by Jill Jones
Rescue.
Her mind flashed to the man who had sought to rescue her once before, in another time. Likely, he ended up dying for it in this one. Oh, God, Duncan! she screamed in her mind. Duncan!
But Duncan wasn’t here to come to her rescue, and she hurriedly tried to collect her thoughts again and decide what might save her skin.
Time.
She needed to give Pauley time to rally the governor’s men. But this crowd was turning uglier by the minute, angered that the boy had escaped.
The mob crept forward, their voices mingling in threats and epithets, and Taylor retreated a few steps. But to her horror, her back ran into the stone wall of the ramparts. There was no place for her to run. Sweat poured from her forehead, and her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might faint. She heard something fly past her ear and hit the wall with a thump. Another missile struck her skirt, and then she felt a sharp pain as a rock struck her forehead. “Death to th’ divil-woman,” Kenneth cried, gaining courage once again. My God, she thought panic-stricken, they’re throwing rocks at me. They intend to stone me to death!
“Oh, no you don’t, you heathen bunch of nincompoops!” she screamed at them, reaching again into the hidden pouch. She brought out the camera, brandishing it in one hand and the flashlight in the other, like Princess Leah with a light sword. Where the hell was Hans Solo?
“Get away from me or I’ll capture your soul with this machine, and you’ll all go straight to hell!” she called out, waving the black box at them threateningly.
Again, their primitive simplicity worked in her favor, and they ceased pelting her with stones. Determined not to show her fear again, she advanced toward them. “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble,” she cackled with every ounce of theatrics she could summon. They wanted witch? They were going to get witch…
She dug into her Wizard of Oz repertoire.
“Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!” she said, hopping ridiculously onto her left foot. “Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!” she screeched, hopping onto her right. “Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!” She landed on both feet again. The Winged Monkeys should be here any second.
Then she held the camera to her eye and aimed it directly at Kenneth and Greta. Snap. The flash worked its magic, lighting up the bewildered, frightened, angry faces of Duncan’s kinsman and his “bediviled” wife. Snap. Another flash was all it took to disperse the crowd, sending the vulgar wretches scattering into the night.
Taylor’s knees were weak, and she thought she might throw up, but she forced herself to stand firm, and with halting, painful steps, made her way toward the safety of Governor Ogilvy’s quarters. She had gone barely a few feet, however, when she heard shouts, and the governor and two of his personal guards followed Pauley to where she stood quaking in the aftermath of the violence. The boy ran to her and clung to her skirts, sobbing fiercely.
“Madam, is thy person unharmed?” Ogilvy said, his face blanched with horror. “What happened?”
“We must leave this place at once,” Taylor breathed when she could find words to express her outrage. “They…they think I’m a witch. They were…going to kill us both.”
“Duncan!”
The call came from far away and yet he heard it distinctly. “Duncan!” It sounded again, louder, more urgent. Terrified.
Duncan jolted out of the narrow bunk, his feet thudding against the planks of his cabin. He was shaking and cold and dripping the sweat of fear. Nightmare. It was only a nightmare, he told himself, but the premonition that engulfed him was so strong it sickened him.
Taylor had called his name.
Taylor was in terrible danger.
He rubbed his hands across his face, trying to remember what he’d seen in his dream. There had been fire, and shouts, and the sound of rocks hitting against other rocks.
Duncan threw on his heavy cloak, donned his boots and climbed up the companionway to the deck into the black pre-dawn of the ship’s second day at sea. His first mate was at the helm, giving Duncan his first respite in over twenty-four hours. Maybe he was so tired he was hallucinating.
Duncan!
The cry echoed again in his ears, a memory from the dream. But it was too strong, too clear, to be an hallucination. Taylor was calling for him. He felt it to the marrow of his bones.
“Can’t you make this thing move any faster?” he groused at the mate.
