Highlander Found

by Rebecca Preston

  Audrina kept to the sides of the muddy roads that had been so used, they had grooves in the center where the wheels had traveled. The problem she faced as she kept to the sides was that, this was where all manner of refuse had been thrown as well, and it had splashed up like hedges of decayed garbage and waste, human and animal. Audrina had to hold the farmer’s shirt to her nose in order not to pass out, and she made her way further into town.

  People had begun to stare at her in curiosity, and she hoped the wide-brimmed hat was still hiding her hair. For whatever reason, the farmer had hesitated and been shocked by the sight of her hair, and she felt that somehow, it was something that would stand out to people around here. Most of the people were aged-looking, and there were only a few lanky children who were running around, barefoot in the streets. Audrina began to wonder where all the people her age might be, and that’s when she had the uncomfortable realization that, she was looking at them. Their aged and weathered faces were from days spent under the hot summer sun, toiling away at the daily grind of living and chores, all done just so that they could survive. And the winters would be spent nearly half starved once the food stores ran out. Audrina had to shake her head again before she got lost in the idea that she was crazy. She knew she wasn’t, but that town and those people were almost too much to process. She needed to gain information and find out not only where she was, but when she was.

  Audrina spotted a marketplace about halfway down the street. She made her way toward it and wondered what she could possibly have that she could trade to add to her bag of food, because she certainly didn’t have any money. Then she thought maybe she could get close enough to some people so that she could listen in and start to learn their ways.

  Audrina walked between an open fire pit, where a man in a kilt and pants, similar to the ones she was wearing, was roasting a pig over the fire on a spit and selling the bits of meat from the pig to passersby.

  “Hock o’ ham laddie, for a coin?” the pig roaster called to her. She shook her head and kept walking. She neared a grain stand where a couple of men who were just as rank as the farmer were standing around, haggling over the price of the grain.

  “Och, ye shriveled bawbag! Ye cannae ask a coin for ha’ a bag o’ grain! Tis thievin’!”

  “Haud yer wheest. I’ll no’ be havin the likes of ye tellin’ me how tae price me grain!”

  “I think the Laird Colin MacClaran ought to hear of yer thievin’! This grain won’t even give me Agnus enough tae bake into a wee biscuit e’ry week this winter,” the shorter of the two men bellowed.

  He was the one that Audrina surmised, was trying to purchase the grain. The taller and burlier of the two was the one selling the grain, and from what little Audrina knew of grain, it didn’t look all that great.

  From what she knew, grain was supposed to be fine and small, the grain he had in his bags was all different sizes, like he had mixed in the year priors with this year to fatten it up a bit. Audrina knew from when her grandfather talked about it, that grain was supposed to retain moisture for a time, making it have the consistent texture, so the older stuff was pretty evident. But what really captured Audrina’s attention was the name MacClaran.

  Audrina didn’t know much about a Colin MacClaran, but she and her grandfather had studied the MacClaran family tree pretty extensively, because she was a direct descendant of one of Maeve MacClaran’s sisters, Catriona, who lived on Skye. Very little was known about Maeve MacClaran, and whenever her name popped up, her grandfather made it a point to change the subject to another of the MacClaran ancestors or Catriona’s descendants. Audrina pretended to browse the stand next to her which offered up various vegetables. She strained her ears and listened hard to the bickering men.

  “Och, the Laird has his mind in a ri’ state eh? All twisted up o’er the death of his wee bonnie wife, Maeve.”

  “Aye?”

  “Aye, t’was no’ but a year ago the wee lass was murder’t.”

  “Nay!”

  “Aye. So ye best have done wit it and pay up, man, or leave the grain cause the Laird isnae goin’ ta waist his time w’the likes of ye!”

  The two men started bickering again and Audrina figured it was time to move on. She had lingered over the vegetables long enough, and the pig roaster had started looking at her suspiciously, probably wondering if she had been contemplating on stealing some.

  What had Audrina stumbled upon? Clearly, she was in Scotland. And she was standing at the base of Claran Castle from what she could surmise. She wasn’t sure of the date though. Grandfather had skimmed over the dates surrounding this time so much, they were all a bit jumbled in her brain.

  Audrina stood back and shielded her eyes as she looked up at Claran Castle. Sure enough, it was just like in her pictures above her bed, but somehow it looked newer, standing here at the base of it. All she had to do was walk a few more minutes up the hill and she’d have been at the gates. The metal somehow looked shiny and newly forged, and the gate in her picture had been centuries old and weathered. If only she could have remembered those dates.

  Audrina turned away from the castle, confused and scared. How could she possibly have traveled back in time by centuries? There was just no way that could happen. She felt in the pocket of the trousers she had stolen from the farmer and closed her fingers around the pin once more. It seemed to her like it was a source of comfort because it somehow made it all real. She knew she had gone to the museum and read that brochure. And she was positive she had chased after someone who had tried to steal it, and she had knocked him to the ground and taken the pin back from him. Audrina knew that somehow, the pin belonged to her. She just knew it. Whoever the woman was in the dream, she wasn’t sure whether it was Maeve, or her direct ancestor, Catriona, but the woman had cast a spell over the pin, and it had found her centuries later and called her home.

