Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy (16 page)

"Allene!" the Laird called, as a trencher was set in front of the last man. "Send the women out. I want no extra ears. You'll serve as needed."

She dropped a curtsy, her eyes low. "Yes, my Lord." She clapped, and the women filed out the great door swiftly, pulling it shut behind them.

The Laird's booming voice took over the discussion. "The problem remains," he said, "that Niall appears to have lost all memory overnight; including where Hugh is. We know little, beyond that he must go east. And that when Hugh does not want to be found, the devil himself willna find him."

Shawn looked at the food on his plate. Between a hangover and discomfort over his future, it looked none too appetizing. He searched for utensils, and found none. The other men dug in with fingers, or speared the meat with daggers. He lifted the large tankard in front of him, and sipped, testing this new drink.

"My Lord," Allene murmured, gliding up behind her father, and dropping a curtsy. She stole a bold glance at Shawn; he swore he saw a triumphant smile ghost her lips. Over what, he couldn't guess. The old Laird turned to his daughter, who whispered in his ear. He nodded gravely. She threw a bolder glance at Shawn, tossed her head, and stepped back against the wall, once again dropping her eyes demurely.

Inverness, Scotland, Present

Niall sought indications, inside these people's castle, of where he might be. Amy, Rob, and the chirpy woman in white—a nurse, Amy called her—led him through a maze of halls more confusing than MacDonald's dungeons. He studied everything, words and pictures, memorizing as quickly as he could. He watched every motion, and wondered how the English had spirited him away to another place, abounding with wonders surpassing even what the Polos had found in Cathay. But why the elaborate ruse of pretending he'd skipped times? So he wouldn't try to escape? He'd hardly run anywhere in this ridiculous linen shift. He twitched at it, trying to keep his nether parts covered.

A melody trilled, a shrill odd sound unlike any instrument he'd ever heard. Amy pulled a small black object from her clothing, and spoke into it. "Oh, Dana, thanks for calling." She stopped speaking. "Yeah, he's okay. Sort of." She stopped speaking again. Niall stared at her, perplexed. She was speaking to herself! She stared back at him, her eyebrows furrowed. "He seems to have lost his memory. Doesn't know who he is." She spoke a bit more, and snapped the thing shut. She stowed it back in her clothing and frowned at him again.

They passed a window showing a vast town, roofs stretching as far as the eye could see, but no moat or bridge. Strange. But then, these men, at least those whose legs he could see under their odd cut-off trews, carried no protection. Those in the long trews, he reasoned, couldn't get at a dirk anyway, reaching up under such impractical garments. Safety and defense, it appeared, were not issues in this peculiar Inverness, or wherever he was. If these were indeed the English, they were very sure they had naught to fear from the Scots.

"Shawn! Shawn Kleiner!" Rob and Amy stopped and turned. He realized the girl rushing up from behind was talking to him. "Will you sign this?" Breathlessly, she pushed a sheet of parchment at him. He stared at the short black spikes sticking up from her head. It took a moment to realize it was hair. He'd never known demons to make themselves visible, but surely this was what they'd look like.

She held up a small silver box, Amy threw up her hand, Rob jumped in front of him, and the thing flashed lightning.

"Security!" Rob yelled.

"He's sick," Amy snapped. "Can't you ever stop!"

Two men burst out, yanked the girl away and wrestled the box from her. Amy steered him forward, while Niall wondered what danger they'd just averted. The nurse chirped about a hundred things, till Niall tuned her out and went back to his deliberations. Much as he'd prefer capture by the English to traversing time, they did not have wonders such as this.

"Here ye are now," the nurse sang, and left them in a chamber crowded with chairs.

Amy and Rob sat. He did the same, though carefully. Scattered on low tables were dozens of glossy parchments similar to that in the basket, but larger and with many more pages and words. Pictures burst with color more vivid than illuminated manuscript. He ran his finger over the page, marveling at the smooth gloss.

"Since when do you care about Prince Edward?" Amy asked.

"Who?" He looked up.

Rob slid his arm around Amy, staring hard at him.

