[Druids Bidding 02.0] RenFaire Druids: Dunskey Castle Prequels

by Jane Stain

  Sure enough, when Emily checked her phone in the morning, there was a message from whichever druid had been monitoring their conversation.

  “I set it up for you to arrive at Kilchurn Castle three days from now,” the Druid had texted to them. “It just happened to be convenient this time, but don’t count on us always being your travel agency.”

  Emily covered her mouth to stop giggles from coming out as she showed the message to Dall.

  He started to say something.

  She shook her head frantically while making writing motions. When she got the pen and paper, she wrote, “Good thing a fussy druid who isn’t very bright was on watch last night. They still don’t know the settings are unlocked. We’d better make it count when we use it, because they’ll probably lock them up quick after that and only allow us to come home so you can work for them.”

  The two of them beamed at each other, both caught in the daydream of what big adventure they might be going on soon.

  Dall brought them back to the here and now. “Well, shall we be going then, lass?”

  “Yes, we shall.” She checked around to make certain they both had everything they’d arrived with, glad they had said their goodbyes the night before, explaining they would get horses at Orem’s and would be leaving on foot before anyone was up. And then she got her phone out and examined the new settings the druid had told them were set. Yes, she saw how their current destination was Kilchurn Castle, three days from today.

  And there was a menu where she could change that if she wanted.

  “Dall?”

  “Hm?”

  She showed him the destination place and time, and the menu where it could be changed. She hit the menu button and went through the saved selections: Kilchurn Castle, Home (You are here), Siobhan’s Trailer Faire 1, Our Trailer Faire 2, and Custom.

  Her finger paused over the Custom menu item, and then she tapped it. A map appeared. She could go anywhere in the world, it seemed… but she hesitated. That also seemed very dangerous.

  While she was hesitating, Emily got out the tiny notepad and wrote, “How about if we stay here in this house, but go forward in time?”

  “Is that not dangerous?” wrote Dall. “You have said the MacGregors get a hard time of it in future years.”

  “We can use the history book to make sure and skip over all the years that MacGregors were outlaws.”

  “Aye, and what if someone is here inside the house when we arrive, lass, inside a bedroom? You ken? Or what if the house is not here at all?”

  Emily huffed. She was starting to understand why the druids had originally done this time travel thing out in the middle of a sacred grove of trees, and why they added a circle of standing stones to protect them on arrival once the Romans came into the picture. And why they so carefully controlled it even now, when this magic app had made it more scientific.

  8 Gaelic

  She held her phone out where they could both see and moved it forward to the 21st Century, and then even further forward to the 22nd Century.

  Abruptly, Emily lowered her phone. “As much as I would like to go gallivanting off into the future right now ... I hate to say it, but I’m too chicken to try that, Dall.” She knew her brow was scrunched up, but this once she didn’t worry about getting wrinkles.

  Dall let out a deep sigh, pulled her closer into an embrace, and stroked her hair. “It is a great relief to hear you say so, lass. I would have gone with you into the great unknown, but my heart was heavy over it. Mostly for the sakes of Peadar, Peigi, and Domhnall. They do have the clan, but I would be remiss to deprive them of their father just to suit my fancy.”

  Emily relaxed into his embrace and breathed easy, enjoying his caresses. “So you need to go back to Kilchurn Castle?”

  Dall sighed, but not heavily. It was more a ‘back to reality’ sigh. “Aye. Warriors such as I who are stationed at the castle stay there three fortnights, you ken, and then we are free to visit home for one fortnight. You and I just spent my one fortnight here. I must go report to Alasdair for my clan duty.” He started the two of them swaying together side to side, almost like they were slow dancing. It was soothing.

  She went with it and sighed her own ‘back to reality’ sigh against his chest. “And then we have to go back to the 21st Century faire, right?”

