“You smell no bad to me.”
“Don’t I?”
He cleared his throat. “Ah have tae continue ma duties. You are to stay here until ah find the killer and the necklace. Then we’ll see what’s what.”
“What about breakfast? I’m starving, aren’t you?”
“We dinnae eat until noon here.”
“Oh, right. I see.”
There was a silence before someone knocked on the chamber door. “Stay back,” Cam said, picking his sword up before pulling the door open. “What is it?”
“I brought the lass some fresh water.”
Rachel peered out at Roger the spitboy, another ewer in his hand. “Oh, bless you,” she said, beckoning him in. “Just what I needed.”
He set the water on the table in the middle of the room before turning expectantly to Cam.
She looked at Cam and he looked from her to Roger before reaching into his pocket. “Ye willnae get a coin for every little thing ye do,” he said. “Where did the last one go?”
“I gave it to mother. She said she can get me a wooden sword with some of it. I want to be knight one day, just like you.”
He began dancing around the room, fighting off a dozen imaginary opponents. “Ye dinnae do it like that,” Cam said after watching him for a minute. “Get your guard up. Here, hold this.” He passed his sword to Roger. “Get your wrist around that way, that’s better. Now, come at me.”
Roger lunged. Cam neatly sidestepped, moving remarkably fast for someone his size. As he shifted, he stuck out a foot and Roger went sprawling to the ground. “Ye have a lot to learn,” he said as he grabbed the sword from the boy. “You’d be killed if you fought like that in battle. Maybe you’d better stick to the spit.”
Roger got to his feet, his bottom lip trembling. “Yes, my Laird.” He scurried from the room.
“Hold up,” Cam shouted after him, tossing a coin that Roger caught neatly. “Tell her to get you a shield too.”
Roger beamed as he turned and ran off with the money. Rachel put a hand on Cam’s shoulder. “That was a good thing you did just then. I can tell you like him.”
“Och, that’s nothing but blether,” he replied. “Now, you stay here and I’ll be back as soon as I can be.”
Rachel lasted a couple of hours, not that she could track the time easily. She dared not switch her cellphone on. Who knew how long the battery would have to last before she got home to charge it again. When her stomach couldn’t last any longer, she tried to distract herself but there was little in the bedroom to occupy her.
She was used to hunger gnawing at her from her teenage years but this was different. It was hunger mixed with anxiety. What if the necklace didn’t turn up? What if she could never get home again? What was she supposed to do?
Another hour or so went by and still there was no sign of Cam. Her stomach growled but she tried to ignore it. She leaned out of the window and caught sight of Roger far below in the courtyard. He was waving a wooden sword at a chicken that continued to peck at the mud without taking the slightest notice of him.
“Roger,” she called out, waving down to him.
In return his sword waved back and he beamed up at her. “I’m going to be Laird of my own castle someday,” he shouted back.
There was a gruff laugh from the blacksmith passing him by. “That’ll be the day,” he added.
Roger looked crestfallen. “Don’t listen to him,” Rachel shouted. “You’ll make a great Laird.”
His grin returned. “You really think so?”
The door creaked open behind Rachel. She turned. “You’ve been a long-” Her sentence cut off. It wasn’t Cam standing there, it was three surly looking denizens of the castle.
“I told you,” one of them said, nudging the man next to her. “Look what your Laird has landed for himself!”
“Look at what?” Rachel asked, backing slowly away from them as they approached her. “What are you pointing at?”
“Where’d you get that necklace?” the woman asked.
