Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy (34 page)

Pray for your enemies.

The command was powerful enough to draw his head up. The old woman still stood there. A crucifix dangled from her neck. It swung over the battle scene as she leaned forward. His jaw hardened. Pray for that chanty wrassler! He wouldn't. The woman put her hand to the crucifix, and backed away from Niall. He shook his head in disgust and walked across the room, staring with unseeing eyes at a painting of the battle. English archers poured a volley of arrows into the Scottish schiltrons. The men pushed on toward certain death, obeying as good soldiers did.

Niall clenched his jaw and shut his eyes. He thought himself a good soldier. His stomach tightened in anger. Shawn was no better than a MacDougall, with his lying and cheating and stealing. He deserved no prayers. But Niall was a warrior. Disobedience did not sit easily with him. He jabbed at his forehead,
In nomine Patris
, his chest,
et Filii
, each shoulder,
et Spiritus Sanctus
.

Out on the lawn, a flute trilled and soared.

Ave Maria, gratia plena
. He finished the
Ave
. Saying the words was the only obedience he could give. In his heart, he didn't mean a word of it.

Central Scotland

Restless dreams hunted Shawn through his sleep: pursuing soldiers, beating, stabbing, tangling him in the monk's garb and pushing him backwards into rivers roiling with blood. A golden-haired angel stood on the bank, playing a flute. Was it Caroline? He rose up from the river, calm and strong, and saw that, in the fluid unreality of dreams, it was not him, but his father, with flowing brown hair and beard, rising up, arms outspread. In welcome? In sacrifice? It was the boy, the straggler, stabbing at him. "I never regretted doing the right thing," the man in the river said. "No matter how I was repaid. I'm satisfied with who I showed myself to be."

"But he killed you!" Shawn shouted. He stood in the river, water icy around his ankles, dripping with water and blood. "He
killed
you!"

"You only saw the bad," his father replied. "Did you ever see the good in how I lived?"

In the dream, Shawn was suddenly, once again, thrashing in the creek. The soldiers stamped and shouted, "To the king! To the king!" Above it all, floated the incongruous melody, hovering on dove's wings, played by the reedy instrument in the angel's hands.

His legs ached with running, his hand throbbed, his chest stung from the pitchfork. Soldiers stamped and shouted.

He woke with a start. "To the king!" Deep voices shouted above him. He woke as he'd fallen asleep, a shroud of darkness lying against his eyelids. He licked dry lips. A gentle weight touched his mouth.

"Shh," came Allene's husky whisper. His hand throbbed. "Not a sound, either of you, an you wish to live." His chest ached. He rubbed it irritably. From above came stamping feet and a cacophony of rough voices. Someone bellowed for ale. More feet tramped into the inn. One voice started a ribald song; others joined.

Shawn squeezed his eyes shut, taking slow breaths, while the merry-making continued, like a looped tape, over his head. He tried to settle his mind by going over his pieces, but the dream kept intruding. A fine sifting of dirt sprinkled down through the floorboards, catching a speck in his eye. He rubbed it out, blinking hard.

"Are you aw' right?" Allene whispered.

"Aye," Shawn answered. "I'm thinking of my father." He didn't know why he said it.

"He died nobly, to save others," Allene said. The flute whispered overhead. The bawdy song continued, louder with the lubrication of more liquor. Shawn didn't respond. He was remembering a stranded driver his father had stopped to help, one January. His mother had warned him he'd get hurt one day, stopping for strangers. It had been a woman with infant twins, shivering and crying in Minnesota's frigid cold.

The flute trilled overhead. He remembered another boy, Lazarus. The name had stuck with him. Lazarus had also stayed with them now and again, and under his father's guidance, grew from an abused and silent boy to a strong, confident young man heading for medical school on a scholarship.

He remembered a story in the paper two years after his father's murder. He'd crumpled it, torn it, stamped on the shreds, sworn. The boy who killed his father had publicly announced that he understood Mr. Kleiner had refused him the money for his own good. Someone cared for him, at any expense. The boy had joined, and soon led, a ministry in prison, which even skeptics admitted was changing lives. Shawn pushed the memory out of his mind.

The hearty off-key singing ended and a man bellowed again, "To the king!"

