by Jane Stain
The mood among all the women in the kitchen washing the supper dishes was somber as usual. They weren't allowed to sing in the kitchen, only downstairs in the washroom. Everyone was singing out in the great hall, but the song was a sad one for Nadia. It was a fighting song, and all the warriors were in high spirits. All their talk was of attacking the Murray clan.
Gently, Mairee eased her way in between Nadia and Sorcha to help scrub the pot. Mairee’s presence comforted Nadia. She longed to ask after her new friend’s family and her life so far, to get to know Mairee. But she didn’t dare. Best to keep silent and wonder, rather than open one's mouth and be sure of opposition. Because difficult as it was to think of these new friends as potential enemies, Nadia knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if they had any loyalty to the Camerons, they would hate the Murrays. And Nadia knew she would hate them in return, even though she liked them very much as individuals and had nothing against them, personally. Far from it.
With Mairee's help, the pot was getting clean much faster, and Nadia smiled at her friend whenever they met eyes, which was quite often, there being nothing else to do. They didn't dare speak even about mundane neutral things, lest they interrupt the revelry in the next room.
And then Nadia felt Ciaran's presence in her mind and was both relieved and more anxious. His feelings for her were tender and affectionate and welcoming, which felt wonderful. But the words he formed in their mingled minds alarmed her.
"They wull attack the Murrays tomorrow! We need tae gae! Can ye get oot tae the stableyard in the night?"
In her mind, she rushed into his arms and hugged him tight. "Aye."
He returned their mental hug. "Dinna gae tae sleep yer own self."
She shifted to emotions rather than mental imagery, bathing his mind in her confidence at being able to take care of herself. "Dinna fash. I hae some aught I can take for wakefulness."
Surprising her, his mind shifted immediately to a panicked alarm that was so strong, it made her own heartbeat speed up so that Mairee noticed and looked around for the threat.
Nadia shook her head and gave Mairee an embarrassed smile, as if she’s misheard something banal.
Meanwhile, Ciaran’s mental panic continued. "Some aught the druids gave ye? Nadia, there are big dangers in trusting their magic, ye ken—"
She let him feel her gentle humor at that last line and waited for him to calm down before she answered him in her mind. "Nay, naught from them. Some aught harvested from beans, called caffeine. I hae it in tablets that ye swallow."
His panic receded in waves like the ocean tide, but much quicker. "Verra wull, I suppose that is safe, then."
She tried tickling his mind with her humor, gently, to keep the mood light and help him save face. "Shall I bring ye one?"
Instantly, he was once again in protector mode, and it looked a thousand percent better on him than his worry had. "Nay. Nay, ’twould rouse their suspicion, ye ken?"
Wishing to maintain her air of self-confidence and independence, she splashed him with just a bit of her humor. "Aye. Verra wull, I wull wake ye."
He resisted, making his mind a strong tower of manly resolve. "I'll be waiting for ye. I hae tae gae now. 'Tis sorry I am, but I can ainly rake this strip o’ the stableyard sae lang.
"I wonderit how ye were dang this. I understand. Anon."
Nadia managed to take two caffeine tablets when she went to relieve herself in the chamber pot they kept in a closet down the hall. She felt fine passing water there, but not the other, and everyone knew it. This had been a source of embarrassment, but now she was glad.
One last time, Nadia helped Mairee put the sleeping mats and blankets down, said her prayers along with everyone, and lay down on a pad on the kitchen floor. When all the other washerwomen were asleep, she slowly got up, dropped her blanket down in a rumpled mess on top of her pad, and nonchalantly walked to the kitchen door.
Sorcha looked up when Nadia pulled the latch.
Nadia did the potty dance.
Sorcha rolled her eyes and turned over on her pad, wriggling to make herself as comfortable as she could be on the floor.
Nadia went out into the moonlight and crept across the stableyard full of cows. Cringing each time one of them mooed, she made her way over to the stable’s outside wall where Ciaran’s empty stall was. There in the shadows of some barrels which protected her from the cows, she crouched down as if to do her business.
Mercifully, Ciaran's consciousness came into hers right away. She wouldn’t need to wake him.
