by Julianne Lee
But Alex wasn’t getting any stronger just sitting there. He had to do something — go somewhere — and dear sweetheart Danu obviously was not going to be of any help. So he pulled himself together once more and rose to his feet. This time he was able to stand without collapsing, feet splayed like a colt, his concentration on keeping himself off the ground. Then, though he knew it was risky, he took a step. The leg failed, and he went to one knee. Okay, it was going to be harder than he’d thought. Once more he struggled to both feet, then took another step. This time he was able to keep from falling. Another step, and again he didn’t fall. It was going to be a long walk at this rate. But he took another step, knowing if he didn’t the alternative was to lie on the grass and die of the cold. He kept going.
The rain was relentless, leaching from him the little heat his body was able to produce. He stuffed his hands into his armpits and huddled his arms against himself, but it made little difference, as exposed as he was. He followed his old running trail toward the castle, and it heartened him that it seemed unchanged from the last time he’d come through here, in 1315.
Hours passed. A couple of times he knelt to rest, but the cold at his core encouraged him to press onward. Mud at his feet became slippery, and that made his progress more difficult. His concentration focused on putting one foot in front of the other. His entire existence narrowed to the single task. Soon it seemed he’d never done anything else but this and would never do anything else again as long as he lived. But he hoped that would be longer than just today.
A glance at the dimming sky told him the afternoon was nearly over, and soon it would be dark. He stepped up his pace.
Finally, just as the darkness was about to swallow Eilean Aonarach, he emerged from the forest and onto the plain that lay before the inland gate of his castle. Almost immediately there was a shout from the crenellated battlement ahead. The castle was occupied. On one hand that might be good, but on the other it could mean his death. Painfully he made his way across the field, hoping that if they killed him it would be quickly. Just then hell sounded toasty warm and inviting.
By the time he reached the portcullis, a line of silhouettes in the dusk had gathered along the battlement, most of them bearing crossbows. None of them were pointed at him yet, and Alex figured he wasn’t such a threat in his state of dress. The gathering was probably more curious than alarmed at a naked man wandering about in the rain. He halted at a distance and eyed them carefully, but knew if he was close enough to be heard he was close enough to be shot. The men up high waited, letting him make the first hail. He obliged right away, for there was little time for him to be fooling around.
He ventured in Middle English, “Ho! Castle!”
“Who goes there?”
Alex might have just blurted his name, but wanted first to know how it would be received. With all the strength he had left, he stood as straight and confident as he could. His vulnerability was obvious; bluff was his only option. He didn’t even bother to put a hand over his crotch, but stood as if he had no need for the clothing he so plainly lacked. He responded in a voice that rattled with shivering, “Give me your name, guard, so I can praise you to your master for your alertness. You saw me the very moment I came from the forest.” His eyes shut against the rain and against his own exhaustion, then he looked up again to the dark shapes above.
The guard had a nonplussed moment. Alex saw he was scanning the forest edge, more than likely in search of any indication this stranger was a decoy bringing invaders to attack if the gate should be opened. But then the watch shouted, “Sir Henry Elilot, stranger. And, as my master is away, I think you’ll tell him naught.”
Relief washed over Alex and he nearly collapsed for it. Eliot was one of his own household guard, from the Lowlands and brought to the island by himself after Bannockburn. He nearly laughed. Those blasted faeries had come through, in their own, weird way. He swayed as he shouted, “Open the gate, Sir Henry! Your master has returned!”
Alex’s bluff quite left him, now that he knew they would not kill him, and his strength failed completely. As he collapsed to the muddy ground and his mind faded to haze, he heard a shocked cry. “MacNeil!”
He remained conscious enough to be aware of further shouting and the chain clatter of the gate being raised. Dimly he knew there were hands lifting him, then carrying him into the bailey and on up the winding path between the various castle structures, then finally there was warmth. Good heat from the fire in the great hall, where a call for clothing and plaids and cushions went up and was repeated at full voice throughout the keep. He half lay over the side of the long fire pit that ran much of the length of the room, where an enormous pile of burning logs kept the large hall heated and often fed the troops with roasted meat. Alex laid his face against warm stone and groaned. His skin felt on fire with the heat, and it was a welcome pain.
