Knight's Blood

by Julianne Lee

  “Because you’ve done it before.”

  “Right.”

  “And you want us to do the same? Or do you want us to tender your request to Nemed that he oblige you once again? Before you kill him, that is.”

  Alex’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know it was Nemed who brought me here? Sent me there, I mean.”

  “I did not, until you just told me.” Twittering laughter riffled about the room. Alex realized the entire clan was listening in. His ears warmed.

  Again, he pressed the faerie. “Can you send me back? Do you have that ability? Or should I look elsewhere?”

  As if Brochan hadn’t heard the question, he rose up from his pillows and shouted out across the room, “Some wine for my friend! In haste, if you please!”

  Friend?

  Then the faerie lay back once again and addressed Alex. “You’ll pardon my rudeness, Sir Alasdair. We’ll have your wine to you in but a moment.”

  Alex didn’t want any wine but was loath to alienate this guy by refusing his hospitality. So he nodded, and leaned an elbow back against a knotted rise in a tree root beside him. The curve of the thing was smooth with the polish of many elbows before his, the top of it a glossy, jet black.

  A drinking bowl was brought, what Alex knew to be a cuach, flat and with knobby handles on either side. He’d seen them often while on Barra, back in the far distant past, last year. This one was of gold, the handles wrought with knotted bears and the lip etched in a delicate design. Alex lifted it to his mouth to taste the drink. It turned out to be honey wine. Mead. This stuff was spiced, and quite tasty. Alex remembered he was hungry, and took an injudicious draught. It hit his empty stomach like a small nuke, spreading and roiling heat throughout his body, all the way out to his fingers. The effect was far out of proportion to how smoothly the mead had gone down. He instantly felt better and took another drink before passing the cup to his host. The stuff was good; he had to hand it to these guys for their mead at least.

  Brochan took the cup and drank. “So, tell us all the story of how Nemed has crossed you.” He gestured to his kinsmen. “We all love a good story, aye?”

  The faeries listening nearby all nodded and murmured their agreement.

  Alex shrugged. He didn’t want to blurt all that had gone on between himself and Nemed. But Brochan waved him onward, insisting. Then he thrust the cuach back at him for another drink. Alex took it and emptied the bowl, then cleared his throat. He was stuck. He took a pause while the mead warmed him, and his mood improved. Then he spoke. Carefully, for the drink had also seeped into his head and was making his thoughts dance. “Well, it was a couple of years ago.”

  “You said it was centuries past.”

  Smartass little prick. “Okay, a couple of years have passed for me since this story began.”

  Brochan’s face brightened. “Oh, aye! I’m beginning to see! When ye use terms I can understand, you make it so very plain!”

  There was no telling what the guy meant by that. Alex gazed at him for a moment, once more at a loss, but then he went on. “Well. All right then. So, there was myself and Lindsay — “

  “And who would this Lindsay be?”

  “My wife.” A sudden urge to weep rose in him, and took him by surprise. Never before had he lost control like this in public. Panic he would embarrass himself in front of this guy quarreled with his grief over losing Lindsay. He fought back both emotions, and wondered why he was losing it now. For a moment his throat closed and it was impossible to speak, but Brochan only gazed at him with expectation that he should continue his story. Alex swallowed hard, then choked out more words. “But not at the time. She was a reporter for the London Times and I was flying her from my ship to Scotland.” God, he missed Lindsay! Just then he wanted nothing more than to have her back. Nothing mattered but that she would be safe again, and his again.

  Brochan became quite excited and leapt to his feet, hands fluttering and his entire body aquiver. “Flying? In the air? You have flown?”

  His job seemed distant now. An eternity ago. “Aye. I was a pilot by profession.” Was. Would he be again? He’d left London without telling anyone where he was going. Bad lieutenant. But he figured he’d be back from the past as soon as he’d found Lindsay and the baby, and return to the moment he’d left. Nobody would know he’d ever gone, just as before, no matter how long it took.

