Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy (22 page)

"...the Bruce," came the next words. "The Battle of the Pools."

The very battle for which Hugh was needed! Niall leaned forward. "This is what's being...
re-enacted?
" He tested the unfamiliar word, pleased at how quickly he was able to imitate their broad speech. His game of mimicking the Laird and Lord Darnley had a benefit he never would have guessed.

"Awful battle," another man said. "Edward destroyed the Scots. Not a single one of them left by the end. They even hunted down the townspeople hiding back on Coxet Hill and killed them all. Every last one."

The blood drained from Niall's face.

Loch Ness, Scotland

Shawn hadn't done much running since high school. Running from that angry husband last year didn't really count. The hill rose sharply, covered in heather and gorse, visible as darker patches against the dark hill. The loch stretched along his right as he half-ran, half-climbed the hill. At the top, a stitch pierced his side. He leaned over, hands on his knees, breathing hard, cursing Amy and wishing he were at the banquet with Caroline making promises with her eyes from across the room. She'd be wearing that red dress she knew he liked so much. He knew she would.

The ground leveled out. He had no idea where to go. Though Niall must know how to find the copse, he himself could only run straight over the hill as he'd been told, and hope for the best.

The heavy sack slapped him rhythmically on the back. The stitch in his side burned, but visions of English soldiers and feuding Scots clans lurked in the dark corners of his mind, waiting with arrows and daggers. The angry husband last year looked tame as a white rabbit next to the men populating his imagination. Gone was any thought of heading for Inverness. With fear growing, his only desire was to reach the cover of trees, and the lad who knew so much more than he did.

In daylight, he'd think about Inverness; he'd go straight for the nearest McDonald's and order the biggest shake they had to tide him over till he reached the hotel's buffet. They hadn't exactly fed him well at this place.

He pushed himself on, beaten by the bag on one side, burned by the stitch on the other, and his lungs ragged for breath between the two, and suddenly, the hill fell away, and there, at its foot, was a cluster of trees. He hoped it was the right cluster of trees. He hoped the castle traitors weren't waiting there. But he had no choice.

He stumbled downhill. In the copse's safety, he fell to his knees, gasping for breath, and gripping his side. The hill behind him suddenly exploded with moonlight escaping its cloudy prison. The back of his neck tingled, waiting for the imagined attack.

A short whistle sounded. His head spun frantically, seeking the arrow, before realizing it was a person whistling. His breath whooshed out in relief. "You're starting to believe their hallucinations," he muttered to himself. "Nobody's shooting arrows around here."

He peered into the darkness from which the whistle had come. It sounded again, short and sharp. He climbed to his feet, searching for its source, and immediately blundered into a tree. He flung his pack to the ground in anger. How in the world could Amy have left him in this mess! He could be in a soft bed with Caroline right now! He rubbed his forehead, sure a knot would be rising, and wondered again why he attracted such temperamental women.

His eyes adjusted slowly to the dark. Now he could make out the shapes of trees. Enough to avoid them, anyway. The birches shone silver in the moonlight. A smaller dark shape grew out of, and separated from, a tree ahead of him. This must be the laddie. His upraised arm beckoned Shawn. A cowl hid his face.

The laddie was older than Shawn had expected. He rose just past Shawn's shoulder. He supposed that made more sense than the ten year old boy he'd been expecting. The figure reached for him and pulled him to the western edge of the grove, pointing at the castle rising atop its hill, and the moonlit group of men, small at this distance, moving stealthily toward a cropping of trees looking down on the drawbridge.

Shawn closed his eyes, wanting to be anywhere but here.

* * * * *

Chapter Eight

Inverness, Scotland, Present

Niall went directly to Shawn's chambers, after dinner. There was no crucifix. Choosing a spot over the bed, he imagined his own, carved by the monks of Monadhliath, hanging there. He fell to his knees praying. He'd always prayed, but he had a disquieting awareness now that it had, in a sense, been a formality. Not that he didn't believe in God, or truly seek His guidance. He did. But he'd always been so sure and confident. He'd seen his choices and understood his situations, always, and talked to God as—as what? he asked himself. As merely Someone to listen to him.

