The Guardian by Diana Knightley
Seventy-four - Kaitlyn
We moved farther into the shade while we waited for the trucks, while the kids were running in the sand. Sophie huddled against James, whimpering because of the brightness and the loudness. I said, “Sophie, welcome to the twenty-first century.”
She turned her head to look at me with tearful eyes. “What?”
“The twenty-first century, this is the year 2023.”
She looked up at James. “Tis true?”
He said, “Yep, I just said it like fifteen times.”
She sobbed, “I can barely hear ye over the verra loud roar, can ye hear it, tis as if I can hear my heartbeat.”
Beaty said, “Och, I remember it. Tis a terrible thing. Twill pass in a few months.”
She pulled her earlobes and said, “Och nae, so long? I daena ken if I can live with it.”
Magnus said, “What Madame Beaty means is twill pass and ye winna remember it, but for now twill be difficult. What they haena mentioned yet, ye will hae such good food, twill make ye nae mind it so much.”
The trucks pulled up at the edge of the sand and we all groaned and stood and began dragging the few bags and weapons to the back of Quentin’s truck and tossing them in. James carried Sophie’s telescope and Magnus had gathered all the vessels and had them slung in a bag over his shoulder.
I asked, “Did you go inside our house?”
Zach said, “Nope, we should all do it together.” We piled into the trucks, sitting on laps and barely fitting as there were fourteen of us and twelve seats, thankfully we only had to go about two miles on empty roads.
* * *
We drove up to the house.
I said, “I never saw anything so beautiful, have you?”
Everyone agreed, and Fraoch said, “Tis a wonderful thing tae be back home.”
Hayley teased, “Wonderful that a guy like you thinks of Florida as home.”
“Tis a castle, and inna it braw?”
We climbed out of the trucks and milled about on the driveway.
James said, “Sophie, this is our house.” Then he sheepishly corrected himself, “I mean, I have another house, but...”
Magnus joked, “Ye canna go tae it, Master Cook, how will we sleep if ye arna under the same roof? I would lay awake wonderin’ how ye were survivin’ without us.”
James laughed. “Good, I’m glad you feel that way, the guest room here is pretty small, but I think that will be preferable for Sophie than being all by ourselves.”
Zach grabbed the extra keys from the garage and went to the front door and unlocked it, “Ready to see the place?”
We cheered as he opened the door.
* * *
The house was dark and dusty and cockroaches scurried across the floor.
“Ugh,” said Emma, “that’s going to take some cleaning.”
I said, “I’m putting my foot down — we’ve been through an ordeal, and this requires a cleaning service. Not me and you, we need a crew.”
She said, “Hear hear.”
“So what do you think of our house?” I asked Sophie. She was open-mouthed at the room and then we went through to the kitchen, living room, and Magnus strode up to the sliding doors, unlocked them, and opened them wide.
He turned to us, his smile spread across his face. “Smell it wee’uns? Tis Florida!”
Ben and Archie ran around looking for their toys while Isla toddled after them pretending she knew what they were talking about.
I sat down in my favorite chair. “I forgot how amazing these chairs are! So much more comfortable than the past, not as luxurious as the chairs in our palace in Riaghalbane, but I can kick my shoes off.” I sighed. “I can curl up in this chair.” Magnus lowered himself in front of me on the floor leaning against my shins. Our friends sat on the couches and chairs around the room.
Magnus said, “Master James, tell us the tale of rescuing Madame Sophie.”
James had his arm wide on the back of the couch, Sophie leaning against his chest. He said, “First, Sophie needs to tell us what happened.”
Magnus said, “Och, ye daena even ken?”
Quentin said, “The whole rescue took about thirty minutes. It was done at top speed.”
James grinned broadly, “Haven’t had the chance to ask.”
Sophie raised her head from his chest. “I was helpin’ the bairns from the castle. Twas so frightenin’ but then I remembered I needed tae get m’telescope, tis the most precious thing I own, and I dinna want tae leave it. I am so sorry, Queen Kaitlyn, that I left the bairns tae go back.”
“First, I am Katie or Kaitlyn here, not a queen. Please don’t stand on ceremony. Also, you know what, thank you, don’t be ashamed. You helped get the bairns to safety, but you love your telescope and you believed it to be irreplaceable.”
