When Fate Dictates (32 page)

“No, of course not, I thought you might be
interested, seeing as you seem to be such an expert on 17th century
Scottish history.”

“This is a very fine dirk,” he commented,
running his fingers lightly over the polished mountain ash handle,
“Tell me Rose, where did your fiancé say he had found it?”

“Oh, I don’t think he mentioned it.”

“Very convenient,” Simon growled under his
breath.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you?” she said.

“I said my compliments to your fiancé on his
acquisition. I am sure he fought hard for its possession.”

“Yes, he is a very resourceful man, is Angus.
We are to be married you know?”

“Aye, well, I rather guessed that when you
referred to him as your fiancé.”

“Oh, yes, sorry, silly me. We haven’t got the
rings yet. Angus says he is working on acquiring the perfect one
for me and that he doesn’t want to rush it.”

“And what would the perfect ring be for a
lass as fine as you?” Simon asked.

“Well, Angus has talked of a ring he is
working on buying and I think it might be the one he will give me,
but don’t mention it to anyone in case I am wrong. It is from 17th
century Scotland and was made from a simple band of silver with a
tiny chip of gray slate from the Ballachulish mines. He said the
ring was made just after the Glencoe massacre. Perhaps you have
heard of it?”

I moved my hands behind my back and slid the
tiny silver band from my finger, sliding it discretely into the
pocket of my skirt. A family pushed past me and hustled their way
toward the counter and I tightened my fist protectively around the
band in my pocket.

“Are you alright, Corran?” Rose asked, moving
the dirk off the counter as a family approached.

“Aye, I am fine, thank you Rose. Just a bit
of a headache, nothing to worry about.”

“I have some painkillers in my bag. I’ll just
serve these people and then I’ll get them for you.”

Not having the slightest idea what she was on
about, I nodded my thanks, forcing a smile onto my lips.

“Come,” Simon whispered, taking my hand and
leading me through the main entrance room and into the space that
was once our home.

“He’s here, Simon,” I said quietly.

“I know, I heard what she said, Corran.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, realizing that was a
stupid comment. “What are we going to do?”

His long black curls hung heavily around his
face, his eyes veiled. “Well I am not running from him again. We
will find out from Rose when he will be here next and while he is
away I will learn all I need to know to fight him in this
world.”

“Simon, please can we just figure out how to
go home?” I pleaded.

“No, I told you Corran. I will not run from
him.”

“So we just stay here and talk nicely to
people about our world, pretending that we are part of theirs.”

“Aye, that’s a good way of putting it,
Corran. We can learn as much from these people as they can from us,
oh, and don’t let me forget to pick up my dirk before we leave here
this afternoon.”

I stared at him, mouth open in shock. “You
can’t take it back, Simon. Rose thinks it’s hers now.”

“Well it’s not hers. It belongs to me, always
has, always will.”

I shook my head in despair. “Why look for
trouble, Simon. We are in enough of it already. If Rose finds out
you have taken the dirk, then we will both lose our jobs and we
will have no income and goodness knows what the law in these times
will do to you. Why risk it?”

“Because that dirk belongs to me, not Rose,
and certainly not Angus. Now drop the matter and let’s get upstairs
and start telling tales of our world.”

Shortly after starting work, Rose appeared
through the hole in the floor clutching a small card. “Here,
Corran, I have a tablet for you. I assume you are okay with
swallowing tablets?”

I nodded, having not the slightest idea what
a tablet was. “Err, yes. Thank you, Rose.”

“Here, this should help your headache,” she
said. The card crackled as she bent it, rather like a crisp autumn
leaf when you stand on it, but the sound was louder. A small white
disk dropped into her hand. She held it out to me as I stared at it
in her palm. “Go on, Corran, these are good, really they are. I
take far too many of them but for headaches they work every
time.”

“Thank you, Rose,” I said, taking the disk
from her. From her conversation I gathered that it ought to be
swallowed, so proceeded to lift my hand to my mouth.