Servants gathered, shocked. There was much talk in Gaelic, which Alex understood in a rudimentary way, but just then he was too sick to figure out what they were saying. Soon a cup was put to his lips, and he tasted mead. Hair of the dog that it might be, he turned his head away as his stomach heaved and he choked. “Broth. Bring some broth.” There would be some in the kitchen, the building just down the slope.
Someone was sent to get it. Someone else was dispatched to ready the laird’s chamber.
Alex’s shivering grew more violent. His pulse picked up, and he was in a misery of uncontrollable shaking. Like a grand mal fit. The warmth felt like burning, as if he were flaming and freezing at once, on fire but shivering for it like fever. If only he could fall unconscious again. It would be so sweet to pass out. He was wrapped in wool blankets, nearly like a mummy, and he gathered them in to himself. No matter how bundled he became, the cold seemed to radiate from inside him. The shaking continued.
Soon another cup was put to his lips, and he tasted beef soup. Much of it spilled as they tried to get it down him, but enough of it made it into his mouth that he could swallow. It made a heat trail down his throat and into his gut, which heaved at the outrage. He held his breath and made it stay down. Then he took some more. Warmth. The soup tasted like pure heat, and it was delicious.
Once the soup was in him, the shivering calmed to a bearable trembling that only made his breathing stutter. His eyes closed, he lay at the side of the hearth and let the warmth seep into him. When he finally felt something other than cold, it was exhaustion. From somewhere in the incomprehensible distance the announcement came his chamber and bed were ready for him. Hands lifted him in his bundle and carried him down the stairs from the hail to the laird’s apartments. They unwrapped him from the plaid and laid him in the elaborately carved bed, on silken sheets, beneath a thick comforter stuffed with goose down. The shivering calmed some more. The fire in the hearth was high and bright. The wall of living rock at one side of the room ran with water from the rain outside, making a trickling sound that brought to mind the nights he’d shared this bed with Lindsay. It soothed and warmed him, and he fell into oblivion.
***
When he came to again, it was in a red haze of fever. Shivering took him again, this time in a rage of heat. Faces hovered before his eyes, and he thought he recognized them but the names escaped his pain-wracked mind. One was a priest — Alex knew by the tonsure — dabbing oil on his forehead and muttering in Latin. Father Patrick. It was Father Patrick, the young guy from the castle chapel. There was a boy. A blond kid. Another man stood at a distance. Short and bearded. Alex felt he should know who that man was. But the struggle to remember brought more pain.
“He’s still with us,” said the man with the beard. Then it came to Alex who he was. Hector. This was Hector MacNeil, Laird of Barra. The one who owned him as half brother, though he knew Alex was a distant descendant from the future. Alex tried to sit up, and the boy stepped back. The blond kid, seven or eight years old. Gregor. Alex remembered now. Gregor MacNeil. Hector’s nephew, the son of Hector’s deceased brother, and Alex’s foster son
. His page. The boy’s eyes were wide, and he looked as if he were about to cry. People around here thought it was okay for guys to cry. Alex had never been able to figure that out, but just then he didn’t give a damn whether Gregor bawled himself red in the face or laughed and danced a jig.
The room spun, and Alex groaned. A woman came to press him back onto the bed. His wife’s maid, Mary. “Lie back down, sir. Ye’re in no condition to be sitting up.” The room was sweltering. The high fire threw light to the most distant corners. Alex shoved the bedcovers from himself, then lay back, panting. Every inch of his body ached to his bones. He wished he could slip back into the darkness from which he’d just come and stay there, even if it meant never coming back. “Somebody kill me,” he said, and he wasn’t sure whether he was speaking modern English, Middle English, or Gaelic. A hard shudder took him, then stopped, then for a moment there was respite before the shivering began anew. Mary tried to restore his blankets, but he pushed them away until she compromised with only the silk sheet.