"Is the courtyard clear?" his mind asked hers.
"Aye, unless ye count the coos."
"Good. Bide there. I’m coming.”
“But there are guards. How wull we get through the gate, leave aloone off the isthmus, withoot they ken it?
"I hae been listening. Ainly two guards hae the night duty, and they cross one another at the gate on their rounds.”
He was in front of her now, and her barrel enclosure was crowded with the two of them.
She looked up into his eyes with rapt interest in his plan, impressed with how sure he was of himself. "How will that help us?"
Ciaran took her hand. "When they're taegither by the back gate, come with me and ye wull see. I hope."
"Ye hope?" With their minds mingled like this, she could tell he was mostly joking. It was that small part of him that was a bit worried that she paid attention to, though, along with the mooing cows. Pleasantly, he found their wanderings easy to navigate, and while she was with him, she didn’t fear having a foot stepped on.
When the two kilted Cameron guards were close to meeting by the back gate, Ciaran ran through the cows with her.
"What are we dang?” she asked him in her mind. “The idea is tae escape their notice, na tae—"
As soon as she had thought this, Nadia saw what Ciaran was thinking.
It worked.
Before the two enemy warriors saw ‘Bixby’ and Nadia in the dark, Nadia felt energy drain from both her and Ciaran into the halberd.
The kilted Cameron guards promptly slumped down along the wooden wall, snoring as if they'd been asleep for an hour already.
Smiling at her, Ciaran quickly rolled the barrels over to protect the guards from being woken by the cows, then looked over toward the kitchen door.
No one was coming. The altercation had happened with barely a sound.
Squeezing her hand gently and with his mind full of glee, he opened the back gate and let them out. After closing it behind him, he started them toward Baltair and Eoin’s hiding place at a quick walk. "We had best hurry, just in case someone coomes oot tae relieve themselves.”
He had just started to speak, when suddenly she couldn't see him. Or herself. The two of them were invisible.
"How did ye dae that withoot me kenning, and how lang wull this last?" she asked him in her mind.
Holding her hand firmly, he broke them into a run along the beach between the two lochs toward the cover of the forest. "I hae na idea how lang ’twill last. Let us be oot o’ sight from the gates when it wears off."
She ran with him, hand in hand on the firm wet sand. “But why did na I ken we were aboot tae be hidden?”
He gently squeezed her hand as they ran, and his mind caressed hers. “The halberd is evil, Nadia. I canna let ye feel its power.”
She knew he was avoiding her question, and she wanted to press him for an answer, but then he filled their minds with such a compelling fantasy that she gave way to it as they ran, enjoying this look into the way his mind worked, his hopes and dreams.
Turning toward the loch on their left, Ciaran threw one arm around Nadia and raised the other to wave back-and-forth out into the waters, with his billowy sleeve flying.
Nadia was no longer able to hear his thoughts, and she squinted to see what he was waving at through the mist that enveloped the whole area, making it difficult to see the Cameron fortress or even the forest they had been running to.
She heard the s
ound of water lapping, but it was more rhythmic, as if several synchronized swimmers were all coming toward them. She peered through the mist, anxious to see. Why was he waving?
Her answer came in the form of a large serpent swimming across the water with its head pulled back to spit poison at her. She cringed into Ciaran, making his arms wrap around her all the more.
But he caressed her back and whispered in her ear softly, "Weesht, all well. ’Tis oor ain clan, the MacGregors, come tae be with us always."
Vaguely aware of her feet still running along the sandy beach but no longer wanting to pay that heed, Nadia looked out again into the mist of the loch toward what she thought was a monster.
Now, she saw a large Viking ship. The sea serpent was a decoration on the front of it, and the water lapping sounds were the oars sticking out of the sides. All her friends were on the ship, waving at her with smiles of welcome: Sarah was there, and Ellie, and even Kelsey.
"That's Kelsey’s husband, Tavish MacGregor," Nadia said absentmindedly as she watched the kilted man lower a small boat and row it toward them by himself with room for the two of them in the back.
Ciaran cradled her in his arms. "Aye, Tavish is my cousin, and we all make a fine MacGregor clan."
