The crossing, p.14
The Crossing, page 14
“Okay.” Arlan smiled.
Oh, that smile again.
My knees softened and couldn’t hold me up for a moment.
“Bye.” My voice came out small and I turned on my heel—now that my knees had resumed their ability to hold my weight—and walked out to my car.
RETURNING HOME, I PLACED the groceries on the kitchen table and blew the hair off my forehead. It’d taken longer than I’d expected to give the police an account of the attack on the hill without mentioning a warrior from another world.
The cottage was still and empty of men. A whinny came from outside. I leaned closer to the window that faced the field out the back. George and Arlan stood near the war horse. The black animal swished its tail as it munched on the long grass. Arlan gestured wildly and George inclined his head to him. I walked out to them, their voices getting clearer with each step.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
George turned, and Arlan looked across at me.
“He’s amazing!” George said with a laugh. “I can hardly believe it but this guy’s a linguist. He’s picking up English already. I think teaching him English will be much easier than teaching you ancient Gaelic, no offence.”
“Hello, Rhiannon. How are you this day? Nae, today?” Arlan lilted.
That stopped me mid-stride. His deep voice was quite sexy in English.
No, not quite.
Extremely.
My meeting him at the Celtic Festival came to mind when he’d pulled me close to himself and his melodic voice vibrated through my body. I put a hand to my mouth. The remembered touch of his lips on mine sent my heart hammering into my ribs all over again.
“See what I mean? Don’t stress yourself.” George’s eyes glinted.
I dropped my hand from my mouth. I wouldn’t give George a hint of the real cause of my reaction.
“I’ll take some time off work,” George continued. “I’m due holidays anyway. You don’t mind if I stay and teach him, do you? I’d enjoy it.”
I couldn’t say no. Arlan spoke English in his future, as he’d spoken it at the Celtic Festival—in my past. I needed to discuss that with him.
Sometime.
George hadn’t mentioned the similarity between the two men—the tall man in the tartan kilt of muted tones and this just as tall man here in leather trousers and not much else. George had only seen him for a few moments at the festival. But Arlan seemed very different. Apart from speaking English fluently on that day, he wasn’t as relaxed in his manner with me.
And he’d made no advances—like that kiss.
I’d choked a sigh into a cough, and now both men stared at me.
“I’ve bought a T-shirt that I hope fits him.” My words rushed out. “We need to get him looking normal, then we’ll shop for more clothes.” I screwed up my nose. “I don’t know what to do about getting him home to wherever he comes from.”
“Dál Gaedhle.” Arlan’s rich voice rang out as he stood straighter.
I closed my gaping mouth. He’d followed the conversation.
Wow, he was really clever.
I walked back to the cottage through the long grass and the men followed a pace or two behind me.
“Have you got permission for that animal?” The gruff tone belonged to the neighbour in the semi-detached. He stood at his rubbish bin by the fence, his gut hanging over his belt and a greasy stubble covering his chin.
“I have permission from the landlady.” My tone was sharp, but I was powerless to soften it when it came to that guy. His wife was another matter. Man, did I feel sorry for her!
Arlan ran to me, and my neighbour’s back stiffened.
“It better keep clear of my kids. It’s a stallion. They’re vicious. Don’t want it bitin’ ma bairns. Okay?”
“Unless your children go into that field and play with it, they should be safe, shouldn’t they?” My hands curled into fists.
All I needed was for this guy to give me trouble and point out Arlan to everyone.
“My stallion is okay. You child stay away, if you please.” Arlan spoke in his Highland-sounding lilt.
My neighbour peered up at Arlan, a thin snarl on his lips. “You’ve not got boarders, now have you, miss? These two men not stayin’ here with you?”
“They’re on holiday. No business of yours, anyway!” Unbelievable!
Arlan’s warm, large hand pressed on my forearm. I turned to him; he shook his head a fraction. He was right. My nasty neighbour wasn’t worth getting all upset over. We strode past him into the house.