“Sails is trimmed t’ th’ best, sir,” the man answered, and when Duncan looked up, he knew his mate spoke the truth. The sails were full and as well-trimmed as they were capable of being. The wind was brisk, with no hint of a storm. The sea was as flat as the North Sea ever got. They should be flying, but he guessed that the heavy, old-fashioned ship was making less than five knots headway.
At this rate, it might take more than a week to traverse the distance that would take only a matter of hours in a modern vessel.
Duncan slammed his fist against the stern rail, every fiber of his body raging in frustration. Taylor’s life was in danger. He was certain of it. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
Never in his life had he felt so helpless.
Before dawn broke, Taylor and Pauley bade a tearful farewell to Elizabeth Ogilvy. “Oh, my dears, I shall miss you terribly,” the good woman sobbed. “You have been such a blessing. How I hate those horrid people out there…”
“Do not hate them, madam,” Taylor said softly. “They know not what they do. They are driven by their fear. We shall see one another again, I am certain. In the meantime, Mrs. Grainger will bring our news one t’ th’ other.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the governor’s wife tried to sound as if she was consoled, but Taylor knew otherwise. The governor’s personal guards lifted the wooden chest between them, and the four crept out of the castle, retracing the path to the cave Taylor and Pauley had taken only a few hours before. When they came to the big rock, she and the boy glanced at each other, but they continued on, circumnavigating the boulder to the right hand side and clambering on down to the sea.
The first rays of morning found them half way to Kinneff Kirk.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Duncan Fraser never thought he would become a pirate, nor that he would be gratified to be one. He had orders to scavenge for food and supplies before returning to Dunnottar, although after his unsettling dream, he was determined to sail straight for the castle instead. He regretted his return home would only provide the additional food he had stocked the vessel with in Amsterdam, but it would have to suffice. He could always make another scavenger run if he needed to, unless…he wasn’t there.
Duncan had determined his course to run parallel to the Scottish coast, and when he’d spotted the merchant ship just off Scurdie Ness, he knew the fates were with him. He had come alongside her by night, issued one shot across her bow, and ordered the captain to surrender. Since the ship had little firepower with which to retaliate, his command was obeyed.
Duncan wondered if pirates in this time always had it so easy…
The vessel was laden with a rich supply of victuals, precious cargo indeed for one semi-starved, ocean-weary sea captain anxious to move on to the besieged Dunnottar Castle.
Duncan left his own vessel in the hands of his first mate and took over the helm of the merchant ship with a lightness of heart he had not felt since the beginning of this whole misadventure. “Dinna worry, Mr. Young,” he said to the skipper, who was to be for a short time his prisoner. “Ye can have your ship back as soon as we make this delivery. Ye be a good Scotsman now, is it not true?”
The youthful captain of the vessel glowered at Duncan. “Aye, but that’ll not save my skin when I return without th’ goods I came for,” he growled. “Th’ lords in Edinburgh sent me with ample coin t’ purchase these goods from far t’ th’ north of th’ English threat.”
“Th’ lords in Edinburgh cannot have as desperately empty bellies as th’ courageous patriots who defend their king and yours at yon Castle Dun
nottar.”
Under sail again, with fair winds and steady seas, the two vessels made good time, but still it seemed like an eternity until the call came from the crow’s nest, announcing that Dunnottar Castle was in sight. Duncan climbed to the first spar and peered through the spyglass. A useless piece of equipment, he decided, unable to hold the fortress in his vision for the bobbing of the boat upon the waves. As they grew nearer, however, he saw with great relief that the royal standard still flew from the battlements. Governor Ogilvy had held firm!
And so far, so had the history books.
It was early March, and he knew that Cromwell’s troops had likely moved their heavy artillery from Dundee by now, so he changed course to put further out to sea until darkness would cover their return to the small cove protected by the cliffs and the castle. After this horrendous voyage at sea, he was almost home. Almost back to Taylor, in whose embrace he planned to drown himself. He wasn’t about to take any action that might drown him in the sea instead.