Tavish smiled at them when he reached the shore, jumping out of the boat and getting his boots wet, but holding firm to it and reaching out his hand to help her aboard. His handshake was friendly and welcoming.
Tavish rowed them to the Viking ship, telling them of the journey so far. "Ye are the last two we needed tae find, and ’tis sae glad we are that we did. We went and got Sarah and Meehall from the Murray castle, where they are well acclaimed and can gae back at any time, sae that's a place we may visit, aye?"
"Aye," Ciaran assured his cousin as he sat behind him in the rowboat with his arm around Nadia, who felt content to sit and listen, knowing she would soon see Sarah and Ellie.
They reached the ship and were hauled aboard to cheering from the rowing racks even as the oars took stroke again and rowed them away from the Cameron estate much too quickly in Nadia's opinion to be a natural thing. But why question this wondrous, perfect escape?
Sarah and Ellie were hugging Nadia while she looked around their new Viking ship home.
"Sae happy ye made it!"
Kilted men at the oars called out in greeting.
"Wull met, Ciaran! Nadia!”
“Now we are all, indeed, a clan!"
The captain stood at the tiller, an older man Nadia didn't recognize. He smiled at her and waved with a flounce of his own kilt, an outright MacGregor tartan, red and black and bold. "Hail, Nadia, and well come. I am Dall MacGregor, captain o’ oor fair ship The Wanderer and chief o’ oor small MacGregor clan. We dinna stand on ceremony, sae gae on below and make yourself at home. Quarters hae been prepared for ye and Ciaran, who I will marry as soon as we are safely away from Cameron lands."
Ciaran turned to her then, and when she met his eyes, they kissed in a way they hadn't yet done: empty of worry or fear, full of hope and plans.
Ellie opened a door that led to a wooden stair down into the hold. "'Tis this way. Ye wull love it."
Nadia followed with Ciaran directly behind her, and Tavish as well.
They were met at the bottom of the stair by a woman as handsome as Dall, and just as stately. "I'm Emily, Tavish and Tomas's mother. 'Tis sae relieved we are that ye made it. Allow me tae show ye tae yer cabin. Once ye are refreshed, I welcome ye at table for supper."
The hold held only cabins, nicely appointed. There were silk and linen cushions and woolen blankets. Closets to hang up cloaks and extra skirts and shirts. Every couple had a door they could close to have privacy in their cabin — which was wondrous large, considering the size of the ship, plenty of room for two to comfortably stretch out or cuddle, as the case may be.
They were left alone there for a while to get used to the idea.
True to her word, Emily was standing in the hallway once they were hungry. "Sae glad I am tae hae all o’ ye taegither. Ye canna ken." She hugged Ciaran in Nadia then, and although they had just met her, she felt motherly and comfortable and safe in a way that Nadia hadn't felt around anyone since she left home for Celtic.
Eoin and Baltair were already seated when Ciaran and Nadia sat, but then someone who looked a lot like Eoin and was every bit as big sat down at their table.
Eoin put his arm around the man and smiled. "This is my brother Gabriel, but he goes by Connell, as ye may wull understand, Gabriel being such a sissy name."
Connell socked Eoin in the arm, and then the two sat companionably while Eoin pointed out everyone else in the room. "Meehall and Sarah ye ken. That be Tomas and Amber. Jeffrey is at table with oor parents, Vange and Peadar. Lauren was invited, but she chose na tae come.”
Connell took over. “Eoin’s auld Jaelle also was invited and chose na tae come, but she lives in the time o’ Hadrian's Wall, and we can visit there if we like, so that's well, aye?"
"Aye," Ciaran said heartily.
“There’s Eoin,” Ciaran said aloud, disrupting their daydream. The two of them had entered the cover of the trees where Eoin and Baltair sat, mounted and packed.
Collapsing with relief in the soft grass nearby, Nadia saw Ciaran and herself become visible again. Disturbed though she was at not being included in whatever it took to tell the halberd to stop hiding them, Nadia nevertheless took turns panting out their report to Eoin.
“The Camerons attack the Murrays tomorrow.”
“We hae tae gae warn them.”
“Tahra doesna ken time travel as yet.”