  Dall stopped the swaying and raised her chin so that they were looking eye to eye. “Och, lass, is it so bad, having to spend time at the faire? I did think that you loved it.” He looked worried. Of course. He had been worried that she was giving up her career as a drama teacher in order to marry a lowly professor at the college of performing arts and travel with the renaissance faire.

  “You know what I mean,” she said, trying to convey with her eyes that she did not regret marrying him, since her words weren’t doing the job. “Your fellow time-traveling professor Lews hates me, and the druids are always up in our business. I like it better here in your time.” She put her arms around his neck and started them swaying side to side once more, smiling up at him.

  He returned her smile, and it turned into their contented cat smile. “I ken your meaning, aye. But the faire is duty just as much as the castle is duty. My duty to serve the druids.” At that, he looked worried again. Worried that she regretted marrying him. As if.

  Emily kissed all his worries away, which took not much time at all, and then she grinned at him playfully. “I still want to try traveling to Kilchurn Castle by phone rather than by horse, though.”

  Dall laughed. “My heart lies easy with that plan, you ken?”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Aye.”

  “Here goes.” Still holding the phone out where they both could see, Emily used the drop-down menu to get the settings back to the Kilchurn Castle destination bookmark and made sure their arrival time was set for three days from their current time.

  She looked to see if Dall agreed the settings were correct.

  And then she pushed the ‘go’ button.

  The world went swirly, and then Dall and Emily were once again in Eamann the Druid’s castle dungeon surgery, in the corner behind that burlap curtain he had recently added.

  There were screams coming from the other side of it.

  Emily gingerly pulled back the curtain so they could peek into the basement room to find out what was going on.

  This time, instead of leech-encrusted Sean, the wooden table held a man who was tied to it. He was struggling. Eamann’s back was in the way, so Emily couldn’t tell what was going on, but the druid ‘healer’ was bent over the struggling man, intent on doing something.

  “What are you doing?” Emily yelled at Eamann while she rushed so fast to untie the man that she still had her phone in her hand. But she felt Dall grab onto her from behind. Startled, she turned a horrified face to Dall. Why was he stopping her? Couldn’t he see that Eamann was torturing someone? Surely he wouldn’t stand by and allow that to happen?

  Dall embraced Emily gently and caressed her back through her stiff bodice, whispering in her ear, “Drusilla, Gregor there has a bad tooth, and Eamann is doing the man a favor by pulling it. Leave well enough alone.”

  It was the first time Dall had given her an order without adding an “Aye?” or a “You ken?” onto the end of it. Emily was a bit shocked by that, but her relief at finding out Eamann wasn’t torturing poor Gregor won out and she relaxed in Dall’s arms. For a moment.

  However, then scary old Eamann yelled at them in Gaelic. “Don’t just stand there, help me hold him still. Both of you.” It was an order directed at Dall, who had been cursed by his order of birth with a duty to serve the druids.

  Immediately, Dall let go of Emily and rushed to obey his druidic master, holding Gregor’s head while Eamann struggled with some tongs to get a hold on the bad tooth.

  After a few seconds, Eamann growled at Emily in Gaelic, “Now, lass. Pin his shoulders down and stop his thrashing.”

  Emily burst into tears, she was so afraid and up
set. It was a gruesome enough sight with just the men involved, and now she was being asked to participate. What’s more, she had no idea how to pin a man’s shoulders down, and Eamann was just plain scary. “Wwwaaaaa.” she wailed like a baby, hating herself for being so weak and useless in a medical crisis, but hating Eamann even more for exposing that about her. Dall was probably the one regretting their new marriage now, and who could blame him?

  God bless him, Dall stepped away from his druidic duty long enough to try and comfort his wife. He put his arms around Emily and swayed back and forth in that soothing way, caressing her hair and making shhhh noises with his gorgeous lips.

  Frustrating Emily even more, her husband’s kindness made her even more emotional. She felt like he would think of her as one of his children, with her blubbering, and now her throat choked up on top of the chest spasms and all the tears. Dredging up memories usually calmed her, so she tried to remember how to explain to Dall in Gaelic the way she felt.