“Tis! Tis irreplaceable.”
I said, “Exactly, I understand that feeling. I was frantic once when my wedding ring was lost in the past.” I looked down at the simple garnet stone and hugged it to my chest. “So you ran to get the telescope and what next?”
“I was closin’ it up tae carry and the storm was terrifyin’ and suddenly I was grabbed around m’waist, I dinna ken who. The pain was terrible! Och, it ached me all over. I awoke at Dunscaith Castle.”
I shook my head sadly, “That is the literal worst thing in the world to have happen. To time jump by surprise? To end up in a strange time and place? I have the shivers just thinking about it.”
Everyone in the room nodded and said, “Aye,” or, “Yep.”
She asked, “Am I surely in a new time here?”
James said, “Yeah, here it’s 2023, when we were in Kilchurn it was 1707, and at Dunscaith it was the year 1589.”
Her head dropped back on his arm. “I daena understand it.”
Beaty said, “Ye canna understand it. Ye just hae tae roll with it and enjoy the food and the clothes and the music and the art and the...”
Quentin grinned and kissed her forehead, “That's m’girl.”
James said, “So what happened next?”
Her voice was very small. “I was surrounded by people I dinna ken. There was a man there, he called himself Ormr, he was the lord of the castle.”
“Is that the man I saw?” Asked James.
“Aye, he is verra frightening. He...” Tears streamed down her cheeks. She covered her face.
James pulled her hand away, “Tell me.”
She shook her head.
James said, “You can’t keep it from me, whatever it is, you have to tell me. There aren’t secrets between us.”
She said, “You will hate me, I am afraid tae tell ye.”
Zach stood up and quietly left the room. In the kitchen I heard him adding ice cubes to glasses and pouring water.
We were all looking away trying to give the sobbing Sophie some time to recover to finish the story. I kissed Magnus’s head and absentmindedly played with a curl by the side of his neck.
James said, “This is going to sound mean, but I order you to tell me.”
I said, “James!”
“What? I do. I order her. She is crying. She won’t tell me why. I order her to.”
Sophie was hitch-sobbing, like Isla would when she was really worked up. Emma crouch-walked over to the end table, passed her a box of Kleenex, and pantomimed drawing one and wiping her nose.
It was enough of a distraction that it seemed to calm Sophie. She asked, “Ye really order me tae, I canna keep it inside?”
“No, you have to tell me.”
“Ormr forced me tae marry a man named Domnall. Och, I hae sinned afore God, and ye will forsake me!” Her face went into the tissue.
James looked shocked. “What the hell? How long were you there?”
“I daena ken, I was married tae him and was made tae live with him.” She clung to his shirt. “Please forgive me, James, I ken twas sinful but—”
James said, “So he bedded you? He forced himself on you?”
She nodded.
James jumped up and began pacing the room. “Fucking-A, I’m going to kill him. I saw his face, his smug ass face when I ran by him — right by him, I’ll add. I invaded his castle all by myself, fucking loser.”
He looked at Magnus. “Can I go back? Can I go back in a rampage and murder him?”
Magnus said, “We will need tae discuss all of this. Were ye by yourself when ye invaded? Where were the others?”
James said, “Quentin was coming up with a plan and I got tired of listening.”
Quentin said, “It was just like back in the day when you were quarterbacking, remember what Coach used to say? ‘Slow down and make sure everyone knows the play,’ but no, you used to run off all halfcocked and if you didn’t have someone there to tell you to slow your arse down, you would lose the game for us.”
James said, “I repeat, I fucking stormed a castle all by myself, and got Sophie back.”
“Yeah, and you almost died — the ultimate losing of the game.”
“Well I accomplished what I needed to do, but—”
He shook his head at Sophie.
She wailed, “I couldna stop him!” She sobbed into her hands.
Beaty jumped from her chair to take the kids off to march around into the other rooms.
Sophie said, “You winna want me anymore, ye will send me away! I canna bear it, James, I love ye! Please daena do it!”
He shook his head. “Dammit, I was too late, Magnus. Can I go back? What if I loop earlier, would I get there before it happened?”
Hayley said, “James!”