Shawn's stomach tightened. He was sure this was very bad news.

"King Edward!" thundered back a score of voices.

"To God and England!"

"To God and England!" echoed the score.

The blood drained from Shawn's face. He felt pathetic relief for Allene's calming fingers on his lips, and deep shame that, even in her anger, she should do this for him. Another stamping of feet sifted more dust onto his face. He brushed at it with his good hand. His right hand throbbed.

"You! Innkeep!" a soldier shouted. "Tell us what you know of Niall Campbell's whereabouts!"

"I've told you all I know," came Fergal's voice. "They say he would go by the Great Glen. The Grants have a lad who knows the Glen well. Shall I send for him?"

"We've a guide already who knows the Glen as well as Campbell."

In the dark, Allene squeezed his hand. "Who?" she whispered. "Who knew it as well as you? He'll keep following us."

"I don't know," Shawn said. "I can't remember anything."

His hand throbbed. Feet stamped, and To the King! echoed again down through the floorboards.

And suddenly he understood, listening to the shouts for King Edward, what his rational mind had been denying. There was no safety in Inverness, no castle, no orchestra to which to escape. There was a traitor from Glenmirril, on their trail with English soldiers who wanted to kill them. Somewhere near him in the dark lay a man they'd mistaken for him, and tried to kill. Fear rose, in the shape of nausea, in his throat.

These people were for real. The Laird had spoken the truth.

He was trapped in 1314.

Inverness, Scotland, Present

Niall sat on the bed that night, staring with disgust at one of the thick shoes that had smothered his feet all day. He'd tried to sneak out in his own soft hide boots, that let him breath and move and connect with the ground beneath his feet, but Amy had caught him. She'd pushed aside the hair at his temple, her fingers skimming the angry bruise, and looked at him with such concern that he'd relented and put on the tennis shoes. He wondered what tennis might be that required such awful things. He'd tied a sturdy knot in the laces such as he might use on a fishing line or his own boots. This had brought another, deeper, look of concern to Amy's face, and she'd knelt and re-tied them into ridiculous, floppy bows more suited to a lass's hair ribbons. He'd smiled his thanks and left before, in her kindness, she inflicted any more indignities on him.

He stared at the shoe and thought about his failure to do as Christ commanded. It disturbed him as much as his failure to find any helpful information about the Pools. It wasn't as if he wanted to pray for a baw juggler like Shawn. But he prided himself on following Christ. He lifted his eyes to the crucifix. Shame washed over him.
Just so.
Niall fancied he heard Christ's words in his heart.
You don't want to. If you loved me, you would want to pray for those I love, for my sake. Even when you don't understand.

Niall turned the shoe over in his hands. He stared, unseeing, past the white rubber sole to the blue plush carpet. "No, I don't understand," he said. "I don't want to pray for him." He hung his head. "Help me want what You want."

Niall lifted his gaze to the crucifix. He stood abruptly and flung the shoe aside. It hit the wall with a solid thunk and slid to the floor. "I'm talking to a piece of wood!" he said, out loud. "I'm hearing voices."

He stormed into the sitting room, away from Christ. He poked buttons on the coffee maker, on the TV, on and off, on and off, poked the buttons that changed the pictures. Little men in fantastic colors, with wings on their backs, spoke Gaelic. He craned to look behind the box, seeking an explanation for this phenomenon. Were they moving images, or real people? He pushed a button.

"What kind of a rat is he!" a woman demanded. He waved his hand in front of her eyes. She didn't respond. He poked a button. One of the fast-moving metal wagons they called cars careened off a cliff, nose diving into deep water below. Niall cringed and poked the button. A man in black and white clothing spoke to an elegant woman wearing something slinkier and shinier even than Caroline's red dress. A young couple stood nearby.

"What kind of man do you want her traveling the country with?" the woman demanded. Niall snapped the TV off. It was quite disturbing. He took a deep breath. Maybe such wonders had been left out of the story of King Herla because no one would believe them.

He wandered into the cavernous bathroom with its granite tiles. He'd take a hot shower, he decided, tugging at his shirt. It would settle his mind. He turned on the water. From next door, Rob's trumpet started, low and smooth.

