Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  A mortal pleased my Queen, the King brooded. "She stays," he said decisively, and vanished.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 22

  "welcome, milord." rushka's greeting sounded pleasant enough, but Hawk felt a strange lack of warmth in it. Smudges of black marked the olive skin beneath the old man's tired eyes and they were pink-rimmed, either from sitting too close to a smoky fire or from weeping. And Hawk knew Rushka didn't weep.

  Hawk stood in silence while the man ran a callused hand through his black hair. It was liberally streaked with gray and white, his craggy face handsome, yet equally marked by time. Absentmindedly, the man began to plait his long hair, staring into the dying embers as full morning broke across the valley.

  Brahir Mount towered above this vale, its outline smoky blue and purple against the pale sky. Hawk dropped to a seat atop one of the large stones near the circle-fire and sat in silence, a trait that had endeared him to this tribe of Gypsies.

  A woman appeared and deposited two steaming cups before leaving the two men to sit in companionable silence.

  The old Gypsy sipped at his brew thoughtfully, and only when it was gone did he meet the Hawk's gaze again.

  "You don't like our coffee?" he asked, noticing the Hawk had left his drink untouched.

  Hawk blinked. "Coffee?" He peered into his cup. The liquid was rich, black and steaming. It smelled bitter but inviting. He took a sip. "It's good," he declared thoughtfully. With a hint of cinnamon, topped with clotted cream, the drink would be delicious. No wonder she liked it.

  "A lass, is it?" The old man smiled faintly.

  "You always did see right through me, Rushka, my friend."

  "I hear you've taken a wife."

  The Hawk looked piercingly at his old friend. "Why didn't you come, Rushka? When she was ill, I sent for you."

  "We were told'twas Callabron. We have no cure for such a poison," the old man said. Rushka shifted his attention away from the Hawk's steady gaze.

  "I would have thought you'd have come, if only to tell me that, Rushka."

  The old man waved a hand dismissively. "Would have been a wasted trip. Besides, I was sure you had more pressing things to contend with. All aside, she was healed, and all's well that ends well, eh?"

  The Hawk blinked. He'd never seen his friend behave so oddly. Usually Rushka was courteous and cheerful. But today there was a heaviness in the air so tangible that even breathing seemed a labor.

  And Rushka wasn't talking. That in itself was an oddity.

  Hawk sipped the coffee, his eyes lingering on a procession of people at the far end of the vale. If he wanted answers, he'd simply have to ask around his questions. "Why did you move out here, Rushka? You've camped in my north field by the rowans for years."

  Rushka's gaze followed the Hawk's and a bitterness shadowed his brown eyes. "Did you come for Zeldie?" Rushka asked abruptly.

  I can't handfast Zeldie, Hawk had told this man a decade ago when he'd been bound in service to his king. The Rom had desired a match and offered their most beautiful young woman. He'd explained that it simply wasn't possible for him to take a wife, and while Rushka had understood, Esmerelda hadn't. Zeldie, as they called her, had been so infuriated by his refusal that she'd quickly lain with man after man, shocking even her own liberal people. The Gypsies did not prize virginity—life was too short for abstinence of any sort, which was one of the reasons the people had seemed so intriguing to him as a young lad. He'd been ten when he'd secretly watched a dusky Gypsy girl with budding breasts and rosy nipples make love with a man. Two summers later she had come to him saying it was his turn. Ah, the things he'd learned from these people.

  "Esmerelda and I have parted ways."

  The old man nodded. "She said as much." Rushka spat into the dust at his feet. "Then she took up with him."

  "Who?" Hawk asked, knowing what the answer would be.

  "We do not speak the name. He is employed on your land with the working of metals."

  "Who is he?" Hawk pressed.

  "You know the man I mean."

  "Yes, but who is he, really?"

  Rushka rubbed his forehead with a weary hand.

  Yes, Hawk realized with amazement, Rushka had definitely been weeping.

  "There are situations in which even the Rom will not do commerce, no matter how much gold is promised for services. Esmerelda was not always so wise. My people apologize, milord," Rushka said softly.