  Audrina decided to cut down a side street as she let her thoughts wander. She felt sure it was safer this way than being out in the open. She sidestepped a body lying on the muddy ground and her nursing instincts kicked in. She leaned over the body which was lying in a puddle of what smelt like bodily fluids and really strong ale, and she began to reach her fingers toward the direction of what she hoped was the neck to check for a pulse, and then the body jerked and bellowed.

  “I’ll be havin’ another dram!” he shouted and jerked, sending a few coins rolling across the mud-covered stones that were pounded into the road. Audrina grabbed at the coins as she heard the man take a deep breath, and then let out a loud rumbling snore as he went back to sleep in the mud.

  Audrina scurried backwards after relieving the man of the coins he had so carelessly lost in his drunken stupor, and she pushed into a door that she felt behind her and stepped into a dimly lit room. There were men surrounding her and she felt her heart beat faster as she sidestepped drunken men lying on the floor, and she skirted around the corner of tables, until she found herself in a corner near an empty table.

  Audrina sat down and breathed a sigh of relief as she looked around the small room. It was an ancient pub that hosted bar stools and rough table tops. The mugs that scattered the tables were roughly shaped clay mugs and the men were all wearing kilts and shirts. Some had pants on and others she could see scabby dirty knees poking out from under the kilts.

  The only other woman who was in the bar was obviously a bar maiden of some kind, but it was clear the way the men scooped their hands down her low-cut dress, she wasn’t a maiden as she didn’t even bat an eyelash when they’d give her breast a jiggle and a squeeze. She was plump with wiry blonde hair and yellowed teeth. Her pudgy cheeks were red with exertion as she hefted her ample body around tables and over sleeping drunks.

  She sauntered her way over and asked, “What’ll ye be havin’ laddie?”

  Audrina threw a coin down on the table and grunted, “Drink.”

  The bar maiden looked at her for a long moment, but then shrugged and slammed a clay mug on the table. She took the fla
gon she was holding and poured Audrina a drink. Without another word, she turned on her heel and went back to the group of men congregated around the bar.

  “As I was sayin’, laddies, the Laird himself was in here ha’in’ o’dram o’ale and—”

  “Bollocks, Maudie!” one of the men shouted at her.

  Audrina flinched when Maudie hauled off and slapped him so hard he fell of the bar stool. As the other men laughed, Audrina watched as the man stood back up, laughed himself and climbed back on his bar stool.

  “As I was sayin’, the Laird himself has been in a ri’ state o’mind w’it the death o’his Mauve. A year ago today in the year o’our Lord, 1304. I says the Laird is bidin’ his time, waitin’ for the Sassenach Bastards tae make a move. Then he’ll rip through ‘em wit claymore an fire in his soul. Aye, I speak truth, lads. The Laird’s out for revenge.”

  The men nodded and grunted at her as Audrina sipped her ale. It was bitter and vile and so strong it turned her stomach. Audrina realized, 1304, was only ten years before the Scottish uprising in the Battle of Bannochburn. The Scottish and English were right in the middle of their long and bloody war and Robert the Bruce would claim Scotland a free country in only a decade. But the hostility between Scotland and England was just starting to escalate. Edward the First would reign as King of England for another three years until his death in 1307 and William Wallace would begin his campaign to rouse the clans against the English. Whatever had happened to the Laird Colin’s wife Maeve, Audrina was sure it was due to the hostility between the Scots and the English.

  Audrina got up and made her way toward the door. She kept her head low and almost made it to the door when she heard one of the men say, “Aye, Cotswold. The bloody Bastard. Done Maeve wrong tae be sure.”

  Upon hearing the name Cotswold, Audrina clutched her head. The name triggered something in her mind that had her thinking about the dream. Bile rose in the back of her throat. At first, she thought it was the ale, but the more she thought about the name, the more the nausea grew.

  “Och, laddie, ye alright?” Maudie called.

  Audrina waved her hand at her and lurched out the door.

  Once out into the side street, Audrina leaned over and clutched her head. Memories of the night she had been locked in the tower, of when the woman was locked in the tower came slamming back into her. Revulsion, hatred, fear and rage rose up inside her and threatened to consume her. The name Cotswold was a catalyst to the feelings and she wasn’t sure she could overcome the overwhelming emotions. Audrina sucked in a few deep breaths and tried to inhale a fresh breath of air, but she couldn’t get the stench of the area out of her nostrils. She stumbled toward the entrance to the alley and made her way down the street and toward the forest on the opposite end of the keep. Audrina needed time and space to process. She didn’t understand how she and the dream fit into everything that was going on, but she understood the more she immersed herself in the fourteenth century, the harder it was going to be to get home to the twenty-first century.

  CHAPTER 6

  Audrina decided to hide out in the woods on the far side of the keep. She figured it was the best place to regroup and think about what she was going to do. She had thought about it and came to the conclusion that the kilt pin brought her to that year, it was somehow going to get her back, but she needed to be far enough away from everyone in the town to think clearly and not draw attention to herself.