“No, wait,” she said. My hand froze in
mid-air.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, confused.

“Go down to the ladies and get some water. I
don’t know about you but I find swallowing tablets dry an awful
experience.”

So I made my way down the stairs to the door
marked ‘Ladies’, leaving Simon and Rose alone in the space that had
been our bedroom. I knew it was foolish to be jealous and
possessive but still, I could not help a slight hesitation at the
thought of him being in that room with another woman, alone.

On my return to the room, Rose had left and
Simon was fully engaged in conversation with a loud and what I
considered to be rather aggressive gentleman. It seemed they were
having some detailed and perhaps slightly heated discussion about
pistols, so I decided to avoid the conversation completely and
wandered off to find someone who may be interested in discussing
life in my world. It was really quite a boring experience, talking
to people for hours on end about a world they could never hope to
fully understand. But then I reasoned that we were getting paid to
do it and without that pay we would doubtless be in even more
trouble than we already were. I guessed we were actually quite
lucky to have found the jobs and shuddered at the thought of what
our first night in this new world would have been like had we not
been paid for a day’s work yesterday.

“You stink.” I turned around to see a child
of about six or seven, staring at me.

“Well that wasn’t very polite,” I said
sternly, narrowing my eyebrows at him. “Hasn’t your mother taught
you any manners?”

“I am so sorry,” said a woman, rushing toward
the boy, “Now apologize to the lady, Ethan,” she shouted, scowling
down at him.

“I won’t, because she does stink,” spat the
child.

“Please forgive my son. He has the manners of
a brat,” she said, turning to me.

I smiled across at her. “It’s alright, I’m
not offended. These clothes are not as clean as yours. It’s the
nature of the job, you know. People didn’t have the access to water
that you do...”

That afternoon, as we left the Hall, I
decided that the time had come to join Simon in his quest to
assimilate myself into the world in which we had found ourselves.
Opening my crisp white pouch, which I had been told was called an
envelope; I dragged Simon in search of clothing shops for the pair
of us.

“So you are going to willingly wear men’s
trousers then?” Simon smirked.

“Aye, if that is what I have to do to look
like the rest of the people in this world, then yes.”

“Well, what about these?” he said holding up
a thin strip of lace.

“What is it?” I asked, squinting to try and
fathom its use.

He pointed toward a statue of a woman in the
corner of the shop. “Oh, it’s an undergarment,” I said, my cheeks
reddening with embarrassment. “I have never seen undergarments worn
there before.”

The shopping trip had been as successful as
one could expect, given that we had no idea what we were doing. I
had bought two pairs of black men’s trousers, some undergarments,
called knickers and a bra, a pale pink and blue top that had tiny
white buttons the length of the top, and a jacket.

Simon had also bought two pairs of dark blue
trousers, made from a material called denim, two shirts, which the
lady at the counter had called sweatshirts and some undergarments
called boxers. He had refused to buy a jacket, saying, ‘that the
air was not cold enough for it’.

“How do your new clothes feel?” he asked as
we headed back into the city.

“If you must know, it’s uncomfortable,” I
said, casting him a sideways glance.

“Well I think you look sexy.”

“Mmm, I feel naked. The shirt is so thin, I
am sure people can see straight through it.”

He laughed. “Aye, Corran, they can, but then
you said you wanted to look like everyone else in this world and to
my eyes the clothes the lasses wear leave very little to the
imagination.”

“Well it’s alright for you,” I barked. “You
still get to wear trousers and shirts; I bet you would feel just as
stupid as I do if you suddenly had to start wearing gowns.”

“Aye, wee, Corran, you are not wrong
there.”

