[Druids Bidding 02.0] RenFaire Druids: Dunskey Castle Prequels

by Jane Stain

  “Is it so, Peadar? Are you here to stay for the winter?”

  Peadar held her tenderly and kissed her tears away.

  “It does sound likely, aye. Howsoever, the O’Neill does not confide in me his plans, lass.”

  Aideen scooted them to seats at the tiny kitchen table.

  “Yes, yes, now eat you should, and relax your cares away,” she said as she dished up food and set the plates in front of them.

  As Vange tore into the stew and fresh bread, she actually smiled.

  “Well now, that smile be pretty lass. Do tell a man what brought it.”

  Vange swallowed, and for once she cleared her mouth between bites.

  “At least now my huge new appetite makes sense.”

  They all had a good laugh.

  As Vange sat eating next to her husband, his soothing presence, the food, the laughter, and the warmth of the kitchen all worked together to calm her tears away.

  In the months she’d been there while Peadar was off fighting, Vange had learned that five hundred men were stationed at this large Irish castle stronghold. Most of them slept in barracks, but about thirty slept in private rooms with their wives and children. Over the three months of winter, all five hundred men were home.

  Peadar seemed to be doing his best to keep Vange’s tears away.

  She was grateful enough that she tried to be cheerful and pleasant.

  He was attentive.

  Vange adored how he rubbed her aching back and feet, helped her down the stairs in the morning, and just about carried her up the stairs at night. He even helped her get out of bed when she needed the chamber pot, which was often. And he was an enthusiastic but tender lover—even though she was already getting big with his child.

  Even though she denied it, Peadar must have sensed that she loved all the fancy clothes in the trunk. The man made sure the two of them were magnificent at supper and at court and for Christmas in their fine MacLean plaids—he in his great kilt and she in her underskirt and overdress. He brushed and braided her hair for her and tied her am breid over it.

  He also helped with getting her boots on below the huge belly that made it so she couldn’t see her feet.

  It was easy to adapt this 16th century clothing to pregnancy. The skirts were already long and voluminous. All Vange had to do was change the way she laced her bodice. She even found a bodice insert in the trunk that covered the gap where her huge belly peeked out under the lacings.

  Vange had to admit:

  Peadar really was trying to make her time in the castle splendid.

  And most of the time, it was. Most of the time, Tam was ensconced in the study with the O’Neill.

  Peadar walked Vange through the magnificent rooms of the castle on his arm, he in his kilt and she in her matching plaid. All the other nobles—for as MacLeans, Vange and Peadar were nobles—greeted them cheerfully in passing. Some even asked them to stop into their rooms to share some delicacy the man had hoarded: tea usually, but sometimes candy or even fruit, right after the men came home.

  There were dances on some evenings, with soldiers playing their pipes and drums. Peadar was a grand dance partner who made it easy for the hugely pregnant Vange to follow him through all the intricacies of set dances. At first she was nervous to participate, but Aideen told her it was good for her so long as she walked and didn’t skip or run. Vange was glad she had learned the basic folkdance steps and figures at the renaissance faires and festivals she’d attended.

  She didn’t have much time to become upset that the set dances reminded her of Emily and her real life. With everyone shut in for the winter, the castle was booming with things to do or watch.

  When there weren’t dances there were sword-fighting tournaments—which Peadar did well in, and plays, games, or sing-alongs. It was everything Vange had dreamed of when she imagined what living in a castle might be like.

  But Tam took the fun out of being in a castle whenever Vange encountered him.

  Vange thought Tam looked surprised to see her on Peadar’s arm the first time they met in the large formal dining hall. She smiled to herself.

  Good. He thought I wasn’t even here. My hiding place in the kitchen is effective. Aideen is so smart.

  But Tam quickly recovered from his surprise, and then he looked determined.

  Vange squeezed Peadar’s arm to alert him.

  When he glanced at her face, she nodded toward where Tam was approaching the two of them.

  The ten long tables and five short tables were all set for supper. The common soldiers all sat at the long tables, while the noble officers and their wives sat at the short tables. Beyond that, they didn’t have assigned seats.

  Everyone was in the process of choosing places, except for the wives of the common soldiers, whose duty it was to serve everyone. They and the children ate earlier.

  Tam asserted his way next to the seat Vange was about to take, and he gave her that snide grin that said he was going to get what he wanted some day—that it was only a matter of time because after all, he would see to it her husband remained stationed here. She wasn’t going anywhere. That was all just in his grin, though. Out loud, he was civil in a way that only she and Peadar understood how insinuating he was.

  “It is pleased I am to see you—Evangeline. You must tell me where you’ve been hiding yourself.”

  Vange narrowed her eyes at Tam. It was all she could do not to tell him ‘In your dreams.’ That was what she would have said to a creeper her age in her time, but somehow she knew that would only encourage Tam, so she tried just being cold. She looked the other way.

  “Must I?”

  Tam started to move in, but thwarted, he raised his chin defiantly.

  Peadar had moved in closer to Vange. He gave her waist a gentle squeeze.

  Vange decided it would be prudent to obey her husband’s subtle and wordless request that she let him handle this.

