Time Walkers 2 Book Bundle: The Legend of the Bloodstone, Return of the Pale Feather (Time Walkers 1-2) (53 page)

Maggie

“How dare you follow me?” Maggie shouted. Kwetii moaned in her sleep, and Maggie immediately lowered her voice to a seething hiss. “Do you want Winn to kill you? Is that what you’re about? I won’t stop him, you know, not for one second!”

She stomped her foot for emphasis. Annoyed beyond belief that Benjamin had invaded her space, she did not understand why he could not leave well enough alone. Things had calmed down of late, and Winn appeared to be softening toward the idea of staying.  Yet it would take just one stupid move by Benjamin to end her hope, and he was standing in front of her wielding it.

“I
dinna come here to fight with ye! I just want a few words with ye, and then I’ll leave ye be! I never see ye without Winn at yer side, and I’d rather not cause more strife between us,” he said. Benjamin ran both hands through his unruly dark curls, clutching the back of his neck as he stared at her. 

Maggie crossed her arms over her chest. Fair enough. She supposed she could hear him out. She did not feel that she owed him anything, after the way he lied and schemed, but since she loved his father and his brother, she would give him a few minutes if it would help things.

“Fine. You have two minutes. I need to get back to my husband.”

She saw him flinch.

“Thank ye,” he said. He approached, and she stepped back, shaking her head. He sighed and dropped his hands. “It’s still strange to me, ye know. Seeing ye here, and knowing yer my brother’s wife. But see ye, I must, if I wish to live with my kin, and yes, I do! I do want to be here. Do ye know what it’s like, to have no kin?”

“Of course I do.  We played together as children. You know I had no parents, that Marcus was my family! Why do you ask that?”

“Oh, aye. I remember that. You were a foul-mouthed thing even then, I think ye told me to go shit myself or some other nonsense before ye kicked me out of yer hiding place,” he said. 

A grin twisted the corner of her lip, unwilling, but definitely there. Yes, she recalled the last time she saw him as a child as well.  Flashes of a curly-headed boy that followed her everywhere snuck into her mind, images of the future life they both left behind.  Yes, she knew what it was like, to be displaced, to feel alone in another time.  It was one reason she had married Benjamin when she thought Winn was dead.

“Did you come here to talk about that life, or this one?” she asked softly.

“Maybe both. I know not what to say to ye. I wish ye to know there will be no trouble from me. That bloody magic stone is something I never wish to see again, but at least it has returned me to the place I belong.  It feels right, to have a place, I mean. A place to belong to. I wish that
fer ye, as well.”

He coughed, seeming to cover the waver in his voice as he turned to leave.

“I did the best I could fer ye, Maggie. I know I wronged ye, and for that I am sorry. Maybe my heart clouded my judgment, and I’ll pay for it fer all my days. But yer wife to my brother now, and a good brother I will be.”

He ducked through the doorway and left without turning around. Her mouth hung open at his declaration, and she closed it with a snap. She tucked a fur around her sleeping child as she considered his speech.

So Benjamin wanted to mend fences. She thought back on the short time she had spent as his wife. He had been caring and considerate, treading carefully on the tatters of her broken heart as he tried to win her affection.  If Winn had truly been dead, she would still be Benjamin’s wife.  She looked down on her sleeping daughter and realized that Benjamin would have raised the child as his own. Maggie could not deny that she cared about him, but their relationship was a complicated one. Benjamin was from the future, just as she was, and if not for the Bloodstone magic, they would have grown up together with Marcus on her grandfather’s farm.

Yet reality was that the
Gothi
magic served some other purpose, and both she and Benjamin ended up in the past. Reality was that Benjamin served her up to be hanged as a witch in a jealous fit once he knew Winn was alive. Yes, in the end, Benjamin had saved her, but she was not sure it was enough to restore the friendship they once shared.

What would Winn say to Benjamin’s declaration? Of course, she would tell her husband of the visit. Maggie kissed
Kwetii’s forehead and then left to make her way back to the Northern Hall.

Winn was standing with Chetan when she returned, and she noticed Makedewa standing in the corner with a sulking look on his face.  She wondered what she had missed. Her husband gave her no time to think further on it, slipping his hand around hers.  His fingers twisted into hers, and he squeezed her gently as he raised her knuckles to his lips for a kiss.

“Kwetii?” he asked.  She reached over and kissed the edge of his jaw as he pulled her close.

“She’s fine. Winn?” she asked. She needed to tell him of Benjamin’s visit, but when her husband looked down at her with soft eyes and a curious stare, she decided it could wait.

“What is it,
ntehem?
”

She watched the dancers swirling in circles, their laughter nearly as raucous as the music and drums.

“Nothing,” she answered. “I think I owe Jarl Dagr a dance.”

Winn’s lips brushed her forehead and he released her.

“I will watch. But only him. I will share you with no other,” he murmured.  She caught the hint of strain in his blue eyes, but it was a glimmer quickly passed and replaced with a smile. She turned back and kissed him square on the mouth before she danced away, leaving him with a grin on his face.

*****

Maggie left Kwetii in the care of Rebecca the next morning while she prepared to join the women gathering wool.  She asked Gwen why they didn’t just shear the sheep, but when Gwen took her to the ridge overlooking the valley where they could see the herd, Maggie understood why.  The Norse kept no ordinary sheep.  The beasts were twice the size of any she had ever seen, with long, stringy hair and thick bulbous heads adorned with curling ram-like horns. It was easier, and safer, to gather the tufts of wool they left behind each morning than to try to procure it otherwise. Gwen said they all came from three surviving breeding stock that made the first time-travel journey with them to Virginia.  She clammed up after that revelation, and Maggie made a mental note to take it up with Marcus. She wanted to know everything about their past, and she was fair tired of everyone acting like it was a taboo subject.

