[Druids Bidding 02.0] RenFaire Druids: Dunskey Castle Prequels

by Jane Stain

  Emily put her arm around her friend. "I guess here is as good a place to camp out as any, while we wait for them to go to sleep or something."

  "Aye. Well, I shall get the camp ready then."

  It wasn't a modern camping trip. Good thing it was summertime. They had rudimentary sleeping bags made of flannel, no tent, beef jerky and similar traveling food, tanned animal bladders full of water…

  The only modern convenience the three had brought was a small factory-made magnifying glass for starting fires. But they dared not have a campfire with those men so near. They would smell it. So yeah, good thing it was summer and they were plenty warm enough. Emily reassured herself that the cows would draw any wolves or other predators who came. They had no need for a fire at all.

  And then the waiting started.

  It wasn't too dull though, once the Englishmen got on their horses and rounded up the small herd of cattle. That was actually fascinating to watch.

  "I knew it. I knew you were a time traveler.” Vange had finally gotten over her shock and was smiling her biggest at Dall.

  They all laughed together.

  And then Vange must have been back to her normal self, because she cocked her head sideways at Dall. “You look like you're unimpressed with the way these cowboys are handling the cattle, almost like you've done this before. I thought you guys raised sheep in Scotland, not cattle."

  Dall's brow furrowed.

  Emily laughed a little. "Yeah, I was surprised by that at first when I visited Dall in his time, in Scotland."

  Vange gasped. "You've been to his time?"

  Emily gave Vange a look. "How do you think I got to know him so well?"

  Dall surprised both women by speaking up. "We do not have to wait for these Englishmen to fall asleep, you ken."

  Vange's eyes got really big. "Can you guys make them fall asleep with magic?"

  Emily giggled. "No, silly. He means we can use my phone to travel a few hours into the future, the time when it's night here and they're already asleep."

  Then Vange's brow furrowed. "But… What happens if they come over here in the meantime? We won’t be here. Will we?"

  "We do not know, lass. If we do be here, then they will grab us in our … sleep. If we be not here, then they will see our camp and know that we are nearby and mayhap even set someone to watch for our return. Nay, you have the right of it, Vange. We must stay and wait. Nay, we should pray that Peadar does wander over this way.”

  So they all bowed their heads while Dall crossed himself and prayed earnestly for his son.

  And then they waited.

  While they waited, Emily told Vange all about her time-traveling experiences. How Dog and his crew of biker-archers had hitched a ride to the past just like Vange had and Emily had directed them in acting Romeo and Juliet inside a castle courtyard. How she and Dall had ridden through the highlands together, stopping to eat at MacGregor houses where everyone guessed they would soon be married. About the Menzies man Emily had stabbed when he tried to kill her.

  As Emily talked, she noticed something that was sweet and disturbing at the same time. Vange couldn’t take her eyes off Peadar.

  In the end, they all fell asleep on their flannel sleeping bags in broad daylight there in the thicket on the plain near some faraway English settlement in the New World. It was so calm and pastoral. The cattle stood grazing. The men on horseback moved about, but in the distance, where seeing them was more like watching a movie than being out on the range. Birds wheeled overhead, calling to each other, but the longer you heard that, the more it seemed like soothing music.

  Emily's last conscious thought was "I wonder if Peadar and the Englishmen will be gone when we wake up?"

  Her awakening was much ruder than that.

  Fast asleep one moment, Emily felt Dall push off from her in the next moment. She sensed rather than heard a struggle. By the time she opened her eyes, Dall already had the situation well in hand.

  Emily sat up and rubbed her bleary eyes. By the light of the moon, she could see that Dall was holding someone captive. He had the person hugged tight to him, face out. At the person's throat was Dall’s dagger.

  The person was English, she thought. He hadn’t spoken, but she just thought his air seemed English…

  Only then did Emily realize that person was staring at her.

  Oh no.

