[Druids Bidding 02.0] RenFaire Druids: Dunskey Castle Prequels

by Jane Stain

  “Here, what? Get to the point.”

  Aideen was hugging Vange now, as much as restraining her.

  “Here in Ireland, women do not interfere in the affairs of men. No, we do not.”

  Again Vange tried to shrug Aideen off, and again she failed.

  “Affairs of men? You’ve got it all wrong.”

  Aideen must have been getting frustrated, because she shook Vange a little.

  “It is you who have it all wrong, Vange. It is not your place to go and tell the O’Neill a thing, lassie. You must stay here with your children and not make a spectacle of yourself, for their sakes, if not for your own.”

  “But I was there. I know what started their fight. Tam was behaving horribly to me, with his hand on me even. If I just go tell the O’Neill—”

  Aideen shook Vange even more.

  “Woman. You are not listening to me. They can kill you for overstepping your bounds.”

  All the struggle went out of Vange at these words. She slumped against Aideen, who held her tenderly now. But it was as if only Vange’s body knew Aideen spoke the truth. Slowly, weakly, her mouth kept right on denying it.

  “They’re not really going to kill me for going to talk to them. They can’t be that backward and barbaric.”

  Aideen calmly and gently held her.

  “Then can and they will here, lassie. Shane O’Neill is all but king in these lands. He has but to say it, and it will happen. There is no one to say otherwise. The sooner you understand that, the safer you will be.”

  Vange’s mind tried to hold on to optimism, to deny what her body had already resigned to being the truth. Her mind told her to search the faces of the other women for signs that they didn’t believe what they heard. In desperation she did. She searched Nora’s face, and Isleen’s.

  Without a doubt, both faces looked worried for her.

  Vange took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the way her gym teacher had taught her to let go of tension and relax. It worked, a little.

  “Well, if I have to stay here and wonder what’s going on, then at least tell me everything you’ve heard, Nora. What happened in the fight.”

  Nora looked to Aideen

  The old cook nodded that she should go ahead and tell.

  So in her heavily accented English, Nora said more words in the next few minutes than Vange had ever heard her say yet.

  “They say there were words between Lord MacLean and the O’Neill’s top man. They say the words got louder and louder until Lady MacLean became distressed and ran from the room. And then they say that Lord MacLean struck the other across the face, they do, and that once the other recovered, he tried to strike Lord MacLean, but he was not able to, because you see, his arm had broken when he fell from being struck all the way across the room and banging against the wall.”

  Vange and Peadar’s bed and room were bigger than Aideen’s, and Vange didn’t want to sleep alone. Aideen and Isleen climbed with her into the big bed that seemed so empty without Peadar in it, now that he was home but not with her. Michael and Gabriel were both asleep in their cradle, for once. Nora’s husband was home too, so she was in her own bed.

  They stayed up for quite a while, talking about what really had happened and why everyone made it out to be more Peadar’s fault than it actually was.

  Vange hadn’t dared ask what might happen to her husband if the O’Neill believed those accounts. She’d learned long ago not to ask the question if she didn’t want to hear the answer. So she rolled over on her side with her knees bent halfway, like she always did just before drifting off to sleep. Wow, this was so comfortable compared to her pallet on the floor in Aideen’s room.

  At long last, Vange felt herself getting sleepy.

  “Why haven’t we been sleeping in here this whole time?”

  Aideen sounded wide awake still.

  “Safe enough now, it is, but my room does have that extra layer of protection, the entrance being through the kitchen.”

  Now that she heard this, Vange was wide awake again. And her anger was back on the rise. She sat up in the bed, facing the door and looking for something to block it with.

  “There are three of us, though, and sometimes five, plus two babies. We really should be safe in our own home.”

  Aideen was sitting similarly.

  “Go to sleep, Vange. Keep watch I shall.”

  Vange kept looking for something to block the door, but there was only the cradle. She wouldn’t place her children between herself and danger. She looked at Aideen again.

  The old woman nodded her assurance that she was on watch.

  Vange woke to a noise and jumped up out of bed, willing her eyes to see in the dim early morning light. She looked over at Aideen.

  The old woman was sound asleep.

  The noise was footsteps coming down the stairs.

  Remembering the pile of weapons, Vange scrambled over to it, leaning across the other gear to grab for the claymore. She felt more confident with the bow and would have chosen it normally, but there was no time to nock an arrow. There was barely time to get ahold of the claymore, but she managed it, glad that it stuck out above the rest of the gear.

  The footsteps stopped at her door.

  Vange hefted the heavy two-handed sword like she would a bat, and she took her best batter’s stance, staring at the door and almost daring it to open.

  The door did open.

  Vange started to swing at the man who was coming in, but it was difficult with the early morning sun shining in her eyes from the open courtyard door behind him, making him a silhouette.

  She felt him grab the sword from her even as she swung it at him

  “I do not think you are going to need that, lass. Howsoever, I do wish to know who you have with you in our bed.”

  “Peadar.”

  He put the sword down and took her in his arms.

  “Aye, none other.”

  Vange clung to him.

  By now, Isleen was awake too.

