by Karin, Anya
“Is that so?” A man’s voice from behind Gavin and John said. “And I take offense to being called foul, you bastard thief.”
Immediately, they turned, and there he stood. Squat, round, and of course, looking like it had been some time since he had a bath. Alan ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and shot a brown jet from his lips that fell across Gavin’s boot.
“Quite a get-up you’ve got there.” He laughed bitterly. “Did you really think your plan was going to work? Did you even have a plan?”
“You,” Gavin hissed through his teeth. “You’re going to regret this.”
“I think not.” Alan patted the two men that flanked him, who pulled back the lapels of their East India Company uniforms to reveal the butts of pistols in their belts. “What’s actually going to happen is that the two of you are going to do exactly what I say. You’re going to win these idiot contests.” He spat again, this time on John’s bare foot. “You’re going to win these fool contests. And then, just when these bumpkins think you’re ascending to that box over there with your ex-fiancée in it, you’re going to vanish. You and you, that damn Spaniard, and those three over there,” he tilted his head to where Elena, Lynne and Olga stood, oblivious, “are coming with me. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet, but...I assure you, sirs, it will be painful.”
Gavin moved his hand to his belt. So did one of the men.
“Don’t try it. You’ll have a hole through your head before you can say ‘haggis’, you filthy thief. See? It doesn’t feel very good to be called names, does it? Why do you keep doing this, Gavin? Why bother? Is it really worth it, trying to right all the wrongs of the world one after another? You could have made yourself rich beyond your wildest imagination – which, given your ancestry, probably is rather modest.”
“No,” Gavin said through tightly-clenched teeth. “You dinna understand. I canna expect someone like you to ever understand.”
“Oh is that so? Then tell me, Mr. Macgregor, what are you doing all this for? Why do you keep constantly fighting? How do you have the energy?”
Gavin clenched his jaw. “I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand.”
“Try me. Your tenacity is fascinating. I’d love to know how you keep going when things are so obviously hopeless.”
“It’s what is right,” Gavin said. “To keep people like you and Willard from running this whole country into the ground, and keep you from abusing people who’ve done nothing worse than being born.”
With a crinkled forehead, Alan placed his hand on Gavin’s shoulder, squeezing the Scotsman’s arm. “And how has that turned out for you?”
Gavin slapped his hand away, grabbed the sheriff’s lapel and pulled him close enough that the sweet stink of Alan’s breath made him just a little nauseated.
“I pity you,” he whispered. “I pity your greed and your loneliness and your anger. Where does it end, sheriff? Or does it not? Is there anything you won’t do?”
As he spoke, Gavin’s voice got lower. Alan pursed his lips tighter. “Not if the –”
“Not if the pay is high enough?” Gavin interrupted him and yanked on his collar. “Aye? Did I read you right, then? I dinna know what made you like this, Alan, but I do know that no one becomes a creature like you without a reason. What is it? What made you into this thing? Lost love? Broken heart? What was it?”
The sheriff’s eyes narrowed to squinty, pig-like slits above his flushed cheeks. “Let me go,” he sneered.
Gavin, just as he was told, shoved the sheriff backwards, letting him tumble to the ground. His arse smacked the dirt hard with a meaty thud, and everyone near enough to see began to laugh.
“Try that again,” he said as he stood and brushed the dirt from his trousers. “Try anything like that again, and I’ll signal the mayor up there, and you’ll never see your precious little Kenna again. The ship is waiting to take her away and it isn’t more than a half-day’s ride from here. With one word, I can have your friends all killed, and have you dragged to the dock to watch your love sail away forever. And then I’d have you killed, too.”
“Oh aye? Is that how it would happen? You seem very sure that these hired swords,” Gavin turned his gaze upon the two men flanking Alan, “are going to do anything you ask of them. What is it that you think gives you so much power over men?”