  Her mannish hat had fallen off while she slept. Her long hair obviously had given her away as a woman. Defiantly, Emily turned her gaze away from the captive. She sought out Vange in the darkness. She sighed in relief. Vange was fine, and she was sizing up the situation much the same as Emily was, her eyes bright in the moonlight now that Emily's eyes had adjusted.

  Oddly, the captive held a hand to his lips, seemingly urging them to remain quiet. He pointed to the dagger at his throat and then at the two women, back and forth, with a look on his face that seemed to be trying to say, "Has either of you women a dagger with which to defend yourselves?"

  That was when the cattle started moving.

  It was slow at first. They had been asleep, and at first there was just a step here and there. But the steps grew faster and faster, more and more…

  A look of understanding came into Dall's face. Pointing out of the thicket, he slowly released the captive. Once he had, the two men got up and headed out into the open moonlit plain.

  Emily started to say something.

  But Vange put a hand over Emily's mouth.

  Remembering the captive's caution to remain quiet, Emily nodded to show Vange that she understood. But instead of getting her dagger out to defend them like the captive had insinuated, she got her phone out and set it to swirl the two of them back to the trailer, just in case someone besides Dall came to the thicket.

  She held her phone tightly in her fist with her thumb over the ‘Go’ button the entire while the two best friends clung to each other in the quiet darkness, not knowing when—or Heaven forbid, if—Dall was coming back.

  After what seemed like forever, the cattle stopped moving. They could see two forms approaching. Emily kept her thumb ready. Twigs broke as two men entered the thicket. Emily let out her breath, and Dall came back with the man who had been the captive.

  Emily had expected Dall to come back with Peadar, but he hadn’t. He’d just brought this stranger. She looked into Dall's face for any sign that he had seen his son alive since the commotion started.

  Dall's face was not peaceful.

  Emily got up and ran to him and embraced him with all she had.

  The man whom Dall had held captive spoke then. "I do think all the indians be gone now, but begging your pardon, we should be seeing about the horses and urging the cattle closer to civilization, before more indians come."

  This made Emily angry. "We don't care about your stupid cattle. We came to find … someone, and now he's probably dead." She felt Dall's hand on her back.

  He said, "I did not see Peadar's body, lass. He may yet be out there, you ken? I must go and look for him."

  "We'll all go," Emily said with a small smile, wiping her tears away with the sleeve of her mannish shirt. "I don't want to stay here without you. That was torture. What happened out there?"

  "I will tell you sometime when we are safe, lass, and you ask me again. But the time is now to go and find him. If you will come, then let us gather all this up."

  They took a few minutes to stuff everything in their leather backpacks, and then they were on their way to where Dall and the stranger had last seen the horses.

  "What's your name, anyway?" Emily said to the stranger, not even bothering to fake a 16th century English accent. Despite the training she had received by the druids who ran the renaissance festival, she knew she was terrible at that and wouldn't fool him.

  “I be Johnathan, but you can call me John.” He held out his hand.

  Dall embraced John’s forearm. “I am Dall MacGregor. This is my wife, Emily, and our friend, Evangeline.”

  John embrace
d Dall’s forearm and shook it.

  But Emily thought she saw John stiffen when he learned they were MacGregors.

  “Yes,” said John, “I am certain I did see yon Peadar mount a horse and ride toward the English settlement. That be the same direction I do wish to go. I lost all my men except for Peadar in the attack of those vicious indians. Do you know cattle driving as well as Peadar, and will you help me drive them home?”

  “Aye,” said Dall. And then he turned to Emily. “Let us refresh your skills on the back of a horse, lass. I do not wish for you to fall.” He gave her a look that said, “I told you to practice. I sure hope you were right when you said you didn’t need to, but your bottom is going to be sore, regardless.”

  He took an hour to make certain both of the women now knew how to ride competently, which was more individual instruction than they’d had from Lews before he went psycho on Emily.

