by Jane Stain
Ciaran got up and raked the stable, as that was Bixby’s duty before he was allowed to go to the kitchen and get something to eat. While he worked, he remembered the elation of joining his lips to Nadia’s. While they kissed, he hadn't missed the vigor the halberd drained from him. He hadn't felt any of the sadness present in his life —the loss of his family besides his cousins, Baltair and Eoin. While his lips caressed hers, he felt only joy. He was glad he kissed her. He needed some joy in his life.
When he went out into the stableyard with the intention of going to the kitchen for some food, Eimhir, the Cameron clan chief's pregnant wife, thrust two full pails of milk at him. "Take these intae the kitchen and coome back for the rest."
Ciaran couldn't hold both milk pails and his ‘walking stick’. He stood there in the stableyard surrounded by cows and milkmaids, uncertain what to do.
Nadia came to his rescue, taking one of the pails from his hand and nodding her head toward the kitchen door while speaking to the other milkmaids. "I wull show him where tae put them." As she took up one of the pails and helped him carry the other so he could use his ‘walking stick’, she became close enough to say in his mind, "Think ye they warned the Murrays in time?"
"Aye," his mind told hers, “my cousins will na hae stopped till they arrived tae warn the Murrays."
"Put eh milk doon here," she said, indicating an area in the kitchen, and then once he had, "Come, let us gae and get the rest."
They stayed close together while they brought in three more pails of milk, but all they said to each other was a repetition of the wish that the Murrays had been warned in time. That their friends were safe. That their world was unchanged and whole.
When they came out again and there were no more full pails, Eimhir again spoke up. “Lame Bixby, help the lasses milk the coos, syne there are na horses for ye tae tend." With that, she went inside.
With a grin, Nadia snatched up a milk stool and brought it over to the cow behind her own milk stool, imagining the two of them back to back, still close enough to speak in their minds to each other.
He approved. No stranger to milking, having done it his whole childhood, he set to work, sending her his joy at being close together and speaking with her in their private mindscape. "Why did ye stowaway on oor apple wagon?" he asked her with genuine curiosity. "Why did ye want tae coome tae oor time?"
Amusingly, her first thought was a vision of him with his kilt flying up as he walked and his hair loose and long as he never had worn it. All of his muscles were exaggerated in her mind, and the smirk on his face was bigger than he ever remembered making it. She quickly suppressed that imagining, but it was too late. He had seen it. He knew she fancied him.
Unable to resist the lure of her attraction, he reached out with his mind and embraced her with more than just affection. Last night's kiss had roused… urges in him.
"Ciaran!" she reprimanded him, with a mindful of objections ranging from lack of privacy, to the need for vigilance here among their enemies, to a tiny sense of propriety.
But he could feel her own joy at their togetherness, there in her mind, and it was as great as his own, he was pleased to note.
While singing some unfamiliar tune with the other milkmaids on the outside, she turned serious on the inside, answering his questions. "At first, I came oot o’ the need tae impress the Druids with a story oot o’ history. But then there were the Camerons again, and I was trapped. I hae discovered more than I ever set oot tae.”
Here, her memory of the druid child —who was there right now inside this very house— took over her consciousness. Tahra was storming down the cellar hallway and whipping a man to death.
She pushed down that memory. “And as I telt ye last even, I hae often wished tae see faraway places, as long as I can remember."
He caressed her in his mind, attempting to settle both of their worries about what the druid child might do. While he did so, he told her in his mind, "I hae a longing for adventure as wull, and I share yer love o’ discovering secrets and venturing tae unknown lands."
He was glad he had provided a distraction, because she latched onto it with gratitude. "Hae ye done much adventuring, then?"
"Aye, ye ken I wander with the Murray war party. We cover a lot o’ land ower the course o’ each year, ne’er settling in the same place twice. 'Tis a good life. And ye?"
"Aye. I coome from a land far away across the sea, a land called America—"
His amusement bubbled up inside their shared mind, giving them both a good bit of relief from their fear of Tahra. "Aye, I ken the new waurld."