Amy nodded at the parchment. A man in a plaid tunic covered by a heavy woolen shirt stood on a rocky hill. The Prince Edward he knew was an infant. "Prince Edward of England?" she said. Concern filled her voice. He lifted his eyes from the parchment to hers. Certainly he had an ally in her. He'd need allies.

"Of course," he said, carefully imitating her vowels. "Read it, please."

She frowned, but slid the parchment from his hands. He leaned close, holding the edge, and studied the script. It resembled the writing he knew. But the spelling was atrocious, like a language foreign even to the English.

Amy's voice was soothing, reading about Edward, Prince of England, who smiled up from the glossy page. He studied the script, trying to find where she was, and listened to the words she spoke, soaking up her vowels, her inflections, and repeating them in his own mind, as he did when listening to a traveling minstrel play a new piece.

When she turned the page, his eyes scrambled to the top, trying to follow. But between her strange accent and the bizarre spellings, he saw mostly gibberish.

"Show me." He took her hand, placing her finger on the page. Rob cleared his throat. Amy glanced from him to Niall, before dropping her gaze back to the words and continuing. His mind soaked up sounds and shapes, as her finger slid under each word.

"Shawn Kleiner?"

She stopped reading and stared at him. He stared back.

"Shawn Kleiner?"

"Why did you stawp?" he asked.

"Don't you hear them calling you?"

"Och, 'twas no...." He realized his mistake quickly, but not before her eyebrows puckered in distress. He stood up, and found himself facing another nurse in another embarrassingly short white dress.

He stared at the walls with their strange glassy paintings, at anything rather than this woman in her undergarments throwing come-hither looks over her shoulder. He stared at the large desk they passed, with blinking, flashing, pulsing lights. But it was the small square of bleached parchment on the wall, with its stark few words that stopped him cold, his heart pounding erratically.

* * *

"Shawn! Shawn, come on." Amy tugged at his arm.

"Mr. Kleiner? Are you okay?"

Niall pulled his eyes to the nurse in front of him. He'd heard them use this word okay many times now. He thought he understood it. "Yes," he said.

The woman stared doubtfully for a moment. He wondered if he'd misunderstood the word okay. But she looked to the wall that had unnerved him. Finding no cause for alarm, she ushered him into a room smaller than the monastic cells at Monadhliath, and nearly as bare. "Only one, please." The nurse looked pointedly at Amy and Rob. Niall clutched Amy's arm and pulled her in, leaving Rob to fume.

Through the nurse's ministrations, Niall kept his eyes averted from her immodest clothing. This, he concluded from all he'd seen, was normal here—now, if the parchment on the wall was to be believed. Still, he couldn't bring himself to look at her. She wrapped a black band around his arm, squeezing tightly, and used devices to assign numbers to his height and weight, although why that should interest anyone, he couldn't guess.

His mind wandered while she pushed his tongue down with a wooden stick. He'd decided their words, while he pretended to sleep, must be a ruse. They had to be! But along with the crumbled walls he remembered, and the wonders around him, it was impossible to discount the parchment. It was far too thorough for a deception; and a useless and ridiculous one, at that. But King Herla's adventure was not possible.

With a bright smile, and a cheery, "The doctor will be right in," the nurse left. Niall grabbed Amy's arm, even as the door clicked.

"You lost ten pounds since we got here?" she said.

His own concern took first priority. "The parchment on the wall."

"Parchment?"

"Behind the desk. It had a date."

"Parchment? You mean the calendar?"

He nodded. "Tell me what it said."

"What's with the reading things to you?" she asked.

"The head wound," he said. "I see double. Is the date correct?"

"I'd think so." She narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

Her tone of voice made him examine his own. He'd seen wonders here. Maybe skipping centuries was normal, too. He forced himself to think, to roll their accent in his mind, to remind himself they thought he was Shawn, before asking, with deliberate calm, "Do our people know how to change times?"

"Our people? Change times, like how?"

"Like King Herla."

"Who?"

Did they not know the story? Everyone knew King Herla! "He goes into a dwarf's cave and comes out three hundred years later."

"You're asking if we can do that?" Her eyes opened wide. "Of course not."

"What would happen," Niall asked carefully, "if someone said they did?"