He climbed under the stinging spray with Shawn's fragrant shampoo.
What kind of man do you want her traveling the country with?
He wet his hair, irritated by the way these things on TV settled into one's brain. From next door, Rob's trumpet climbed up a lazy scale. Niall poured a dollop of shampoo in his hand and lathered. Well, Shawn was definitely no longer a kind of man with redolent hair. Niall chuckled, and immediately felt low for taking pleasure in Shawn's certain discomfort. He stood under the spray, rinsing the shampoo, listening to Rob move into arpeggios and faster and faster scales, and sighed. The hoped-for peace was not to be found in this shower.

The heart is restless till it rests in me.

The Laird had pounded that into his head. But where was there peace in a Christ who demanded that one pray for such a hateful man?
What kind of a man do you want her traveling the country with?
Niall snapped the water off, and dried himself in irritation. He pulled on his own baggy trews and linen shirt, and was pleased to see he'd gotten the coffee machine to work. He poured the steaming liquid into Shawn's mug with the golden trombone, and sipped, letting it warm his insides. What kind of a man
did
he want Allene traveling the country with?

He set the mug down hard. Torches flickered light across his mind. He wanted to strike his head for his obstinacy in not seeing it sooner. Praying for Shawn was the best way to protect Allene! A change of character on his part was her best protection. "I pray for him," he said. He stared at the tennis shoe, lying where it had fallen, and felt nothing but disgust for the man. He crossed himself and said, "God, go with him." He added an
Ave
, more heartfelt than the one muttered earlier today. The scales continued in the next room, soaring higher and higher; much higher than a trumpet should go. Niall jumped up. It was a flute. He crossed the sitting room in a few sturdy strides and flung the door open. Caroline and the other flutist sat in the hall, talking. They looked up at him.

"Who's playing the flute?" Niall demanded.

"That's Rob playing the trumpet," said the other flutist.

Caroline looked at him, her eyes traveling up and down his trews and shirt, as if he were the village idiot. "Cute outfit," she sneered.

Central Scotland, 1314

Shawn lay quietly on his lumpy burlap bags in the dark cellar. The monk wheezed near him. Allene slept, wrapped in his arm, her head on his chest, her breathing deep and even. Above him, the party had died down, though the reedy instrument played on, soft and low. His thoughts circled, a hungry wolf wary of meat in a trap, around the idea that he was in 1314. He couldn't bring himself to touch the thought and find it was real, even though he could see, hear, smell the truth all around him.

The rat scratched in the corner.

He squirmed on the burlap sacks, trying to get comfortable. It was useless. A thought he'd long ago skimmed over returned full force: if he was here in Niall's place, was Niall there, in his? If so, had he wandered off, or had someone from the orchestra found him and taken him back to the castle? He groaned. What was that goody-two-shoes doing with Caroline? Probably trying to teach her the Rosary.

He shook his head. He was in the wrong century, with people who wanted to kill him. Caroline would have to fend for herself. With his free hand, he tried to wedge the burlap sacks into a better position, angry nonetheless. The man was no doubt ruining his reputation. And traveling through time only happened in movies. There had to be another explanation.

But even in the farthest reaches of Scotland, they would not think Edward was king.

A door creaked in the inn above him, distracting him from his morose thoughts. Footsteps crossed the room. A scraping of wood on wood suggested a bench being pulled out. Or—he strained his ears—two benches. He thought about the concert. He knew Conrad well enough. He would have scheduled the concert. How would Niall explain his inability to play trombone? They'd have to cancel the extra performance, and the musicians would be irritated with him for costing them money. Something else occurred to him. He nudged Allene.

She mumbled in her sleep and stirred. "Wha...?"

"Shh," he whispered. "Does Ni...do I by any chance play trombone?"

"What?" She still sounded half asleep. The voices above them drifted down as mere murmurs.

"Sackbut? Can I play sackbut?"

Allene yawned. "The one thing ye couldna do. Do ye no remember Iohn riling ye that ye couldna make a sound?" She nestled more deeply into the crook of his arm. A moment later, a soft snore rose. Shawn turned back to the questions tearing through his head like a Midwestern tornado. The when was obvious: they'd both fallen asleep in the tower and woken up in each other's places. How? He couldn't guess. More importantly, how was he to get back?