“O’ course ye dae. Wull, I coome from there, sae being anywhere here in Scotland is an adventure for me.” Even as she thought this at him, though, she herself saw the lie to it. “At least, ’twas an adventure the first few months, working in the ‘Druid Fortress’, as ye think o’ it."
Her image of the druid-run place where she worked and where Eoin was beholden —Celtic University, her mind called it— brought to his mind the dozens of huge greystone castles gathered together inside a stone wall that surrounded them in a way nothing from his experience ever had. It was like a large city, Aberdeen or Inverness, except the druids controlled the whole thing. And the place was… focused, all focused on the druids’ purpose. He wondered if the druids controlled everything in the future.
"Nay, they dinna.”
His immediate thought, uncontrolled and unbidden, was “Can she be certain?” He instantly denied this thought and mentally assured her he didna doubt her wisdom, it was just that a person could be mistaken.
Rather than argue, she brought him memories of everyday things in her life back home, away from Celtic University: skyscrapers, politicians, buses, movie stars, cars, charities, freeways, the peace corps, traffic jams, teachers and professors, supermarkets, televangelists, shopping malls, looking down from the sky in something called an airplane at night to see miles and miles of jewel-colored lights on the ground…
In her mind, it all made sense. And there was no trace of druidery involved in any of it.
It was so intense, the future, that for a moment, he had to pull away from her mind back into his own and try not to think about what he had seen.
"'Tis sorry I am,” she instantly said into his thoughts, almost as if they were his own thoughts, except hers were so feminine, so dainty. “Please dinna think I was trying tae overwhelm ye. I just want ye tae ken what I'm accustomed tae and why this is such an adventure for me."
"Aye, I dae see that this rough life is an adventure for ye. All right, I'm ready. Show me maire."
"I wull show ye how we spend most o’ oor time."
Again, her mind had names for it all and an understanding of how it worked, so it wasn't as confusing as it might have been, but it was still overwhelming:
Television!
Computers!
Cell phones!
Something called the Internet that spanned the entire waurld!
He felt humbled by the vastness of her experience. Humbled and put to shame. "With all that tae explore, how can ye itch for adventure?"
“'Tis all in my mind, Ciaran, what I see on television and the computer and the cell phone and Internet. ‘Tisna real. I canna taste it, smell it, or feel it. The Highlands are truly my most memorable experience e’er." Even as she said this, she was picturing him in her mind and thinking he was the most magnificent sight she'd ever seen.
It was time to take another load of milk to the kitchen, and Nadia got up and started the trip this time, smiling demurely when ‘Bixby’ got up to help her.
Mairee winked at Nadia when she saw them going to the kitchen again together.
Nadia winked back. After all, it was obvious she and Ciaran liked each other. There was no sense in denying it. That would look suspicious. And they were singing all three verses of the Rose Red rounds without her help now. She knew they were aiding the enemy, but she also knew they had little choice, and she was proud of them for learning the son
g so well.
Ciaran stayed close enough to her on the way into the kitchen and back out again so they could keep talking in their minds. "I dinna ken what else Eoin expects us tae discover. Mayhap for ye tae take anither gander at that book?"
Instead of answering him, she merely let her terror be felt. Amid that, anger bloomed. How dare he ask that of her? She fanned the flames of anger in his mental direction.
Having just set the pail of milk down in the kitchen, he put his hand up as if to fend off her fist. "I dinna mean for ye tae dae it. I only wonder what Eoin expects."
A few of the Cameron women in the kitchen looked askance at them, and he didn’t seem to notice, so Nadia showed him their faces in her mind.
He sent her a big questioning feeling.
"We should na discuss this in here amidst sae many o’ the enemy,” she told him telepathically, pointedly leaving the house. “Ootside with the ither milkmaids, we wull be in maire sympathetic company, ye ken?"
"Aye," he sent to her mind apologetically, adding again emphatically, "I did na mean for ye tae dae it, Nadia. I was ainly asking what ye think Eoin expects us tae find oot."
As they moved their milking stools to the next set of cows, Nadia studied him for a moment to make sure he wasn't feigning ignorance to tease her. When she was satisfied he wasn't, she explained mentally, "Eoin does na expect us tae learn a thing, Ciaran. He ainly sent ye here because he kens ye wull na leave my side. And he ainly sent me here because he kens better than tae take me intae the fighting."