Taylor, with hair of golden silk and skin as soft as a cloud, a lover who had captured his heart and his mind and his spirit as well as his body. Taylor, who had come so unexpectedly into his life and changed everything, forever.
Oh, God, he thought, clenching his fists. Please let her be safe. With any luck he would be reunited with her in a matter of hours, and nothing, he vowed, nothing except her own wishes to the contrary would separate them again.
The ensuing hours were a torment as they waited for nightfall. As they drew nearer, however, their arrival was heralded by those on the castle keep, and when they dropped anchor, they were confronted by the entire garrison on the steep hillside. The scene was like something out of a movie, with torches lighting the night, and primitive soldiers with bows at the ready. At first, he thought they were going to be attacked in a shower of arrows, but the soldiers held their fire. A small boat moved from the protection of the cave at the foot of the cliff, and he instantly recognized the stocky figure of Governor Ogilvy.
“Ahoy, Captain Fraser, and welcome!” said the governor as the oarsman drew the skiff alongside the bigger ship. “We recognized not thy vessel until we sighted th’ one behind. Pray tell, what hath ye brought us?”
“Good evening, sir,” Duncan replied, relief washing through him. He smiled broadly. “I chanced upon this good ship laden with victuals just off Scurdie Ness, and I thought it imaginable that thy garrison might enjoy a bit of a feast tonight.”
A cheer went up from those on shore who had heard his words from across the short distance. A warm, huge, welcoming smile saturated the governor’s face. “Aye, Captain. Aye.”
Duncan climbed aboard the tender and took a seat in the bow, leaving the off-loading of the ship to someone else. He’d fulfilled his duty. “Your Excellency,” he said urgently to the governor. “My wife? Is she well? And the boy, did he recover?”
The cheer faded from Ogilvy’s face. He did not answer immediately, and Duncan’s heart turned cold in his breast. “Aye, sir,” said the governor at last. “They are both well, and safe…but…they are no longer at Dunnottar Castle.”
Although the winds of March were brisk, they’d lost their wintry bite. The sun overhead was almost warm against Taylor’s face as she walked along the shore toward her appointed dulse-gathering duties on the rocks far below Dunnottar Castle. She had been making this trek for almost two weeks now, and although her muscles had become accustomed to the long walk, she was tiring of the daily chore, finding the seaweed repulsive to harvest and even more so to eat. Mrs. Grainger had told her it was considered a delicacy to the people in the area, but Taylor had no taste for it. She’d never liked sushi either.
It wasn’t the seaweed that kept her going, however. It was her pledge to her good friend Mrs. Ogilvy to complete the task she had agreed to, and the daily appearance on the shoreline was part of the plan. She had been stopped only once by a stray sentry from the Cromwellian army, but she had pretended to be deaf to his speech and frightened of his manner, until he gave her up for a harmless peasant woman trying to feed her family in these desperate times.
She always wore a disguise, a dreadful rag of a dress and a kerchief that completely covered her blonde hair. She wiped dirt on her face before she set out, and hunched over, hag-like when she got within viewing distance of the troops. Thank God Duncan wasn’t here to see her like this, she’d thought on more than one occasion. In her arms, she carried a heavy creel, a long, slender basketlike container into which she lay the slimy green seaweed with an odor that clung to her long after she’d handed her daily harvest over to the minister’s wife.
As she approached the castle, Taylor stopped as she always did, behind the protection of a large boulder, and searched the horizon, still holding out hope that somehow, one day Duncan would return. But that hope faded as each day passed and there was no sign of an approaching ship. Her vigil grew shorter as winter turned to spring, as her heart slowly accepted the painful idea that Duncan had been killed, that she and Pauley were now alone, and that unless she somehow found a way back through the Ladysgate, she would spend the rest of her days in this harsh and primitive time.
