Warrior and the Wanderer (22 page)

“Because ye sang her a spiritual song, the queen regent has left for Stirling.”

“I won’t take the blame for the queen leaving. But isn’t Stirling is on the way to your clan? We’ll meet her there.” One thing Ian knew was that Stirling was between Edinburg and Scotland’s west.

“Ye ken ’tis simple to find another audience with Her Majesty?”

“I gave you her favor.”

That drew a smile from Bess.

“M’Lady,” the Duke interjected.

Bess faced him. “M’Lord?”

“Lord MacLean is within this castle.”

Ian put a hand on her shoulder, stood so close to her.

“Wh-where, m’Lord?” she asked.

“His arrival was recently announced by a page. He should be in the great hall.”

“Why was he allowed within? Ye ken his nature, what he has done.”

“He is a noble. The guards know not his nature.”

“They should,” Bess declared. “He shouldnae be here!”

Ian should have warned her that Lachlan was on his way. But he thought they had two days head start. It was too late for regrets. They had to get the hell out of here. Lachlan should not know Bess was still alive. If he did, then he would surely chase after her and Ian didn’t want to ponder what could happen if Lachlan caught up to her.

“Duke…M’Lord,” Ian said, “you would do Bess a great favor if you didn’t tell Lachlan that she had been here.”

“A foregone conclusion, bard.” The Duke of Argyll looked at Bess. “You must leave now.”

“Aye, of course, m’Lord,” she said.

A sudden pounding in the corridor sounded behind them. Ian turned, shielding Bess with his body.

The corridor reverberated with the sound of something big and menacing approaching. Ian balled his fists, planted his feet apart on the floor and waited.

Bess must have caught a whiff of the creature coming toward them before he rounded the bend in the dim corridor, because she shouted, “Alasdair!”

“Alasdair?” Ian echoed.

“Aye, Alasdair,” the goon said as he lumbered up to them.

Bess pushed around Ian and greeted her champion with a hug and kiss on his bearded cheek. Ian had been replaced in a matter of seconds. Braveheart here was Bess’s protector, not him.

“The MacLean is in the bailey,” Alasdair said trying to catch his breath. “I sent a footman to take our mounts through the gate and down to the West Port.”

“Why have ye sent our mounts from the castle?” Bess asked.

“The MacLean kens ye’re here. He’s waiting with his men by the gate.”

“Impossible!” the Duke declared.

There could only be one explanation. Ian took Bess by the shoulders, and pulled her from her champion and his disapproving stare, and turned her to face him. He said one word, “Spittal.”

“Spittal? H-how…”

“He knows Lachlan. He actually bragged about that fact to me.”

“When we’re ye gonnae tell me?”

“After you saw the queen. I didn’t want you to worry that Lachlan was on his way to Edinburg.”

“Ye ken that? From Spittal?”

“Aye.”

Her eyes flashed at him. He knew she was decided whether to punch him or not.

Then Alasadair broke in. “The MacLean is barring our only way out.”

“There must be another way out,” she said.

“There is another way out of the castle.” Ian said recalling a memory from five hundred years in the future. He stared at the Duke. “Isn’t there?”

“Well, I…I—”

“
Isn’t there?
” Ian pressed.

“There is, but ’tis for the royals only. ’Twas built because of—”

“Flodden,” Ian finished. He had heard that once, and the fact didn’t matter at all to him then, but it mattered to Bess now.

“How ken ye this?” she asked him, shaking her head.

“Blaze, we’ve not got time for this. We have to go.” Distract her once again from telling her the truth.

“When we came to Edinburgh, ye looked about ye like a man who had to get reacquainted it. I saw ye look out the window last night. Ye’ve looked as if ye are a stranger to this this city. ’Tis impossible for ye to ken of any secret way out this castle.”

“Right now believing me is your only option.” He took her by the arm. “This way.”

“Tell me, Ian,” she insisted. “How ken ye this?”

“Later,” he growled. Later like never.

They rushed with Alasdair and the Duke following them through a twisting series of corridors that led down into the bowels of the castle. Ian pulled Bess with him, on the power of his memory. He knew this secret way out only because he was a
neach dìolain
, a bastard. An orphaned bastard.

Ian knew where he was taking Bess and party, because it had once been his home. It had been a home he shared with the other forgotten of Edinburgh, the motherless children who lived feral in the bowels of the city. He had suppressed the memory as soon as he left that life, but now he needed it in the worst way to guide him and save Bess’ life.

The return of that deeply suppressed childhood memory invaded his thoughts with every step. Soon, Ian was no longer leading this sixteenth century trio down a narrowing, dank path where the torches were spaced further apart, then not at all. He ripped one from the wall, not missing a step. He had once walked this same path, illuminated by a lighter he had found in Princess Gardens left by a careless tourist.

He could hear them now, the dozen or so children from ages eight and up to thirteen or fourteen speaking in whispers in a place where birthdays mattered not. His pockets and grimy plastic carrier bags were full of rubbish bin scraps, enough for all of them. He was the oldest, a lad of fourteen, and their provider and protector. They were his only family all of them sharing the common bond of having no parents to love them or tuck them in at night. Social workers did not know about them, the tourist board did not acknowledge these citizens in their glossy brochures or web sites.

As he had sung to his mother, Ian sang to the tourists, sang his bloody heart out for the coin they tossed at his feet. A scruffy, pale, lanky lad with a voice gifted from Heaven.

And he was discovered by the right person who decided to steal him from the street, cleaned him up, gave him a “look” and made him sing with other lads in a boy band. He sang his troubles away, grew up far above where he had lived since his mother died. She had been another victim of Scotland’s drug problem. And the memory of those he protected and provided for faded until today.

“IAN!”