Now, for the first time, he came before God lacking wisdom and seeing his need to do the listening. For the first time, he felt rudderless.

He knelt by the bed, his forehead fallen on clasped hands, and sorted through his facts: a broken down version of his castle, his things missing and foreign objects in their place; people who neither dressed nor spoke like anyone he'd ever met or heard of; people with amazing devices from the mundane to the fantastic, from their writing instruments to cars that shot down the roads faster than an osprey could fly, and they took it all for granted. They carried no weapons—perhaps the most fantastic thing of all!

Amy, the calendar at the hospital, all the shiny brochures all told him it was roughly seven hundred years past the Year of Our Lord 1314.

He rose, and paced Shawn's chambers, from the bedroom to the sitting room, to the leaded-glass windows with their diamond panes, and back. He was a soldier. He was trained to face and assess facts. There were only so many explanations. Fairy hills, kidnapping, an English ruse—it was clearly none of these. When all other possibilities had been ruled out, what was left must be the answer, no matter how improbable.

He must finally accept that he'd been swept into the future.

It seemed impossible, and yet—there were stories of such things. He stared out the window at the darkened lawn. It was fantastic, incredible. Yet it appeared to be true. He drummed his fingers, letting it sink in. He'd come to the future. He'd moved through time with less effort than others crossed the bailey.

How? Shawn had also fallen asleep at the top of the tower. Niall pushed his fingers through his hair. Beyond that, he could only guess. Was there some magic in the castle? Some connection between himself and this Shawn who looked just like him? Most importantly, how was he to reverse the situation and get back? Amy, living in a world with all these amazing devices, appeared even more shocked than he at the possibility of moving through time.

The questions overwhelmed him. He returned to the bedroom, and knelt silently, head bowed before the crucifix he imagined on the wall, letting his mind go quiet and waiting for an answer, a sign, a miracle—anything! Nothing came; certainly no peace or reassurance about the outcome of the battle. He shook his head. It couldn't end that way. It just couldn't.

At last, he crossed himself and stood up, staring around the room. He flicked the lights on and off. He went to the bath chamber, running his hand in awe down the granite walls, smooth and shiny as glass. He turned the water on and off, on and off, marveling. He examined a white box, pushing buttons and turning dials, awed at the music and talk and crackling sounds that came out. He looked at it, picked it up, ran his hands under it, followed the black rope trailing from it to the wall.

He took his time examining the box with the glass front, but could find no way to open it. He found buttons and pushed them. Lights and sound and color sprang to life! He jumped back, grabbing for his dirk. But Amy had insisted he leave it in a drawer. With the immediate shock past, he saw there was no danger, and stared in fascination. He pushed the button, and the glass went black. He pushed the button, and the images sprang to life, moving paintings, people talking. He watched and listened for some time, repeating their words, with their accent, in his head, and finally, out loud, shaping his words carefully. He imagined the Laird's face when he heard of these things, and smiled.

The smile, however, faded, thinking of the Laird's fate. What would he do, if he found himself in this situation?
Use what you have
, he would say.

Niall sat down on the bed, dejected. Opening his sporran, he saw a handful of coins worth little enough, his slingshot, and bits of flint. He had his dirk and the crucifix on the leather thong around his neck, which he'd intended for Allene. He fingered it, thinking about Allene and what would happen to her. He couldn't bear it. This crucifix, itself, would not save the world.

He straightened suddenly, looking around the luxurious room. He did have something! Something potentially powerful.

If only he knew how to use it.

Loch Ness, Scotland

Shawn scrambled through the copse after the boy, stumbling and bumping into tree branches. The harp banged against his back with the sound of gunshots. Each twig and leaf underfoot exploded like a backfiring car. He couldn't imagine the men on the far side didn't hear them.