  Brochan did a little dance, like a leprechaun in a cereal commercial, then plunked back down on his cushion to lean toward Alex with wide eyes and an eager look of hope on his face. “Och! Tell me what it is to fly! Please! I so envy those with wings!” He nodded as if to affirm his own words and waved Alex on to hear what his guest would say about being a pilot. More mead came, and Alex found himself expounding at length on the sensation of zooming about the sky and what it was like to be shot from the catapult on an aircraft carrier. The faerie wanted to know what an aircraft carrier was, and Alex was unable to resist talking about them. He let his troubles slip to the back of his mind.

  Then there came some food. A roast bird that smelled heavenly and tasted so good he might have died then and been happy. The hospitality here pleased him, and Alex began to relax. After a while he was reminded of the story he’d been asked to tell, and went back to it.

  “Oh. Right. The flight. Lindsay and I were going to northern Scotland, and we flew through this space where ol’ Nemed was casting a spell. Only he was doing it from back then.”

  “He will. Or is.”

  Alex ignored Brochan’s interruption, for it made his head hurt to puzzle out what the faerie had meant. “Whatever.” He waved a hand of dismissal. “In any case, we bailed — “

  “You threw water from your ship?”

  After a moment of mead-induced mental confusion, Alex worked out that Brochan meant bailing water from the bottom of a sailing ship. “No, we threw ourselves from the plane. It broke when it went through the portal, and we came down in a parachute.”

  “Ah.” The faeries seemed to know what a parachute was, and that was odd.

  “We ran into Robert right after that. On his way to the coronation, he knighted me — “

  “Just like that, you were a knight? I was unaware the humans allowed commoners into the knighthood.”

  Alex grunted. “Sure they do. All the time. Not back then, I guess, but eventually all you had to be was rich and famous. And British, I suppose. In any case, Robert was pretty hard up for fighting men, and he’d just seen me fight. I’d killed a guy who was out to kill him. It’s not like he took too close a look at my pedigree.”

  “I see. And I suppose if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck — “

  “Then I was as good as a noble and might as well be put to use.”

  Alex’s stomach heaved of a sudden, and for a scary moment he thought he would lose his lunch. In a hot sweat he leaned over the polished root at his elbow, hauled in deep breaths, then the sensation passed as quickly as it had come. A moment later it was as if he’d never felt sick, and the sense of well-being returned. Increased, perhaps. He smiled at Brochan as the faerie continued the conversation as if he’d not just watched Alex nearly vomit.

  “I suppose it’s to your unending credit that nobody has attempted to attack you by searching out a flaw in your claim. Even the most entrenched laird might find himself subject to such trouble, were he a stranger.”

  Alex shook his head and grinned. “Nah, you see, I’ve got the laird of the MacNeils backing me up. Good old Hector, of Barra.”

  “Do ye indeed? And how did you manage that wondrous coup?”

  Alex chuckled, amused by the memory of how that had worked out. “I didn’t even have to make up the story; it just sort of all fell into place because everyone assumed I was his father’s illegitimate son. Apparently the old man was a horndog of some sort and littered the landscape with kids. All Robert needed was to hear my name, and he assumed I was one of those sons.”

  Brochan erupted with uproarious laughter, and Alex wond
ered what was so funny about that, but continued. “Eventually I was forced to tell Hector the truth. That I’m from the future.”

  “Or the past.”

  Alex frowned, but went on. “He found out Lindsay was a woman — “

  “He learnt you were banging your squire, and ye did not want him thinking she was a man.”

  Alex shrugged. “In short. So I ended up telling him the whole truth. He came to know that I’m descended from his own people and has kept my secret. He’s my friend and still thinks of me as his brother. He’ll back me up if anyone tries to give me guff.”

  Brochan adjusted his seat and leaned forward again with great interest. “So tell me, Sir Alasdair an Dubhar MacNeil of Eilean Aonarach, if ‘twas yourself who ruined Nemed’s spell, why is it you’re the one wanting to kill him and not the other way around?”

  Alex’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t told that part yet. “How did you know I ruined the spell?”

  “By flying through it, ye sumph. It couldn’t have been good, and such a spell must have taken a great deal of power to knock out your engines.”