Then he must have gone unconscious, for the next thing he knew someone was offering a spoon to his mouth. A drop of something warm touched his lips, then spread along the line between them. He licked them and tasted soup. “Here, eat,” came the female voice he assumed was Mary. But when he opened his eyes it was another maid. One he didn’t know, who was younger than Mary. The daughter of someone, he thought. Surely someone’s daughter, but he couldn’t think whose. She touched the pewter spoon to his lips again and he sipped the broth. Suddenly he was hungry, and he struggled to sit up so he could take more soup. The girl sat at the edge of his bed and patiently fed it to him. The room seemed cooler now, and his sheets were soaked with sweat. The damp, clammy silk stuck to his skin uncomfortably.
“Where’s Hector?”
“Above, in the Great Hall, sir. Shall I have him summoned?”
A wan smile came to him at the thought of anyone ordering Hector around. Alex took with his teeth a bit of meat on the spoon, and chewed. “Let him know I’ve awakened and am well enough to receive him if he would care to visit.”
“Are ye certain you’re well enough?”
“No, but if I die I’d hate to miss him.”
Alarm struck the maid’s face. “Die, sir?”
“Go get Hector, girl.” The talk was wearing him out.
She set the bowl and spoon on a nearby table, picked up her skirts, and hurried from the room.
Alex lay back and rested his eyes as he waited, and presently Hector entered. The maid hadn’t returned with him, so the Laird of Barra took the bowl of broth from the table and came to offer some more to Alex.
“Tell me what happened, brother, when you met the elfin king.”
“I won,” Alex said, and sighed.
Hector’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Your opponent must be dead, then.” The last Hector had seen of Alex was when he’d left Eilean Aonarach to confront Nemed and make him send himself and Lindsay to the twenty-first century. He’d told Hector he wouldn’t return.
“You’ve not brought Herself back with you. I fear to ask what has become of her.”
Alex’s heart clenched. “She’s gone missing. I don’t know where she is; that’s why I’m here, to find her. How long was I gone?”
“Half a year. ‘Tis nearly Beltane.” A light of confusion at the question told Alex Hector was still having trouble with the truth of Alex’s origins. He’d accepted that Alex was a descendant, but wrapping his mind around the idea of moving backward and forward through time was a strain on him.
Beltane. Alex remembered it was the first of May. Nearly Beltane would make this April of 1316. He said, “I was in the future four months, Hector. I made him send me back to where I came from, and my son was born there.”
Hector grinned. “A son, ye say? And healthy? Praises to God!”
Pain curdled the joy Alex should have felt, for he wished he could believe the boy was his. But he said, “And as soon as he was born, he was taken. Someone abducted him from his mother. She’s chasing after him, I think. I don’t know where either of them are.”
“Och,” said Hector, more softly than Alex had ever heard him speak. “But you think they may have come here?”
“I’m certain she has. She’s taken my armor. I think she came back because this is where I can find people who might help me.” But he wasn’t finding Danu, and Hector would be no help, either. “I need to take my men and search for her. I think she’s come to this century. She’s got my hauberk and gauntlets, which aren’t much use in future times.”
Hector gave a thoughtful sigh and fed Alex some more soup, then said, “‘Tis a rather large century. A man’s life is nae so large.” Meaning, Alex could live his whole life and possibly never live in the year to which Lindsay had returned.
“I know. But there weren’t any other choices. The wee folk were my only hope.”
A small, disgusted noise rasped in the back of Hector’s throat. “Then hope is lost, for the faeries are dangerous and not to be trusted.”
How well Alex knew that! But he said, “They sent me here, and nailed the date pretty well, considering.”
“And nearly killed ye in the nailing.”
“In any case, I’m here. And I must find my wife.”
“Aye. But not today.”
