Time of the Celts: A Time Travel Romance (Hadrian's Wall Book 1) Page 4

  He was fearsome ― and so impressive she couldn’t help staring...

  Anyway, the point was that if he was a veritable killing machine, probably the rest of his people were too — even the women. It was a dangerous place for her to go.

  But she had the opportunity of a lifetime, and she would be an idiot not to take a chance on it. After all, she did have a guaranteed mode of escape.

  Still cradling the helmet, Jaelle opened her mouth to promise she wouldn’t cause him any trouble. To entreat him to take her along.

  But before she got the chance, an arrow whizzed past where the two of them stood gabbing. It came from behind them and lodged itself in a nearby tree.

  Both at the same time, she and the Pict took off running toward the trees several feet in front of them on the other side of the small clearing. In hindsight, it seemed stupid to have stopped here, out in the open and exposed this way.

  Once they were deep enough into the woods where pursuit had to happen single file, they both chose a deep clump of trees to hide in so that they couldn’t be surrounded. The Pict drew the sword he carried on his back and wildly looked around for the most defensible place.

  They decided on the same spot and ran there together, each glancing in appreciation at the other’s knowledge of tactics. Because he was armed and she wasn’t — or maybe because she was a woman, it was hard to tell — he put her behind him and stayed behind the cover they’d found, waiting for the people who had shot at them to follow into their ambush.

  Jaelle held the helmet above her head, ready to put it on at any moment.

  The wait wasn’t long.

  A Roman soldier wearing a similar helmet, a similar tunic, and leather armor came crashing through the branches of the nearby trees, looking every which way but where she and the Pict waited.

  After putting this attacker down in a second, the Pict moved on to the next.

  The Roman lay in front of Jaelle, clutching at his side and screaming in agony.

  But she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were fixed a few feet deeper into the woods. The Roman had dropped his sword, and it was now lying where she could reach it. After a quick glance at the Pict, she was satisfied that he would block the attackers from coming in here for a few moments at least, time enough for her to go grab the sword.

  As she dashed past the fallen Roman, she felt his grip on her ankle.

  Using her training and experience, she stepped into the grip. As she expected, it loosened, and she was able to kick her way free.

  But in so doing, she dropped the helmet.

  It hit the man in his injured side, and he cried out anew.

  Now she stood between the sword and the helmet, with enemies approaching. Quickly deciding she wouldn’t have time to put the helmet on but that the sword would serve her well, she bent over and picked it up, then pivoted around to put it in front of her protectively.

  Just in time, too.

  The next fighter was proving more of a challenge to the Pict.

  Jaelle moved over to the Pict’s non-sword-arm side and lent her assistance.

  Together, they downed the second man.

  And the third.

  And the fourth.

  The rest retreated.

  Jaelle picked up the helmet and once again cradled it in her left arm, keeping the sword ready in her right hand and watching the entrance as the Pict searched the men who were down.

  She spoke to his back as he did so, careful to stand clear. She had been lucky one time, but she didn’t want to tempt these men. They were down, but not out.

  “I’m Jaelle Penzag, by the way. I know you’re wondering where I’m from, and the best I can tell you is my people come from Israel. That is my true home, and we will all return there someday, when our messiah king comes. For now, we’ve been scattered to the four corners of the world. We’re everywhere. It’s nice to meet you. What are you looking for?”

  Seven

  Touched by Jaelle’s story of the woes of her people, Breth stood from his search of the invading soldiers and glanced around at them significantly.

  “We shouldn’t talk here, and anyway, the other men will come back to gather up the fallen. Follow me.”

  He hadn’t consciously made the decision to do so, but he was leading her toward home. She had saved his life, and so now he trusted her. It was that simple.

  They made their way out through the one opening in the trees and then went around the large thicket and back into the forest. This wasn’t the fastest way home, but it was the safest, under the cover of trees the whole way.

  Once he was confident they weren’t being followed by the barbarians, he stopped and removed from the bag the belt and scabbard he had acquired for her. And another leather bag for her helmet, which she seemed to be intent on keeping, she cradled it so tightly in her arm.

  “Here, these should help.”

  She stepped up to him and held out her hands to accept his gift, but then she looked up into his eyes and he was caught staring into hers for an amount of time that should have been awkward between strangers. But they no longer were strangers. Now they were fighting companions. Allies.

  Her eyes were dark and mysterious and utterly captivating. Seeing that she was looking at him in much the same regard, he crinkled his nose in a conspiratorial smile.

  She put the belt on and sheathed her new Roman sword, bagged the helmet and tucked the mouth of the bag under the belt, then looked up at him expectantly.

  Oh yeah.

  “I’m Breth, and my people have lived here for many generations. It was long ago we came here from over the sea. This is our home, and we are here. Your story makes me appreciate that more, so thank you for the reminder.”

  She slowly nodded once, with sadness in her eyes.

  It stirred him, the deep emotion she was showing…

  But they needed to get moving, so he gestured ahead of him and started walking before he spoke, pleased that she fell in easily by his side.

