Ruadri (Immortal Highlander, Clan Skaraven Book 3): A Scottish Time Travel Romance

by Hazel Hunter

  Ruadri escorted her on his arm out of the broch and followed the waiting Drest to the center of the settlement. There the tribe had gathered in small groups around a huge fire now burning in the stone-lined pit, in which large iron and stone pots had been nestled. The scent of roasting meat and fish blended with a sharp, sweet smell that Emeline guessed was some sort of ale. She saw the men passing around oddly-shaped skin bags and drinking from their gathered spouts. Sleepy-eyed infants in fur slings nursed or slept on their mother’s breasts, while their older siblings sat cross-legged on the ground. Everyone had small, rough wooden trenchers near them, but no one had begun eating.

  Ara rose from the bench placed near the fire and beckoned to them. “Come, sit with me and mine, Tree-Knowers.”

  Although the gathering seemed bucolic, Emeline saw every man had armed himself with clubs, blades and even a few scary-looking axes. A few men stood away from the fire looking to the south, each holding a spear in hand. It looked as if the tribe expected to be attacked, but not perhaps by her or Ruadri.

  Once they sat on the benches brought for them, an older, heavily-tattooed tribesman with silvered black hair stood and lifted his arms.

  “’Tis the tribe’s shaman,” Ruadri murmured to her.

  Everyone fell silent and watched as the shaman offered thanks to the Gods. Emeline found the prayer he offered fascinating. He considered everything from the summer’s bounty to the good health of their children as divine gifts. It seemed a little effusive, as they had obviously done all the work to care and provide for their families. Yet from the appreciative emotions glowing around her she knew they believed even their abilities came from the Gods. Such grateful devotion stirred something in her that she hadn’t felt since she’d lost her parents. Emeline had been so resentful and envious of what she couldn’t have that she’d forgotten her own blessings.

  Surviving being thrown back through time, weeks of abuse and neglect, and her own gift turning on had been miraculous. She had four strong, admirable women who had become her first and only true friends. Then there was Ruadri, who had only tried to help her. Even after she’d treated him horribly, and tried to kill Rowan, he refused to give up on her. He’d defied his chieftain’s orders to try to heal her, and hadn’t blamed her for landing them here, in this strange place and time.

  Emeline had never once offered him a word of thanks for any of it.

  When the prayer of gratitude ended all of the tribe echoed the shaman’s last words—mòran taing—she looked at Ruadri as she murmured the same in modern English to him.

  “Many thanks.”

  His mouth flattened. “Save them, lass. I’ve done little enough, and badly at that.”

  Ara made an encompassing gesture toward the fire, and both men and women began portioning out the food in the trenchers. Emeline liked that they served the elderly and the children first, even before their chieftain. Drest and several hard-looking warriors helped the women cut up food and feed the youngest, making it clear that tending to toddlers was not beneath them. She did notice that Ara sat alone, and wondered if the headman had lost his wife. There seemed to be very few elderly people among the tribe.

  A slim young boy brought two trenchers and placed them in front of Ruadri, directing an openly admiring look at Emeline as he did.

  Ara chuckled as the boy hurried off to join a group of other adolescents. “Your shy bhean snares hearts young and old, Shaman.”

  Emeline was glad it was dark, to hide her reddening face as she sampled a piece of smoked fish.

  “’Tis how she caught mine,” Ruadri said as he regarded her. “One look and I became hers.”

  “’Tis the fate of the moon-ridden to serve a waking goddess,” the chieftain said, nodding at the tattoos on his forearms. “She’s built for many strong bairns. Be you yet so blessed?”

  Ruadri shook his head. “We mated but winter last.”

  Emeline was confused by what he’d said. Did he mean the mark on her ankle? No, she vaguely remembered Althea telling her how she’d been mated to Brennus. Although they hadn’t had a ceremony yet Cadeyrn already referred to Lily as his mate. In the fourteenth century mate meant wife or husband.

  Ruadri was saying they were married?

  Barely avoiding choking on the fish, Emeline swallowed a few times before she gratefully accepted a wooden cup from a woman sitting beside her. It contained some sort of cider that tasted sharp and pulpy, but she swallowed a mouthful.

