not one, for we are halves of two different fruits.”
His laugh was beautiful, and her body was warming both from the heat generated by their closeness and her occasional hefty gulps of mead. She could see herself throwing caution to the wind for a little Highland fling. She almost unseated herself with the thought, and she would have fallen if he had not had the quickest of reflexes and grabbed her.
“Careful, lass.” He breathed the words against her skin, and she melted against him as the slow ache of desire quickened the blood warm in her veins.
The mead had to be doing this for she had already decided to swear off men. And the Black Douglas whipping up this time-travel scenario made any kind of a dalliance dangerous territory—at least until she knew what was going on. She wondered what kind of game her mercurial ghost was playing. She felt like a feather “for each wind that blows,” as William Shakespeare had written. She wished she knew more about the rules of time travel—where was theoretical physicist Michio Kaku when she needed him?
Here she was, escorted back in time by a ghost who probably had his own set of rules. When the Black Douglas spoke vaguely about returning them to their own time, was he toying with them or didn’t he know the rules either? Well, there was nothing to do in the meantime, other than make a life for themselves here.
She put her hand to her head and massaged her temples, where a dull throbbing had begun. She decided to enjoy her time here by taking advantage of the educational aspects and archaeological opportunities she would find. Scotland had a long and enriching history involving many tribes, clans, and cultures.
She would have countless opportunities to excavate and write a few reports on her findings to be left for posterity. If one had to travel back in time, this was a great place to have landed. But she wondered why the Black Douglas brought them here to this time period. He was up to something, and that made her feel like a chess pawn. Wonder and imagine all you wish, but he won’t reveal anything until “the spirit moves me.”
“’Twould seem the mead is having an effect upon ye, Isobella Catriona Douglas.”
The way he said her name flowed over her like a massage with warm oil. Everything about Scotland is having an effect upon me… especially you…
“You told me your first name, but you have yet to give me your last name. You do have one, don’t you?”
“Aye.”
She knew Scots were very private people and not at all like Americans, who had a natural propensity for telling everything about themselves to total strangers. But, what was the harm in knowing his name?
“Mackinnon,” he said at last. “Alysandir Mackinnon of Caisteal Màrrach on the Isle of Mull.”
Mackinnon… Oh, lord, did she know that name! It was one of the oldest Celtic tribes and used the wild boar on its crest. “And you have always lived here.”
“Aye, I was born here and here I remain, like my ancestors afore me.”
“And who is the laird or chief of your clan?”
He didn’t answer. “I take by your silence that you are the chief.”
“By chance, not choice.”
She caught the sadness in his words and understood he had assumed the title because someone dear to him had died. “We can shoot the arrow, but we cannot control where it lands,” she said. “Some of the world’s greatest men were forced into the very thing that made them great.”
He nuzzled her neck and breathed the words, “Yer wisdom warms me.”
She was in way over her head and didn’t know how to extricate herself. So she yawned and gave in to the sweet warmth of honeyed mead. That and the rhythm of the horse, the exhaustion, and the strong arms around her were all comforting, and she was ushered into silence by her last conscious thought. I do like that mead, almost as much as the Scot who gave it to me.
And liking either of them too much would be very dangerous.