He started to speak, then hesitated. He did that more than once, which left her torn between wondering if his identity was more terrible than he wanted to admit or he feared she would find it too difficult to understand.
“I’m afraid,” he began slowly, “that my Gaelic won’t possibly be equal to the silliness of my current life. We might need to resort to more French than usual.”
She nodded. “Given that your friends left you here with nothing more than a sword and pox-spotted trews, I think you have that aright.”
He smiled and she found herself feeling ridiculously pleased that she’d drawn it from him.
She put her hand to her forehead but found no fever there. She also found a conspicuous lack of good sense, but what was she to do? She was in the Future, sitting on a piece of weaving she would have slain anyone in her family for putting on the ground, and she’d watched a man happily ravage a pile of tiny flattened droppings without so much as a wince of disgust.
“Mairead?”
She looked at him. “I think too many thoughts.”
“I have the same problem. How do we save ourselves?”
She found a new piece of ridiculousness in the unaccustomed pleasure of being included in another’s happy troubles. A braw, charming man’s happy troubles.
“How did you come to be in the Highlands, then?” she asked, desperate to speak of something besides what was rattling around in her empty head. “In truth?”
“My friends in London captured me and brought me here against my will, leaving me with my book being the key to freedom.”
She looked at the book sitting between them, the one with the black cover and the golden letters tooled on the front, and wondered at the wealth of his friends. She glanced at him.
“Why, do you think?”
“To save me from too many thoughts, no doubt.”
She almost smiled at that. “And they thought a list of tasks to accomplish would aid you with that?”
“I think they thought it would distract me from thoughts of slaying them,” he said with a snort. He picked the book up and handed it to her. “Have a look, but be prepared for ridiculous things.”
She glanced at him to find he was watching her with an expression on his face she couldn’t quite identify, but she was no coward, so she opened his book and braced herself for something very silly indeed.
What she hadn’t expected was how fine such a small collection of folios would be. The sheaves of parchment were perfectly smooth and some were of a heavier stuff she’d never imagined could exist. She continued to turn pages until she came to the end, then she looked at him.
“I’m afraid I don’t recognize these words.”
“I wish I didn’t,” he said with a smile, “and I’m not sure they’ll translate very well. Let’s choose something to do, though, and leave the rest.” He reached over and turned back pages until he stopped at a sheaf that was unadorned. He looked at it, sighed a little, then looked at her. “I am to sniff a variety of flowers, then draw them there.”
“’Tis autumn, you realize.”
He winced. “I know. What do you suggest?”
“A walk.” She started to crawl to her feet, but found that he’d jumped to his and was holding down his hand for her. She looked up at him in surprise, but he seemed to find nothing unusual about offering aid. She let him help her up, then made aproduction of fussing with her shawl as he strapped his sword to his back.
Truly, she was a woman out of her depth.
Oliver seemed to think nothing of it, though, and merely walked with her along the edge of the forest. She realized after a bit that he was spending more time watching their surroundings than he was attending to his task, but perhaps he knew of dangers she did not.
“You’re supposed to be looking for things to sniff.”
“I don’t know where to start.” He smiled. “You wouldn’t choose a few things for me whilst I keep watch over us, would you?”
If it would keep her from feeling so pleased at being included in his madness, she would have picked up things from the forest floor for the whole of the day.
By the time she’d filled part of her shawl with the best the season could offer—heather, leavings from trees at the edge of the forest, and a handful of rocks and sticks Oliver was certain would be sufficient for the task set him—she found herself sitting again atop that very fine blanket with their treasures in a tidy pile between them. Oliver broke open his book, took out two sheaves of parchment, then handed her one. He closed the book and set it aside, then opened a strange little box made of what she suspected was very fine silver indeed. Inside were wee sticks of wood, all the same size, with colors leaking out from one end in shades she’d never seen before.
“A species of charcoal,” he said casually.