  This faerie was finally making sense, but he did seem to be entirely too cognizant of specifics Alex hadn’t mentioned. “Yeah. The engines.” He fell silent and let a long pause string out. Glancing around, he noticed the crowd in the room had dwindled. Many who remained were fast asleep, snoring little faerie snores in the dimness of fires reduced to coals. How long had he been there? It seemed only moments, but at the same time it felt like forever. Days, maybe. How many times had he eaten since sitting down? Had he needed to pee? He couldn’t remember. Surely he must have.

  An overwhelming sleepiness descended on him as quickly as had the urge to vomit. Alex leaned back against the cushions behind him, just to rest for a moment.

  But when he opened his eyes again the room was lively with people. Instead of feeling refreshed by his sleep, he was groggy as hell. He blinked through a haze thick enough to have been smoke from the fires, but it was only in his head. A cuach was thrust into his hands, and he drank deeply, thirsty and hungry. He ate from a plate of food someone gave him, and looked around for Brochan. The faerie with the gold belt appeared immediately, in a hurry from another part of the complex of burrows.

  “So! Continue!”

  Alex plundered his brain to remember where he’d left off in his story, but everything in his head was as fuzzy as the air seemed to be. He’d slept, he was certain, but had no idea for how long, and he didn’t feel rested at all. He felt as if he could go unconscious again at any moment. He leaned heavily on the polished tree root beside him and struggled to stay upright.

  Finally Brochan seemed to notice there was something wrong with him. He lowered his chin and peered into Alex’s face. “Are ye not feeling well, Sir Alasdair?”

  Alex opened his mouth to speak, but no comment would come.

  Brochan shrugged as if this were of no consequence, and waved a hand. “Och, I ken what ye’re needing! I see how tense ye’ve become, and that must be remedied!” Brochan called out, “Come! Fiona! We’ve a man here who needs to be put at his ease!”

  A faerie woman rose from a cluster of folk near the large fire and made her way toward him. Weaving between the lounging people, she gazed at Alex with deep, intense blue eyes and a big smile on her face that told him she was thrilled to have been called on. She fairly danced as she came, and the swell and bounce of her very healthy breasts was barely disguised by the thin drape of ragged tunic. Clarity descended on Alex, and at that moment he thought she was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever glimpsed. He feasted his eyes, and all that mead he’d just sucked down went straight to his groin while his neck went boneless. His head wanted to fall back with the pleasure of this vision, and he barely managed to hold it up at a tilt to follow her progress toward him.

  The tiny woman slipped behind him and knelt to take his shoulders in her hands. They were hands far stronger than he might have thought, and the fey creature kneaded the tight shoulder muscles expertly so that Alex’s eyes drooped nearly shut.

  A groan of deep satisfaction rose from him. The world spun and colors danced before his eyes. A cuach was thrust into his hands again, and he drank deeply. Again the sensation of well-being surged through him. Hands on his shoulders continued, then became breasts against his back and the hands moved to his arms. More hands reached to lift the T-shirt he wore, and he let them pull it over his head. The massage continued, and he was encouraged to lean back against the woman behind him so that he lay in her lap. Looking up, he could see she’d removed her tunic and her chest was directly over his face. He stared. The blood raced in him, but none of it through his brain. The curve of flesh, smooth and swaying with the movement of her hands, invited him to touch. To feel the skin, and the softness beneath. His jeans were tight against his crotch, and he wished for his old tunic to cover what he knew must be an enormous bulge though he wouldn’t look to see.

  But Brochan’s voice intruded. “And so the spell was ruined and you were knighted by the king...”

  Alex’s voice was weak and distant, but he resumed his story, picking up the slender thread he was offered. “Yeah. I was a knight, and Lindsay disguised herself as a boy and became my squire.”

  “Strong woman.”

  “Aye. She was.” Breathing became difficult. Thinking was nearly impossible, but he forged ahead. “She distinguished herself in battle and became a knight herself. When I was awarded Eilean Aonarach, she became my wife.” Wife. Lindsay was his wife. They were married. He shouldn’t be lying in the lap of another woman. But Lindsay had left. She was gone. “I’d thought we were going to settle down, have a family, and run the island.” The room spun out of control, and his story echoed in the far recesses of his mind. He struggled to tell it, as if the telling were the only thing keeping him on the earth. Or in the earth. Where was he, anyway? When was he? He had no idea anymore. “And there was a baby.” His own voice faded into the distance, and he had to shout to hear himself, though it only seemed to make his voice harder to hear. “The baby was coming. We had to leave. So he would be safe. To go back to the future. The present... We made Nemed... We returned...”