She slopped in the water, bending to retrieve the dulse and tangles that floated in the shallows, starting her chore further from the castle than usual. She was tempted to fill her creel and turn for home quickly, but then she remembered Governor Ogilvy’s instructions: “Repeat th’ same actions every day. Make no changes. They will be watching. Fill thy creel almost t’ th’ top as ye arrive at th’ castle, linger behind th’ castle rock out of their view for a short time, then move back along th’ shore more quickly, but not too hastily lest ye appear as if ye are fleeing.”
Heartsick, exhausted, grieving for a love she’d lost before she’d ever really known it, Taylor wanted nothing more than to flee altogether from this unbearable existence. She wanted to get back to her time, her apartment, her life, although she knew nothing would ever be the same again. It wasn’t just that Pauley would change things, although his presence would definitely alter her lifestyle. But her life had been changed forever by another, a man who had given her the greatest gift of all…the ability to love.
If she could just hold him once again, and thank him for that unutterably precious gift…
Governor Ogilvy had promised “Janet” that the time was approaching when they would make the daring attempt to rescue the Honours. His anxiety was rather anti-climatic for her, since she knew already that they would succeed, and that Mr. and Mrs. Grainger would successfully hide the crown, sword and scepter in the church until the Restoration. However, she’d learned that although history proved the outcome, achieving it might be difficult, even dangerous. For that reason, and because she had come to the firm decision to try to return to her own time soon afterward, she was ready to get it over with.
Only one regret hung around her heart like a black cloud when she thought of returning to modern times. Once she left this time, she believed there would be little hope of ever seeing Duncan again. The thought carved a thin line of pain around her heart. She let out a heavy breath and wiped her face with smudgy green, dulse-stained fingers, leaving grubby marks on her sun-burnished cheeks.
Taylor turned and peered up the steep, black cliffs to the castle ramparts, always heartened to see the royal banner flying in the stiff ocean breeze. How much longer would the governor be able to hold out? History said spring, but that was not very specific.
She looked for her signal, a small red kerchief that would be lowered on a rope over this side of the castle wall, invisible to the army that surrounded the other three sides that would indicate this was the day. But there was no kerchief.
Rounding a curve in the wall of the cliff that hid her completely from the view of the armed forces, Taylor’s heart almost stopped. There, floating on the tide in the safe harbor of the small cove, were two sailing vessels.
And on the shore in front of her, standing tall and handsome, skin bronzed by the sun, was
Duncan Fraser.
Governor Ogilvy had warned him about Taylor’s appearance. “Thy Janet’s not th’ pretty lass ye left,” he said, laughing incongruously at Duncan’s dismayed expression. But he quickly explained. “We’ve disguised her t’ make her as ugly and unappealing as possible. She looks, and smells, like a fishwife. So prepare yourself, Captain.”
Even forewarned, Duncan would never have recognized her. She indeed looked like the hag the governor had described. But dirty face and ragged clothes and all, she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. And she was safe, and well, and almost in his arms. When she saw him, her eyes widened, and she dropped her creel and covered her hands over her mouth, muffling a squeal of surprise. His heart pounded as she ran into his arms.
“Oh, Duncan, you’ve come home! You’re safe! Oh, my God…” She kissed his lips a hundred times in between the hundred he returned to her.
“Dare I assume you’ve missed me?” His voice was ragged, catching on the tightness in his throat.
“Miss you? Oh, my God, yes I missed you! I thought you were dead! Oh, Duncan, this has been so horrible…”
“Shhh,” he said, holding her against him, feeling her slight body quivering against his massive one. “Mrs. Ogilvy told me what happened.” He raised her head and traced the outline of her face with his fingers. “Tell me you are unharmed. They didn’t physically…”
“They threw some rocks, that’s all.”
Fury at his “kinsman” and the rest of the villagers burned in his guts. “Rocks! How did you get away from them?”
He was astounded when she began to laugh. “I gave them what they wanted. I pretended to be a witch.” When she told him how she had worked her “magic,” he was both impressed at her quick-witted ingenuity and horrified that she’d had so little with which to defend herself.
“Taylor, I am so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