  Had the entire world gone mad? Hawk wondered as he drained the last of his coffee. Rushka was making no sense at all. Suddenly, his old friend rose and whirled about to watch the the stream of gypsies trailing down to the valley.

  "What's going on, Rushka?" Hawk asked, eying the odd procession. It looked like some kind of Rom ritual, but if it was, it was one Hawk had never seen.

  "Esmerelda is dead. She goes to the sea."

  Hawk surged to his feet. "The sea! That's the death for a bruhdskar. For one who has betrayed her own!"

  "And so she did."

  "But she was your daughter, Rushka. How?"

  The old man's shoulders rocked forward, and Hawk could see his pain in every line of his body. "She tried three times to kill your lady," he said finally.

  Hawk was stunned. "Esmerelda?"

  "Thrice. By dart and by crossbow. The bandage you wear on your hand is our doing. If you ban us from your lands, we will never again darken your fields. We have betrayed your hospitality and made a mockery of your good will."

  Esmerelda. It fit. Yet he could not hold the levelheaded, compassionate, and wise Rushka responsible for her actions. Nay, not him nor any of the Rom. "I would never seek to bar you from my lands; you may always come freely to Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea. Her shame is not yours, Rushka."

  "Ah, but it is. She thought with your new bride gone you would be free to wed her. She was a strange one, though she was my daughter. There were times when even I wondered at the dark thing in her heart. But he brought her to us last night, and by the moon she confessed. We had no choice but to act with the honor we owed to all… parties… involved."

  And now the procession to the sea, with every man, woman, and child carrying white rowan crosses, carved and bound and brilliantly emblazoned with blue runes. "What manner of crosses are those, Rushka?" Hawk asked. In all his time with these people he'd never seen the like before.

  Rushka stiffened. "One of our rituals in this kind of death."

  "Rushka—"

  "I care for you like my own, Hawk," Rushka said sharply.

  Hawk was stunned into silence. Rushka rarely spoke of his feelings.

  "For years you have opened your home to my people. You have given with generosity, treated us with dignity and withheld censure, even though our ways are different from yours. You have celebrated with us and allowed us to be who we are." Rushka paused and smiled faintly. "You are a rare man, Hawk. For these reasons I must say this much, and the risk to my race be damned. Beware. The veil is thin and the time and place are too near here. Beware, for it would seem you are at the very core of it somehow. Take great care with those you love and no matter what you do, do not leave them alone for long. There is safety in numbers when this is upon us—

  "When what is upon us, Rushka? Be specific! How can I fight something I don't understand?"

  "I can say no more, my friend. Just this: Until the feast of the Blessed Dead, keep close and closer those you love. And far and farther those for whom you can't account.

  Nay." Rushka raised a hand to stop the Hawk even as he opened his mouth to demand more complete answers. "If you care for my people, you will not visit us again until we celebrate the sacred Samhain. Oh," Rushka added as an afterthought, "the old woman said to tell you the black queen is not what she seems. Does this mean something to you?"

  The only black queen that came to mind was now scattered ashes in the forge. Hawk shook his head. The old woman was their seer, and with her far-reaching vision she had inspired awe in Hawk as a young lad. "Nay. Did she say more?"<
br />
  "Only that you'd be needing this." Rushka offered a packet bound with leather cord. "The camomile poultice you came for." He turned back to the procession. "I must go. I am to head the walk to the sea. Beware, and guard thee well, friend. I hope to see you and all your loved ones at the Samhain."

  Hawk watched in silence as Rushka joined the funeral walk for his daughter.

  When one of the Rom betrayed the rules by which they lived, he or she was disciplined by their own. It was a tight-knit community. Wild they could be, and liberal-minded about many things. But there were rules by which they lived, and those rules were never to be mocked.

  Esmerelda had disregarded one of great importance—those who gave shelter to the Rom were not to be harmed in any manner. By trying to kill the Hawk's wife, she had attempted to harm the Laird of Dalkeith himself. But there was something else, the Hawk could sense it. Something Rushka wasn't telling him. Something else Esmerelda had done that had brought strife upon her people.

  As Hawk watched the procession wind toward the sea, he whispered a Rom benediction for the daughter of his friend.

