by Lynne Jonell
At the mention of bed, Will almost split his head with a yawn.
Janet, bustling past, shook her head at him. “Stop that gawping, laddie. You’ve got pots to scrub and grates to scrape before you can shut your eyes.”
Shutting his eyes sounded immensely appealing to Will. “Where do I sleep when I finish?” he asked.
Janet stared at him. “Where do you think? Where pot boys always sleep—on the hearthstone, by the fire. And you’d better bank it well, so some embers are left in the morning, or Cook will eat you for breakfast,” she added as she gathered the plates.
Nan scowled as Mistress Cullen’s skirts swished out of sight. “I’m getting sick of this. I say we just grab Jamie and go.”
“Right. And when he screams and wakes the whole castle, and Ranald pitches us out in the dark or puts us in the lockup, what then?”
Nan twisted a lock of hair moodily around her finger. “Fine. You think of an idea. But hurry up, will you? I’m not in the mood to share a bed with a bunch of blanket-hogging girls.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not in the mood to sleep on a hard stone floor.” Will gnawed on a fingernail. “Listen, do you know which room is Jamie’s?”
“Aye. It’s just next to the laird’s.” Nan frowned. “Have you noticed this castle is different? The rooms aren’t all the same, and the stair is in a different place, and—”
“Pot boy!” shouted Janet from across the hall. “Get busy!”
Will hurriedly got up and stacked a few bowls. “We’ve got to make Jamie want to come with us,” he whispered.
“But how?” Nan added her bowl to his stack with a convincing clatter.
Will jammed his hands inside his plaid, where it bloused out over the belt and made a sort of pocket. He touched something that crinkled like paper.…
“I’ve got an idea.” He pulled out the lead stick he had gotten from the steward and hurriedly wrote a few lines. “Jamie can read,” he explained to Nan, “and I bet you anything he’s kept in practice just to show off. You can tuck this into his hand without anyone noticing.”
Nan looked over his shoulder and read:
Meet me in kitchen after all are asleep, to learn rest of song and find out a secret.
“That ought to do it,” said Will, folding the note up small and pressing it into Nan’s palm. “Jamie never could resist a secret.”
6
STEWARTS’ REVENGE
WILL WAS EXHAUSTED. SCRAPING GRATES with the long-handled metal brush was hard work, but it was nothing compared to scrubbing the pots and pans needed to feed so many people. To make it worse, he had to carry the wash water in buckets and heat it before pouring it into the big sink. And the iron pans were dreadfully heavy.
At least he didn’t have to wash the mugs; he was only required to dry their insides with a cloth. Now he saw why everyone in the Great Hall had wiped their stew bowls out with pieces of bread and then eaten the bread after. It was a marvelously efficient way of polishing the bowls until they were clean—well, more or less—and though it wasn’t exactly hygienic, it made a pot boy’s life easier.
Sundown was early this time of year in the Highlands. Gradually the castle quieted as the workers did their final tasks and went off to bed. Some of the guards were still awake, for Will heard their boots pacing the hall, and after a while, snatches of song and rough laughter came faintly to his ears.
Will wasn’t in a singing mood, himself. The washing up was too dismally real. He scraped and scrubbed, with only the kitchen fire for light, until his back was sore and his knuckles were raw. When he caught his thumb between a pot and its lid, he stifled a yelp and straightened his back, groaning. Why was he even doing this? He didn’t need to finish the job—he’d be gone long before Cook woke up in the morning.
If, that is, Nan managed to pass the note to Jamie. And if he still remembered how to read after all this time. Then if Jamie was curious enough to come, and if no one saw him on his way down to the kitchen …
Will sucked his wrist where he had burned it on the hot kettle and wearily lifted the next pot into the sink. At last, exhausted, he collapsed on the stone hearth, pillowing his head on his arm. He heard one soft tick as a burning ember crumbled into ash, and then he slid into sleep as swiftly as a stone dropping into deep water.
