Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy (62 page)

Keith's arm rose. His cavalry bolted toward certain death under England's chargers. Hugh blazed through the chaos. His pony leaped a dead horse, dodged a knight's sword, Hugh slashing, hacking and bellowing. Robert turned, ghostly gray atop a ghostly pony in the thick of the battle. Bruce and Hugh skidded up next to each other, shouted for Keith, and within moments, the cavalry changed direction, charging north.

"The archers!" Shawn yelled. The first volley flew, a hailstorm of arrows into the schiltron. Men fell.

"Adam!" Niall shouted. Adam stumbled to his knee, pierced. His pike fell. Keith and Hugh charged from the south, kicking more dust into the chaos. The cavalry swarmed his and Niall's shelter, shaggy ponies, tartans whipping in the wild ride, wide eyes, muscled men, bloodied wounds, set jaws, long hair flying behind, all surrounded them, a nightmare kaleidoscope, and disappeared. They coughed on the dust, ducking low behind the dead horse and covering their heads. And when they looked again, the second row of archers had loosed its hailstorm.

Several archers saw the cavalry charge. They pointed, grabbed for weapons as the ponies stormed the ridge. Swords flashed for a murderous minute, two minutes, three, and Edward's deadly archers were no more.

Niall fell back, panting, shielded for the moment by the fallen horse. He'd done it! History said the archers destroyed the schiltrons. But there was no time to grieve Adam or rejoice for Scotland. Battle swept over them; a trio of English foot soldiers lunged. Niall and Shawn leapt up, back to back, hemmed by the dead horse and Iohn's crimson-shrouded corpse. Exhausted from hours of battle, Shawn swung weakly, barely parrying the attack. His opponent's hair hung in dark, sweat-soaked spirals from beneath his helmet. His mouth twisted in effort, backing Shawn up. And suddenly, the enemy was down on the blood-stained bog, Niall's sword flashing in and out. Behind them lay Niall's two opponents. Shawn gaped. "I see why they wanted you…me...to train the men."

A corner of Niall's mouth quirked up. "Aye," he said. "Now we must get ye haeme."

Shawn snorted, scanning a mile of medieval blood and warriors. "How?" The bristling pikes of a schiltron unhorsed a knight. The animal reared, pawing against green trappings and whinnying. Men descended on the fallen knight, hacking, stabbing.

Trumpets screamed. In the east, a banner bearing Edward's three gold lions lurched from the field. A phalanx of England's nobility galloped away under it.

Shawn and Niall stared at each other in amazement as the English, thousands strong against the Scots, paused in mid-charge, milled uncertainly, and turned suddenly in a vicious tide running, scrambling, galloping away, in full retreat. Some pointed west, mouths open.

Shawn turned to see what inspired such dread. Scots burst from Coxet Hill, another thousand, waving banners and weapons and loosing skirling cries into the chaos.

Shawn broke into a grin, grabbing Niall's arm, pointing, shouting. "She did it! She did it!" He pumped a fist at the charging town folk, shouting "Hoo-ah!" Schiltrons began trotting in formation, chasing the retreating knights.

Niall laughed, shouting to the skies before looking closer.

And he and Shawn stared again at each other, and back at the sight: not only the entire Scots army, not only the thousand 'wee folk' with pitchforks and spades from Coxet Hill, but hundreds of reenactors had appeared before the English, and thousands of twenty-first century spectators in their bizarre clothes, roaring and cheering, behind them.

It was a sight that would inspire dread in the bravest troops in Christendom.

They swarmed Niall and Shawn, the fresh clean trappings on the reenactors' horses charging alongside battle-weary beasts that had died seven hundred years ago, women in bug-eyed sunglasses, men in flowered shirts chatting on cell phones, a knight giving them a fleeting panicked glance and kicking his mount into swift retreat.

Niall searched the melee. "There are your people!" He pointed. Scottish bobbies shoved toward them, through a multitude of real and false Scottish warriors. "Go!" Niall shouted.

Shawn leapt over the dead horse, yanking at the ring on his finger. It would be Amy's. As he ran, he saw a knight, one of the few remaining on horseback, charging across the bog. He turned to see what brave warrior the knight intended to fell. His eyes lit on a child, a child from Coxet Hill, strayed from safety.