  Of course, he was lying about it, but why would he say such a thing? Did an unmarried man and woman traveling together violate some sort of Pritani taboo? But Ara didn’t think they were Pritani. He believed them to both be druids. Or had she misinterpreted that, too?

  “We seek a dru-wid tribe of the forest,” Ruadri was saying now. “’Tis no’ far from here to their settlement. Ken you the Wood Dream?”

  “Aye.” The chieftain’s stern expression softened. “Good folk they be. We trade often.” He turned to Drest. “How fared the Wood Dream on last your visit?”

  “Thriving as ever,” his son replied. “Gardens and pens near bursting full. Their headman offered ten sows for our white mare. I refused.”

  Ara grunted. “Well you did, for she’s worth thirty.” He regarded the shaman. “You’ve Wood Dream kin?”

  “Old friends we wish to visit for solstice,” Ruadri said. “We go to them after the meal.”

  “Travel through a storm, and the Sluath shall take you as their slaves forever,” the chieftain said, pointing to dark clouds toward the east. “You’re blood-kin by bond. Shelter here the night, then go at dawn.”

  Emeline watched Ruadri’s guarded features as he considered Ara’s offer. She knew Hendry and Murdina had belonged to the Wood Dream tribe, and that the famhairean had been created after the Romans had massacred their people. Yet Drest had just said that the tribe was thriving.

  That’s because the massacre hasn’t happened yet.

  Emeline felt a little dizzy as she realized why Ruadri had asked about the druid settlement. If they could warn the Wood Dream tribe of the impending slaughter, the tribe could then avoid it by abandoning their settlement and hiding somewhere until the Romans passed through their lands. If the tribe survived, their totems would never evolve into the famhairean. Hendry and Murdina would have no reason to be imprisoned or seek vengeance against druid kind.

  They could save everyone in the future and the past, right here and now.

  “I wouldnae impose, but my bond urges me to accept.” Ruadri lifted her hand to his lips, and when he met her gaze she nodded quickly. “I must keep safe my bhean.”

  The words came with a swirling sensation of tangerine heat throbbing so deep inside Emeline she thought she’d burst into flames. The shaman’s emotions couldn’t have been more clear, and answered the question she’d asked before leaving the broch.

  Tonight, she would be his.

  Chapter Eleven

  AFTER FINISHING THEIR evening meal, the tribe let the fire die down, and couples began carrying off their sleepy-eyed children to their beds. While Ara and Ruadri talked about trade and horses Emeline went to help the women collecting the trenchers. She saw the chieftain watching her, and belatedly realized that visitors probably weren’t expected to help with the clean-up. Since she’d already made the mistake, she followed the women to a small stream nearby the village. There she watched for a moment until she saw how they scoured the wooden dishes clean with sand and water. Rolling up her sleeves, she knelt down to help.

  “You neednae do washing, Dru-widess,” a worried-looking woman said to her. “You be visitor.”

  “She be Ara’s blood,” the oldest, a stout female with pure white hair, told her. “His máthair didnae tip her nose at work. The lass be the same.” She turned to give Emeline a measuring look. “What do you for your tribe, Daughter?”

  She glanced back at Ruadri, who looked deep in conversation with Ara and the tribe’s shaman. Her shared blood wasn’t giving her the word fo
r nurse, or even a hint as to whether female caregivers in this time were called healers. At last she went with a description.

  “I attend to our elders.”

  Every woman stopped washing and looked at her.

  “All your elders, lady?” one asked faintly.

  Emeline wondered what they thought she meant. “Aye, when they be sick or injured.”

  Some of the youngest giggled until the white-haired woman gave them a narrow look. “Still your tongues. Our ways arenae as the dru-wid. Her sheshey sits among us, and his eyes dinnae meander.”

  “To wish that they would, Marga,” a beautiful redhead said, and released a dreamy sigh. “I’d attend a grand, fetching man as he from morn to moon.”

  “Keep to your own,” Marga said, sounding stern now. “’Tis wise to provide for the sickly old. We be closer to the ears of the Gods, and ken your names.”