“Of all the ridiculous questions you’ve asked me and the silly things you’ve said, Ghost of Edinburgh, that right there is the most foolish. Franks, Winston, grab those two ruffians and drag them to the contest field. Get the Spaniard too when we get out there. They’ve got people to entertain.”
Immediately, one of them grabbed Gavin by the back of the neck and the other put his hand on John’s shoulder. They were both shoved through the crowd with the sheriff close at their heels, laughing as he went.
“Money, Mr. Macgregor,” he said. “Everyone in the world is your friend when you have enough money.”
Seventeen
Festival Grounds
August 19, Early Afternoon
“You heard him, boy, get out there and show us how well you can shoot a bow!” the big, East India Company mercenary said. He continued to threaten John and Gavin with his hand on his pistol, pushing John off the sidelines and into the center of the contest field.
At the north end of the area, Mayor Willard grinned and applauded with everyone else. He seemed to enjoy himself, though a slight sneer marked his face. The mercenary, Franks, wiped blue woad paint off his hand and onto Gavin’s leather chest-plate.
“Ach, thanks, I thought I needed a little color.”
“Shut up, Scot. No one asked for your opinion.”
All eyes turned to Mayor Willard when he cracked his walking stick against the floor at his feet.
“Right! As you all know, this is our second contest of the day.” He laughed a little as he spoke, which struck Gavin as strange, considering the man’s previous demeanor. His entire mood seemed to change into something much more jovial before everyone’s eyes. “I’m sure you’ll all find this as entertaining as the last one. I hope to see some tremendous feats of accuracy with the bow. Everyone will use the same equipment, of course, and the winner will join the man who called himself the Duke of Marlborough in celebrating the harvest with me and my beautiful bride at my manor this evening. Contestants! Announce yourselves!”
Two men, a pair of twins, shuffled to the line. “David and Dougal, of Duncraig.”
“Very good, next?”
“Hamish Staig,” said a large man with a round belly and a red beard.
“Staig? Which village do you call home?”
“Ach, neither. I grew up in Duncraig and came back to visit me father and come to the festival.”
The mayor nodded, grinning. “Next?”
Seven more men moved to the line and announced themselves, where they were from, and a couple of them even made token ‘hail the king’ statements. As John stepped up, he glanced back to Gavin, who nodded solemnly, and the mercenary Franks, who fingered his pistol. Taking a deep breath, he searched the crowd for Lynne, but couldn’t find her, though he saw Elena and Olga. Finally, he looked at the sheriff, who spat.
“Oh now that’s a fascinating costume, who might you be?” The mayor said as John stepped to the line.
“Sir? I couldna hear.”
“I asked who you were, son. Painted up like that, half-naked and immodest as Adam before the fall, I imagine you must have some interesting story for how you’re dressed.”
John shrugged. “If truth be told, Councillor, it were my woman. She told me that if I had to appear before both the villages, I may as well make use of the gifts God above gave me.”
“Oh, I see,” Willard said. “So your woman wishes you to show yourself off to everyone?”
“Nay, sir, not at all. I think she were referring to my great talent for mixing blue paint!”
The audience erupted in laughter, and he finally saw Lynne, who was standing right whe
re he expected, shaking her head. He thought he saw her roll her eyes, but as far away as he was, it was a bit hard to tell. When John turned back to Willard, the mayor had sat, and was picking at the skin of an apple.
“The rules,” Rollo read from a parchment as he stumbled to the rail, “are the same as always. Everyone will fire at once, five arrows, one after another, when told to pull and loose by the judge on the field. Whichever two men have the most arrows closest to the center of the target will remain while the rest will vacate the field. Those two will fire arrow after arrow at the same target until one man shoots further from the center than his opponent. Any questions?”
By the time anyone had thought to ask a question, the little man had already sat.
Everyone stepped forward to the line, drew, and fired. Half those on the line missed the target entirely with their first arrow. Of the rest, two managed to hit the outer ring, John struck between the ring and the bull’s eye and the man three positions over from him hit directly in the center.
“Pull!” the judge shouted to begin the second round. “Loose!”