He looked back, in disbelief: yes, the knight was charging a child! Then he saw Amy, thirty feet away. Their eyes met. His heart lifted. He could tell her! He could show her! The bobbies surged behind her, pointing, shouting his name. And time suspended as he saw his chance to run toward her, to break through to his own time. To show Amy and the world he had become a better man.

His head swung in slow motion. The knight closed in on the child, fair-skinned, red-haired, clutching a grubby blanket. Tears made white streaks down the child's dirty face.

"Go to your people!" Niall yelled. His eyes, too, locked on the child. He rose, but the knight was too close. Niall couldn't reach the child on time.

Shawn threw the ring to Amy, screaming, "Get your ring back! I'll be right there!" He threw himself, sword and shield raised, between the thundering stallion and the child. His sword pierced the horse's chest as it rolled over him. The knight's sword flashed down. Shawn saw Niall, with the precious split moment's respite, scoop the child off its feet and run.

* * *

"There they are! Both of them!" Amy screamed to the police. "Shawn!"

The reenactors swirled around them, blocking her view. A child cried. She saw him, scared and alone in the middle of the field, his hair bright red, his face dirty, clutching a filthy blanket, surrounded on all sides by reenactors. A horse veered toward him, surely going to rescue him. Shawn burst through the warriors, running toward the child.

The police pointed and ran. Amy ran. The reenactors shouted, waved them off. Shawn yelled—she couldn't make out his words—and threw something. Her reflexes kicked in and she caught it instinctively. The horse charged. Spectators screamed. Amy threw her hands up over her face. The horse skidded to a halt in billows of dust, whinnying. Hot gusts of horse breath snorted into her face. The man in heavy armor threw up his visor, revealing a pair of glasses. "What the hell are you doing!" he demanded. "What the bloody effing hell is going on here today!" His angry eyes dug deeper than any sword. "It's an effing wonder I didn't run you down!"

"The child, didn't you see the child?" Amy said. Her words came out in sobs and gasps.

"There was no kid, lady! Get the hell off my field! Is everyone crazy today!"

Amy ignored him, pushing around the horse, searching for Shawn and fighting panic.

Shawn was not there.

Niall was not there.

She fell numbly to her knees. Horses and warriors fought around her, dust rising and swirling around it all, and opened her hand. A heavy, gold, medieval ring, worthy of a king, lay in her palm.

* * *

Niall shoved the child into its mother's arms. She cried and clutched him, thanking Niall even as he turned and sprinted back. The bobbies were gone. Amy was gone. The tourists in Bermudas with their cameras were gone. The English lay dead or wounded on the field, or scrambled in full retreat back across the stream. He chased one down, bellowing, and ran him through, stabbing over and over. Here was one man who would never again kill his loved ones. He turned for more prey and saw the horse, bleeding and screaming in pain, fallen to the ground. Three feet from him lay Shawn, grimacing, clutching his side. Blood poured between his fingers.

* * *

"Aer ye mad!" Niall shouted over the cacophony. "Ye threw away yer chance!"

Shawn gasped, wincing. "No," he whispered. He grunted, looking down at the blood spreading thick and fast around his fingers.

"Water!" Niall shouted, looking frantically into the thinning ranks. "Help!" Hugh appeared beside him, staring at the two Nialls. Silently, he helped Niall lift Shawn and carry him up Coxet Hill. Niall winced at Shawn's moans. Blood flowed freely, staining Niall's shirt and tunic.

They laid him down. The child's mother rushed forth, tearing at her skirt for bandages. A boy ran with water. She lifted Shawn's head gently, tipping it between his lips. Hugh tightened bandages around his wound. Shawn grimaced, his face chalk white.

"Leave us," Niall commanded. Hugh silently obeyed, taking himself back to the last vestiges of battle.

Niall leaned close. "You had a good life," he whispered fiercely. "You had everything. D' ye understand you're trapped in 1314?"

* * *

The field cleared quickly. The dead and wounded rose, wiping brows in the summer sun, laughing, shaking hands with their enemies of moments before, and making plans to meet at the pub that evening. The police, the local constables, the orchestra, Conrad, Amy, Dana, Celine, Aaron, and Rob searched the battlefield. They asked questions. They showed photographs everywhere. Several reenactors remembered seeing him the night before, remembered his stunningly authentic performance on the harp.

Amy nodded, understanding. But it didn't help.

