Page 52 of Edge of Yesterday

Cailean detected muffled laughter from one of the guards who rode in the rear. Or maybe it had been Gregory who laughed? Cailean looked past Lennox, who rode between him and Julianna. “Aye, my lady. But I had guidance last night.”

She snorted. “So I noticed.” She said no more, but Cailean caught the amusement that twitched the corner of her mouth. She was a beautiful woman, but even more so when she smiled.

Cailean’s attention caught on the tower of St. Bride’s kirk above the treetops. The live wire that resided in his belly amped up.

Minutes later, they rounded a bend and Heatheredge lay spread out before him. Cailean couldn’t quite process what he saw. The church resembled St. Bride’s closely enough that he knew he was supposed to believe they were in Heatheredge. But the bustling streets looked more like the medieval villages he’d seen on the big screen than did the Heatheredge of last week.

He found none of the Heatheredge he remembered. No paved High Street. No shops. None of the pedestrian traffic typically crowding the sidewalks—or sidewalks, for that matter. Not a power line or road sign. What he did see sent a shock wave through him: A rough-walled town gate manned by equally rough-looking guards was flanked by a shuttered tavern on one side and a cluster of food stalls on the other, their main offerings smelling like fresh-baked bread and looking like a great round of cheese.

The road beyond thronged with what he supposed medieval residents would call the ‘common folk.’ Some of those commoners were bent almost double under creels of peat carried on their backs, others herded goats or chickens along a muddied ‘road’ that seemed to follow the same path as modern Heatheredge’s High Street.

The small thatched huts, dark and squat, that huddled on either side of the road were much more authentic than those on the set of Braveheart, though Braveheart wasn’t as authentic as most thought. Peat smoke rose from the hovels and was carried away on the wind, the smell unfamiliar. The usual earthy-sweet scent of burning turf was tainted by odors he didn’t want to attempt to distinguish. If Val had wanted to create an authentic image of medieval Heatheredge, this was it. Right down to the great bulk of Heatheredge Tower, looming dark and forbidding atop the highest hill just outside the town limits.

The modern version of medieval Heatheredge looked nothing like this town.

Cailean couldn’t decide if he wanted to spur his horse and gallop forward to see more or if he should jerk his steed around and hightail it back to… God help him…he didn’t know where the hell he’d go. Then another thought emerged. The neighborhood he’d found himself in two nights ago hadn’t been inside these walls. Where, then, had he met Julianna and Lennox?

Lennox and the others veered away from Heatheredge’s shabby gates and rode off across the fields toward a large, rambling cluster of thick-walled, tile-roofed structures that looked a good deal more prosperous than anything he’d glimpsed inside the gates. The piercing ring of pounded steel and the red glow of fires told him they’d arrived at the swordsmith’s shop.

“Ho, men!” Lennox called as they halted, and he dismounted. His men and Julianna stayed mounted, but Cailean swung his leg around his horse’s rump and stepped to the ground.

Lennox looked at him. “Stay here, Cailean.”

Cailean shook his head. “I have never seen a sword forged.” Not to mention, he wanted a closer look at this swordsmith and his shop.

Lennox’s mouth thinned, but he turned and headed into an open-sided, low-slung building filled with smoke haze and the red glow of hot-burning fires. The ear-splitting clang of metal seemed to be a living thing. Sweating, red-faced lads tended the flames, their arms tirelessly working the billows, and Cailean was astounded to see three apprentices pounding steel at anvils. The fine steel of the blades they crafted caught the light of the fires and Cailean had never seen anything more thrilling than the ‘birth of these swords.’ He could find no other way to describe it.

The swordsmith flicked a glance at him, then nodded at the young man standing to his right. The lad accepted the hammer and tongs from him and began pounding the steel as the swordsmith stepped away from the anvil. He crossed to a table on the wall and picked up a carved leather wrapped sheath from which an ornate hilt protruded. He nodded toward the door and began walking. Lennox fell in alongside, Cailean beside him. They stepped into the dim sunlight and the clang of metal lowered, no longer a threat to a man’s eardrums.

The swordsmith handed the sword to Lennox. Lennox pulled the blade from the sheath and turned it to one side, then the other.

Lennox nodded. “A fine blade, Martin. My mother will be well pleased.”

He started to push the blade back into the sheath, but Cailean said, “May I see it?”

Lennox hesitated, then drove the blade into the ground and stepped back. Cailean pulled the sword free of the peaty earth and hefted its weight first in his right, then left hand. When he clasped the hilt with both hands, he stepped away from Lennox as he swung the sword in a wide arc. The feel of the weapon rivalled Triumph. He jabbed and lunged, spun, dipped, and cut the air with a great, arcing figure eight. Smiling, he lowered his arm and examined the hilt with its finely-worked crossbar. This swordsmith was no everyday reenactor. He was a true artisan. Why hadn’t he heard of the man?

Cailean stopped and turned toward the two men, his gaze lingering on the sword. “This is one of the finest swords I’ve ever held.” He drove the point into the ground as Lennox had.

Lennox pulled up the sword and sheathed it. “Martin is the finest swordsmith in all of the northwestern Highlands.”

“He’s as good as the swordsmith who made my blade,” Cailean said.

Lennox’s brow rose. “Ye think your sword is superior to this one?”

“Maybe not superior, but equal, at least.”

Lennox exchanged a look with Martin, then said to Cailean, “Are ye willing to put her to the test?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Minutes later, they stood in the field behind the swordsmith’s shop, Cailean holding Triumph, Lennox with the new sword, while Gregory looked on.

“I warn ye one last time, Cailean,” Julianna called. “If you open that wound on your arm, I will let it fester and will laugh as your arm drops away from your shoulder.”

Cailean grinned. “You would let me die, my lady?”

She crossed her arms over her modest breasts. “With pleasure.”