The arrows flew, and the results were similar to the first time. A good deal of frustrated groaning preceded the calls of pull and loose for the next firing, and the next. By the time the last pull of the first round came about, John and his opponent from down the line were untouchable by the other competitors.
“Craig Donaldson! Man in blue woad! You two remain. Congratulations.” The field judge summoned the two men and raised their arms above their heads. A slight roar of cheering moved through the crowd, and the arrows were plucked as the two men moved back to the line.
“Woad, you’re up first!” John looked around, hoping to see Lynne before he took his shot, but she was lost somewhere in the crowd.
John took a deep breath, stepped to the line, and relaxed his shoulders.
“Pull!” The judge shouted. John lifted the bow, pulled the string back until it touched his cheek, and held.
“Loose!”
John’s arrow flew and struck the target with a loud thunk. Not bad. The crowd roared approval, but something else caught his attention when he turned back to let the other man take his turn.
“What’s...what’s going on over there?” John said, getting the judge’s attention with a pat on the shoulder. “Has a fight broken out?”
As he watched, John realized that the commotion was only getting worse. A larger noise rose, and when he looked to Gavin, he noticed his friend was only being guarded by one of the Company men. The sheriff and the other mercenary had gone. His eyes shot back to the uproar, and when he heard “John!” in a voice he knew all too well, a voice he loved more than anything in the world, he felt a knot in his chest.
“Wh – what’s going on?” He asked the judge, who was standing on his tip-toes and trying his best to see into the crowd.
“Dunno, I canna see anythin’ but looks like that man o’er there’s got hisself a couple of lady friends. And one of ‘em looks like she could take him wi’out much trouble.”
“Only two, but-”
“JOHN!”
Lynne’s shriek broke through the crowd’s low groan and John shot to life. From the line where he stood to fire his arrows, he saw that Lynne was in a small audience area about fifty yards away. He notched an arrow, drew the bow and waited. Lynne swatted the second of the East India Company mercenaries and then rammed her knee directly into his gut. When the man doubled over, she kneed him in the face, sending him careening backwards with a loud, pained grunt.
Still with his arrow notched, John looked on as Lynne mercilessly pummeled a man who was at least twice her size, in utter awe, and as his heart started to beat harder, absolutely in love. In spite of everything, a wide grin spread across his face as Lynne delivered a final kick to the downed man’s teeth and then stepped over him, pointed at the sheriff and challenged him to come on and try her as well.
“Atta lass,” John said as he grinned, proud as ever of her. When he saw Alan’s head bob between a pair of spectators, he thought momentarily about letting his arrow fly. He was almost certain he would have pierced the stumpy man’s head and nothing else, but knew that at any moment someone could move in front of him entirely on accident.
Leering, Alan rubbed his fingers against the palms of his sweat-slick hands and spat. “How long do you think you can keep running?”
“Running? Looks to me like I’m fighting, you little weasel,” Lynne shot back. “Whyna come over here and try and take me yourself instead of sending your goons?”
Behind her, the huge mercenary stirred, and pushed himself first to a knee, then to his feet. His lips were bloody, his eye heavily bruised, and he rubbed his stomach where Lynne had assaulted him.
“We will see how long that lasts. I don’t suppose you’ve got any weapons in that ridiculous getup you’re wearing?”
“Come and find out, runt,” Lynne said as she wiped her hand across her lips and crouched into a position from which she could easily pounce.
Alan leaned back, laughed, and hooked his thumbs on the buttons of his dirty waistcoat. Lynne saw that he had a pistol tucked in his belt. Dangerous, yes, but he only had one chance to be dangerous. And she knew very well that once he fired, she could be on him, and...interrupting her planning, a hand fell heavy on her shoulder.
“What is-”
“This? You’re a feisty one,” the mercenary said. Lynne noticed he was missing a tooth and felt rather proud for a moment. “But you’re done. Come along. Easier this way.”