After a while he dreamed. His mother was imprisoned behind a wall, shaking her head in warning, but then he couldn’t see her anymore for the towering stack of pots and pans that grew before his eyes and stayed dirty no matter how he scrubbed. All at once, the largest pot reached out to him with iron handles that had somehow become hands, and shook him by the shoulders. “Wake up!” it called, and Will opened his eyes to see Nan’s arm vigorously shaking him, and Jamie’s eager face, alight with curiosity.
“Did anyone see you?” Will mumbled, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
Nan shook her head. “Not a soul. I slept on a bench in the hall, and when Jamie woke up to use the garderobe, I showed him the note, and he came with me. I think the guards must all be at the other end of the castle.”
“I read your letter all by myself!” Jamie plumped himself down on the hearth. “The steward says I read ree-mark-a-ble for my years. What’s the secret?”
Will gave his head two shakes and ran his fingers through his hair. “The secret is…” He looked at Nan. “Do you have the Magic Eyeball book?”
“Right here.” Nan reached inside her satchel.
“Okay.” Will sat up and looked Jamie in the eye. “Here’s the secret. You know all those things you thought you remembered? That everyone told you were just dreams because you’d hit your head?”
Jamie nodded, looking troubled.
“Well, everything you remembered was true. Nan and I can prove it to you, if you’re brave enough.”
“I’m braver than you!” Jamie angled his chin up in a not-quite-successful imitation of Sir Robert. “I’m a Menzies, and Sir Robert’s nephew! You’re just a pot boy.”
“I’m a Menzies, too, you dumbwit,” Will said, nobly resisting the urge to smack his brother.
“I’m not a dumbwit! Anyway, Ranald says you’re just a—”
“I’m a Menzies, too,” Nan interrupted hastily.
“But I’m noble!” Jamie stuck out his chest.
“Yes, you are,” Nan added, “and brave, too.” She gave Jamie a ravishing smile, complete with dimple. “Here, show me how brave you are. Stand close, like this, touching Will. Now, watch what happens!”
Will noted sourly that the Dimple was having its usual effect. Jamie looked up at Nan like a trusting puppy and put his hand obediently on his brother’s back.
The fire was low, and the kitchen was full of shadow. Will could just make out the pattern in the open book. He relaxed his gaze, looked at a place just beyond the book, and waited for the shimmer of light to show around the edges.
It didn’t come. Yet something seemed different, in a way he couldn’t define.
“What’s wrong?” Nan whispered.
“I don’t know. It’s not working the same way. Maybe I need more light.” Will turned slightly, so that the fire’s glow shone more brightly on the page.
“This is daft,” said Jamie loudly.
“Quiet, now!” Nan said. “He’s got to concentrate!”
Will brushed away the thin thread of worry that spun into his mind and focused on the page once more. He knew how to do this, he told himself. He had done it before.…
There. He could sense something different now, on the other side of the book. Yet there was no light leaking around the edges. Rather, there was a shimmer of darkness, if such a thing could be. Slowly he lowered his arms.
Before him was a squarish hole in the air: a window in time, perhaps, but a window into total blackness. It showed up clearly against the fire’s glow—a largish patch with fuzzy edges, dark where it should have been light, blocking the flickering flames and reflecting no gleam of the moon that showed palely through the high, small window and spil
led in a narrow swath of brightness across the flagstone floor.
“Witchcraft!” breathed Jamie, staring.
“No,” said Nan swiftly, “not witchcraft. It’s more like … science. Magical science.”
Jamie frowned. “Do you mean alchemy?”
Will heard their voices like a buzzing in the background of his mind. What had he opened a window on? Slowly, carefully, he put out a hand. But his fingers met a barrier, a rough, cold wall that felt almost like—
“Stone,” said Nan, touching the darkness. “You opened a window on stone.”
Will looked around wildly, and the window disappeared. “But we always go to the same place in another time. We’re in the middle of the castle kitchen—so why doesn’t it open into the castle kitchen in the future?”