Night had fallen as we headed toward
Stonegate, but the city lights shone so brightly that it would have
been easy to believe the sun was still out. The noise of the
streets had changed from the aggressive pushy world of people
making a living to one of expectant excitement of those seeking an
evening of fun. We arrived at the ‘Old Starre Inne’ and I returned
to the same table as I had the day before. Simon went off in search
of his ale and hopefully a glass of wine for me. We had spent
heavily on the clothes. Having counted what money we had left, we
decided to settle for a light meal and drink in the city, instead
of the more expensive option of a meal in the place we were
staying.

“Your wine,” he said, placing the tall
bulbous glass on the table in front of me.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he replied, pulling something
from his pocket.

I gasped in horror as he placed it on the
table. “Oh, Simon, why?” I whispered, fearful of being over heard,
“Put it away, before someone sees it.”

He grinned across the table at me. “I have
nothing to hide, lass. I have only reclaimed what was rightfully
mine.”

“Aye, but how can you prove that? When Rose
finds out she will know it was you that took it.”

“How, Corran? How can she possibly know it
was me? There are people in and out of that building all day long
and it’s not exactly like she made any great effort to hide
it.”

“But I don’t think she showed it to anyone
but us,” I argued.

“That doesn’t mean that no one else knew it
was there, now does it?”

I sighed heavily in desperation. “Please,
Simon, put it back. It’s just not worth it.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked across the
table at me.

“To you maybe, but my blood father gave this
to me when I turned twelve. It’s worth it to me, Corran.”

“Simon, did you ask Rose when Angus is due
back?”

“Aye, I did, but she has no real idea. She
said he is usually gone for months on end, so I don’t expect him
back anytime soon.”

“That is a good thing then?” I said, more in
question than statement.

“Aye, that is a good thing, because I have
much to learn before he gets back. Make no mistake, Corran, I
intend to take the man this time.”

“If we have months before he comes back,
doesn’t that mean that we might have enough time to figure out how
to get back to our own world?”

“Perhaps, lass, but even if I do figure it
out, I have no intention of leaving this place until Angus is
dead.”

As I had expected, it did not take Rose long
to discover the missing dirk and the following morning when we
arrived for work she took us both to the counter and asked us
plainly if we had any idea where it was.

“No, sorry, Rose, I have not seen your dirk
since you showed it to us yesterday. What did you do with it after
you showed us?” Simon asked.

I shot him a look of disgust as he continued
to lead the poor girl in a merry dance around possible scenarios of
where the missing dirk could be. He had been right those many years
ago, when he had told me that to survive, he would lie, cheat and
gamble. To my mind he was doing all three right now and as much as
I hated to admit it, he was damn good at them. Sadly for Rose,
though, his skills only took her further from the truth, until
eventually he had her believing that she had misplaced the weapon
herself. Gently consoling her he even managed to help her in the
concoction of a story she could tell Angus in explanation of the
whereabouts of the missing gift.

******

Two months past and still there was no sign
of Angus in the city and I had started to wonder if he was ever
going to return.

“I don’t suppose he could be dead, in our
time?” I whispered.

Simon raised his head from the book on the
table, narrowing his eyes in consideration of my comment.

“Aye, it is possible, I suppose, but
unlikely, I think.”

A pompous-looking woman, with glasses propped
on the end of her nose, frowned disapprovingly at us.

“I think we should whisper,” I said, quietly,
“I don’t think we are allowed to talk in here.”

“I’m okay with that,” he said, returning his
attention to the book on the table in front of him. Since he
discovered we could read books for free at the local library he'd
insisted we both spend as much of our free time as we could
researching what we'd missed in the last few hundred years.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“I thought you just suggested we should not
talk?” he said, raising his head to meet my eyes.

“Sorry, I just want to know what you are
looking at.”

“Then come and sit next to me,” he growled,
shifting his eyes back to the book.

I cast my eyes over the page he was reading.
‘The Magic of the Clan Campbell Crystal’ was clearly visible in
bold black letters. A picture of a tiny oval crystal set in silver
decorated the far right of the paper. I scanned my eyes over the
smaller writing.

“According to this, the crystal only has the
power to bring soldiers safely home from battle.”