  “Why such sadness? At hearing this from me, why are you sadder than when you told me the plight of your own people?”

  With her eyes cast faraway over the highland mountains, she spoke more readily. It made him grin, seeing how he affected her.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Just some dirt in my eyes. Aren’t you cold without any clothes on? You could’ve taken the clothes off of those men back there and had something to wear instead of going about buck naked like that. You’ve got to be cold. I would be cold — not that I would go about naked, so don’t get any ideas.”

  He laughed.

  “Are you kidding? This is so liberating. Maybe you should try it.”

  She wrinkled her brow at him, but even so she was looking him over more openly now than she had before.

  “No, I’m not kidding. Not about me going naked, nor you. Why do you have to do that?”

  He reached out and caught a branch before it hit her in the face. He was quite enjoying this more tentative and less angry side of her. Still, he wasn’t ready to tell her the whole truth. If she could sidestep questions, then so could he.

  “Well, if I wore clothes, then you couldn’t admire the druids’ handiwork on me, now could you?”

  When she looked at him incredulously, he flexed his biceps and made the rabbit jump, then manipulated the muscles in his chest and made the water fall down the rapids.

  Her mouth hung open, and she looked up at him with wide eyes, pretty in the lacey shade of the trees.

  “Do they all move like that?”

  He smiled, quite pleased that she was impressed.

  “Aye, they do.” One by one, he demonstrated them all for her staring eyes ― becoming quite affected himself in the process.

  She blushed at this and turned away and started walking once more in the direction they had been headed, grabbing the branches and throwing them out of her way as she did so.

  Hm.

  He didn’t know too much about the Jewish people, but right now, he woul
d wager they didn’t use ritual body painting.

  He had her off balance, and he would press the advantage and get some answers. He quickly caught up with her and held his hands out to clear a path for her as he walked beside her.

  “What did all that stuff mean, what you said to me when you were angry? Who’s talking about my people that way? What makes them think our druids would scar the people with glass? That’s such an unnatural idea. The druids would never do that. Their power comes from the forces of nature.” Oops. Careful.

  But she gave no sign of noticing his slip of the tongue. Caught up in his question, she scrunched up her mouth and smiled at the same time, making her look sheepish, but also like she was holding a secret close. Yes, he thought so.

  “No one important said those things. And no one close enough to matter. These people are far, far away, and they sit at their ease, speculating on what’s going on in another part of the world altogether. You needn’t worry about them. They cannot affect you.”

  Yes, she was evading his question. He walked on in silence for a few moments, then tried a different tactic for his interrogation. A trick question that would give him information he wasn’t ostensibly asking for. If she agreed with him suddenly and eagerly, then he would know she was lying for sure.

  “How could you possibly have spoken to people so far away? You aren’t old enough to have traveled around the world — unless you were born over there and only just arrived here?”

  But her reaction surprised him.

  She showed an odd sort of confidence, pulling her chin in quickly while smiling with only one side of her mouth. It was most unfeminine. And most attractive because of this. Really, everything about her was fresh and new and … intriguing.

  “Oh no, I haven’t spoken to them. Are you kidding? No, I’m nobody important enough to have spoken to them. I’ve only read their … pictures.”

  Now he was the one hitting the branches out of their way abruptly, instead of just pushing them aside. She was being deliberately obtuse. She was hiding something. It made him fight his attraction to her, and a sense of disappointment settled on him. He still trusted her with his life, but his suspicion that she was here to spy on him was growing. He didn’t think she was spying for the invaders, but it had to be for someone. The Gaels, perhaps.

  “How did you travel so far to read their pictures?”

  She was quiet for a moment, perhaps thinking up a lie to tell him.

  “Yeah, that’s right. They say you make your pictures on large immovable stones. How do I explain this? Um … Some people draw their picture stories on small stone tablets that can be borrowed and taken great distances to be read by others. And some communicate by drawing on hides, or rolls of plant matter similar to hides.”

  He chewed on that while they found a place to cross a small stream, then jumped from rock to rock until he reached the far bank.

  Quite far ahead of her and calling back over his shoulder now that they were well away from the imposters, he led the way up a path hidden in the heather between the trees of the forest.

  “How do these people communicate with things that move from place to place? Carvings tell the story of the place where we carve them. They wouldn’t make sense anyplace else.”

  She finished jumping from the last stone and landed with a scattering of the small rocks on the stream bank, then ran up to him.

  “Well, their pictures tell different stories. My own people’s pictures tell the stories of all the things our God has done for us, and... Actually, now that I think about it, many people’s stories are mostly about what they believe in.”

  Now at the top of the riverbank, the path changed direction, following the stream’s gulley. He paused there, giving her a chance to catch up — and to confess.

  “And yet you say others have drawn my people’s stories. Why would they do this, and how do they know about us? And by the way, why do you have the clothing and helmet of the imposters?”

