by Jane Stain
Her studious mind scoffed at her, saying the daydreams were silly and frivolous.
But she liked them.
Perhaps because she had mostly seen him in Emily and Dall’s trailer, all of her daydreams about Peadar involved her routine while working at the renaissance faire in some way.
He would be wearing his kilt, of course, with his claymore sheathed on his back and his head bare so she could admire his hair. She would be in her Scottish plaid outfit, too, and they would match. He would work there, too, and they would spend all of their days together—
As partners on stage for all the folk dances…
Seated side by side through the clan meeting’s mock trials…
Peadar holding her by the waist and walking by her side in all the parades…
Sharing their food at meals…
Watching the stage shows together and laughing…
“What brings the smile to your face, lass?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Aw, it cannot be nothing. You can tell me, you ken? I can keep a secret.”
Feeling her face turn red, Vange did her best to change the subject.
“Are we going back tonight when they’re asleep, to get Emily’s phone?”
Peadar’s running steps faltered a bit.
At first, Vange thought he had tripped on one of the many tree roots that jutted up out of the ground. But then he spoke.
“Lass, God has blessed us once. In His mercy, He allowed us to get away from the brunaidh—”
Vange struggled in his arms.
Out here away from everyone, they had stopped whispering long ago, but now she was outright yelling.
“I have to have that phone.”
She was trying desperately to get down so that she could go back.
“Nay, lass. You do not.”
“It’s the only way I can get home again. Let me down.”
“I cannot let you go back, lass.”
“What.”
In that moment, she was a little afraid of him. Would he try to keep her here in 1560 against her will? Not Peadar, surely.
“Why not?”
Vange was mortified to hear her voice come out sounding like a six-year-old’s.
But Peadar sighed and even nuzzled her head a little with his cheek. He made a remarkably long speech while he continued to run with her.
“I did not tell you the truth, lass, about them not killing us once they did know all about the wee phone and how it worked. I did not want the last hours of your life to be lived in pain and fear. However …”
Now it was Vange’s turn to sigh.
At least he wasn’t the controlling monster she’d been briefly afraid of only a moment ago. That was something. She stopped yelling and spoke in a normal voice.
“I get it.”
She did. Living here in 1560 was better than dying here.
But she must have gone limp with defeat, because he shook her a little, in addition to the jostling his steps gave her as he navigated the forest at a jog.
“All is not lost, lass.”
“I know I know, I have my health. And you are a powerful ally. One day I may be grateful, Peadar, but right now I need some time to grieve for my old life.”
Vange was not at all convinced she would live out the day here. It was brutal and primal— and she just wasn’t up to it.
“Nay, do not grieve for your old way of life yet.”
“I can’t help it, Peadar. I mean, I know you can’t carry me forever, but I’m really upset.”
“The wee phone is not the only way you can return, lass.”
Did she dare believe him?
“Don’t lie to me again, Peadar.”
“Tis nay a lie, lass.”
“I mean it, Peadar. I’ll give you this one chance, but if I catch you in another lie, then I won’t ever be able to trust you.”
“I tell you true, lass, there is another way you can return to your time.”
“And do you promise to never lie to me again, even if it means my hysterics might be the last thing you hear on this earth?”
“I give you that promise, lass, aye.”
“OK. So what is this other way?”
“The druids made Emily’s phone defy time, lass, and the druids do have the magic to defy time without it.”
When he said that, he had just crested a hill. He stopped then.
Vange looked down.
He put her down on her feet but still held her close to him—protectively.
The sun was setting down the hill over the ocean. There was a dock, and a few boats were tied to it. A few men wearing red kilts that resembled Peadar and Dall’s MacGregor kilts walked near the boats, some with nets full of fish. There were twenty or so small houses down there.
But what had brought a halt to Peadar’s run and to their conversation was closer.
A two-story public house sat there on the road near the top of the hill. It was smallish, but flute music and laughter could be heard from within.
And tripping out of the doorway not ten feet from them was a well-to-do-looking older woman who was obviously drunk. She nearly fell, but she caught herself just in time on the door frame, all the while holding her voluminous long brocaded skirts up.
And she was looking at Vange and Peadar with shock in her eyes.
She had heard him.
Vange smiled.
Being friendly couldn’t hurt. Maybe the wealthy woman owned one of those boats and could give them a ride to the mainland. It wasn’t visible here, but they couldn’t have been in their drugged stupor longer than a day, so it had to be reasonably close.
Peadar took the lead.
