A Rip in the Veil (7 page)

He chewed the inside of his cheek, considering how much to tell her.

“I’m for the Commonwealth,” he said. “I don’t hold with kings and the like, but believe all men to be equal in the eyes of our Lord.”

“Oh my, a Founding Father.”

“A what?”

“Never mind,” she said, waving for him to continue.

He looked up at the darkening August sky and sighed. “In this specific case I was tried for treason against the Commonwealth, for supporting the king and partaking in the Glencairn rising. I did no such thing, but Luke did, and yet he stood in the witness stand, a solemn look on his face as he damned me to hell with his detailed descriptions of what I’d done. They called me a spy, a turncoat, and I was none of those, for I have only ever fought for the one side, the side of free men ranged against a despot king.”

“But…” she gasped. “How could he do that to you? First your wife, then your freedom; this Luke character needs someone to give him a big fat kick up his arse!”

“Oh, aye,” Matthew said. “I wouldn’t mind doing it myself – or worse.”

“And anyway, why did they believe him? You wouldn’t have told him about your treasonous activities, would you? Not unless he was on your side.”

“They believed him because they wanted to. And I was sentenced to five years in gaol because the judges decided to be lenient and not hang me – on account of my years in the army.” And thanks to wee Simon, his lawyer and brother-in-law, his manor was still his, safe from Luke’s grasping hands.

She stared at him. “And you escaped after three, which makes you a fugitive, an outlaw.”

Matthew shrugged and looked away, disturbed by her blunt statement. “I’ll be safe, here in Scotland.”

“How? Scotland’s part of the Commonwealth too. Didn’t Cromwell make it a Protectorate, under him?”

”Aye, but he’s ailing, we heard it in prison, how he’s been ill with the ague most summer.” He stared off at nothing for a while. “There’s no one to replace him. He’s a great man, is Oliver Cromwell, but men that are strong leaders cull out their potential successors as they go. And that son of his…no, he won’t last, and the Protectorate will be no more.”

“Still,” she said, “wouldn’t it have been better to sit through two more years and then be truly free?”

He looked at her for a long time. “You’ve never been in gaol, I take.”

No, she agreed, she hadn’t, and she wasn’t planning on going there either.

“Nor was I.” He sighed and sat up straighter, extending his arms to her. Round both wrists ran a bracelet of chafed, irritated skin, half-healed gashes that had abscessed and been lanced, leaving ugly pox-like scars behind.

“Imagine doing everything with a weight of iron between your hands and down your legs. When you turn in your sleep, you wake of the chains, when you want to scratch your head you have to raise both hands, because otherwise you won’t be able to reach. And with every movement you make, the chains clink.”

She encircled his wrists, her thumbs caressing the soft inner skin. It made his blood thud and he retook his hands.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“For what?” he said with a faint smile. “Don’t mind me. I’m not much used to company.” Especially not that of an attractive woman with a gentle touch. “It’s very lonesome, you know, being in prison.” His eyes fixed on the moon that hung like a golden cheese just above the horizon. Lonely in the midst of so many people, but that was how it was, a constant shrieking solitude. All of them, every single one of his companions, as lonely as he was, staring up at the minute patch of sky they could see through the ventilation hole, dreaming themselves elsewhere – anywhere but where they were.

It had been pure chance, him being in the yard when the men dead from the fever were to be carted away for burial. It hadn’t been a conscious decision; he’d just lain himself flat in the bottom of the cart, gritting his teeth at the proximity of all those dead bodies, a silent prayer ringing round his head as the cart creaked to a stop for a final inspection before starting up again.

“Euuw! You hid under the corpses?”

“As far down as I could get, I didn’t want to be prodded by a sword, did I?”

The drover had squeaked with fear, eyes bulging with incredulity, when Matthew rose to his knees a few miles down the road.

“I stole his clothes.” And his horse, riding the broken backed nag as hard as he could all that night. “He went lame on me, so I left him in on a village green and continued on foot, stealing what I could.”

“And now I’m almost home,” he finished. What home? A house, aye, and his lands, but no wife, no son, and towards his only brother a deep and burning hate. Alex leaned forward, one warm hand coming up to cup his cheek.