  She sighed as she picked her way over a haphazard rock pile in the path.

  “People all over the world know about you Picts because of the Romans who have traveled here. I’ve seen some of the pictures they’ve drawn of your naked bodies decorated with woad, so I knew to expect it. Even so, the reality is rather…” She looked away from him, down the path, blushing. “…disturbing. And as to your ‘by the way,’ my own clothing suffered an accident, so I grabbed what clothing was available.”

  This was both maddening and intriguing. She answered his questions satisfactorily, but she was holding back. She was tougher under the pressure of interrogation than he would have expected, given her kitten-like nature. But then again, she was also competent with a sword, something he never saw coming…

  As the path veered off to climb a hill, he was mulling this over and trying to decide what it meant when she asked two questions of her own.

  “Are we going to your home? And if so, what sort of place is it?”

  She was looking at him with such a combination of interest and uncertainty that he had to laugh.

  “You mean what sort of home could a painted savage possibly make for himself?”

  She tripped over a rock that wasn’t there, then closed her eyes and shook her head quickly. And when she spoke, she was stammering.

  “I – I – I didn’t say that.”

  He waited until she looked at him and inclined his head forward, raising his eyebrows at her, challenging her to tell him he was wrong. But he kept on leading her toward his home. She was here anyway, and it was better if he kept a potential spy where he knew what she was doing.

  “Nay, but you were thinking it. I can see it in your eyes. You find me unsophisticated. You imagine your people more advanced than mine.”

  She kicked the next rock she came to and sent it skittering along the pathway by the creekside before she took a heavy sigh and looked at him pleadingly.

  “That’s terrible of me, and I’m sorry. I really don’t know the first thing about you or your people, besides whatever I read in other people’s drawings. Roman drawings. They are obsessed, but they don’t have any respect for you. They call you savages, and I shouldn’t have bought into their opinions. I hope you will forgive me my prejudice.”

  Eight

  Jaelle wanted to disappear into a puff of smoke and fly away. Breth was right. She had been thinking him inferior to her, his people uncivilized and less advanced. And perhaps that was true of their societies as a whole, but that didn’t mean as individuals he or his people were any less knowledgeable or smart.

  Her heart beat erratically as she waited for his answer to her apology, giving him her most contrite look and aching inside with embarrassment and shame. And regret. And … loss?

  His face remained stern.

  “I thank you for your apology, and I will consider accepting it. To answer your question, we will be there before sunset, so you will soon see for yourself just how primitive our society is. My clan’s current home can be seen from the top of this hill we climb.”

  She lowered her eyebrows in a quizzical look.

  “Your current home?”

  He continued on leading without turning back this time, and lovely as it was to look at his back, she missed those blue pools of wisdom.

  “Aye, it’s my clan’s turn to man this broch. After a while, we will rotate to our next duty station, and the next clan will take a turn here.”

  On hearing the word broch, excitement stirred in Jaelle's chest. The ruined brochs were a big mystery in her time, only found in Scotland. No one knew who built them or why. And she was going to see one while people were living there.

  But he was so stern, her excitement didn't seem fitting right now. He was displeased with her, and for good reason. She needed to watch her tongue more. Not let it have its way.

  She raised her hands up over her head to avoid getting them scratched up by the bushes as she passed through a narrow space along the path.

  “I suppose that make
s sense,” was all she said, trying like mad not to say anything else awful. And then they crested this little hill and she felt her jaw drop and air rush into her mouth as she stared at the broch on top of the next hill.

  It must have been fifty feet wide and five stories tall.

  She felt startled because the men going about their business up and down the hill were all wearing breeks ― knee-length trousers. She expected men in Scotland to be wearing kilts, but she knew that was silly. She knew the Picts wouldn't wrap their plaid blankets around them as clothing until much later, when they missed this time of independence, before they joined forces with the Gaels. But it was odd to be in Scotland and not see kilts.

  She didn't miss them terribly much though.

  Because in the field between the two hills were warriors at fighter practice.

  And all the fighters were naked.

  Like Breth.

  Truly, it was difficult to not stare.

  Breth’s voice woke her up from her stupor.

  “Are you going to stand there all day, or are you coming?”

  Seeing that his face was still stern, she shook her head quickly to clear it.

  “Yeah, sorry. The brochs were in the drawings I saw, of course, but I never expected them to be so big. They just looked like piles of … well, they didn’t look so big, and I just had to … well…”

  At this he smiled the tiniest bit.

  But it wasn’t a friendly smile.

  Jaelle had the impulse to take out the helmet and go home this instant. Things were awkward between her and Breth now, not like before all the talking they’d done. She didn’t think he would hurt her, though. She had saved his life, after all.

  Anyway, how could she pass up the opportunity to see inside a standing broch, let alone one that was occupied?

  They walked the rest of the way in silence between the two of them, with pale children running about all around them and naked pale people practice-fighting on the mashed-down grass under the cloudy sky. None of these other fighters were decorated with blue clay.