Alex sighed. “No. Not today.” He closed his eyes and tried to rest, but images of what the future might hold buzzed through his brain. Adrift in the grief of the past days, he made his plans to take men to the mainland in search of his wife and her child. And he wouldn’t give up until they were both found.
***
For several days he slept and ate, gaining strength. Whatever that Brochan guy had done to him turned out to be the worst illness of his life. Even the stabbing he’d taken while on Barra a year and a half ago had not laid him out this badly. He’d never been this sick before and hoped he’d never be this bad off again. A quick death for him would be his preference.
Finally he recovered enough to rise from his bed and dress. It was to his disappointment he wasn’t yet strong enough to don chain mail and ride off on his search, and so he wore his domestic robes to present himself in the Great Hall for breakfast. Deep red to reflect his livery of red, black, and gold, his garb was cinched with a wide, black belt. He wore black trews beneath and black leather boots with unfashionably blunt toes. Pointed shoes irked him. He found it difficult to take seriously men who dressed like munchkins, no matter that it was all the rage among the nobility to have long points that sometimes curled up and over. Every time he saw the truly ridiculous ones, the ones that curled so high the tips wiggled with each step, the Lollipop Guild song leapt into his head and sometimes he found himself humming it to himself the rest of the day.
With as much dignity as he could summon, Alex made his way to the table at the head of the long hearth and presided over the meal among his men. There seemed to be an air of relief in the room that the master was recovered. Men ate heartily and occasionally stood to make short speeches of their joy at his return and improving health. The musician playing small bagpipes kept to lively music, and Alex smiled as brightly as he could. It was going to be a long, expensive campaign to find Lindsay, and he wanted his troops to maintain their enthusiasm to find his wife. They seemed cheered to have him back, but there was an underlying concern about the mistress of the castle.
A cry went up from the bottom of the bailey, and a trumpet sounded. An approach of strangers. Every ear in the Great Hall perked to hear the call again, to determine whether it was from land or sea. When the call came from the land side, alarm struck and the knights present rose to their feet to hurry into the bailey and down the slope.
Alex also rose, but dizziness made him sit back down for a moment. Then he rose again, slowly, and followed his men out to the lower curtain. Gregor came to aid him, but he declined the offered arm and only rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder as they walked together down the winding path to the gate.
As he
reached the stairway to the parapet over the portcullis, his knights prepared to sally forth and meet their visitors if they proved to be enemies. Horses milled and snorted, and men spoke excitedly of action. Alex’s squire, Colin, had his horse saddled and was holding it for him, but he gave instructions to wait. Feeling like an old man, sore of joint and out of shape, he climbed to the parapet and moved past the guard to lean against the stone battlement. He looked out over the field that lay before the castle.
A cluster of mounted men stood dead center of the pasture. They flew no banner. Not good. That suggested a wariness or subterfuge that usually equaled threat. At the very least it lent itself to misunderstanding, which was nearly as dangerous. He instructed the guard to call out a challenge, and was obeyed, but no reply came from the intruders. Instead, the one at the front reached behind him to be handed off what looked like a long pole.
A banner, perhaps. Good. This would tell Alex what he needed to know about these clowns, and then they could talk. Or not.
But as the cloth unfurled from the pole, Alex’s heart stopped. Then it began to pound with an insistence that made him nearly choke. His mouth dropped open.
The flag raised by the leader of these men was of red and white stripes, and stars on a field of blue. Flapping lazily in the breeze outside his castle in April of 1316 was the flag of the United States of America.
Chapter Five
Lindsay’s skin felt burned. As she regained consciousness, she knew there must be blisters all over her face and hands. She groaned, and her throat rasped in raging pain. But when she ventured to touch her fingertips gently to her forehead, there were no blisters. Her skin was smooth, though it flinched at the touch. She looked at her hands. No discoloring. Only the pain. She looked around without moving her head, for even the turning of her eyeballs was a tender thing. She lay there, drawing slow, careful breaths, hoping the pain would diminish enough for her to raise her head.