"They'd be locked up!"

Niall wondered what their dungeons might look like. Everything else seemed tame compared to his world. Regardless, he couldn't be locked up. He must reach Hugh.

"What happened to you out there?"

He carefully copied a word he'd heard them use. "Nothing." He leaned back against the wall, his face passive.

She stared at him, her jaw tight. "You say nothing happened, but you don't even know the date."

"I know the date," he said. "'Tis June 9."
And well into the twenty-first century
, he added silently to himself.
Supposedly
.

* * *

The physician studied the wound on his head, and the other. A nurse came in with linen pads and scrubbed it clean. The doctor asked questions. And, apart from an arrow wound and not knowing the American president—he knew the date—pronounced him the healthiest man he'd ever seen. Niall firmly rejected what they told him was pain killer, in a long, silver needle. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as they stitched him up. It hurt far less than the way the castle physician had torn the arrow out in the first place, and he wondered at their amazement that he made no sound.

"So unlike you," Amy said. "You usually kick up a fuss about having a splinter pulled."

"An arrow in the arse!" the doctor repeated for the third time. "How could this happen? The police must knoo." Niall noticed that he and the nurse spoke an English much more akin to what he, himself, knew. He wondered why Amy and Rob spoke differently. "We canna have people shootin' castle visitors with arrows!" the doctor said gruffly. "Who did this?"

Niall wondered if there were MacDougalls in the twenty-first century—if indeed that's where he was. Certainly not the MacDougall who'd shot him. In fact, their shock suggested that arrow wounds were not daily fair. That helped explain why they felt no need for protection.

The police returned, a short one, and a tall, broad man with short black curls and a ruddy face. He recognized the voices, though their outfits surprised him. At least they were fully dressed. Blue trews covered their legs all the way to the floor.

He said as little as possible, answering their questions with, "I dinna ken," which made Amy frown, and, "I remember nothing." He studied their every movement. They scribbled furiously with featherless quills—the Laird would be fascinated—on blanched bits of parchment strung together with something stiff. In the end, they left, scratching their heads, appearing more confused than Niall himself felt, promising they'd send a man to look around the castle.

He wavered between relief and disdain, that they gave up so easily, employing none of the Sassenach's usual unpleasant practices for getting answers. Even the MacDougalls would have been harder to fool. He would take it with relief, he decided, and thanked God. This wasn't, after all, an entirely bad place, disconcerting and distressing though it might be to be here.

Glenmirril Castle, Scotland

The Laird leaned back, and without a word, commanded silence in the hall. "He'll go south through the Great Glen. We'll spread rumors he's gone north."

"My lord! I dinna object to the Great Glen, but look at him!" The small man gestured at Shawn, who gave a hard stare back. "He doesna even remember how to drink his mead! He sips like a wee lass with a mug of warm milk!"

Shawn banged his mug down hard on the large, scarred table, half-rising to his feet. The Laird held up a hand. "Peace, Niall. 'Tis no consequence how you drink your mead. You'll be right in no time." The fire crackled in the huge grate behind the Laird, merry and loud in the momentary silence.

"He himself," the other man continued, "admits he has no memory of Hugh's whereabouts, or much else. We'll be slaughtered in our beds by the English ere he finishes gathering bluebells in the hills."

"I'll be fine," Shawn said. "It's coming back." He gulped his mead, stronger than the beer he was used to, and glowered at his critic, ignoring the churning of his stomach as the mead hit. He'd follow the loch north to Inverness. If they decided he was incapable, he'd be trapped here. He wondered why no one had come for him. Surely Amy had told them where he was. Temperamental though she was, she always got over it.

"He will go," repeated the Laird.

Shawn suspected the man's decision rested on whatever Allene had whispered. He turned to her. Her eyes remained demurely on the floor, but even with her head bowed, he could see her fighting back that same, victorious smile. He hadn't exactly won her over this morning, he thought, and wondered if she herself would be the one to sell him out to the English. He looked forward to a talk with her. His charm had never failed before, and it wouldn't now.

"Niall! If you will remove your eyes from my daughter." The Laird spoke more than sharply. "Betrothed you may be, but not yet wed!"