  That silenced the mirth, and most of the other women looked almost embarrassed. The redhead collected some trenchers and hurried back to the fire.

  “Give them no heed,” the white-haired woman told Emeline. “Your goodness be plain.”

  She didn’t feel especially good, not with all the wicked thoughts she’d had about Ruadri. Without warning a very small girl rushed past her chasing a firefly and slipped on the wet bank. Emeline lunged for her, catching her up in her arms and dragging her away from the edge of the stream.

  “Careful, little one,” she said, and handed the now wailing child to the white-faced young woman who rushed at her with open arms.

  The mother gripped Emeline’s shoulder tightly before she carried off her toddler. While all the other women made sharp trilling sounds, Marga clasped her hands and said, “What be seen be truth.”

  Emeline was confused. “I didnae wish her to fall in.”

  “Aye, and show yourself to all.” The older woman leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Only you must eat more, Daughter, and make yourself more abundant. You’ve beauty, but you’ve near worn yourself to bone. Men desire feast, no’ famine.”

  Being regarded as beautiful and too thin was a first for Emeline, and for a moment she wondered if the old lady had trouble with her eyes. Then she noticed that almost all of the women had sumptuous, curvy bodies that would definitely be considered overweight in her time. None of them seemed bothered by their ample sizes, and most had sewn their garments to hug their full breasts and wide hips.

  Compared to them she actually did look scrawny.

  Washing out the trenchers properly took some time, but once they had been scrubbed the women carried them back to the village and stacked them around the pit stones to dry. As they finished the task together the women nodded to Emeline, and a few touched her arm or shoulder as they murmured their thanks.

  “For you, Daughter,” Marga said, and offered Emeline a length of cord with a small polished stone hanging from it. On the stone a tiny, antlered deer had been carved and painted in white. “We see you now.”

  “This…’Tis lovely,” Emeline said.

  “’Tis our sacred stag,” the older woman said. “Like the moon he changes, yet he be watchful over our tribe. So over you on your travels.”

  “My thanks.”

  As she tied the necklace around her neck Emeline felt a curious sensation of stillness inside her, as if she were standing in the moonlight atop a high plateau. The feeling drifted like falling snow through her from throat to ankle, making her glance down. A patch of pale light shimmered on the side of her boot before it faded away.

  She turned to rejoin Ruadri and the chieftain, only to bump into the shaman’s chest. When he lifted his hands to steady her, she thought she saw a shimmer run through the tattoos on his forearms.

  Marga went to the headman and tucked her arm through his as she murmured to him. Then out loud she said, “She’s blood-kin, Sheshey. As gentle and fair as your máthair. With no thought she saved a bairn from the stream.” Her expression turned a little smug as she said to Emeline, “Ara be my mate.”

  She’d just been put through some sort of subtle test, Emeline thought, and couldn’t help grinning back at the sly old lady.

  “You be kin to my tribe through your bhean, Shaman,” Ara said, and bowed to Emeline. “Ever be you welcome among us. Fair night.”

  Emeline dropped into a somewhat wobbly curtsey, and then watched with Ruadri as the chieftain took Marga’s arm and walked into the shadows. “He really means that, doesn’t he?”

  “My cleverest words didnae impress him half so much as your aid with the washing and the opinions of his wife.” He smiled down at her. “Pritani men treasure their families, and anyone who shows them such kindness. But ’tis the headwoman who has the final word.”

  That reminded her. “We need to talk about some things.”

  Ruadri led her back to the visitor’s broch, where someone had left several new rushlights burning for them. As he’d predicted, the interior had cooled with the onset of evening. Carefully he replaced the wooden wedges in the narrow window openings.

  “Now we may speak openly,” he said quietly.

  She didn’t want to press the one big issue first. “Why did you ask Ara about the Wood Dream tribe?”

  “Learning they yet lived made clear our purpose.” He knelt and sketched a simple map in the dirt floor to show her the relative position of the druid’s settlement, which appeared to be due south of Ara’s village. “Tomorrow I’ll water-travel from the stream to the Wood Dream’s loch and warn them of the coming attack.”

