Knight's Blood (8 page)
Authors: Julianne Lee
Tags: #Kidnapping, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy fiction, #Married people, #Scotland, #General, #Fantasy, #Children - Crimes against, #Fighter pilots, #Fiction, #Time travel
Then he must have gone unconscious, for the next thing he knew someone was offering a spoon to his mouth. A drop of something warm touched his lips, then spread along the line between them. He licked them and tasted soup. “Here, eat,” came the female voice he assumed was Mary. But when he opened his eyes it was another maid. One he didn’t know, who was younger than Mary. The daughter of someone, he thought. Surely someone’s daughter, but he couldn’t think whose. She touched the pewter spoon to his lips again and he sipped the broth. Suddenly he was hungry, and he struggled to sit up so he could take more soup. The girl sat at the edge of his bed and patiently fed it to him. The room seemed cooler now, and his sheets were soaked with sweat. The damp, clammy silk stuck to his skin uncomfortably.
“Where’s Hector?”
“Above, in the Great Hall, sir. Shall I have him summoned?”
A wan smile came to him at the thought of anyone ordering Hector around. Alex took with his teeth a bit of meat on the spoon, and chewed. “Let him know I’ve awakened and am well enough to receive him if he would care to visit.”
“Are ye certain you’re well enough?”
“No, but if I die I’d hate to miss him.”
Alarm struck the maid’s face. “Die, sir?”
“Go get Hector, girl.” The talk was wearing him out.
She set the bowl and spoon on a nearby table, picked up her skirts, and hurried from the room.
Alex lay back and rested his eyes as he waited, and presently Hector entered. The maid hadn’t returned with him, so the Laird of Barra took the bowl of broth from the table and came to offer some more to Alex.
“Tell me what happened, brother, when you met the elfin king.”
“I won,” Alex said, and sighed.
Hector’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Your opponent must be dead, then.” The last Hector had seen of Alex was when he’d left Eilean Aonarach to confront Nemed and make him send himself and Lindsay to the twenty-first century. He’d told Hector he wouldn’t return.
“You’ve not brought Herself back with you. I fear to ask what has become of her.”
Alex’s heart clenched. “She’s gone missing. I don’t know where she is; that’s why I’m here, to find her. How long was I gone?”
“Half a year. ’Tis nearly Beltane.” A light of confusion at the question told Alex Hector was still having trouble with the truth of Alex’s origins. He’d accepted that Alex was a descendant, but wrapping his mind around the idea of moving backward and forward through time was a strain on him.
Beltane. Alex remembered it was the first of May. Nearly Beltane would make this April of 1316. He said, “I was in the future four months, Hector. I made him send me back to where I came from, and my son was born there.”
Hector grinned. “A son, ye say? And healthy? Praises to God!”
Pain curdled the joy Alex should have felt, for he wished he could believe the boy was his. But he said, “And as soon as he was born, he was taken. Someone abducted him from his mother. She’s chasing after him, I think. I don’t know where either of them are.”
“Och,” said Hector, more softly than Alex had ever heard him speak. “But you think they may have come here?”
“I’m certain she has. She’s taken my armor. I think she came back because this is where I can find people who might help me.” But he wasn’t finding Danu, and Hector would be no help, either. “I need to take my men and search for her. I think she’s come to this century. She’s got my hauberk and gauntlets, which aren’t much use in future times.”
Hector gave a thoughtful sigh and fed Alex some more soup, then said, “’Tis a rather large century. A man’s life is nae so large.” Meaning, Alex could live his whole life and possibly never live in the year to which Lindsay had returned.
“I know. But there weren’t any other choices. The wee folk were my only hope.”
A small, disgusted noise rasped in the back of Hector’s throat. “Then hope is lost, for the faeries are dangerous and not to be trusted.”
How well Alex knew that! But he said, “They sent me here, and nailed the date pretty well, considering.”
“And nearly killed ye in the nailing.”
“In any case, I’m here. And I must find my wife.”
“Aye. But not today.”
Alex sighed. “No. Not today.” He closed his eyes and tried to rest, but images of what the future might hold buzzed through his brain. Adrift in the grief of the past days, he made his plans to take men to the mainland in search of his wife and her child. And he wouldn’t give up until they were both found.
For several days he slept and ate, gaining strength. Whatever that Brochan guy had done to him turned out to be the worst illness of his life. Even the stabbing he’d taken while on Barra a year and a half ago had not laid him out this badly. He’d never been this sick before and hoped he’d never be this bad off again. A quick death for him would be his preference.
Finally he recovered enough to rise from his bed and dress. It was to his disappointment he wasn’t yet strong enough to don chain mail and ride off on his search, and so he wore his domestic robes to present himself in the Great Hall for breakfast. Deep red to reflect his livery of red, black, and gold, his garb was cinched with a wide, black belt. He wore black trews beneath and black leather boots with unfashionably blunt toes. Pointed shoes irked him. He found it difficult to take seriously men who dressed like munchkins, no matter that it was all the rage among the nobility to have long points that sometimes curled up and over. Every time he saw the truly ridiculous ones, the ones that curled so high the tips wiggled with each step, the Lollipop Guild song leapt into his head and sometimes he found himself humming it to himself the rest of the day.
With as much dignity as he could summon, Alex made his way to the table at the head of the long hearth and presided over the meal among his men. There seemed to be an air of relief in the room that the master was recovered. Men ate heartily and occasionally stood to make short speeches of their joy at his return and improving health. The musician playing small bagpipes kept to lively music, and Alex smiled as brightly as he could. It was going to be a long, expensive campaign to find Lindsay, and he wanted his troops to maintain their enthusiasm to find his wife. They seemed cheered to have him back, but there was an underlying concern about the mistress of the castle.