Nan’s eyebrows twitched down. “It’s like I said before; the whole castle is different.” Suddenly her brow cleared. “I know! Mum told me once that the castle was destroyed somehow, I don’t remember how, and then they built it again. So this must be the first castle. The kitchen must not be in exactly the same place as in our time.”
“But then why aren’t we just in a different room?”
Nan knew the answer to that, too. “I bet this spot is inside one of the walls. The walls in a castle are thicker,” she added. “Sometimes they’re three feet—”
“Sir Robert’s castle has walls seven feet thick!” said Jamie with pride.
“Okay, then, I just have to move over a little, like this.” Will stepped a few feet away and tried again. This time there was still darkness, but when Nan put her hand through, she met only air. She stuck her head in carefully and looked around.
“It’s dark everywhere,” she reported, then—“Eeeek!” She pulled her head back like a shot, shuddering. “There was something moving in there—something chewing—”
“Probably just a mouse,” Will said.
“Or a rat,” Jamie added cheerfully.
“I’m not going in there,” Nan said firmly. “That was like a locked closet, or a sealed room, or something. We don’t want to get into a place like that. If it was a closet you might not have enough light to do the Magic Eyeball thing, and we’d be locked in there forever, and someday they would find our bones—”
“All right,” Will said hastily. “Don’t go on and on about it.”
“Why did you tell me to come?” Jamie shuffled his feet. “You haven’t shown me any secret, just a big dark hole. And you said you were going to teach me the rest of the song,” he added, gazing accusingly at Nan. “I want to sing it for Sir Robert tomorrow!”
Will rolled his eyes. “You won’t even be here tomorrow, so don’t bother—”
He stopped. Jamie’s lower lip had gone out in a motion Will knew only too well.
“You teach me the song,” said Jamie, sounding suddenly like the laird, “or I’m going to bed and I’ll never talk to you again.”
Will made an exasperated noise in his throat. He was strongly tempted to grab Jamie and carry him away, out of the castle where he couldn’t tattle to the laird. “Fine, then.” Will put his hands behind his back with an effort. “Nan will teach you the song, but you have to promise to stay with us until we get a window open into our own time. You’ll see, it will be just like you remember it.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jamie knew every word to “Flower of Scotland”—and so did his big brother, much against his will.
But Will had been thinking. It made him increasingly nervous to think of making a time jump inside Castle Menzies. There was too big a chance for someone to suddenly round a corner and see them as they appeared. It would be hard enough if they appeared in front of a bunch of tourists or Cousin Elspeth, but what if he missed his own time entirely? Then they might get taken for witches, and be burned at the stake, or something.
If only they could get outside! The moon was bright enough to see by. But the gates were barred for the night, and there would be guards at the door.
“Those days are past now,” warbled Jamie, “and in the past they must remain—”
Will stepped to the door that opened to the hall and glanced down the passageway.
“But we can still rise now, and be the nation again—”
The hall was dimly lit, with torches that had been allowed to burn low. The barrel ceiling loomed like the inside of a tomb, and Will felt a chill at the back of his neck.
“That stood against him,” came faintly to his ear. “Proud Edward’s army—”
Will peered into the gloom. There were no guards that he could see. Step by careful step, Will moved down the passageway. Jamie started singing his song again, a little louder this time, and Will wished with all his heart that his brother would shut up, just for one minute. There was a sound ahead, a low sort of rumble, coming from the guardroom. He couldn’t identify it.
Will neared the gate, the big barred door with its strong iron grating that was called a yett. But no one stood guard there, either. Did they trust their iron bars and wooden door so much? It seemed careless not to have a guard on duty, especially with all the enemies they had running loose.
The rumbling noise grew louder. It sounded like a lawn mower that wouldn’t start. He stuck his head cautiously around the corner and choked back a sudden laugh. The guardroom had guards in it all right—but they were snoring. One sprawled against the back wall, under the marks in the stone where soldiers had sharpened their knives. Another, smaller in build, huddled in a corner with his head on his knees. The third guard was at the table. Where his cheek pressed against the wood, a small puddle of drool dampened the surface. None of them was Ranald, Will was glad to see, but every man had a mug near him, and in the center of the table was a small wooden keg that Will had seen once before. Water-of-life, the guard had called it. On the keg’s wooden surface was burned an unfamiliar word: Uisge.