  So, he had come to the same conclusion, she thought, feeling relieved. “Good. Now how is it that I understand the tribe’s language?”

  He looked as if he didn’t want to tell her, and then he said, “Mayhap your druid blood remembers it. This tribe shall sire the McAra. They’re your people. More I cannae tell you.”

  More like he didn’t know what to tell her, Emeline sensed, but let it go. “Does bhean mean mate, or wife? As in we’re married?” When he nodded she wanted to hit him. “Why in heaven’s name would you tell them that?”

  “For the same reason I didnae wish you to remain at Dun Mor,” he said slowly. “An unmated female’s fate belongs to her people’s leader, whether he be the laird of the McAra, or the headman of this tribe. If Ara learns we arenae mated, he would take you from me and claim you as his property. With your coloring none would question it.”

  Emeline was taken aback. “Just because I look like them he can treat me like livestock?”

  “No’ in your era,” Ruadri countered, and put his hands on her shoulders. “But in mine, and this time, aye. ’Tis the mortal custom, and meant to protect young females. I cannae change it, so I must keep the truth concealed until I can return you to the future.”

  So, he didn’t want her as his mate or to stay. Her stomach dropped and a familiar ache filled her chest as she backed away from him. At least it was out in the open.

  “We’d better get some sleep,” she muttered. She glanced over at the furs piled on the sleeping platform. “I don’t suppose you know a spell for making an extra bed.”

  “The nights grow cold even in mid-summer,” Ruadri said. “You’ll be warmer if we share it.”

  Emeline eyed him, but from the utter lack of emotions coming from him she knew he meant just what he said. He only wanted to keep warm. That left her to be the awkward, embarrassed one, as she was pretty sure she wouldn’t sleep at all cuddled up with him.

  “Give me some of the furs and I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “Dinnae be foolish, Emeline.” Now he sounded annoyed.

  Making a fuss about sleeping with him probably was petty, but she’d had enough of pretense for one night.

  “It’s fine,” she assured him as she marched over to grab some of the furs. “I’ve always slept alone.”

  Ruadri took the furs out of her hands and tossed them back on the bed. “You’ve naught to dread from me. I would but lay beside you, my lady.”

  “Of course you would.”
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  She must have imagined the fiery-hot desire he’d felt before. Or worse, he’d been feeling it for one of the other women. What would Ara make of that, she thought as she glared up at him.

  “You shouldn’t call me your lady. You shouldn’t have kissed me and said all those things to me. You shouldn’t have made me believe that you meant them. But I suppose I made it easy for you. I’m a virgin, and no man has ever wanted me. Not seriously. I wouldn’t know any better.”

  As soon as the last words spilled from her lips Emeline sank down on the bed and buried her face in her hands. How could she have told him that? She pressed her fingertips against her eyelids, praying they’d hold back her tears of humiliation.

  A roaring tidal wave of liquid crimson heat slammed over her a heartbeat before Ruadri dragged her off the bed and into his arms. Her feet left the floor as he lifted her to his eye level, the flickering rushlights lashing his face with gold and black. His eyes gleamed like melting silver, and in them she saw a hunger so ferocious it should have terrified her.

  “I’ve no’ wanted anything as much as you,” he said, pressing her body to his so she could feel the knots of his muscles, and the swollen thickness of his erection. “I look upon you and see every dream of my life. Hopes I’ve no’ dared to have.”

  Emeline felt as if her bones had liquefied. “I’m only a woman, Ruadri.”

  “You’re more than I’ve words to say. I look upon you and see paradise. I put my hands on you and my blood turns to flame. ’Twas good that you told me no’ to touch you when you first came to me. If you hadnae, I’d have taken you to my bed and made you mine.” He dragged in a breath. “And you tell me you’re untouched, as if ’twere shameful. To ken that you’re yet a maiden, that I might be yours before any other…”

  Her virginity didn’t repel him. He saw it as a gift. Emeline knew one thing: she was never going back to the twenty-first century.

  “So, don’t make me cry again.” She looped her arms around his neck. “Make me your woman.”