  Easing himself back down by the fire, Hawk unwrapped the bandage and cleansed his wounded hand with Scotch and water. Carefully, he untied the leather pouch and wondered curiously at the assortment of stoppered flasks that fell out. He picked up the poultice and laid it to the side, sorting through the rest.

  Just what had the seer seen? he wondered grimly. For she'd given him two other potions, one of which he'd sworn to never use again.

  Hawk snorted. One was an aphrodisiac he'd tried in his younger days. That one didn't worry him too much. The one he despised was the potion that had been created to keep a man in a prolonged but detached state of sexual arousal.

  He turned the flask with the vile green liquid in it this way and that, watching the sun reflect off the faceted prisms of the stoppered bottle. Shadows rose up and taunted him openly for a time, until his obdurate will banished them back to hell. Quickly he spread the poultice, which eased the pain and would speed recovery. In a fortnight his hand would be well knit.

  Adam. Although he hadn't outright said it, Rushka had insinuated that it was Adam who had brought Esmerelda to them last night. Which meant Adam knew Esmerelda had been trying to kill Adrienne.

  What else did Adam know?

  And just what had made his friend Rushka, who had never once shown terror in all the thirty-odd years Hawk had known him, betray visible fear now?

  Too many questions and not enough answers. Every one pointed an accusing finger toward the smithy, who even now was probably trying to seduce Hawk's wife.

  My wife who doesn't want me. My wife who wants Adam. My wife who didn't care enough to even ask about me when I was wounded.

  Esmerelda was dead, but Rushka had made it clear that the real threat was still there, and close enough to Dalkeith to drive the Rom away. Apparently Adam was involved. And he'd left his wife in the thick of it. Keep close and closer…

  The Hawk's mind whirred, sorting the scarce facts and hunting for the most feasible solution to his myriad problems. Suddenly the answer seemed impossibly clear. He snorted, unable to believe he hadn't thought of it before. But the lass had a way of getting so far under his skin that his mind didn't work in its usual logical fashion with her in the vicinity. No longer! It was time to take control, rather than allowing circumstances to continue to run amok.

  His pact with Adam entailed that he could not forbid Adrienne to see the smithy. But he could make it damned difficult for her to do so. He would take her to Uster with him. Far away from the mysterious, compelling Adam Black.

  So what if she hadn't asked about him? She'd made it clear from day one that she didn't want to be wed to him. She had vowed to hate him forever, yet he would swear her body responded to his. He'd have her all to himself in Uster and be able to test that theory.

  Just when had he become passive? When you felt guilty for burning her queen, his conscience reminded. Trapping her here, in spite of her wishes, if she is indeed from the future. But guilt was for losers and fools. Not for Sidheach Douglas. There was no guilt involved when she was at stake. "I love her," he told the wind. "And so I've become the greatest kind of fool."

  A nice one.

  Time to remedy that. Guilt and passivity dropped away from him in that clarifying instant. The Hawk who turned his steed around and headed for Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea to claim his wife was the true namesake of the Sidheach of yore, the Viking conqueror who had run ramshod over any who dared oppose him. I commit, I attain, I prevail.

  He leapt to his mount and spurred his charger into a full run. Seel and jess, my sweet falcon, he promised with a dark smile.

  * * * * *

  Beneath a bough of rowans, Adam stiffened. Not fair! Not fair! Get thee hence! But fair or not, he'd seen true. The Hawk had turned around and was coming back to take Adrienne away with him. That was simply unacceptable. He obviously had to do something drastic.

  * * * * *

  "How could this be?" Lydia paced the kitchen, a flurry of claret-colored damask and concern.

  "I don't have any idea, Lydia. One minute I was in the gardens and the next thing I knew I was in my bedroom back in my own time."

  "Your own time," Lydia echoed softly.

  Adrienne met her gaze levelly. "Almost five hundred years from now."