She squirmed, first left and then right. She tried the man’s grip by yanking on his thumb, but he was just too strong for her. A backwards kick bounced off his leg, and he chuckled. “Like I said, feisty. I like feisty.” Effortlessly, he dragged her along through the crowd and shoved her into Olga and Elena, both too confused and frightened to move.
“Alright, alright,” the sheriff said waving his hands above his head. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’m a deputy of King George himself. Nothing to worry about. These three are petty thieves, suspected of pickpocketing in Edinburgh. Don’t know why they bothered running so far, but there it is. Go back to enjoying the games, show’s over.”
“What you mean?” Someone in the audience shouted. “You’re the mayor’s stooge! I saw you wi’im earlier today! These three ain’t done nothin’!”
“Calm down, calm down.” Alan opened his waistcoat and fished the pistol out of his belt, though he fumbled it once before actually getting it free of his trousers. “I told you, I’m the law. Settle down or you’re coming with them.”
The man who’d come to the ladies’ defense thought better of his bravery, and quieted, but not before adding, “you won’t get away with this forever” which just made the sheriff chuckle.
“You people. You simple, simple, country people. Life here is nice and calm. Let it stay that way. Move, I’ve got business to take care of.” Alan shoved and pushed and even kicked someone on his way out of the crowd. When he was free, he turned to John and said, “I bet you’re having second thoughts about coming here and challenging me again, eh, you two-fingered freak?”
John drew his lips tight and sucked the bottom one between his teeth. He thought of a million witty quips. “I’ve got your beady little eyes right in my sight,” he shouted. “Let them go, or you’re going to be a skewer.”
“Oh! Is that so? Quite a distance you’d have to shoot. Judging from how many times you missed the mark in that first round of the contest, you sure you won’t stick one in your pretty little woman here? Or one of your friends? Maybe you ought not try and be a hero. Leave that to someone else.” Pointedly, he looked at Gavin, who only sneered as Franks squeezed his shoulder.
“Thank you, sheriff,” Mayor Willard called from his box. “Thank you for taking care of those ruffians.”
Beside him, Kenna stood and leaned over the rail, looking at her friends, and then over to the holding area where Gavin was standing with a pistol wedged in
his back. Then she looked to John. Finally, she turned to Rollo, who looked at her with an apologetic look in his soft eyes and shook his head.
“Now! Let’s get back to the festivities, what do you say?”
The applause that Willard expected didn’t come. Instead, there was only a low grumbling sort of noise from the audience. Alan shuffled back to where Gavin and his second mercenary stood, patted the big man on the arm, and then waved to Willard. “Not a problem,” he shouted. Willard banged his walking stick on the ground.
“Archers! Go back to your contest. Let’s see who is next to win a seat at the table with myself and the beautiful Kenna.”
John turned to his opponent. “That’s the best prize I can imagine, aye?”
The other man shook with laughter. “You know,” he said, “I think I might have other plans this evening. Even still, let’s make it look like a real contest. For the crowd, you see.”
“Much obliged, friend. Anything you need, you have only to ask.” John made sure to scowl to keep the appearance of rivalry.
“I know who you are, and who he is. And I’ve heard tell of your woman, but never imagined she was quite so...well, let’s just say I’m impressed.”
“Aye, my friend,” John said. “So am I. And we won’t forget this.”
“Douglas, my name’s Douglas. Tell you what. When this mess is all over, you can settle our debt with a drink.”
“Aye friend,” John smiled in one corner of his mouth. “That’ll do just fine.”
“Is this a contest or a courtship?” The sheriff, who had made his way back, said. “Get on with it. Pull and loose, pull and loose!”
John and Douglas looked at the judge who shrugged his shoulders, rolled his eyes and told John to step to the line.
Back and forth they went, pulling and loosing, getting ever closer to the center of the target until finally Douglas gave John a look as he stepped up. On command, Douglas notched an arrow and pulled the string taught. John watched closely, squinting so he could see exactly where the arrow hit.