Conrad stopped her under the towering statue of Robert the Bruce, the statue commemorating Scotland's greatest victory against insurmountable odds. He gripped her arm, saying, "I saw two of him. I saw it with my own eyes. What is going on!"

"I told you," Amy said. "I told you it was Niall who came back from Glenmirril." She stared up at the statue. "That was Edward," she said faintly.

"Edward? What are you talking about?" Conrad spared a glance for the statue of Robert the Bruce. "Niall Campbell, heir to Glenmirril." He snorted. "That's impossible."

The search spread into the fields to the south, north toward St. Ninian's and the castle, and into the surrounding town. After three days, the police called it off. "He just couldn't leave the field that fast," the chief explained. "We're verra sorry. There's nothing more we can do."

* * *

Shawn's eyes fluttered open. Niall sat on one side of his great four-poster bed, Allene on the other, as they had for days now, cooling his fever, giving him water and broth, waiting for him to come around.

"Why did ye do it?" Niall asked. "Why did ye throw away your chance?"

Shawn felt light inside. He'd spent days weaving in and out of dreams and hallucinations. His father, in the car with the fatherless boy. Amy, begging and pleading with him to keep their baby. The child, crying under the on-coming hooves of the horse. The pain had subsided, and he seemed to float in a lighter, whiter space.

"I took the chance...." He drew in a long, painful breath and fell silent till they gave him some water. "Kleiner means less," he whispered.

"What?" Niall stared at Allene and back to Shawn. "What does that mean?"

Shawn closed his eyes, breathing deeply the scent of the bluebells Allene had brought him.

* * * * *

Coda

Inverness, Scotland, One Year Later

The green room filled with the orchestra, arriving in jeans and t-shirts. They nodded at each other, young and old, men and women, but said little. Singly or in small groups, they approached Amy, patting her arm—good to see you again—or hugging her—it's great to be back. They'd come for a return engagement to Inverness, the last place Shawn had played.

Conrad hugged her. He'd grown thinner. "Anytime you want to come back." He kissed her son, glanced at the pastries on the table, and left without touching one.

"It's like a wake," Amy whispered to Celine. They stood near the counter, where tea and coffee languished, ignored.

"It is," Celine replied. "It's been a year."

Amy bundled her son on her shoulder. A year ago, she had resigned her position with the orchestra, found students in Inverness, and shortly before giving birth, won a spot with Scotland's symphony.

"It's starting!" Peter called. Amy and Celine joined the others in front of a television. Amid shushes, quiet fell.

A bright-eyed reporter squinted in the sun; delicate blue blossoms rustled in the fields. The great statue of Robert the Bruce stood guard behind her, gazing out protectively over the country he'd saved. "It's almost a year since renowned musician, Shawn Kleiner, disappeared inexplicably, during the re-enactment of Scotland's greatest victory, the Battle of Bannockburn." A picture of Shawn filled the screen, holding his trombone, in full tuxedo. Even in this photograph, his eye shone with mischief. Someone patted Amy's back. She bit her lip. It hurt to look. Even now, a year later, it was a double pain, missing both Niall and Shawn, and the pain compounded by guilt for feeling faithless and fickle. The situation with Angus didn't help.

She'd spent every free minute, between students, rehearsals, and performances, scouring the internet, museums, archives of any sort, for any mention of Niall or Shawn.

"We have with us his friend and former colleague, Rob Carlson, who is leading the search effort." Sunlight danced in his blond hair. He swallowed, looking from right to left. Amy lowered her eyes. Seeing Rob brought a different pain—guilt for not loving him as he wished.

He'd argued, called, and e-mailed, begging her to come home. There came a sudden two weeks of silence, at the end of which he'd knocked on her door. "I'll find him for you," he said. He moved into his own home, and started the search, despite her protests.

"Come on, Amy!" he'd raged one particularly volatile night. "If you really believe this insane story that he's been sucked through a time void, why are you still here?"

She laid the crucifix and the ring on the table between them, swallowing tears. "I just need to be here where they were."

"There weren't two of them," Rob yelled, and slammed out of her house, blinking rapidly and swallowing hard.

"Mr. Carlson," the reporter asked, "how's the search going?"

He looked into the camera. "We're, um, following leads that he's been spotted in Aberdeen, but so far, there's been no trace. We have a toll, uh, toll free number where we can be contacted with, uh, information." He swallowed hard.