“I’m glad for you, that you’ll soon be home. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you’ll live in peace there.” She sounded very forlorn.

“Thank you,” he smiled, and covered her hand with his own.

She shifted on the ground and swore when her burnt foot scraped across the grass.

“You won’t walk on it for some days,” he said, peering at the damaged skin. It was swollen and hot to the touch, and his gentle probing made her flinch. “We’ll have to wait until you can put weight on it.” He frowned at that; those ruffians might well decide to return, as might the soldiers. He’d move their camp on the morrow.

“You don’t have to stay,” she said. “I don’t want you to be caught. I’ll be fine on my own.”

He snorted at this total untruth, shaking his head. “I can’t leave you alone, lass. We’ll wait until you can move. Mayhap I can see you on your way.”

She bit down on her lower lip. “I don’t think you can, I don’t think I have anywhere to go. My home is lost to me.”

He considered various reasons for this; mayhap she’d dishonoured her family, or was running from an abusive husband. Or maybe she was from somewhere far away, and had set out for new lands. She was not from here, of that he was certain, letting his eyes travel down those blue-clad legs. She noticed, and gave him a tight smile.

“Jeans; everyone wears them where I come from.”

“Djeens,” he repeated, “well, you must be from very far away.”

“You could say that again,” she mumbled, hunching together.

*

With a little sigh, their fire collapsed into a heap of smouldering embers, and for some moments Matthew busied himself with adding some more fuel to it.

“So,” he said once the fire had recovered from its near death experience. “Your turn.”

Alex chewed at her lower lip, wondering how to explain. “I was born in Seville, Spain.” She looked at him and decided to tell him in one fell swoop. “In August, 1976.”

He blinked. “What?”

“You heard me, 1976.” Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have told him quite so abruptly because if his mouth fell anymore open, she’d not only fit an apple but a whole melon into it. She could totally sympathise with his reaction. She cleared her throat, fiddled with a loose button on her shirt. He shifted on his seat, and when she peeked at him he was staring at her. She gave him a tentative smile, and to her relief he smiled back – albeit a rather weak smile.

“What day in August?” he said, surprising her. She counted days in her head. Today was the eleventh of August, and in thirteen days she’d be twenty-six. Probably more or less ancient in these times, she shuddered.

“The twenty-fourth, but that’s okay, I don’t expect a cake and gifts.”

He laughed, a soft sound, and moved to sit a bit closer, his eyes intent on her face.

“How?”

Well, at least he was still sitting beside her, not running away from her in panic – that had to be a good sign, right?

“I have no idea.” She told him of the car and the thunderstorm, of the hole that opened below her. He gawked at her.

“But…” he began, closed his mouth and exhaled before trying again. “But, no, you can’t do that! It’s impossible!” He swallowed. “Unless…” he broke off.

“Unless what? You think I’m some sort of witch?”

“Are you?” He averted his eyes, and she could swear he was praying under his breath.

“Of course not! And this is just as unbelievable to me as it is to you, okay?” She hugged her legs hard, looked at him from under a curtain of hair. “I keep on hoping it’s some sort of dream, so will you please pinch me hard enough to make me wake up?” He did, and she yelped, glaring at him. “Ow! I already knew I was awake – unfortunately.”

Matthew took a deep breath, took two, his eyes never leaving hers.

“I’m telling you the truth, okay? Who would make something like that up? God’s idea of a joke, right?” She laughed shakily, and to her relief he joined in, before leaning towards her, eyes alight with curiosity.

“Tell me then, what’s it like, there in the future?”

So Alex did, spending the coming half-hour describing a life that made him at times gape and just as often laugh, insisting she had to be pulling his leg.

“No plague?” he asked, impressed.

“No,” she said, “and people don’t die of the measles.”

Matthew threw her a sharp look. “And him? The man by the spring? Is he from your time as well?”

“Obviously,” she muttered. “What will they do to him?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t speak Scots, did he, and his clothes…” He looked at her jeans.

“I should have helped him.” Not that she’d really wanted to, not after his comments regarding Italy.

“How? One lass against a troop of soldiers? And he didn’t seem to care much for you, had I not been there, I think he would have hurt you – badly.”