  Peadar had apparently chosen to diffuse the situation. He made a show of suddenly noticing some noble Irish officer and his wife and addressing them.

  “Nay, please, I would be honored if you would sit here. My wife and I will just move down a bit. Tis no worry.”

  And so, leaving Tam to sit with that other couple, they moved down and had a nice supper.

  That night in the privacy of their room—once their affections were slowing down—Vange spoke of Tam.

  “Good job getting Tam out of our hair at dinner tonight.”

  Peadar rolled over to face her, smiling.

  “Aye lass. I thought I had better. You looked about to spit in his eye.”

  “Yeah, I really wanted to.”

  They both laughed.

  “He puzzles me though, Peadar.”

  “In what way, lass?”

  Slowly, because of her bulging belly, Vange turned her back to him and moved into a spooning position to avoid looking in his eyes for a reaction as she explained. It was also the best way to get close to him in her condition.

  “Well, what does he think he’s going to get from talking to me with you right there? He can’t think you’re going to allow him to get close to me, but that didn’t seem to put him off in the slightest.”

  Instead of the laughter she’d hoped for, this brought out the fiercely protective clench she had come to expect as his normal reaction to her mishaps here in his time period. She glanced back at him.

  Pain showed in Peadar’s eyes.

  Vange grabbed his hands and squeezed them.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Peadar squeezed her hands back so tightly she had to shake them to get him to stop.

  He stopped immediately and then rubbed up and down her arm in a way that made him seem agitated. When he spoke, she had no doubt he was.

  “He does not really want you so much as he wants to take some-ought away from me, lass.”

  That didn’t make any sense to her at all.

  “What?”

  “He makes time for you as a way to be cruel
to me, you ken?”

  Suddenly, she did understand. Now she stiffened.

  “Wow, you mean he’s a sadist?”

  “What be that, lass?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing as she did so.

  “Someone who takes pleasure in other people’s pain.”

  “Aye, yes, that exactly.”

  “Makes me all the more grateful for Aideen’s kitchen refuge while you’re away.”

  Peadar’s voice took on a quality that didn’t suit the fierce highlander at all. It was a haunted, helpless tone.

  “Aye, me as well, lass. Do take care not to leave there, aye?”

  “Don’t worry. I have no intention of seeing Tam while you’re away.”

  It was a long time before either of them fell asleep that night. They slept late into the morning, only waking when there was a knock at their door.

  Knock knock.

  “Just a minute.” Vange called out as she pulled the covers up over them both.

  “What is it?” Peadar called out at the same time.

  With a wink at Vange, Aideen brought them their breakfast to eat in bed.

  “Just a bit of porridge, it is. We must feed expecting mothers, you know.”

  She set a board in front of them on the bed, and on it she placed not only porridge, but also berries from the small courtyard garden, as well as expensive tea from … China, Vange could only guess. And then the old cook left again, but not before she got a good look at Peadar.

  Vange was giggling so much about that, she almost couldn’t eat her oatmeal.

  Vange did enjoy having Peadar home. Unlike how she hid in the kitchen with Aideen while he was deployed, when he was home the two of them spent most of their time in pleasantries: tutoring Vange in Gaelic while reading one of the dozen handwritten books the O’Neill had in his library, looking at all the old weaponry, the tapestries, and even some paintings that were on display at the castle fortress, hearing the soldiers sing carols at Christmas and plain old drinking songs other times, and watching the children play in the courtyard with their toy swords.

  Peadar had to keep his weapons skills up of course, as did all the men. They practiced every afternoon in the courtyard, shooting arrows at targets and skirmishing with their swords while Vange and all the other wives and children watched from the castle parapets. She never tired of watching her man demonstrate his physical prowess. His bouts still struck her as better entertainment than any martial arts movie.

  Curiously and thankfully, Tam didn’t appear at most events, but Vange was always looking over her shoulder for him. Always on her guard. That alone made castle life less splendid than it should have been.

  She next saw Tam one curious winter day when the sun came out and everyone either watched or played in the stoolball game the O’Neill had called just outside the fortress walls. A stool had been set up near the castle wall, and in a rough pattern that resembled a baseball diamond, four posts had been driven into the ground. Most of the people sat on the side of a nearby hill to watch and to see if they got chosen to play.

  Some people—mostly nobles but some pregnant non-noble wives—sat on top of the castle wall, including Vange and Peadar.

  Vange was surprised when the team captains called on both women and men to play. And she was a little disappointed when Peadar was chosen to be on one of the teams.

  “Aw, you’re all the way up here. Just tell them you don’t want to play.”

  He gallantly kissed her hand and then stood up and waved his assent to be on one of the teams.

  “Nay, playing is an honor.”

  Vange sighed. Sometimes, chivalry is inconvenient. But his playful mood reminded her of something she’d been meaning to ask him.

  “Why do they call you a gallowglass? What does that mean?”

  He pronounced it a bit differently, now that she was listening.

  “It is Gaelic, lass, gallóglaigh. Can you hear how it means ‘foreign young warrior’?”