“And good day to you, sir,” George threw over his shoulder as he passed the scruffy man.
Once inside, I unpacked the groceries and started dinner. Arlan got up from the table where he and George had sat and stood beside me, watching while I cooked.
“How does this go, Rhiannon?” Arlan pointed to the microwave oven.
“Go? Oh, you mean work?”
“Aye.”
“I just put the food in, press the timer and start. Do you want to know exactly how?”
Arlan tilted his head, one eye squinting, as though he was waiting for more explanation.
“George?” He was the linguist, after all.
George explained in ancient Gaelic interspersed with English, as it must’ve been hard to find the right words in the language for microwave and other concepts in physics. Arlan nodded and exclaimed as George demonstrated all the items in my electric appliance dominated kitchen.
I put the chicken in a pan to fry and peeled potatoes and carrots, letting the language settle in my ears. I should learn his language too. It would help me understand Arlan better.
Arlan and George moved to the living room, and I added more oil to the frying chicken. George switched on the large flat screen television, then Arlan hollered like a Highland warrior sending shudders through me.
“What’s happening?” I forced down the instinct to flee and instead ran into the living room.
Arlan continued yelling, grabbing his sword he’d rested by the couch and unsheathing it. On the wall, the television displayed a wildlife programme featuring lions.
“Felid!” Arlan raced to it with his sword lifted high.
“No, Arlan!” I screamed. “It’s not real.” I grasped at his arm, my oily hands slipping off his biceps. I snuck under his upraised arm and flattened my hands on his chest. His heart pounded through it. “No Arlan! It’s not real. We’re okay.”
He looked down at me, the tension in his body easing.
“The lions can’t get us,” I explained. “They’re pictures. Moving pictures with sound.”
Arlan dropped his arms, lowering his sword, so I stepped away from him. He frowned deeply and moved closer to the television. He poked it with his finger and stared at it for a while, then grinned.
“This channel has ‘plays’ where people are acting stories.” George’s speech flowed behind me as I returned to the kitchen, nudged on by Arlan’s and George’s laughter.
“This channel has moving pictures which are drawings, usually for children. This channel shows sports. That’s boxing—you may be familiar with that. This one is a person telling us what’s happened around the world today. It will have moving pictures. This isn’t acting, but real. And I rarely watch it for long because it’s all bad news.” George clicked the remote again and the commentary on lions returned.
Saving the TV from a death by broadsword—just an ordinary day.
Maybe my days would never be ordinary ever again.
Eighteen
Damn it, Diary, I knew it!
She’s fallen for the Big Man. Yes, he’s smart, polite, well-educated and tall. He’s got the looks that women always go for. And he’s big.
I didn’t think Rhiannon would succumb.
I’m trying to be reasonable. Scientific. Speaking of which, there’s been a chemistry between those two from the start. She stopped him from going at me with his sword.
I’m pushing against the green-eyed monster who wishes to invade me. But I just have to go work on my thesis, so I have a future to offer her if when she gets over this guy.
Did I mention he’s big?
THE JOURNAL OF GEORGE WILSON
PhD CANDIDATE ANCIENT CELTIC LANGUAGES
OXFORD
ABERNETHY, SCOTLAND
“Well, that was a quick and fascinating two weeks. Pity you had to work almost every day, Rhiannon. We didn’t see much of you.” George shrugged, striding ahead of me to the taxi parked at the kerb in front of my cottage.
“Arlan’s mastered English almost as if by magic.” My step lightened.
“But he won’t need it for long.” George reached the taxi and turned to me. “English, that is. He’ll find that place on the hill where he first appeared, and be gone soon, yes?”
“I’m sure he will.” I flicked a glance at the kitchen window where Arlan stood inside.
He must’ve felt George and I needed a private goodbye.
