Chapter 7: For King and country

"Are you some kind of druid?" she continued. "How can you produce food from a bag that you fill with water?"

I knew there was only one way to answer her questions, besides I was falling for her pretty hard and it was only right that I levelled with her. There was a concern as to how she would react though, how would she feel about sleeping with someone from over eleven hundred years in the future? I was beginning to enjoy what we were building together and I hesitated because of the possibility of destroying it.

"No true relationship can be built on lies," I told myself, "but I need to be tougher to survive. Fuck off, you need to tell her, there's nothing tough about lying about this."

My internal argument didn't last long and I felt quite virtuous at coming down on the right side.

"Kirsty, come sit by me."

I waited for her to join me. I could see that she had a worried look, perhaps regretting that she had forced this topic of conversation, concerned at what my answers might hold.

"Before I try to answer you, I want to tell you that you already mean a lot to me, I don't want what I'm about to tell you to spoil what we might have together so I have to ask, are you sure you want to know?"

She hesitated for a second. I could see a spectrum of emotions painted across her face as she ran through the possibilities, but she eventually settled on needing to know.

"Yes, tell me."

"Kirsty, this is probably so unbelievable that I can't think of an easy way to start so I'm going to just tell it as it is. I went to sleep five nights ago in the year of our lord two thousand and seven and woke up in the year eight hundred and seventy two."

There, I had said it.

She looked at me as if I had three heads. I let her try and assimilate what I had told her, get her head round a time traveller from the future, waiting for the wheels to come off completely. Surprisingly, after a few minutes she simply nodded as if to say she knew something fishy was going on. Over the next few hours I tried to convey what my world had been like but how do you explain cars, planes, space travel, modern warfare, medicine, all of that in simple words.

Her head was spinning with the information I had given her it was clear. I paused to let her think her own thoughts.

"You can do all of these things? You can fly? You can make things 'explode'?"

"No. I have been in a plane but I can't fly on my own, no one can do that. I don't know how to make explosives either and I'm not a doctor so I can't heal people. In my time, different people specialise in different things, like you have tanners, farmers, and metalworkers. Each of them doesn't do everything, they stick to what they do best, what they have learned."

"What do you do best Scott? No, let me guess, in your time you are a staff merchant? That explains how you pleasure me so well every time, that's what you are isn't it?"

I couldn't help but laugh.

"Kirsty, in my time the size of my penis is not considered that large, maybe just above average. I think here in your time men are smaller. The attitude towards sex here is also closer to that of animals. I noticed in my time that animals seemed to practice sex mainly for reproduction and a bull or s stud horse was valued for its potency, not how good it was at oral sex or how long it could last. The men here seem to have the same attitude. The quicker they can get on and come, the sooner they can move on to impregnate the next female. The women have to be hypersensitive if they are going to have pleasure in such a short time. No, I'm not a 'staff-merchant' as you call it, I guess I'm what you might know as an apprentice trader. I have studied the trading of goods and how to make money from that."

"Are the women in your time pretty?"

Well, there you go. It obviously didn't matter what century you were in, women were women and she was now anxious about how she measured up against the competition. Typical!

"Kirsty, I have never met anyone as beautiful as you are, probably never will. I think I'm falling in love with you. Not just because you are beautiful but because you are intelligent, you have lots of spirit, you are brave, you must be to have survived multiple rapes and be so well adjusted, to have lived in such harsh circumstances and be unbowed. You're funny and you make me feel special. You have nothing to fear from any other woman, either in 872AD or 2007AD, believe me."

She kissed me then, a fire in her eyes.

I tried to convey things like democracy, a classless country and especially everyday life in my time but it was difficult. Some of it must have got through to her though I knew when I heard her next comment.

"You must have been very frightened when you woke to find all of you world's security gone, all that you relied on, were familiar with?"

"Oh you sweet girl," I said, hugging her to me, "you have no idea how scared I have been, how completely inadequate I feel to cope with this time. Killing seems to be so commonplace here, life so cheap, and I do not have the skills to survive. I am not a warrior, I don't even know the language very well!"

"You seem to be doing well despite that, and I do like your staff, Sir." She said, lightening the mood a little.

"Seriously Scott, I don't care about where you have come from and the things you have done in this other life. What is important is that you are a good man, strong but caring. I don't think I'm falling in love with you, I have known since the first night that I already love you deeply. Will you stay with me? Will you return to your own time?"

This was obviously a big thing for her, she really worried that I would abandon her.

"I don't know how to get back to my time, but even if I did I wouldn't want to be parted from you princess."

We cuddled and she asked me more questions about my time but we were more comfortable with each other now and I was glad that I had opted to tell her everything. I explained that the complexity of many of the things I was used to, the extraction of the raw materials and then the processing of them meant that I was unable to reproduce them in this time. Her questions did start me thinking however. What could I reproduce that would be useful? I let my subconscious run with that.

The next few weeks were almost idyllic. Kirsty and I got to know each other better, I told her more about my time and we learned each other's little habits. Each day I also practised with the sword, hacking at a tree trunk, developing motion, thrust, counter-thrust and most especially balance. The repetition was building muscle memory and strength. There were more small triumphs as I caught my first fish, ducks and geese using the netting from the tent. Rabbits continued to be in good supply and Kirsty knew many of the plants that could augment our diet. We also made good use of the shellfish that were available to us, so we ate well.

Our sex was just as torrid as it was in the first few days, Kirsty remained hot-wired and worshipped her 'staff-beast'. I had introduced her to the fantastic art of fellatio and she delighted in this new way of showing her love for my cock, indeed, given how hair-triggered she was, it became my normal method of completion. Our love-making usually consisted of me stroking into her, giving her three or four very quick orgasms and then she would finish me off with her gorgeous little lips and mouth, swallowing my offering, savouring it as if it was her favourite meal. I continued to love the taste of her tiny pussy, particularly now that I had introduced her to regular bathing.

Some thoughts were beginning to crystallise in my head. I wanted to do something to help my countrymen against the Vikings. I thought some of my knowledge of modern warfare might have some lessons I could transplant into this time. The effectiveness of special forces troops was one, artillery was another - I thought there might be something conceptual about that that could be done with archery or ballista that might be ahead of this time. I had enduring images from TV of beach defences during world war two and I wondered whether I could re-create something similar against these mainly sea-borne raiders.

Most of all however I began to realise that the true source of victory was increased trade! And after all, business was my business so to speak; it was what I was trained for. My history lessons reminded me that the production of salt was a huge economic factor in earlier times - could I evaporate seawater to produce salt? Cmsix's stories had suggested soapmaking was relatively easy - this time period could certainly use some of that. And even in my time, Scotland's biggest export was whisky - uisge beatha, the water of life. On top of that, my knowledge of industrial production might provide an advantage over other nation's trading practices.

"It is time to take on the Vikings," I said to her one morning.

She gasped and looked at me as if I had lost my senses.

"Scott, what foolishness is this? You are but one man and they are many, what can you hope to achieve?"

"Kirsty, our countrymen are being murdered and raped, I cannot sit by and do nothing. I believe that there are things that I can do that will make a difference and I must at least try or I will hate myself."