“What? I wanted to protect her before she got married off to some other dude, before she — did he beat you? Look!” He charged toward her and pushed back her hair to show us a faint bruise on her cheek. “Did he do that to you?”
She nodded.
“Fuck!”
Magnus, full of practicalities, said, “Even if ye wanted tae, Master James, ye canna loop upon us all like that. Ye hae rescued her, tis done. Ye ought tae sit down. Ye are frightening her.”
Hayley said, “Look, James, she’s sobbing. You better tell her that it’s okay, right now, or I am going to take you out back and kick your ass.”
James returned to the seat beside her, “Sophie, this is all okay. I’m sorry. It's just a difficult situation, and I am only asking questions about what I can do, what I should do to help you. It drives me crazy to think of you being hurt by one of those guys. I want to stop it, that’s all. I’m not going to leave you. I’m not going to send you away. How would I leave you? You’re the most priceless thing in my life. I’d go back for you. I did, as a matter of fact, I ran back. I took the stairs two at a time, racing to get to you. I knew you had gone back for the telescope, and right as I got to the parapet, the storm was so bad I couldn’t see anything but a glimpse of you as you disappeared.”
Hayley said, “Sophie, this is awful what happened to you, but no one here is going to hold any of that against you. You were kidnapped, it’s okay.”
I said, “And the marriage thing, it happened a hundred years and some change before your marriage to James, longer than a lifetime, and now we’re hundreds of years beyond that. Those men are long dead. He can’t hurt you, and you are not married to him any longer,”
She nodded quietly.
Then she said, “I believe they were time travelers though, they might come here, might they not?”
Magnus said, “They might, but they would hae tae find us first, and we hae a monitor tae protect us.”
She said, “I met the woman, Agnie MacLeod, she is Domnall and Ormr’s mother. She wanted me tae give her information tae help her against Magnus.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She said she wanted tae conquer King Magnus and his family. She said ye deserved it.”
“Och.”
I joked, “Well great, Lady Mairead was right, she is horrible. I hate it when Lady Mairead is right.”
Magnus put a hand onto his shoulder to hold mine. He asked her, “Was there anythin’ ye told them that might be used against us?”
She turned a tear-stained face Magnus’s way. “Nae, never. This is m’family. Are we truly in a different century? Truly? And they winna be able tae find me? I am in nae danger?”
Magnus said, “Aye, ye are livin’ long past yer life, well past where ye were. Tis a difficult thing tae understand, I pray on it all the time. But still, tis true.”
She nodded.
Quentin said, “So James, what did you do? How the hell did you invade a castle all by yourself?”
“First, I just rode up and pretended to not speak the language, which was true. They surrounded me, and forced me into the castle, disarmed my sword, of course, and then they took one gun, with a fingerprint sensor — they tried to get it to work, aiming it at each other, being total idiots. Then these two big ass dudes walked up.”
Sophie said, “Aye, twas them: Ormr, the lord of the castle, and the other man who was my... Domnall.”
James said, ”Domnall is a stupid name.”
She chuckled, it was the first sign that she might not be devastated.
“And I saw you, across the courtyard, near the stairs — I yelled, ‘get your telescope!’ And when everyone turned to see who I was yelling at, I drew two of my handguns and started firing.”
“How many men?”
“Like five. Others were yelling and getting out of my way. I made it to the staircase and started running up, caught up to Sophie, picked her up, threw her over my shoulder, and just kept running. But I could shoot down at them, they couldn’t protect themselves. It was way more easy than I thought.”
Quentin said, “Easy — was you shooting, while running up a staircase — was it circular?”
“Yep, and you know, built crappy like they do.”
“Easy — with Sophie over your shoulder?”
He laughed. “Yeah, then I put Sophie down, plucked that drone out of the sky, ripped through the duct tape, while firing, twisted that vessel, told Sophie to hold on and — easy.”
Quentin shook his head. “Well, I am impressed.”
Magnus said, “Aye,” and raised his glass. We all raised our glasses.
Magnus said, “Tae Master James, and the rescue of Sophie, bringin’ her tae the New World. We welcome ye tae our home. Slainte!”
“Thank ye, King Magnus and Queen Kaitlyn, tis a relief tae be here and safe.” She tucked back in under James’s arm. “I am verra hungry.”