George had made no comment about the similarities between Arlan and the Celtic Festival guy. He’d been so engrossed in teaching Arlan English and so delighted at conversing with an ancient Gaelic speaker that perhaps he’d not connected the dots between the two men who were the one person. In my experience with George, academia was his main strength, leaving social skills and the ability to read relational cues way down on the list of his gifts.
I chewed the corner of my mouth, flinching at the pinch there. There’d been some awkwardness over the past fortnight. George had been clingy at times and maybe he’d stayed to ensure Arlan wouldn’t act any further on his belief that I was his to protect.
But there was nothing between me and George, and George needed to know that for sure.
“If you get stuck, phone me.” George put his bag in the taxi. “Arlan’s command of English over such a short period is astounding. You should have little trouble. He can always watch the Gaelic shows.” He laughed and leaned toward me, spreading his arms wide.
I stepped back, out of the circle of his arms. “First thing we’re doing is clothes shopping.”
George dropped his hands.
I folded my arms over my chest and leaned against the taxi. “Even wearing a T-shirt, Arlan stands out. He looks like a mean biker.” I spoke in a low voice, my heart stuttering. I couldn’t keep it from George any longer. “You don’t recognise him, do you?” I clamped my mouth tight after I’d said it.
“Recognise him? Rhiannon, he’s from another world!” George snorted. “How could I recognise him?”
“The Celtic Festival.” I let it out under my breath.
“The Celtic Festival?” George frowned, then his eyes opened wide. “He’s the one who kissed you?”
“Shush! He’ll hear you!”
“But he doesn’t recognise you.” George’s pitch raised two notches.
“I know.” I put a hand to my face and dragged my fingers across my forehead. “That means now is before then for him.”
“He kissed you,” George sputtered. “That means you and him...”
“Perhaps, but not yet.”
“When then?” His tone was sharp.
“I don’t know. Maybe never.” I dropped my hand from my forehead, and a stiffness passed across my shoulders. “This could change it all. Him being here now, I mean.”
“Do you want it to?” George’s voice held an edge, and he stood there looking like he expected an answer to that one.
Really?
I moved away from the vehicle, my insides heating. “That’s not any of your business, George.” I sniffed.
“No?”
“No. Thank you for your lessons. Goodbye.” I spoke harshly, but George needed to quit the interrogation.
“Make sure he finds his way home.” George’s brow was tight and his cheeks turning dusky as he plonked down on the back seat of the taxi.
Arlan walked from the cottage. “Goodbye.” Arlan stepped toward the taxi, extending his hand to George. “We will see you soon?”
“Possibly.” George shut the taxi door and, through the open window, slid his narrowed gaze to Arlan, who slowly lowered his hand and stood with a frown. George turned his glare to me. “I’ll phone.”
I gave a sharp wave, and the taxi drove off. My shoulders sank, and I lifted my vision to the clouds, regretting how that’d ended. I’d hurt George... unintentionally. And he hadn’t deserved it.
“You will miss your friend?” Arlan said into my ear. Another unspoken question hung through his words.
“We’re going shopping.” I avoided his eyes, and his question—not altogether sure how to answer it. “You need to look like a modern Scotsman, not someone out of Braveheart.”
Nineteen
A king is a shield to his people
The vanguard in battle.
He protects the people he rules
With his might,
With his own body,
With his very self.
WISDOM WRITINGS ON KINGSHIP
SAGE GLIOCAS
(2870-2962 POST DRAGON WARS)
A SHOPPING CENTRE, Scotland
Bright lights and shiny objects sat behind walls of clear glazing. Some market stalls, or shops, contained racks and racks of garments. Arlan walked behind Rhiannon in this place she called a shopping centre. Stone of some sort, smooth and shiny, paved the floor—not a cobbled stone anywhere. Arlan lifted his eyes to the lofty ceiling, almost as high as that of the Great Hall in The Keep. They passed a shop that sold food and had row upon row of shelves filled with produce. This world was wealthy and well provided—that was a certainty.
He must return to his own world. And his troop. But how?
My passage here is still a mystery.