  Eamann was really angry now. He threw the tongs and whirled with his hands out to grab her and do God knew what.

  At the same time, Emily remembered the Gaelic words she was looking for in order to say the phrase that had come to mind from her childhood. “I want a do over.”

  Emily blinked. She was still choked up and sobbing with tears streaming down her face. She still clutched her phone, and now her knuckles were white. Dall was still holding her. But now they were back in their attic bedroom at his family’s house. A moment ago, they had been in the castle dungeon, hadn’t they? Yes.

  Dall chuckled softly, a rich sexy grumbling noise in his throat. “Look at that, Drusilla. You commanded the wee phone app, and it obeyed you.”

  Scarcely believing it was possible, Emily laughed while she was still crying. “I didn’t command it. I whined like a baby.”

  “I do believe it thinks you did command it, lass.” He started that swaying thing again.

  She could feel his kilt swishing into her long plaid skirt. It was working to relax her. Emily slowly felt her sobs and tears stop. “Far from commanding, I thought I was being really childish. I translated a saying we used to use on the playground, ‘I want a do over.’”

  Dall stopped swaying. And he laughed. “Well, the Gaelic phrase you said back there, in front of Eamann, translates to English as ‘Take me back again.’“

  “Really?”

  “Aye.”

  “What did I say, again?”

  They spent a good hour going over the subtle differences between the ways one could say Gaelic words and then drilling Emily in how to say ‘Take me back again.’ exactly the way she had said it, with the same inflections. By that time, the rest of the people in the house were awake and the two of them were hungry.

  Emily tried to put yearning in her eyes as she looked into Dall’s. “It’s tempting to just go down to breakfast now.”

  Dall pulled her close and sighed. “Aye, lass. However, we have given in to that temptation over the past fortnight. I have duties, and I must go do them.”

  “We could really leave on foot to Orem’s and borrow a horse from him like we told the children,” Emily said, looking up into his face with her most practiced hopeful expression. She liked that idea more and more. It would give her more time alone with Dall, which she needed right now.

  “Och, no lass. Remember what happened the last time we rode to Orem’s from here? Now that we have a choice in the matter, no. It is not safe, and I will not risk you with no need. We will use the wee phone app. Adjust the time for half hour later, and the tooth should already be out, you ken?”

  Shrugging, Emily did just that, making sure to show him so he could check her settings. When he nodded that they looked right, she pushed the ‘go’ button and the world went swirly again.

  The castle dungeon was quieter this time. Emily hoped that meant the screaming was over. When she’d had a moment to listen, she discovered that things weren’t much better, though. Instead of screaming, she and Dall heard the painful groaning of a man whose tooth had just been yanked out of his mouth without the benefit of anesthesia.

  And then their situation got even more unpleasant.

  Eamann yanked the curtain aside. “Oho. So you thought to come back after all the hard work was done, did you? Well I have news for you, Emily. You will now be in charge of nursing this man while he suffers.”

  Emily opened her mouth to refuse such duty. And in truth, she was not suited for it. She had first aid training, but she really hadn’t the foggiest idea how to nurse a man back to health. She didn’t think she had the patience for it, either.

  Eamann cut her off and moved so close to her face, she could smell his horrible breath. “Ha. You may be able to shirk your duty while your husband is here to naysay me, but rest assured that as soon as Colin orders him out on patrol, you will be under my authority—”

  In the meantime, Dall kept giving Emily’s hand a quick succession of squeezes.

  She had no idea what they meant, and they were starting to make her angry with him. She was near tears again at feeling all alone in a nasty situation that would get far worse. Eamann was right. Dall would have to leave the castle to go help the Campbells steal more land from the Menzies. She would be left here defenseless.

  Finally, Dall reminded her she could get out of this mess. He whispered the Gaelic phrase she had been studying for the past hour.

  “Take me back again.” Emily repeated after him in Gaelic, and then she thanked God with all her heart as the world turned swirly.