  As Audrina cut through the side streets and ducked behind huts and stores, she picked up stray items she found lying in the mud, and decided she would rely on her nursing training, which not only had included trauma training, but survival training as well. She was going to make a makeshift shelter until she could get back to the same field, without the famer finding her, and try everything she could think of to return home. Audrina found some rope and stray bits of woven cloth from sheep skin. She gathered the items thinking she could make a tent or a hammock of some kind to sleep off the ground, and she used whatever supplies she could stuff into her stolen bag.

  Once free of the town, she circled around the keep which was surrounded by a large moat and found herself at the back side of the fortress and standing on the edge of the fen. Audrina decided that she could risk walking along the edge of the fen until she reached the woods, because it was unlikely anyone had been back here in quite some time. The grass had grown up to almost her waist, and there were no discernable walking trails, so she has assumed that everyone stuck to the main part of town and didn’t stray too far from the shelter of the keeps stony walls.

  As Audrina walked, she let the beauty of the nature seep into her mind, relaxing the whirlwind and emotion that had been building ever since she woke up in the farmer’s field. The fen was quiet pretty and the tall grass swayed in the warm summer breeze. Audrina recognized some of the trees from the pictures of her bedroom, and she was comforted by the familiarity of that.

  Audrina listened to the bird’s chirp and small creatures scurry in and out of their hidey holes and she paused once when a great rustling sound came from her right. She wasn’t prepared to deal with any large predators, although she highly doubted a bear would roam this close to the castle, but it was always possible a mountain lion had come down from the hills. Audrina froze, as the head and antlers of a great red deer, rose up from the grass a few feet away where it had been munching. She stood stock still as she and the deer regarded one another, and then she jumped a little when the deer took off in the opposite direction. It ran for cover amongst the trees at the far side of the fen and cleared a considerably wide path for Audrina to follow in its wake.

  Once Audrina made it halfway through the fen, she had to jump over a small stream and she began stepping carefully as the ground had become wetter and soggier. She stopped, wondering if she should try to travel in the trees for the rest of the way, she was afraid she was heading into a bog of some kind. Scotland had always been known for its surprising terrains and with all the documentaries she had watched with her grandfather, she knew with any wrong mis-step she could end up waist deep in muck and mire if the grassy cover gave out under her feet.

  Audrina looked at the thick cover of the trees and they looked dark and foreboding. She decided to continue chancing her luck with the field because she didn’t know anything about what might be lying in wait amongst the trees, and she had already had enough surprises, toils and struggles for one day.

  Yeah, because time traveling for seven centuries certainly could fall under all three of those categories, she thought to herself.

  Then she snorted out loud at the ridiculousness of the thought and caused a flock of geese to rise up a few feet from her left and fly away. It startled her, and she clutched a hand over her chest as she regained her composure. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take, until she heard the sound of someone crying for help.

  She wasn’t sure she heard it the first time, so she paused and waited, and then sure enough she heard a muffled, “Help!”

  Audrina hesitated, unsure if she should believe what she had heard. After all she had been through that day, she had been beginning to wonder if she could even trust her own mind. Then she heard it again.

  “Help! Please! Help!”

  Her instinct took over. She had heard those words hundreds of times in her nursing days. Families of loved ones who brought their loved one into the E.R. and cried, “Help, he’s bleeding!” or “Help! My toddler stuck her hand in the bleach bucket and sucked on her fingers!” Audrina began to run toward the cries. The closer and closer she got, the louder they became and the more frantic they became.

  She looked around, trying to find the source of the cries, but they had gone silent for a moment. She began frantically searching through the grass, hoping whoever was in danger would cry out again, and set her back on the right path.

  Audrina heard the thumping, and squishing sound of hooves coming toward her in the wet grass, and she froze on the spot as the horse thundered past her. Only once i
t had cantered past, she had the thought to jump out of the way, but by then, the horse had taken off at a gallop and was all the way across the field near the castle. Audrina thought it was strange that the horse was rider less, especially since it was wearing reins and a small saddle.

  Audrina heard the cry again to her left. Audrina wondered if the person who was calling for help had fallen from their horse and they were injured.

  “Help!” It sounded garbled, like whoever was in trouble couldn’t catch their breath. Audrina raced toward the sound and pushed her way through a cloak of overhanging vines and tree branches, so that she was standing on the edge of a bog. She looked around and found there was a boy in the middle of the bog. It appeared as if he had tried to cross the bog on his horse on an old mossy log, and the log had finally decayed enough and split in half, sending the boy tumbling down into the muck and mire. The horse must have reacted on instinct and managed to get out of the bog and run away, but it was clear the boy was not so lucky, having been thrown deeper into the bog.

  Audrina sprang into action and searched the edge of the bog for a branch big enough to support the boy’s weight so that he could grab on and she could pull him out. When she spotted a downed tree halfway around the bog, she raced toward it and tugged at the deadening branches as hard as she could, until one broke free. Audrina dropped her bag and turned back to the bog, dragging the branch behind her. She decided the best way to get to the boy was to climb along the first half of the log he had been on, and then extend the branch so he could grab hold.