Will sounded it out under his breath. “Ooo-is-gey,” he muttered. It sounded familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere before. Of course, spelling here was quite different from the way he had learned it at home. “Ooo-is-gee…,” he tried again, and then suddenly he had it.
Whiskey! They had been drinking whiskey, and they had all passed out! It was stronger than ale; maybe they weren’t used to it. He might be able to get outside after all.
Will turned to the castle gate and put his shoulder under the heavy bar. It moved an inch, but no farther. He let it down softly and raced back to the kitchen.
Jamie was still at it. “That fought and died for your wee bit hill and glen—”
“Shut up, will you? The guards are asleep!” Will’s whisper was fierce. “Nan, help me open the gate. If we get outside, I can open a time window without any walls getting in the way, and it will be easier to hide if someone comes.” He snatched up the Magic Eyeball book and shoved it into Nan’s satchel.
Jamie followed them to the door, but balked when he realized what Will was about to do. “You can’t open the gate in the middle of the night! Uncle Robert won’t allow it!”
“Uncle Robert … will never … know,” Will panted as he heaved at the bar. “Come on, Nan, help!”
“Shh!” Nan laid a warning finger on his wrist. There was a sliding sound behind them, and a soft chink of metal.
The children slipped into the shadows. Will clapped his hand over Jamie’s mouth just in case. Jamie wriggled, but Will whispered into his brother’s ear. “You don’t want Uncle Robert to find you out of bed, do you?”
“He’s not your uncle,” Jamie whispered back hotly, but he stood still.
Someone was moving in the guardroom. A long shadow changed shape as it met the flickering light from the hall torches. A thin, gangling form appeared in the doorway, and Will let out his breath in relief. It was only the old pot boy, the teenager who had brought the whiskey.
The pot boy cast a quick look over his shoulder and went soft-footed to the gate. He pulled out a ring of keys, clinking slightly, and fumbled with the shadowed end of the heavy, iron-reinfor
ced bar across the gate.
Now Will knew why he had been unable to lift the bar more than an inch. He had not noticed the padlock, as wide as a man’s fist, that hung beneath one end. With a final chink and a scrape of metal, the teenager unlocked the gate and muscled up the heavy bar. The iron yett creaked, and a swirl of cool night air came gusting in. The dust on the floor stirred, a leaf skittered across the stone, and the boy put his foot on the threshold.
Will stepped from the shadows to the door. “Hey,” he whispered.
The pot boy jumped a foot. “I—I was only going for a breath of air,” he stammered wildly.
“It’s okay,” Nan soothed. “We want to go outside, too.”
The boy’s eyes, darting everywhere, settled on Jamie. “He wants to go outside?”
Will frowned in puzzlement. He had expected the teenager to ask their business, and instead the boy seemed scared of them. Well, maybe it was because of Jamie. Will had a sudden inspiration and said, “He needs a breath of air, too. He’s got … you know, breathing trouble—”
“Asthma,” Nan said promptly. “He gasps and wheezes like you wouldn’t believe.” She pushed Jamie forward.
The teenager looked suspiciously at Jamie. “He’s not doing any of that now.”
“It comes and goes,” said Nan.
Jamie, between Nan and Will, gave a gasp and a little start, as if he had been suddenly poked in the ribs from both sides.
“Like that,” said Nan, “only worse.”
“Much worse,” said Will, giving Jamie another quiet dig with his knuckle.
“Eeeeessp!” Jamie obliged, sucking in air with a rasping sound. “Eeeesp! Eeeesp!”
Will leaned against the heavy door and pushed it open wider. The hinges creaked, but the snoring from the guardroom continued without a break. The children pressed through and hesitated a moment in the damp cool night.
The teenager turned his head from side to side, as if scanning the darkness for enemies. “All right, he’s had his fresh air. You’d better get back to your beds.” The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.