Beyond the Highland Myst(346)

She was growing weary, and he felt a pang of regret for causing her distress. When she stumbled over a tree root and fell against him, only to hiss and jerk away, he softened. He would give her this one night, for after tomorrow there would be no stopping. She nearly fell where she stood, so he cupped one arm behind her shoulders, the other behind her knees, and deposited her on the mossy trunk of an enormous tree that had fallen to the floor of the forest. Perched upon the massive trunk, with her feet dangling several inches above the ground, she looked wee and delicate. Warrior hearts did not always come in warrior-strong bodies, and although he could hike three days without rest or food, she would not fare well under such conditions.

He boosted himself up onto the trunk beside her.

"Gwen," he said gently.

There was no response.

"Gwen, I truly will not harm you," he said.

"You already have," she retorted.

"You're speaking to me again?"

"I'm chained to you. I had planned to never speak to you again, but I've decided that I don't feel like making things easy for you, so I'm going to tell you incessantly and in vivid detail precisely how miserable I am. I'm going to stuff your ears with my shrill complaints. I'm going to make you wish you'd lost your hearing when you were born."

He laughed. This was his scornful English again. "You are free to torment me at every opportunity. I regret causing you discomfort, but I must. I have no choice."

She arched one brow and regarded him with disdain. "Let me be certain I understand this situation. You think you are from the sixteenth century. What year, exactly?"

"Fifteen hundred and eighteen."

"And in fifteen hundred and eighteen, you lived somewhere near here?"

"Aye."

"And you were a lord?"

"Aye."

"And how is it that you ended up sleeping in a cave in the twenty-first century?"

"That is what I must discover."

"MacKeltar, it's impossible. You seem relatively sane to me, this delusion excluded. A bit chauvinistic, but not too abnormal. There is no way a man can fall asleep and wake up nearly five centuries later. Physiologically, it's impossible. I've heard of Rip Van Winkle and Sleeping Beauty, but those are fairy tales."

"I doubt the fairy had aught to do with it. I suspect gypsies or witchcraft," he confided.

"Oh, now, that's infinitely reassuring," she said, too sweetly. "Thank you for clarifying that."

"Do you mock me?"

"Do you believe in fairies?" she countered.

"Fairy is merely another name for the Tuatha de Danaan. And yes, they exist, although they keep their distance from mortal man. We Scots have always known that. You have lived a sheltered life, have you not?" When she closed her eyes, he smiled. She was so naive.

She opened her eyes, favored him with a patronizing smile, and changed the subject as if not wont to press his fragile mind too hard. He bit his lip to prevent a derisive snort. At least she was talking to him again.

"Why are you going to Ban Drochaid, and why do you insist on taking me with you?"

He weighed what he might safely tell her without driving her away. "I must get to the stones because that is where my castle is—"

"Is, or was? If you expect to convince me you are truly from the sixteenth century, you're going to have to do a little better with your verb tenses."

He glanced at her reprovingly. "Was, Gwen. I pray it stands still." It must be so, for if they arrived at the stones and there was no sign of his castle, his situation would be dire indeed.

"So you're hoping to visit your descendants? Assuming, of course, that I'm playing along with this absurd game," she added.

Nay, not unless his father, at sixty-two, had somehow managed to breed another bairn after Drustan had been abducted, which was highly unlikely since Silvan had not tupped a woman since Drustan's mother had died, as far as Drustan knew. What he was hoping for was some of the items in the castle. But he couldn't tell her any of that. He couldn't risk scaring her off when he needed her so desperately.

He needn't have bothered searching for a suitably evasive reply, because when he hesitated too long for her liking, she simply forged ahead with another question. "Why do you need me?"

"I doona know your century, and the terrain between here and my home may have changed," he offered the incomplete truth smoothly. "I need a guide who has knowledge of this century's ways. I may need to pass through your villages, and there could be dangers I would not perceive until it was too late." That sounded rather convincing, he thought.

She was regarding him with blatant skepticism.

"Gwen, I know you think that I've lost my memory, or am ill, and am having fevered imaginings, but consider this: What if you are wrong, and I am telling the truth? Have I harmed you? Other than making you come along with me, have I injured you in any way?"