“Probably.” Alex suppressed a tremor or two.

“Why?”

“I have no idea.” Which was, after all, the truth.

“But he said, about Italy and—”

“Look; I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” She stared him down, eyes never leaving his until he shrugged and went to find some more wood.

*

“Matthew?” Alex got to her feet. “Is that you?” She scanned the outer rim of their weak circle of light, certain she’d heard something. There; a shape grew out of the slope, transforming into a man when he came closer. At his heels tagged another man, and Alex recognised them from before. Shit.

“Where is he?” the older man hissed.

“Who?” Alex backed away from the brandished knife.

“Your man, the one who did this to me.” He pointed at the long, slashing wound down the side of his face.

“Not here.” Alex bit back on an exclamation when she put too much weight on her injured foot. Well, at least she had two good arms, should it come to that. She raised them, hands like blades. The younger man scowled and rubbed at his arm. She’d gotten him good with her previous karate chop, and she’d guess he had a bruise the colour of an aubergine all across his biceps. Still; she’d prefer it if Matthew were to come back A.S.A.P. She shuffled backwards, keeping the little fire between her and the two men.

“Grab her,” the older man said to the younger. “Take her and we’ll be off.”

“Try,” Alex growled.

The man laughed, clearly unimpressed.

“But…” the younger man said, throwing worried looks into the darkness that surrounded them.

“Do as I say. Once we have the lass, he’ll not risk us hurting her, will he?” He leered in the direction of Alex. “And we won’t – not as long as she’s accommodating.”

You wish; she’d poke his eyes out before she let him touch her. With a reluctant mutter the younger man moved towards her, carrying a length of rope. Alex licked her lips.

A stone hit the older man squarely on the back of his head. He staggered and fell to his knees.

“Da?” the other man rushed towards him. Yet another stone came whistling through the night and landed with a dull ‘thonk’ on the father’s head. The man toppled forward, howling when his hands sank into the embers of the fire.

“Da!” the young man said. “Da, your poor, poor hands!” He batted at the smoking sleeves with his hands, yelping when he burnt himself.

“I told you,” Matthew roared from somewhere up the slope. “I told you to get yourselves gone and not bother us.” He strode into the light, loomed over the two ruffians. “Go, and this time don’t come back.”

“No, no,” the younger man stammered. “We won’t, aye?” He helped his father up to stand, and without a backward look disappeared into the August night.

“Bloody hell,” Alex said. “Is life always this exciting round here?”

“Nay, in general not.” He scowled in the direction of where they could still hear the would be robbers’ progress. “Such as them should hang, attacking lonely travellers and women.”

“Well, they picked the wrong guy to mess with this time, didn’t they?” Alex sank down to sit.

“We should get some sleep,” Matthew said. “Do you need help back into the cave?”

She shook her head. She’d buried the leaking phone in a feeble attempt to leave some trace behind should John in the future get her text, and she didn’t want Matthew to see her stark writing on the wall – she’d more or less gouged the letters into the surface. She’d even stolen a holey stocking from his bundle, hoping that the wool would protect the fragile metal casing from the vagaries of time.

“I’d prefer to stay outside. Will that be dangerous?”

Matthew laughed. “No, I don’t think so. They’ll not be back, will they?”

“Not unless they’re very, very stupid,” Alex said.

Alex lay with her back to him, eyes lost in the dark skies above. One day, and it felt like an eternity. How was she to stand a whole life here?

“John,” she whispered to the night. “My John.” No; don’t cry, Alex Lind. She stuffed her hand into her mouth and bit down. Hard.

Chapter 6

The receptionist looked up when Diane and John entered the office next morning.

“Thank heavens you’re here,” she said in what was probably meant to be a discreet whisper but carried far too well. “There’s a gentleman here to see you. He’s been here since eight – and he was here yesterday afternoon as well. I think he’s upset.”

“Upset?” Diane rubbed a hand across her face.

“He says he’s Mr Sanderson’s partner.”

“But…why didn’t you call me? Yesterday?”

“I tried,” the receptionist said.

Diane pulled out her phone. “You did?”