Realization dawned in his mind, and he sent out feelers to every area of her body —a tantalizing sensation— testing her reflexes in ways they had never been tested before.
When his words came to her mind, their tone was as if he had discovered she had never tasted milk. Or never walked barefoot on grass. Or never washed her face. "Ye hae na ever fought, hae ye?”
Words failed her, he was so shocked. She simply sent him the negative, the mental equivalent of shaking her head no.
He tentatively moved in for a mental embrace. “Ye dinna hae tae answer. I ken the truth o’ it. I canna imagine it, but I ken 'tis true. I hae seen in yer memories that ye dinna fight battles by hand in yer time. On some o’ yer ‘TV shows’ ye showed me, battles were fought at a distance using verra advanced firearms.”
“I didna name firearms. We call them guns. Ye hae guns in this time?”
“Aye, we hae firearms in this time, but they are ainly used by the English. And those Scots who sail the seas in search o’ others’ property. Pirates, I believe ye call them. At any rate, we hae few people in this time who hae na fought. Ainly the truly infirm, like Bixby. How dae ye keep such a wondrous constitution, if na in training?"
Seeing herself in his mind's eye brought her understanding of his feelings to a whole new level. He admired her greatly, judging by the way her long hair flowed and glinted in the sunlight, not to mention the way she filled out her dress in all the right places. "Easier tae show ye, sae here." She took him along with her as she imagined herself doing the dance routine she'd been practicing in the hallway at Celtic while he and Eoin got the halberd. Her mind showed him all the kicks and the lunges, swaying along to the music it played for him.
The milkmaids had long since gone into the kitchen to help prepare a feast for the returning warriors, and Ciaran knew Nadia was lingering out here with him on a thin excuse. Visiting with her in this manner for hours on end was the best time he’d ever had. It stirred him, made him want to take her by the hand and ask her to marry him right here and now,.
However, slowly at first, just a niggling worry, but then faster and with convicting certainty, the cold hard truth hit Ciaran in the gut, making him double over as he sat on his milking stool, missing the pail and shooting the milk into the ground with a hissing sound as its warmth hit the cold earth.
He couldn't ask Nadia to grow close to him and love him. All she would get was heartbreak. He needed to quit wooing her.
Shouts came from the distance.
"Hail the hoose!"
"Yer warriors are come haime!"
Eimhir opened the kitchen door and shooed out the milkmaids. "’Tis now safe tae let the coos oot. Come straight back in once ye hae finished, and help the wives prepare tae serve the warriors’ feast."
There was a great hubbub as the milkmaids made their way through the crowd of moving cows to the front gate, pulled it open, and propped it with the barrels Ciaran had so conveniently left nearby. ‘Bixby’ helped them as best he could, having to lean on his stick.
And then they all went around to the other side of the cows and shooed them out of the stableyard, making room for the horses and the men, who could be seen in the distance.
It wasn't long before the stableyard filled with stamping horses. But louder still was the shout that went up.
"Someone warnit the Murray clan!”
“They kenned we were coming!”
Every single hair on Ciaran's body stood up, and he moved close to Nadia, to protect her.
But no one even looked their way. Not while they were all bustling around in the stableyard, and not when they moved inside. Not even when Ruadh came in and addressed ‘Bixby’ with an air of self-importance.
"Wull lad, ye had a nice day off milking coos with the lasses, eh? Good, because ye hae yer night’s work cut oot for ye, eh? All these horses tae tend tae." He slapped ‘Bixby’ on the back and ambled in through the kitchen toward the great hall to enjoy the feast the wives had prepared for the warriors.
Ciaran squeezed Nadia's hand one last time. When she looked over at him with a question in her eyes, he told her in his mind, "Thank ye for yer quick thinking. Even if calling me lame was a jest, methinks it may hae saved oor lives this day."
13
Nadia dreamed again that she was in the carving-decorated throne room beneath Dunskey Castle, wearing her threadbare 18th-century servant dress. Ciaran was here too, sprawled out on the throne next to hers in his kilt.