“But she is dang a ritual tae get her power back.”
“She has a history book from the future that says Ciaran's gang tae be instrumental in defending the Murrays in a grand battle.”
“Tomorrow, they plan tae weaken the Murrays, sae that the battle, when it comes in a week or sae, wull hae a different outcome.”
“We hae tae gae now.”
Eoin cleared his throat. "Is your cover blown, Nadia?"
Ciaran's words swirled around Nadia's mind. "What can he mean?"
"Nay," she told them both. "The halberd made the guards sleep—"
"And we saw ye disappear!" said Baltair, who sat on his horse laughing.
Ciaran reached out a hand for Eoin to help him up on his horse behind him, thinking to Nadia "Yer welcome. I ken ye dinna want tae sit horse with Eoin."
"I thank ye," her mind told Ciaran’s sincerely while she reached out to Baltair.
The smaller horseman was reaching down to her when Eoin spoke. "Nay. Nay, bide awhile. Gae back tae yer cover. Learn all ye can."
Ciaran’s anger felt like hot lava bubbling up inside him, but it didn’t burn her. "Nadia has risked her life for us already. Why would ye send her back intae that den o’ thieves and worse, with that druid child in there looking for a sacrifice?"
Eoin looked regal on horseback. "Ye forget. We head intae an ambush we need tae warn them aboot. Two on two horses gae twice as fast as four on two horses." Eoin turned his horse.
Baltair gave Nadia a look of agreement with Eoin and turned to follow him.
Still full of rage, Ciaran called out after them, barely remembering to keep his voice down so as not to be heard from the Cameron house, "We wull follow ye afoot!"
Eoin stopped his horse so fast it stamped with indignation, swatting him with its tail. He reigned it even tighter, see-sawing the bit, and it quit. "The Camerons ride this way soon. They wull owertake ye. Nay, the least likely place for Nadia tae be discovered is in the Cameron house. Baltair and I will warn the Murrays. If we are in time and they fight off the Cameron attack, then when we return, I wull climb this tree and change its silhouette against the sky tae signal ye tae come oot. If I dinna dae sae by nightfall two days hence, then use the halberd and take Nadia tae her haime, for the Murrays are lost.”
Finally, Ciaran calmed down. "Verra wull, but bring two more horses when ye return."
Eoi
n didn't quite roll his eyes. That wasn't his style, but he looked askance at Baltair, and the two of them took off in a cloud of dust. Very soon they were out of sight, up the mountain.
Ciaran was still holding her hand.
Wanting to restore a sense of urgency so that he held on, she said to him in her mind, "We had better get there before those two guards awake." She started to run.
Keeping hold of her hand, he drew her back into a walk, saying with amusement in his mind, "We can stroll a moment.”
She gave him a mental hug of agreement, resisting the urge to squeeze his hand, but not quite succeeding.
He gently squeezed back, bathing her mind with admiration. “Ye are a verra brave lass, risking yer life for us when ye nearly lost it once afore."
Nadia was flattered, and since he was in her mind with her, she couldn't hide it, so she just let him feel it with her. “’Tis na bravery, but ainly my thirst for adventure and excitement. Till now, I didna ken how verra bored I had grown o’ my duties as a clark at Celtic University.”
The warmth and affection and reverence that built-up in their minds between them was too much to be contained just in their heads. Their bodies insisted upon that, clinging to each other in an embrace that both fulfilled the affection and made it grow more.
When her mouth met Ciaran's, she no longer felt weak in the least from the incident with the halberd. No, her strength was returning to her in a rush of elation as mouth-to-mouth with Ciaran, she felt finally whole and complete.
Parting from Ciaran was painful for her, once they had crept back inside the gates and he walked her to the kitchen door, waited while she went inside, then closed it. She lay down to feign sleep, but the next thing she knew, she was drifting off.
12
Ciaran had felt so strong, tasting Nadia's lips, he hadn't thought he would sleep. But the halberd had known better, hiding him as he lay down. He must have slept right through all the warriors leaving for battle, because he woke up in his empty stall, rested. The morning light came in through the cracks in the walls, and the horses were all gone. But the cows still mooed outside.