A cry went up from the bottom of the bailey, and a trumpet sounded. An approach of strangers. Every ear in the Great Hall perked to hear the call again, to determine whether it was from land or sea. When the call came from the land side, alarm struck and the knights present rose to their feet to hurry into the bailey and down the slope.
Alex also rose, but dizziness made him sit back down for a moment. Then he rose again, slowly, and followed his men out to the lower curtain. Gregor came to aid him, but he declined the offered arm and only rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder as they walked together down the winding path to the gate.
As he reached the stairway to the parapet over the portcullis, his knights prepared to sally forth and meet their visitors if they proved to be enemies. Horses milled and snorted, and men spoke excitedly of action. Alex’s squire, Colin, had his horse saddled and was holding it for him, but he gave instructions to wait. Feeling like an old man, sore of joint and out of shape, he climbed to the parapet and moved past the guard to lean against the stone battlement. He looked out over the field that lay before the castle.
A cluster of mounted men stood dead center of the pasture. They flew no banner. Not good. That suggested a wariness or subterfuge that usually equaled threat. At the very least it lent itself to misunderstanding, which was nearly as dangerous. He instructed the guard to call out a challenge, and was obeyed, but no reply came from the intruders. Instead, the one at the front reached behind him to be handed off what looked like a long pole.
A banner, perhaps. Good. This would tell Alex what he needed to know about these clowns, and then they could talk. Or not.
But as the cloth unfurled from the pole, Alex’s heart stopped. Then it began to pound with an insistence that made him nearly choke. His mouth dropped open.
The flag raised by the leader of these men was of red and white stripes, and stars on a field of blue. Flapping lazily in the breeze outside his castle in April of 1316 was the flag of the United States of America.
CHAPTER 5
Lindsay’s skin felt burned. As she regained consciousness, she knew there must be blisters all over her face and hands. She groaned, and her throat rasped in raging pain. But when she ventured to touch her fingertips gently to her forehead, there were no blisters. Her skin was smooth, though it flinched at the touch. She looked at her hands. No discoloring. Only the pain. She looked around without moving her head, for even the turning of her eyeballs was a tender thing. She lay there, drawing slow, careful breaths, hoping the pain would diminish enough for her to raise her head.
From here she could see she was still near Perth, in Scone. The knoll rose above her, but not as it had been in the twenty-first century. The door was cleared of bracken and appeared sturdy. Almost new. She’d gone back in time, and could only hope it was far enough. Drifting on the currents of fate wouldn’t cut it this time.
After a few minutes, she tried again to move and found the pain had subsided. She could raise her head without feeling as if her skin would split open, and found the places her clothing bound weren’t as excruciating as they had been. She sat up.
It was nearing dark. The weather was cool and overcast, so she guessed the month to be May. June at the latest. The year could be nearly any. Not that it mattered all that much. It was Nemed she was after, and so long as he’d deposited her where she could find him physically, she could have what she was after. Alex had once forced him to send them home; she figured she could make him give back her son. Or else she’d kill him. Just then, in her pain, the prospect of killing him anyway was oh, so tempting.
As the burning faded to become tolerable, she climbed to her knees, then to her feet. Hard to tell where the sun was. By her memory of the knoll, she knew the river was beyond the stand of trees in front of her. The town would be just south of her. She began walking. The clothing chafed against her skin, and each step brought new pain.
Soon she came upon a cluster of buildings, along a dirt track pitted with deep hoofprints left from the last heavy rain. Not many wheeled conveyances came through here, and Lindsay’s heart stilled with fear she might have gone back too many centuries. Torches and candles were being lit here and there in the village. She thought Scone would have been bigger than this.
One building was lit up more brightly than the others, and before it stood several mounts held by two squires chatting with each other in low voices. She guessed the place was a public house of some sort, the operative word being “house,” since it was apparently someone’s abode made available for travelers and locals to refresh themselves with food and drink. She made her way toward it, nodded perfunctory greeting to the bored squires, and took a deep breath to ready herself for the bluff. From experience she knew that in being convincing as a man the best defense was a good offense. Timidity of any sort would get her nothing but picked on, particularly in a time when even a modern man complete with penis and Y chromosome would be thought a shy coward of the worst sort.
Except Alex. Alex had impressed them from the very start. She missed him horribly. Her heart ached at what he would believe of her if she were unsuccessful, and she resolved that she would bring him Nemed’s head, or die in the attempt.
Lindsay ducked through the door to the public house and went inside to learn what she could.
A large hearth at one end lit the room with a bright, merry fire, and near it stood a counter of sorts. Unattended, it was little more than a high, narrow table of rough wood. Under it was a shelf that bore a single jug and some wooden cups. The room was small enough the one round table surrounded with chairs filled half of it. Most of the chairs were taken by knights, more than likely the men whose horses and squires awaited outside. A single doorway containing no door led to a back room, from which low voices of a woman and children emanated. The building was a single story, and Lindsay guessed the two rooms were all there was to the place: the public room, and the back room for the merchant and his family. Maybe there was an outbuilding of some sort, for storage.
The men lounging around the table were plainly knights by their swords, as she would also be identified as a knight by hers. One squire stood off to the side, alert to his master’s bidding but taking glances at Lindsay the newcomer. The knights sitting casually in their chairs all stared at her, their talk having been suspended on her entrance.
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