With a final tug of the plainer of the two gowns over the linen slip, I’d transformed into a medieval woman. I looked down, straightening the pale yellow fabric. The color matched the ends of my hair curling over my breast. Cinched ties, laced across the bodice, compensated for a slightly large fit. The brown toes of my comfortable boots peeked out from the floor-length hem. I defiantly plucked up the provided slippers and deposited them next to the stack on the chest.
The clan plaid remained. I admired the fabric’s green, black, and gold pattern, remembering historical record. Kilts, or plaids as I liked to call them, did not exist prior to the sixteenth century. I grinned.
If only they knew what I’ve seen. Nothing like rewriting history books from firsthand knowledge. I shook my head. The odds of that happening, short of dragging their self-righteous, narrow-minded asses back in time for irrefutable evidence, hovered around nil, zilch . . . nada.
I wrapped the awkward fabric around me, starting at my waist. Material pooled at my feet when I finished, a glaring clue I’d done something wrong. I began again at the other end, which resulted in bunched pleats falling around my hips. After three failed attempts, I growled, tossing the unwieldy mess back on the bed. They want the clan plaid on me? They’ll have to put it there.
Muted sounds of clanging metal drifted up from the training field. I crossed to the tapestry on the wall, peeling back a corner of the heavy cloth, revealing the courtyard below where shirtless soldiers sparred in small groups. Beyond them, Iain and Duncan stepped out from the smithy.
Iain stopped. He tilted his face up, locking onto my gaze. Power emanated from that ruggedly handsome man, easily detected even from my vantage point. He smirked at me and continued walking toward his men on the field. I dropped the tapestry, annoyed at his never-ending cockiness.
Riled, I stormed from the room to learn about Iain’s castle and its people. With firm belief in the old adage knowledge is power, I intended to become more and more powerful by the minute.
I trotted downstairs, searching along the outer wall. A good distance from the sleeping chambers, I found the garderobe. The medieval bathroom’s design had two snug-fitting doors, one after the other, preventing odors from escaping into the hall. Two clerestory windows circulated the air and brought in light. On a high wooden table, folded linens and lavender sprigs sat alongside a water pitcher, soap rounds, and a small basin. Near the wall, a low wooden stool with a center hole, sat over an angled tunnel, likely leading to a moat or cesspool. My spirits lifted. A simple room gave me one less worry amid a thousand lost conveniences.
Once I’d taken care of business, I backtracked. My steps slowed as the castle’s uniqueness settled into my awakening brain. This was not Brodie Castle, at least not the Brodie Castle in modern-day Scotland; it wouldn’t be built for another three hundred years. Architectural details I’d witnessed in Iain’s castle raced through my mind: the massive, curved corner towers; the size and number of windows . . . and the gigantic groin-vault ceiling in the great hall. My pulse quickened with my pace as I rushed back to study the anomaly.
Standing under the impressive design yielded no further explanation of its bizarre existence. With my neck craned back, I stared in open-mouthed disbelief at an engineering impossibility. Graceful, perfect curves crossed the ceiling from the room’s four corners, the arching gray stones peaking in the center where the bowed panels joined together. Churches and castles throughout Europe and Scotland had the popular method of construction—the Roman design eliminated a need for substantial buttressing—but to the scale above me in thirteenth-century Scotland?
My attention jerked down, as two men hustled by carrying sacks over their shoulders. I discreetly followed them to the larder, rubbing a neck cramped from excessive ceiling watching. They deposited their load and exited the way they came, passing me without a glance. Fairly certain I hadn’t gone invisible, I thought it strange no one questioned my presence.
“Knowledge is power. Knowledge is power . . .” My murmured chant spurred me on.
Toward the heart of the keep, I discovered a sizable room. Hundreds of rolled parchments were stacked on their sides in floor-to-ceiling built-in shelving. On a large, carved oak table positioned in the center of the room, obsidian paperweights held down the corners of a large piece of vellum. The velvet page resembled a topographical map, with its detailed ink drawings and notations, but had only been partially completed—the entire right side of the soft, transparent paper remained a blank canvas.
I glanced up from the geographical work of art and skirted the desk, eagerly scanning the room. The treasure trove I stood within had to hold vital clues about the castle and surrounding lands.
Suddenly, I froze. Instant shock traveled so deep, my lungs seized until I gasped for air. The wall. I swallowed hard, blinking moisture into dry, wide eyes as I approached the marvel before me. The lone uncovered wall held an unbelievable—even for newly open-minded me—oddity.
Closer analysis revealed the phenomenon wasn’t on the wall—it was the wall. Spanning an incredible twenty feet stretched the largest, most unusual map I’d ever seen. The size alone amazed me. That the huge wall was crafted of a stone resembling the metal of my time-travel box . . . floored me. I suspended a shaking hand over sparkling lights embedded into the surface. The illuminated markings pulsed, giving the wonder beneath my fingertips the heartbeat of life.
A tentative touch of the cool surface shocked my finger. The lights surged brighter, and the stone warmed, its lights glimmering blue. A familiar energy flowed into me. Frightened, I yanked my hand back. Recognizing kinship to a wall—no matter how cool—fell under the category of mildly insane, never mind my begrudging acceptance of the fact I’d time traveled.
Information overload short-circuited my brain. My vision narrowed, rainbow dots fuzzing the fringes of my eyesight no matter how many times I blinked. Instinct prevailed, and I fled. With guarded attention on the virtually sentient wall, I backed through the door, stumbled into the dark hall, and doubled over, bracing my hands on my thighs, sucking in deep breaths.
In my entire life, I’d never run from anything, but in one landmark day I’d done so twice. An answer-finding expedition had only unearthed alarming questions, and I stuffed every last one into an open-at-a-later-date compartment in the far reaches of my mind. Reality. Severe dose. Now.
In critical need of fresh air and human contact, I wrenched open the heavy front door, happily ditching my earlier vow of self-sufficiency. The solid earth under my feet, a cool breeze swirling around, and the vastness of the blue sky grounded me instantly. I exhaled a calming breath.
A coral sun dipped into the horizon, the day winding to its end. Soldiers, finished with their sparring, talked among themselves in small groups, a few heading down toward the village.
Iain, Robert, and Duncan remained on the field with a group of men. I started toward them, but a cheerful cry near the cottages stole my attention. A young woman jumped into the arms of a returning soldier. He embraced her, spinning them in a circle. Their rapt expressions, existing only for the other, expressed their love. Captivated by the romantic scene, I slowed my steps.
A jarring impact into something solid startled me. I tumbled to the ground in a heap of tangled arms and legs with a young woman. We both erupted into laughter.