  Finally he succumbed to the pleasure of hands on him. With a sigh he stopped talking, relaxed, and the last thing he remembered was some various hands plucking at his belt and fly, and starting to slip his jeans and skivvies from his hips.

  Chapter Three

  Lindsay MacNeil stood before the faerie knoll near Scone Palace, staring up at the pointed top that was just a little too pointed to be entirely natural, then turned her focus to the little, bitty door halfway up. A depression like a navel, nearly grown over with bracken. She and Alex had gone through that door once, and had regretted it mightily. Another such regret would more than likely come her way soon, but there was nothing for it. Nemed had her son, she was sure, and by God she was going to get the boy back.

  She hitched up the carrying strap of her oblong athletic bag higher on her shoulder, then started up the switchback trace that looked like a cow trail except that it led directly to the entrance. There she regarded the weather-worn little door, framed by rough wood and intricately carved as it seemed everything had been back in the days when she’d seen this last. Carved or painted. The wood now was cracked and gray with age, and it looked as if it might fall to pieces if she touched it. But she knew it wouldn’t, even if it were entirely dust held together with magic. Nemed wouldn’t let it fall apart. He probably wouldn’t even let her through if he didn’t want her to come.

  As she watched, the latch snicked and the door eased open a couple of inches on squeaky hinges. There it was. The gesture. Nemed surely had the baby, and now he was inviting her to come on in. A bluff? The thought made her grimace. Right. Like that elfin king could ever be afraid of any human. Last time she’d seen him he was ready to set her on fire and watch her burn. Herself and the child. She knew he would have done it without so much as a blink or a sweat. Even when Alex had a swor
d to his throat, the pointy-eared devil had shown no fear.

  Neither would she, anymore. Loathing surged in her, and she pushed the door the rest of the way open. She was going to kill the bastard, but first he was going to tell her where her son was.

  Inside the knoll was the chamber she remembered from before, but it was empty. Not like before, when there had been a fire and food. Today she wasn’t hungry. She looked around for Nemed. There was nobody there, so she moved onward and into the tunnels.

  As before, there was no discernible light source in the tunnels though she could see perfectly well. Odd to be able to see in the dark. The curves and bulges of the burrow walls seemed flattened. Undefined by light, but sensed by Lindsay’s mind. All was shades of dark gray. She peered into spaces, unable to see how deep they went. But she could see no shapes to suggest the presence of anything living. Nor even anything dead. Just earth. And tree roots. Tendrils and taproots growing into and out of the spaces within the knoll. The burrow led her on. Her booted footsteps were dull thuds against the packed earth beneath, and she ducked under and between bulges of root and earth overhead. Lindsay didn’t worry about where she was going. Finding her way back wouldn’t be an issue until she found her child. Once she found her child, then she would worry about returning with him.

  The urge to weep came over her again, and she paused in her search to squeeze her eyes shut and hold her breath against the tears. They hadn’t even named him, what with the bad connection from Alex’s ship. He was only Baby Boy MacNeil, and she’d known him for just three days. Held him and nursed him but a few times. In hospital she hadn’t been with him long enough to even notice the ears under his little blue baby cap. Hadn’t seen what everyone else in the delivery room had gone quiet over. In hospital she’d been so joyful to have her son, and to know how pleased Alex would be when he heard, she hadn’t noticed the ears.

  Then at home she’d seen them and was horrified. With his cap off, the shape of his ears let her know she was not yet finished with Nemed. He’d done something to the child. She didn’t know what, but those ears were surely a trick of some sort. For hours she’d sat with him, examining him, touching a finger to those tiny points and struggling to know what had happened. Aside from that one feature he seemed perfectly human. A perfectly normal baby, big and healthy and entirely intact. Mum had come to see him, and with the cap on she couldn’t tell anything was amiss. Lindsay’s mother would have known if anything was wrong with the baby, but she’d said nothing and gone home as happy about the birth as when she’d arrived.