Bess’s shout burst his memory just as he stepped into nothing, splashing down into very cold water.

“Bloody he—!!!!”

He thrashed in water and darkness. He fought his way to the surface, spiting out the foul icy water.

Rough hands grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and hauled him up, and dropped to a slimy stone landing.

Bess knelt beside him. Alasdair stood behind her. The Duke was nowhere to be seen.

Seen. Despite the fact he had extinguished the torch he held in the water, Ian could see. He looked over his shoulder at the grey light seeping through in barred windows on a wall rising from the dark water where he had taken an impromptu swim. The wall had a small opening large enough for a rowboat to pass to the outside, to a swampy lake.

“I don’t remember water,” Ian breathed. “I remember the opening, but I don’t remember the water.”

“’Tis Nor Loch,” Bess said. “’Tis always been at the base of Castle Rock. Ye should ken it as well as ye kent to bring us here.”

“No,” Ian said. “There was no water here.”

He searched the gloom. He had slept over there, in that darkened corner on a small stone ledge. But there had been no water.

“Ian?” Bess said. “We must make haste.”

“Aye, aye….” He remembered everything and nothing. The further he was away from this place the sooner he could calm his mind, set it straight and get himself back in order for returning to his time.

They waded through the water, thigh-deep for Ian, and waist-deep for his companions. The stench was unbearable, a swampy, dead smell. Little wonder the lake did not survive into Ian’s time. They waded under the barred opening.

In the grey light of mid-day in Scotland, they waded to the shore of Nor Loch capturing stares from the locals drawing water from the reed-choked shore.

“I’ll go to the West Port and gather the horses,” Alasdair volunteered, not bothering to shake water or algae from his dripping plaid.

“Good man, Alasdair,” Bess said with a nod. “Return with the horses here, and we’re to Stirling without delay.”

He nodded, plodding up the bank.

Bess walked up the bank. Ian followed.

She paused beside a small grove of scraggly birch. With a brief wave of her hand, she said. “Sit ye down, Ian MacLean.”

Like a guilty schoolboy he did as he was told. He shivered in the cool air, his clothes soaked to the skin. Bess sat beside him, the soggy hem of her skirts touching his leg. She stared off to the western horizon, where the River Forth disappeared into forest and purple hills.

“I trusted ye,” she said deliberately. “And ye led us safely from the castle.”

“Your gratitude isn’t necessary,” Ian said.

“My gratitude isnae in question now, Ian. If I’m to be with ye any longer, if ye’re to accompany Alasdair and me to Stirling ye have to tell me the truth.”

“But you need me as your witness.”

“I need to know who my witness is, Ian.”

“Is that your only offer? I tell you the truth or stay behind,” he asked wearily, knowing that his fight to keep the truth from her was fading fast.

“Aye, ’tis,” she replied, the damp breeze swirling her flame-colored locks around her face.

Ian swallowed. “I trust you, Blaze. I trust you to believe what I’m about to tell you. I trust you not to want me burned at the stake after I tell you.”

She shuddered out a long sigh. “Tell me.”

Ian looked to the west over Nor Loch. He knew this moment would come. Trust. Was there no more powerful word?

Sitting in the grass wearing damp clothes, he took in a deep breath. “I’ll tell you the truth when we’re on the way to Stirling.” Best to cover all his bets.

Chapter Thirteen: The Bard’s Incredible Tale

B
ess held firm the reins of her mount. She did not realize her nails had cut into her palms until she felt the sting. She glanced down at the crescents of crimson on the pale flesh and forced herself to loosen her grip.

Ian sat behind her, sharing her mount. Alasdair rode far ahead, his bulk silhouetted by the grey late afternoon sky. Of this Bess was grateful. Her champion did not need to hear what Ian was telling her. If he had, Ian would be dead as Alasdair would not tolerate a mad man sharing her mount.

“I was born in Mull,” Ian said. “In nineteen seventy-four.”

“Almost five hundred years hence,” she mocked. “’Tis impossible.”

“It’s true, Blaze. There’s a brave new world yet to come and I was a born in it.”

He gave her waist a slight squeeze. She remembered to breathe.

“Ye couldnae been to the New World. The Spanish are sailing there, no’ the Scots.”

“I have been there, but I did not sail there.”

“Ye speak in a riddle.”

“I flew there. First class. British Air.”

She stiffened in the saddle. “Tease me not.”

“I’m not teasing you. I’m telling the truth.”

“Ye’re speaking nonsense.”

 
“Use your imagination, Blaze. Give me your open mind.”

“Ye have it,” she lied.

“I was sent here, from my time. That Dane of your legend, the one who took Jyn Kyndy or as I knew of him in my time, John Kennedy, and Nyl Amstrygh, or Neil Armstrong, away from Scotland’s ancient times, he is responsible for my being here.”

“’Tis only legend,” she said. Yet, Ian had pronounced the names of the missing men of legend as if he was acquainted with them.

“Those men that the Dane took away were sent to the twentieth century. The same century I was born. John Kennedy was a great leader, known all over the world, but he did have enemies. They killed him and his brother too. And the Dane did not take Neil Armstrong to the moon. He flew there with two other men, called astronauts, in nineteen sixty-nine. He walked on the moon and then flew back to Earth and will forever be a hero.”

“Enough!” Bess cried out.

From up ahead on the path, Alasdair looked over his shoulder at them.

She waved him off and he returned his attention to the road.

“I had suspected that yer odd manner is because ye are a mad man,” she said. “Now I ken it.”

“I am not a mad man,” Ian said deliberately. “Just a man out of my own time.”

“And ye claim the Dane brought ye here?”

“Aye. He filled the gas tank of my Corvette with some atomic, Orwellian, rocket fuel, and BANG!”

Bess jumped.