She poked her head inside the door to the Long House Teyas and Rebecca shared with a few other women.  Teyas was alone in the house, rolling up garments and placing them in a carrying sack, her long black hair falling loose around her shoulders as she worked. 

“Are you coming up to the ridge? Rebecca will stay with Kwetii. I thought we would walk together,” Maggie said.

“Go without me, sister. I must pack if I wish to say goodbye before we leave.”

Maggie bent down and gently took her hand. Tears ran down the younger woman’s face, but she would not raise her red-rimmed brown eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Maggie asked.

“My mother and father have arranged a marriage. Winn will take me to the Nansemond village today. Did he not tell you?” Teyas said.

Maggie shook her head, biting down hard on her lower lip.

“He can’t do that. He wouldn’t,” she replied.

“It is his duty, as it is mine,” Teyas said softly as she closed the sack.

“But without duty, would you still go?”

Teyas bowed her head.  Maggie clasped her hands, and they clung together as she cried.

“I am happy to know I will be a wife soon,” Teyas insisted through her tears. Maggie held her as she cried, stifling her own tears in her sister’s hair. Not only was Teyas being taken away, her husband had willfully kept that information from her. Maggie felt the surge of anger and helplessness that often accompanied her through such times. Although Teyas knew she grieved, Teyas could not truly comprehend the anger Maggie felt at the woman being forced into a marriage with a man she did not know. To Teyas, it was a part of life. To Maggie, it was unfathomable.

“I’ll talk to him,” Maggie insisted.

“No! Keep silent, this is no matter for you. You know this!” Teyas said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I am too many summers to go on without a husband. I am lucky Osawas will have me.”

“He is the lucky one!” Maggie snapped. Teyas smiled.

“I hear he is brave. Winn says he has fought with our uncle.”

Maggie flinched at the mention of Opechancanough. He was the last Indian she wished to run into again, yet her family remained tied to him as if bound by shackles instead of blood. Even though she shared her knowledge of the future with her husband, Winn still retained his loyalty to his uncle and felt it best to stay in his favor.  Maggie suspected this marriage pact was part of keeping that favor with the tribe, and it stoked her anger to see her husband offer his sister up for the taking. She still did not truly understand the way the Powhatan lived, and she stumbled over embracing their traditions, especially when it came to the role of women and men in society.  It was just one more issue driving a wedge between them.

“Where will you live?” Maggie asked.  She already knew it would not be with them.  It was unlikely Osawas would be willing to leave his tribe to stay with their exiled family, so much so that it was not worth mentioning.

“I know not. My mother lives with Pepamhu now at Mattanock, she is first wife since his old wife died, Winn says. But Osawas is Weanock. Perhaps they will send us to live with his people.”

“Isn’t that far? A five-day ride, at least!”

Teyas made an attempt to smile, but it came out bitter and strained. “Yes, at least that much,” she said.

“I’ll—I’ll go with you. I’ll go pack now,” Maggie said. Teyas grabbed Maggie’s hand.

“He says you must stay here, with Kwetii. He does not trust the Weanock as he does the Nansemond. He fears for your safety.”

“Oh, really? He said that?”

Teyas nodded, her eyes downcast.

“Help me pack, sister,” Teyas whispered.

Maggie handed her another traveling sack. After they finished, Teyas set off to find the women, and Maggie left her to find Winn.  With woolgathering temporarily forgotten, and her temper inflamed at her husband keeping information from her, she struggled to slow her breathing before she confronted him.

Was she angrier with him, or with herself? She still needed to tell him of the conversation with Benjamin, but the longer she put it off, the more difficult it was to bring up. Even more important was the news of the babe growing within her, which she was also at loss to reveal. Now with the issue of Teyas clouding her thoughts, she felt like her control over everything was slipping away.

She found him at the ridge, standing with Erich and Marcus, and surprisingly, Benjamin. The brothers stood well apart, however, and did not appear to be engaging in conversation with each other, but even to see them standing on the same patch of soil was enough to give her pause.

Winn wore a lightweight tunic over tight braies like his kinsmen, his new sword protruding from a harness strapped across his back. She noticed he had new boots as well, knee-high leather bound covered with thick fur, with tough soles that protected his feet better than the moccasins did. Unlike some of the other natives, Winn took easily to trying new things, which Maggie suspected was part of his upbringing.  His uncle raised him to be an informant, living among the English and various Indian tribes, learning what he could and acclimating to their ways. Winn had a resultant comfort with change, and although he usually migrated back to his breechcloth and leggings, he was willing to try anything once. Seeing him dressed like the others, especially Marcus, gave her a pang of homesickness.

Winn belonged there with his kin, yet soon they would leave.

“What brings ye up here, my lady?” Erich asked when he spotted her trudging up the hill. She lifted the skirt of her gunna above her ankles as she reached the peak, panting a bit with the effort. It was steep rise. Now that she stood next to Erich, it took her breath away. Swirling below was an inlet, with white-capped waves crashing over silvery boulders and the screams of seagulls warning them away from their nests. She clutched her arms around her waist when a breeze whipped up and her hair rippled back off her face.