  “Oh. Now that you say it that way, yes I can.”

  “Peadar.” called the O’Neill, and then he added in Gaelic, “are you coming or not?”

  Vange gasped after her husband gave her a quick kiss and then disappeared over the side of the castle wall. With much difficulty, she stood up and went over to look.

  Peadar was climbing down a ladder someone had placed there.

  Whew.

  And then she was called on in Gaelic herself to play.

  “Vange. How about it?”

  But she patted her huge pregnant belly and shook her head. Laughing, she slowly lowered herself back into the chair that Peadar had moved up there on top of the castle wall for her.

  And of course while Peadar was busy playing, Tam found his way over to Vange and sat beside her in the chair Peadar had brought up there for himself.

  She slouched in her seat, making her pregnant belly stick up even higher than it normally did.

  Peadar was at bat.

  CRACK.

  Her husband whacked the ball off the stool so hard that it went over the hill where people were sitting, and everyone cheered as all his teammates ran to the fourth post.

  Tam tried to use the excitement to cover his advances. He started to take her hand.

  “Well hello, my dear Evangeline.”

  But he was too slow. Peadar was by Vange’s side that instant, taking her other hand and helping her get up.

  “Aye, and we were just leaving. My wife does not feel well, you ken.”

  Tam gave Peadar a look which said, ‘That line would never work if it was just the three of us, but since other people are listening, I’ll let it slide.’

  Vange glued herself to her husband’s side and called out to some people who were standing up there as she and Peadar left.

  “You can use those two chairs.”

  While Tam the creeper wasn’t at most of the events, he was at enough of them that Vange was tempted to ask Peadar to just stay with her in their room whenever he wasn’t practicing his weaponry, and to let her hide in the kitchen when he was practicing.

  Over and over this happened. Despite Vange’s huge belly, Tam kept trying to move in on her, right under her husband’s nose.

  He even tried it in the chapel.

  “Eh,” Tam said on the one day a priest made it to the castle, “I find you at mass—”

  Peadar and Vange bent their heads devotedly.

  “Shhhh.”

  Tam wouldn’t be dismissed.

  “Oh, what’s a greeting among friends at mass, eh?”

  Other people nearby joined in this time with Vange and Peadar.

  “Shhhh.”

  They all abruptly stopped shushing him, though, and their eyes got big.

  Tam gave them the evil eye.

  “I really must insist that you have a word—”

  Vange gasped as the priest himself put his hand on Tam’s shoulder.

  “This is not the place to be talking, my son. Now go and talk elsewhere, or stay and be silent.”

  For a second, Vange thought Tam was going to hit the priest.

  But Tam unruffled his feathers and left.

  Vange held Peadar’s arm tightly on these stressful occasions, extremely grateful that she had his company and trying hard to see her pregnancy as a blessing, the way he clearly continued to.

  He frequently caressed her baby belly and talked to his son—he was sure it was a boy in there.

  One good thing was that despite what she and Peadar had told Tam at the stoolball game, Vange was flourishing in her pregnancy. She never once got sick, and she felt more alive and healthy than ever before in her life.

  She was just always hungry.

  Very hungry.

  And when the men were home, the meals were so much more elaborate. They had brought livestock and other supplies home with them, and Aideen roasted the meat in her huge kitchen fireplace.

  Vange hadn’t ever thought about it before, but of course barbeq
ue was one of the oldest ways of cooking.

  Peadar cut her meat for her and hand fed her at the table so she wouldn’t get her dainty hands greasy. He cleaned his own hands in a bowl of water that sat in front of him on the table.

  Vange felt like a lady in the castle while her husband was there, and the other women treated her well when they saw her in the finery she didn’t dare wear around Tam when Peadar wasn’t home.

  But winter passed.

  On the first sunny early morning, the men left to restart the fighting.

  Wearing the saffron leine that the O’Neill had given all his foreign young warriors as a sort of uniform, Peadar went out there with them.

  Vange made sure he walked her down the stairs to the kitchen first, and closed the door.

  During the last month of Vange’s pregnancy, Peadar returned to the castle for a few days now and then, but Aideen had been right. Vange’s husband was away fighting much more than he was with her.

  The first day after his winter break, Vange sat at the huge kitchen fireplace once more, stirring the soup while Aideen cut up veggies, Isleen kneaded the bread dough, and Nora made pudding. Cara’s husband was still home right then, lucky lady. As usual, they talked and laughed while they worked, doing their best to make it a merry old time.

  Unable to turn in her seat anymore, Vange just spoke to the fireplace and let it echo back to her friends.

  “I hope you were right about my baby belly.”

  Aideen leaned over Vange’s shoulder and smiled a knowing smile.

  “Know I am right about that I do, lassie.”

  “What was it you did say about her baby belly?” asked Nora.

  “Only that it would put Tam off her tail.”

  “It didn’t seem to while Peadar was here. Let’s hope and pray it works now,” said Vange.

  And then the baby was kicking, and they all gathered around to feel it. Aideen seemed to stay and feel it more than the others, but Vange figured it was just that she was past childbearing and wanted to live vicariously a bit.