  Aideen urged the young Irish wife out of the bed and toward the door.

  “Leaving now we will be. Good night to you, Peadar.”

  He nodded at them.

  “Have a good night. Sorry to disturb your rest, and I do thank you for keeping my wife safe while I was away, and while I be away yet again, many times to come.”

  Aideen sort of bowed and sort of nodded to him, and then she and Isleen were out and shutting the door.

  Reluctantly, Vange let go of Peadar’s embrace and went over to nurse Michael and Gabriel, who had woken up from all the activity and were crying for their food. Feeling able to use her joking tone now that her husband was here in the room with her, safe and sound, she laid it on thick, complete with exaggerated tones and funny faces, sticking her tongue out at the end to imitate a dead animal she’d seen once, on the road.

  “So what happened in Shane’s office? How did you get out of there alive? Aideen warned me to stay away or I’d be killed.”

  Peadar laughed heartily and came over to sit next to her on the bed, with his arm around her and his other hand caressing the angelic faces of his sons.

  “Aye, it looked to me as if the incident would mean my death for a bit as well, lass.” He caressed her back. “And I cursed myself for a fool.”

  “Why? I loved how you stood up for me.”

  “Aye, but who would stand up for you with me dead, lass, eh? And you would have our sons to fend for.” He choked up a bit. “Nay, what I did last evening was foolish, not brave.”

  With a baby in each arm, she couldn’t do much but turn her head and kiss him, so that was what she did.

  “Well what would bravery have looked like last night then, if not the way you acted, hm?”

  She had meant it as a rhetorical question.

  But he took it seriously.

  “Bravery last night would have looked like me taking his insults on myself while I got you safely away and was able to stay away with you, lass.”

&nb
sp; Vange thought that over for a moment.

  “OK, you have a point.”

  He rested his chin on top of her head and hugged her warmly.

  “I did lose my temper, lass. I cannot say it will not happen again, but I can and will pray it does not endanger you or our sons when it does.”

  Vange enjoyed his sincerity, but only for a moment. After that, it began to remind her how very alone the four of them were. She wanted some comic relief. Or at least entertainment.

  “OK, the mood in here is getting way too serious, so tell me how you convinced Shane you weren’t to blame. That must be a good story worth telling.”

  But Peadar’s deep sigh warned her this would be anything but comic.

  “Tam ranted and raved for a long while, lass, saying how I had insulted him and I was nay a man of honor. He ranted loudly. To be sure, that entire side of the fortress heard him. And then at long last, they took him away for doctoring.”

  “And then?”

  “And then Shane told me privately that he did not mind if I had insulted the man.”

  “What?”

  “Aye. Shane O’Neill is desperate to defeat the English. He explained it at length to me, what they are doing to set up an Englishman to rule in Shane’s stead, despite Shane having the support of his clan and other supporting clans.”

  “So he thinks you did all those terrible things Tam accused you of doing?”

  “That does not bother me, lass.”

  “Oh. Well what part of it bothers you then?”

  “The part that bothers me is that it will take a lot of doing to fend off these English from the Irish lands. I do not believe that it can be done in fewer than fifty years.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Och, I do care because we are here in the service of the O’Neill until it be done, lass.”

  Those tiny toy wooden swords got a lot of use now that Peadar was home again. Even though he had fashioned armor and helmets for their sons, complete with face guards, Vange could not stand to watch her six-month-old babies whacking at each other with sticks in their cradle, so she listened from the kitchen while Peadar narrated their play in the bedroom.

  “Och, there you have it, Michael, get him.”

  “Ah, good block, Gabriel. That’s it, counter attack.”

  “Nay, you do not want to eat the sword. That would leave you defenseless, you ken.”

  “Aye, that be the way of it, Michael.”

  He played with his sons until they fell asleep, and then he came into the kitchen and brought her into the bedroom.

  The two of them gazed at their sleeping sons for a moment.

  Vange gently removed their protective headgear and covered them with a blanket.

  Peadar had other ideas.

  Vange knew she couldn’t wait any longer to start using another form of birth control. She thought she was pretty safe from being fertile again so long as they nursed twelve times a day between them. Her milk was still coming strong, and the twins could easily take all of it.

  But the boys had started teething at four months, and Gabriel had a top and a bottom tooth that met each other now. She didn’t know how much longer she could take the wear and tear.

  So when the time came, Vange tried to hand her husband one of the condoms she and Aideen had made from animal intestines.

  “Here, put a condom on first.”

  Peadar shied away from the thing.

  “Och, none of your joking now, lass.”

  Oh yeah. He’s probably never heard of a condom. She took a deep breath. OK, here goes the big talk. She took his hand gently to try and let him know this was important to her, while at the same time smiling at him to bring out one of his lighter moods.

  “It isn’t a joke.”

  He looked at her dubiously.

  “What is the thing then?”

  Wow, he was a little on guard. She couldn’t let that continue. If he shuts me out, it’s over. Best to use someone else’s familiarity with it in order to reassure him.

  “It’s something I got from Aideen.”

  There, that put him a bit at ease. He took hold of it.