  Lydia cocked her head and fell still, as if having a brisk internal debate with herself. The silence stretched into a protracted length of time while she pondered the limits of her beliefs. Lydia had always thought that women were more open-minded and adaptable than men when it came to inexplicable happenings. Perhaps it was because women experienced firsthand the incomprehensible and astonishing miracle of childbirth. To a woman who could create life inside her own body, why, time travel seemed like a minor miracle in comparison. But men… men were always trying to find a rational explanation for things.

  When the Hawk had told her what strange news Grimm had discovered at Comyn keep, Lydia had studied Adrienne closely, watching for any signs of instability or peculiar behavior. Through her close observation, she had only become more convinced that Adrienne was just as sane as a person could be. She had concluded that while something had hurt Adrienne deeply in her past, whatever had hurt her had far from weakened her mind—Adrienne had been strengthened by it, like tempered steel. Oh, Lydia knew there was a very lonely young woman behind some of Adrienne's caustic humor and sometimes cool facade, but Lydia had found that stern walls most often guarded a treasure, and a treasure her daughter-in-law was indeed. Lydia cared for her enormously and had every intention of having grandchildren from her son and this lovely young woman.

  The idea that the entire Comyn clan was suffering some strange madness didn't make sense. Lydia knew Althea Comyn well from time spent at court together, years past. She was a practical, worldly-wise woman, and although over the years Althea had grown more reclusive, she still remained pragmatic and levelheaded.

  Lydia had long suspected the Laird Comyn of acts of twisted violence. Could she believe he had killed his own daughter in an act of senseless violence? Easily. He'd had his youngest son slaughtered like a lamb to the sacrifice for crossing clan lines and taking up with one of the Bruce's grandnieces.

  Through all of the Red Comyn's acts of twisted and petty vengeances, Althea Comyn had managed the aftermath to the continued benefit of her clan. She was an extraordinary woman, holding her children and grandchildren together with sheer will and determination.

  And so to Lydia, the thought of the pragmatic Lady Comyn suffering a fit of fantasy was more difficult to believe than the possibility of time travel. Simply put, Althea Comyn was too much a cold realist to indulge in any nonsense.

  Having reached her conclusions, Lydia smiled gently at Adrienne, who had been waiting in tense silence. "Hawk told me what Lady Comyn said, Adrienne. That you're not her daughter. That you appeared out of thin air. Indeed, I have heard your brogue ebb and flow like a stormy,
unpredictable tide."

  Adrienne was momentarily chagrined. "You have?"

  Lydia snorted. "When you were ill your burr disappeared entirely, my dear."

  Adrienne blinked. "Why didn't anybody ever ask me about it?"

  "In case you haven't noticed, things haven't been exactly calm since you've come to Dalkeith. Not a day has passed that hasn't brought new surprises. Murder attempts, unwelcome visitors, not to mention the Hawk behaving like a besotted lad. Besides, I hoped that one day you would confide in me of your own choosing. Now, the guards tell me they watched you disappear and reappear several times before their very eyes." Lydia rubbed her palms against the skirt of her dress, a far-off expression in her eyes. "From the future," she murmured softly. "My son believed it was some trauma that made you believe such madness and yet…"

  "And yet what?" Adrienne urged.

  Lydia met Adrienne's clear steady eyes. They stared at each other a long, searching moment.

  Finally Lydia said, "Nay. Not a hint of madness in that gaze."

  "I'm from another time, Lydia. I'm not mad."

  "I believe you, Adrienne," Lydia said simply.

  "You do?" Adrienne practically yelped. "Why?"

  "Does it really matter? Suffice it to say, I am convinced. And when things finally return to normal around here, if they ever do, I want you to tell me all about it. Your time. I have many questions, but they will wait. For now, there are things we must be clear on." Lydia's brow furrowed in thought. "How did you get here, Adrienne?"

  "I don't know." Adrienne shrugged helplessly. "Truly, I have no idea."

  "The Hawk thought it was the black queen. The Lady Comyn said it was bewitched."

  "I thought it was too."

  "So it never was the black queen… hmmm. Adrienne, we must be absolutely clear on this. Exactly what were you doing at the moment when it happened?"

  "The first time, when I wound up at the Comyn keep? Or this time?"

  "This time," Lydia said. "Although we should investigate the first time as well, and look for similarities."