  This time, when they landed in the love nest Dall’s mother had made for them, Emily congratulated herself. At least she wasn’t crying. She knew that was mostly because this time, Dall hadn’t let go of her. It was a fact that the two of them were strong together. “I guess we’d better go back earlier than any such unpleasant situation, from now on.”

  Dall nodded yes while still holding her in his arms. “Aye, lass. Will you recognize the signal next time?”

  She leaned into his chest and sighed in relief, trying to calm her adrenalin-charged body down. “The signal?”

  Perhaps sensing the battle heat in his wife, Dall helped her relax by rubbing her shoulders, which made her moan in an unladylike way, but she didn’t care. “Aye,” he said, “when I churn your hand like butter, that is the signal to command the wee phone app to take us back.” He demonstrated the quick succession of hand squeezes she’d been wondering about back there in the dungeon.

  Getting flustered and not wanting him to know, Emily rushed on with the business at hand. “Yeah, now I get that. OK, I’m setting it for … an hour before we first tried to go there?”

  If he noticed how flustered she was, for once he didn’t tease her about it. Bless him, Dall nodded in a businesslike manner. “Aye, an hour should be enough time to guarantee that Gregor will not have gotten up the courage to go down to see Eamann yet about his bad tooth.”

  After she finished the settings but before she pushed the ‘go’ button, Emily had an encouraging thought. “But it sure is cool how the app obeys Gaelic commands, isn’t it.”

  Dall gave her their contented cat smile.

  She gave it back, and they rested in that a moment.

  Dall kept holding her, and he started that rocking back and forth motion again.

  She kept trying to turn it into slow dancing, but that hadn’t been invented yet. He didn’t know what she was doing. She was going to have to fix that one day soon.

  But he was talking. “I’m going to tell you a secret now, lass. I hope you will not be cross with me, but if you are, please remember we need to stay in my time three more fortnights, and I am your best protection against the likes of Eamann, both in my presence and even in my absence, by reputation.”

  She leaned back in his embrace to smile up at him, and that stopped his rocking. She giggled. “You’re threatening me with Eamann if I get mad at you? This must be some secret. It can’t be that you haven’t a penny to your name. I already
know that.”

  He smiled back and continued looking her in the eye. “Och, that you do. Well now, quick and finished is best with secrets. That morning at your faire when you first noticed me in my kilt, when you and your best lass Vange were buying your English clothing?”

  “Yeah?” Emily felt her brow gnarling up, and she fought to smooth it. She really didn’t want wrinkles at 23.

  He swallowed, which made his Adam’s apple bounce up and down noticeably. “Well now, that was not the first time I noticed you, lass.”

  Emily felt her face crack into a teasing smile. “Oho. Were you and Ian and the guild all following me?” She knew her brows were both arched up all the way, but she wanted the effect they had, wrinkles or no.

  Dall’s brows answered hers and did the same. It was working. She was affecting him. “Aye, but this is the secret you cannot reveal that you know, lass: even then, you had been to my time once before. You just do not remember.” Dall was breathing heavily.

  Now she lowered her brows in an accusing way. It was automatic because of her actor training. “I had been here before, in the 16th Century?”

  “Aye” He raised his chin, but he swallowed audibly.

  She still had the upper hand, but she didn’t want to worry him, so she just said softly, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I did not tell you before because I was sworn not to. But Emily,” he took her left hand and caressed his mother’s wedding ring on it, “my primary duty now is to you.” His brows lowered in a guilty way.

  Ooh, that was too much. She felt bad and let up on the browbeating, allowing her love for him show in her eyes. “Why don’t I remember?”

  He relaxed a little and started caressing her lower back. “I do not know why you do not remember, lass. I reckon because we were not in contact at that time. Our physical contact does seem to be what makes the magic of the wee phone app bend to your command, aye? Mayhap our contact was what conjured up our memories of each other’s times, as well.”