They burst around the back of the hill, onto the rocky beach, the same one he'd been on just yesterday with Amy. Then, it had been sunny and blue and calm. Now, thick clouds scuttled across the moon's glow, and black water shifted with eerie shadows beneath the swirling mist. A gust of wind lifted a wave, far off, and sent it smashing back to the loch's surface. He gave an involuntary shudder. He'd teased Amy about monsters lurking beneath the surface, and kelpies lying in wait to plunge unwary travelers to the watery depths. It wasn't funny now.

Thank goodness they were going by land!

He hitched up his monk's robes, and turned south, realizing, as he did, two equally unpleasant things: going south took them directly past the hill of the waiting enemies. The other, equally discomforting, was that they would not be going south. For the boy was, even now, gesturing madly for help as he tugged, from among the boulders and brush, an object with a rounded bottom, a wooden and leather wok, big enough for two: a leather currach to cross Loch Ness.

Inverness, Scotland, Present

Niall pulled Shawn's sackbut from its case. Trombone, he reminded himself. It was bulky compared to the Laird's sackbut. With some effort, he put it together, and blew, wondering what sort of man played such an instrument.

There was a pounding on the wall and a muffled, "Shawn... midnight...sleep!"

He considered his encounters with Celine, Amy, and Caroline, and couldn't imagine Shawn playing this at the side of the sick and dying.

He laid the instrument down on the bed and searched the case. He found a long, metal skewer. A weapon? Part of the instrument? He turned it over and around. He had no idea what it could be. He set it aside and picked two pieces of cloth out of the case. He shook them out. They looked rather dirty, and his best guesses could not give him any inkling of how they might help him save Scotland. He felt under the material that lined the case, and found a flat piece of parchment. He pulled it out and saw the image of a laughing man and a boy of twelve or thirteen years. He studied the faces. The man looked like Niall himself, but with cropped hair. Was this Shawn?

Admitting defeat, he put the things back in the case, wrestling briefly with the trombone before fitting it in properly. He turned to the chest of drawers. It held clothes such as anyone in this era appeared to wear. Nothing to make him stand out or mark him as a man worthy of the attention showered on him. Nothing to explain why these women were such fools for him. What was it, then, Niall wondered, that gave Shawn the power he appeared to have over other people? He pondered the man's remark at dinner: Shawn brought them money.

Somehow, with his talent, Niall suspected, Shawn brought them all money, and that gave him his status. He dropped to the floor, his back against the bed, and wondered what Shawn was doing, trapped in the fourteenth century—if that's where he'd gone—with no money to buy influence. He thought about MacDonald. He held authority, not for bringing his people wealth, but for giving them security. He held his authority through the force of his character and the respect his people had for him.

But Shawn was not the laird. If there was such a person here, it would be Conrad, and even he seemed somewhat under Shawn's control.

Niall pushed himself up off the floor and moved to the huge bath chamber, with its granite tiled walls and smooth stone floor, its massive bathing tub with the raised back blossoming out in the shape of a shell. He poked around the things on the counter.

He picked up a bottle; turned it over, studying its elegant shape, its smooth feel, curious what it was made of. It wasn't glass. Printed letters spelled out J-H-I-R-M-A-C-K. He twisted the word in his mind, trying a few pronunciations out loud. It sounded French. He turned it around and found smaller words on the back. He squinted, reading slowly:
Wet hair. Apply shampoo
. Whatever
shampoo
might be.

After a brief moment of trial and error, he opened the top, and sniffed a pleasant scent. So Shawn smelled good. He replaced the top in disgust. This information would not help him save Scotland. He examined the huge, fluffy, white towels, and an equally fluffy, white robe hanging on the back of the door.

Going to Shawn's sleeved cloak, hanging near the door, he felt in the pockets and came out with a handful of items. Apart from the coins, he couldn't name them. There were several flat, hard cards. Niall flexed them back and forth. Black and white keys, like a virginal, adorned the front of one. A forest scene was painted on another. A third had a pattern of red and white stripes and small, white stars on blue. He fanned them out: more than half a dozen. A game of some sort? Each bore a raised inscription: SHAWN KLEINER and a long string of numbers. He ran his fingers over the letters, pleased that he'd recognized Shawn's name.