His traverse had the feel of the Fae to it. Tales told by bards came to his mind. Stories in song of those who’d gone to the Faerie realm but returned moments later, aged and reporting wild, vivid experiences.
He shook himself at the thought.
He had made forays along the hilly path to the mound at the summit where once stood a defensive fort. He’d ridden this almost every day, in between English lessons with George and learning more of this world. The exercise had proved fruitless and unenlightening.
He sighed, a twinge tugging at his conscience. In all truth, the break from Kyle’s constant derision had been a welcome reprieve. For at this moment, the prospect of spending his life under Kyle’s authority once he became chief of clan MacEnoicht, did not press upon his own shoulders like the weight of a standing stone!
Striding ahead, Rhiannon turned to him, her long, wavy hair swaying as she did so. Her eyes bore into him as if she were examining the depths of his very soul, as they had from that first moment she’d shown her face to him on the hill.
“Come on, keep up.” She resumed her brisk pace.
He followed, tugging at the breeches Rhiannon called jeans. She’d insisted he wear them along with the top she called a T-shirt. She said people would stare at him if he didn’t.
They still stared at him.
Youths lolled around in a group, leaning on a rail beside a staircase that moved. The young lads’ eyes followed him, and a couple pointed as he walked by, passing comments amongst themselves. One crossed his arms over his chest and locked gazes with him. Arlan squinted an eye at the whelp.
The pup should spend a day in the practice yard. That would knock the arrogance out of him.
He doubled his step to catch up with Rhiannon, and a little girl tilted her head back as her mother steered her out of his path. People were so much shorter here.
Except for Rhiannon. She was much like the women of his own world, tall and graceful—beautiful, though she seemed to know it not. But of greater importance, a woman with a natural goodness and generosity, and now she bought him clothes from her own purse. She also had courage, courage enough to take a chance and provide hospitality to him when he found himself stranded in this strange world.
He carried plastic bags—shiny and smooth but with a noisy crinkling all the time—containing more jeans, shirts, and a woollen jumper, but of poor quality compared to the garments of home.
Rhiannon had searched for a big man’s store. There Rhiannon had insisted he go into a tiny room, put on the clothes she chose, then parade before her. Other men perused this store, partaking of the trader’s wares. Large men, not healthy-large, but... well, they had eaten too many feasts. In fact, many people in this world had eaten too many feasts and not worked hard in the fields. All the men covered their bodies as if they were cold. Or ashamed. He’d covered his body with a shirt and Rhiannon had appraised him, her gaze sending a warmth to his belly.
“You’re coping with this rather well, Arlan Finnbar MacEnoicht.” She gazed at him from the corner of her eye as they left the shop.
“I have been to a market before. Not one indoors, as such.”
Rhiannon smiled again, and her shoulders weren’t so stiff. She’d held herself so around George and had avoided that man’s touch. He’d returned to his hometown, to the place where oxen crossed the river—or such George and Rhiannon had named it—and now she fairly skipped along ahead of him as though she was happy George had left them. His heart danced, for he would spend his days in her company alone. The tightness of his brow eased. Aye, there was so much he wished to know of her.
He followed Rhiannon through the masses. There were so many people, such as at The Keep on a day the clan chieftains gathered to petition Father. They had to forge through in single file. People bumped into Rhiannon, who walked ahead, brushing shoulders with them as they barged past, then they looked up at him, eyes wide, and side-stepped around.
Rhiannon turned into a quieter shop-lined corridor, leaving the bustle of the main mall behind them. Here, the shops were smaller and less crowded.
“There’s a bookshop I like to look in whenever I’m here.” She gave a half smile, and her cheeks tinged a rosy hue. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Nae, you go peruse. I’ll wait here.”
Rhiannon left him and entered the shop. He stepped closer to the clear glazed frontage and peered in. Bookshelves lined the walls, and it was more like a library. Footsteps clumped behind him, a disorderly clatter of feet on the smooth flooring. The back of his neck tingled.