  “Very well,” Dall said at last, “ride behind all the cattle. John and I will be riding around to drive the cows who wander back to the herd.” He kissed her, and then rode off.

  Emily and Vange used all their concentration just staying on their horses for the first few hours. But by the time the sun had come up, it had become their new normal. It was getting hot.

  “Blah.” Vange said to Emily, “I always thought cowboys wore bandanas because they looked cool.”

  “I know.” Emily replied. “I so wish I had one right now. Ack. Cows raise a lot of dust.”

  “Oh, this is intolerable,” Vange said a few minutes later. “I don’t care that this is a loaner shirt from the costume shed. I’m totally ripping off part of the bottom to put over my nose.”

  Emily nodded. “Good idea.”

  A few minutes later, they both looked like Jesse James does in the movies, with rags tied over their faces.

  “It was nice of Dall to agree to help drive the cattle,” Vange said, “but couldn’t we just use your phone to find Peadar again?”

  “We could try, but there’s two reasons we aren’t, not yet.”

  “John is probably one reason.”

  “Yep. We can’t just disappear in front of him, and really, how could we have convinced him we’d rather walk than ride, when he offered us horses?” Emily coughed. Even with the rag, some of the dust was going down her throat. Still, she knew cows stampeded sometimes, so she was more than happy to ride behind them rather than out in front.

  “OK, so what’s the other reason we don’t just use your phone again to find Peadar?”

  “Time travel is not an exact science. Well, it probably is for most of the druids, but it isn’t for me. Not yet, anyway. I had no idea what year we would come to. I only knew that we would find Peadar. And I don’t know if he would have to be alive in order for us to find him. We might find his grave next time we try this.”

  They were both silent for a while after that.

  Emily checked the charge indicator on her phone one more time. Now that she was separated from Dall, their chemistry wasn’t keeping it full of juice like it usually did through the magic of the druids’ Time Management app. She had the phone in her solar charger brooch, and now that the sun was out it was slowly charging.

  She kept the power switched off for the most part, only powering it up to check the battery level. It was only at 60%. She kept quiet about that. No sense in getting Vange worried about something her friend couldn’t do anything about.

  The cattle kept moving, but the noise they made gradually faded away into white noise that Emily no longer noticed.

  Riding along quietly next to Vange, Emily started to imagine she heard a voice saying her name. She imagined that it came from far away very faintly, as if someone were yelling just on the edge of her hearing range. The more she thought about it, the more she thought she heard it whenever John was farthest away from her, pushing in cows from the outer edges of the herd.

  Of course, she was just imagining that voice.

  Emily drank from the animal bladder full of water that she carried over her shoulder like a purse. She wanted to squirt her face too, but she didn't dare waste the water. Who knew when the men would stop.

  "Ug, it's so hot." Vange fanned herself with her hand.

  "I know. I will never again complain about the air conditioner being too cold. In the trailer, I can just put a sweater on."

  Before either of the women knew what was happening, a man had ridden in between them, grabbed the reins of both their horses, turned them around, and ridden off with them. They were already almost out of John and Dall's sight.

  Emily wasn't too worried, though. The man's shirt was made of MacGregor plaid. "Peadar?" she said tentatively.

  "Aye, Emily." He turned as if to look at her while he spoke to her, but it seemed to her like he was looking at Vange.

  "Stop, Peadar. Your da is back there."

  But Peadar didn’t listen. "I ken that, lass. However, I am certain he will come looking for you and the other lass, here." He was still riding away with them, and rather fast, too.

  "But why are we leaving him behind?" Emily was beginning to feel alarmed. She wondered if she could get her phone out, set it for anywhere but here, and manage to jump off her horse and grab Vange in time to push the 'Go' button and swirl away before she hit the dirt and either broke something or died.

  But Peadar spoke sense. "That Englishman, John, is not a good man. Da can take care of himself. However, I mean to give him an easier time of it by taking care of you lasses for him."

  Vange was uncharacteristically quiet.