Kelsey stood across the room, wearing the white linen ceremonial robes of the druids. She had a garland of Rowan leaves in her hair, and a sprig of mistletoe hung from her white linen sash. Even though she stood and Nadia and Ciaran were on thrones, Kelsey’s presence filled the room as if she owned the place. Which in more ways than one, she did.
And that was all. It was just the three of them.
Ciaran's thoughts were in her head without him visibly doing anything in the dream, just as they had been with the two of them in real life back in the Highlands in 1706. Thoughts only took an instant to fly back and forth between them.
“Sae good tae be away from the Camerons, even ainly in oor dreams. We could be in maire cheerful surroundings, though. This place is like a permanent funeral.”
Nadia let him feel her amusement at his jest.
Kelsey gave no indication she had heard it.
Nadia enlarged her sense of wonder so that Ciaran could share in it. “Even here in the dream,” she told him conspiratorially, “the halberd allows us tae speak in private, ainly the two o’ us!”
“Aye,” he thought back at her, “and ’tis wull. I dinna want that druid lass kenning all oor thoughts. She looks aboot tae blow the roof off the place, sae frustrated she is that she canna hear us as nay doubt she is accustomed tae in the realm o’ dreams.”
“Och, dinna fash. She is but Sarah’s childhood friend who went tae Celtic and does the druids’ bidding.”
“Sae ye say,” he thought at her with palpable doubt in his mind.
Nadia turned to Kelsey, speaking aloud. "Bring Eoin, as wull! I'm dying tae hear if everyone's all right, and we need tae make sure he's bringing horses for us.”
Kelsey barely acknowledged what Nadia had said, throwing her hand out in a dismissive gesture. "Eoin is busy with other things and canna be here.”
Ciaran’s thought on that was clear as day. “I dinna believe her.”
Kelsey fastened her eyes on Nadia’s for longer than was comfo
rtable, then turned them on Ciaran by turns while she spoke. “Now, I hae disturbing news aboot Tahra's book. We researched it, combed all the records we hae here at Celtic. We foond nae mention o’ Ciaran naywhere. The epic Cameron-Murray battle in this book is na mentioned, either. There be hints o’ it, but it is na spoken o’ in any historical texts, na even online. The ainly way tae ken for certain what happens is if we get oor hands on Tahra's book."
Kelsey looked like she was dismissing the idea of ever holding Tahra’s book in her hands, but Nadia knew better. She couldn't say how, she just did. Kelsey was trying to manipulate them into getting Tahra's book. That’s what was going on. She needed to bring Eoin here and tell them the truth and be straight with them, or Nadia wasn't going to help her—
"Halt, Nadia!” said Ciaran’s frantic thoughts. “She is altogether tae powerful a person for ye tae confront. Play along with what she says. Please. She can hurt you. She can separate us. It is na worth it. Yer dignity is already safe and secure in my mind withoot that ye confront her, and it should be in yers as well. I'm begging ye, let this gae."
"There is na reason she canna bring Eoin intae this dream, and I dinna see how asking her tae dae sae should upset her."
"If ye ainly ask her, aye. Howsoever, ’twas na asking ye considered a moment hence. Ye were gaun'ae demand it o’ her, and I was afeared o’ her response tae that. I… I care for you deeply, Nadia. I dinna want any ill tae befall ye."
"Ye truly believe she would hurt me?"
"Aye, I dae."
"Dae ye think I could ask her again tae bring Eoin here?"
"Nay. I dinna think 'tis worth the risk."
"I had best say something now. 'Tis getting tae long syne last I spake."
"Aye. ’Twould dae na harm tae tell her what ye ken o’ the book."
"Verra wull." Nadia raised her head up to Kelsey as if she'd just decided what to say. "Tahra had the book with her, the one time I saw her oot and aboot in the Cameron hoose. And when I went tae her quarters, she was in the bath, sae the book was on a pedestal therein. I suspect she never has that book far from her, but mayhap if Ciaran were tae create a distraction in the early morning while Tahra slept, and if it was enough o’ a distraction, mind, mayhap Tahra would leave the book behind. I could slip intae her room and grab it."