  “What for, lass?”

  It was a moot point right now. The moment had passed.

  But Vange needed Peadar to be on board with the plan to get her back to her real life. She didn’t know how much longer she could take it here in this backward society, and now they also had their sons to consider.

  The boys would be so much safer in her time—from disease especially, but also from violence, and poor prospects at any future away from violence.

  Vange looked into her husband’s eyes, trying her hardest to communicate the gravity of their situation, to tell him just with her look how important this was—to her and to all of them.

  “Condoms provide a way for us to be intimate without me getting pregnant again right away.”

  She could see in his eyes that he understood now, but her relief was short-lived. Calmly and with love, he jumped right to the heart of the matter, onto a subject she hadn’t planned to discuss right away.

  “Oh lass, you cannot mean to travel with two babes.”

  Don’t panic. Don’t panic. You can bring him around. He’ll understand if you explain it right.

  “No, not with babies, but they can travel once they can walk—if we don’t have another baby right away, they can.”

  He took both of her hands in his.

  “Do you ken how dangerous travel is for young ones?

  “I do, but—”

  “It would be murder lass, to travel all the way back to Scotland with children before they were old enough to defend themselves—eight years old, at least. Nay, I will not do it.”

  The tears came then, unbidden.

  “Peadar, I have to get back to my time.”

  He tried to hold her close.

  But she turned away and withdrew her hands, feeling betrayed by him.

  He gently put his hand on her back.

  She waited for him to order her to see reason.

  But he didn’t. He just remained there silently with his warm hand on her back, gentle, loving.

  Finally, she turned back to face him.

  He looked at her softly, lovingly, soothingly.

  “I will get you back to your time somehow and someday, Vange. I do promise that. Howsoever, I will not put our sons in danger while doing so. It would not be right. You do ken that, aye?”

  A tiny kernel of hope—and of trust in Peadar—peered into the dark place Vange had retreated to inside her mind. Ignoring her fear that this was a false hope, she grabbed onto it.

  “You promise?”

  Keeping his eyes on hers, he slowly solemnly nodded his head once.

  “Aye. I will get you back to your old life sometime. I do promise you that. Just … I will not put our sons in danger for it, and I do not believe you would either, Vange. I do not believe you see just how much danger lurks out there.”

  Finally able to breathe now, she could see that the father of her sons was right. Their children wouldn’t be safe traveling out in the wilds until they could fight off animals, at least. So what if the boys had to work in the castle drawing up water and washing dishes for a few years before they went to school?

  At least Michael and Gabriel would make it to school.

  She supposed that had to be enough comfort for her. She chose to rest on that.

  So she let Peadar hold her close now, and soon the question of the condom came up again.

  This time, he agreed to use it.

  At least there was that.

  16 Vange & Peadar 4

  This feast topped all the others over the past two years at the castle. The two of them were decked out in their plaid finery, sharing a tender cut of beef from the roast, and there were also pies, puddings, chestnuts, and figs. Because she hadn’t quite stopped nursing Michael and Gabriel, Vange didn’t dare try the wine, but Peadar said it was excellent.

  The twins w
ere a year old now, and running. Vange had spent most of the summer out in the courtyard playing with them, and she had plans to entertain them and the other toddlers in the dining hall this winter, between meals.

  The past six months had been good. She and Peadar were getting along well, and Tam had stayed away from her. Vange thanked God and her lucky stars every day for Aideen. Without the old cook’s help, Vange knew she would never have survived the 16th century a day, let alone two years.

  Peadar was laughing.

  Vange came out of her thoughts and asked him a question in Gaelic, which she spoke fluently now, although Peadar was amused that she had an Irish accent, rather than his Scottish one. He teased her about it often, saying it clashed with their Scottish highlands clothing and last name.

  “What’s so funny? Did I miss something?”

  “Nay, lass. I was just thinking.”

  Vange giggled.

  “You don’t often admit to doing that.”

  Peadar tickled her, which she hated because it made her squirm. He cut a big bite of beef off for her while he swallowed what he’d been chewing, then leaned in close to her and lowered his voice.

  “Now then, I was thinking you would never know my family was cursed, to see me living the good life in a castle like this, dressed in this finery and seated at a noble’s table.”

  That was interesting, and Vange went into learning mode right away, asking questions. Her favorite days in her ‘real life’ back home had been at college, and she would have taken notes on what her husband had to say if she had anything to write on, or with.

  As it was, she grabbed a small pie off the tray that one of the non-noble soldiers’ wives appeared with at her side. Ooh. It looked good. Mincemeat. She prepared a bite as she spoke, lowering her own voice to match his.

  “Cursed? What do you mean?”

  Peadar’s brow wrinkled at her, and he grabbed her other hand, leaned in to put his mouth to her ear, and whispered.

  “I did think you knew about the family curse, lass.”

  While she chewed her pie, Vange lowered one eyebrow in a face she’d practiced in the mirror, back in her old life at graduate school, training to be a teacher. The look was supposed to say, “You haven’t given me enough information.” Just for good measure, she said that out loud too, once she swallowed her pie.