  Glancing over, Emily saw that her best friend was staring at her stepson, who was now a grown man. He had called Emily ‘lass’.

  After sizing him up, Emily realized Peadar looked a bit older than she and Vange were… which was too weird for words. He was her stepson. She had just seen him a week ago as a seven year old. Her mind was awhirl.

  Peadar kept hold of their horses and led them away from the cattle for about half an hour before he stopped to turn and see if anyone was following.

  Emily and Vange also turned to look.

  No one seemed to be following. It was easy to spot the cattle back there. With all the dust their hooves raised, they would show up for hours on this flat plain before a rider reached them.

  “Aren’t we closer to the indians now than we were where the cows are?” Vange asked Peadar, moving her horse a little closer to him than was strictly necessary in order to be heard.

  “Aye, lass, we are.” He turned his body in his saddle to look at her when he spoke to her.

  The two of them stared each other in the face for a long moment before he seemed to wake up.

  He went on. “However, I will take my freedom out here even with the threat of the indians, over my certain captivity in the English settlement.” As if it were an afterthought, Peadar drank some water now that they were stopped.

  Emily did the same. Seeing that Vange wasn’t drinking, she rode over to her friend’s other side and poked the woman in the ribs.

  Vange startled, looked at Emily, and got her own water skin to her mouth.

  “Come, lasses. We will take cover in that small forest.” Not really giving them a choice, he grabbed their reins again and led their horses a few yards into the cool shade of the trees. And then he started to climb one.

  Vange started to get off her horse, obviously intending to climb up after him.

  He smiled, but he said, “Nay, lass. Stay on your horses. Do not go out there unless you be attacked, and if that be, then run your horses to the next group of trees and leave however it is you came, you ken?” He remained still then, halfway up the tree, waiting for them to acknowledge what he’d said.

  “How about if we stay here and you go and get Dall?” Emily’s unease at being separated from Dall grew more intense the farther Peadar got from her, too. It was nearly unbearable already, and it looked like he intended to go quite far up into the tree.

  “That may be what I do, lass. However, I wish to se
e what I can from—ack.”

  All Emily heard after that was the sound of Peadar struggling with someone up there in the treetop. Lots of grunts and the sickening sounds of blows landing on bones.

  Emily made a split-second decision. “Vange. Hitch your skirt up into your belt and climb up after him. As soon as I’m ready, I’ll climb after you. All you have to do is touch him while I’m holding your ankle.”

  In the time it took Vange to dismount, Emily had her phone set. Sliding it into her brooch for easy-access carrying, she dismounted and climbed up after her friend … and her stepson.

  The fight above was still on. Peadar and an indian were both hanging from the tree with one hand while they kicked and slugged at each other with their legs and other hands.

  Emily had a bad feeling that this was not going to end well without her intervention. Worried about arrows, she nervously searched the nearby trees. She didn’t see anything, but that didn’t relieve her anxiety.

  “I can reach him now, Emily.” Vange was a few branches above her.

  “Hold on, I’m coming.” Emily stretched for the next branch while the men swung and punched and kicked over her head. She stretched out and tried to grab Vange’s ankle. Ug, she wasn’t close enough. She stretched out to reach the next branch, slipped, caught herself, climbed up another branch, and just managed to latch onto her friend.

  “OK,” Vange said softly down to Emily so as not to alert the men, “are you ready for me to try and touch Peadar?” She looked down at Emily.

  Emily fumbled around with her brooch, trying her best to get her phone out of it with one hand while she held on to Vange’s ankle for dear life.

  “Don’t look down,” Vange said in the nick of time to keep Emily from doing just that.

  Emily’s hand was shaking so bad she had to concentrate really hard not to drop her phone while she got her screen up and got her thumb over the ‘Go’ button. “Ready.”

  Vange waited until one of the men’s feet came near her, and then she grabbed it. “Got it.”

  Emily pushed the ‘Go’ button.