“Have you anything in those pouches that we might give in trade for a meal, lass? I find that I hunger quite a bit, and my sporran went missing along with my claymore.”
Hm, did she?
The mention of food set her mouth to watering and her stomach rumbling, and she dug through her pouches, unsure what she was looking for but convinced she would know it when she found it.
But the wealthy woman took Peadar’s bait. She shouted inside authoritatively in Gaelic, and then she addressed Vange and Peadar in English, drunkenly slurring her words.
“Do come in and sup. The stew does smell good this day, and I do fancy a bit of talk with the likes of you.”
“Thank you so much.” Vange said, rushing to take the woman up on her offer.
But Peadar held her back.
“Tell him to include a room for us,” Peadar told the woman, and then he added a bunch more in Gaelic.
Vange smiled at him. He was smarter than he looked. Now the woman had to realize he could understand what she said and would know if she lied to him about what was going on.
But Vange saw she needn’t have worried.
The woman was drunk, and enthusiastic. Throwing up her arms and making a ‘whoopee’ sort of gesture as if she had won the lottery, she made the arrangements.
On hearing affirmative noises inside, Peadar lead Vange in through the door.
There were only four tables, and three were occupied by red-kilted fishermen and their wives, who stopped eating their stew to stare at the newcomers.
The wooden-flute player didn’t miss a beat. He kept playing a merry tune.
After a few seconds, the patrons went back to their eating and talking, and after a minute they were laughing again.
The wealthy woman’s party had been seated at the fourth table, but they rose when she entered. They were all men, three of them, also kilted in those confusingly familiar red kilts. They were dressed more nicely than the fishermen, but not in brocade like the wealthy woman.
Vange figured they were the woman’s guards, who had probably been instructed by her son to make sure she didn’t drink too much. Ha.
Serving girls were making a somewhat big production of carrying bowls of stew up the stairs.
The wealthy woman shooed Vange and Peadar up there, too.
“A good thought it was, getting a room. We shall have a talk where none can hear.”
Her guards made as if to come along.
She held up her hand to stop them, saying something in Gaelic that probably meant, “No no, you stay and enjoy your ale. I’ll only be gone a little while.”
There were three bedrooms upstairs. A bunch of children poked their heads out of one.
The stew was set out on three tiny tables in the middle room.
“Come in, come in.”
The wealthy woman gestured for them to sit with her on the one bed.
They did, and then the serving girls brought the little tables up close to them, and left.
There wasn’t much else in the room besides a washstand and a nice covered chamber pot with an open curtain around it.
Vange took a long drink from the ale set before her—and immediately burped.
The woman burst into a belly laugh.
“Ha ha ha. I did have no idea you English could be earthy.”
The woman took a long drink out of her own ale and also burped.
“Eeeerrrp.”
Vange and Peadar smiled at her, but for the next little while they were too busy eating and drinking and pouring themselves more ale to do much else.
“Lad and lass, you have been near starved, I do see.”
“Mmmhm.”
“I be Saraid MacLean, aunt to the clan chief. And who might you be? Mind, lad, I ken you be not English, notwithstanding your trews.”
Peadar gently squeezed Vange’s elbow then.
She nodded to him and kept quiet.
“I be Peadar MacGregor, son of Dall MacGregor—”
“Ooh. A MacGregor. Well. That be a fine turn of events, indeed.”
She feinted at him then, with her eating knife.
But she was drunk.
Apparently Peadar—despite having nothing to drink but ale for the past 24 hours—was sober, because so fast that Vange almost didn’t see what happened, Peadar dropped his own eating knife, grabbed Saraid’s wrist with one hand, and had her eating knife in his other hand.
Vange steadied their tables so that the ale wouldn’t spill.
“Oh ho ho.”
Saraid’s laughter and obvious lack of malice must have made Peadar let go.
“You are a MacGregor.”
“Aye, why did you doubt me?”
“I had to know if you had the reflexes and the experience. Good, good.”
She reached out for her eating knife.
Peadar handed it to her, handle first.
“And your traveling companion, is she—”
With a fierce look on his face, Peadar cut Saraid off.
“She is the woman I will marry...”
What.
Vange dug her fingers into Peadar’s elbow. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to marry him, but she wanted a say in the matter.
Saraid was drinking this up almost as if it were ale.
“Ooh. And she be such an exotic woman. My money is on the tale of your meeting being a good one.”
Peadar appeared reluctant to share their business.
“The story be overly long, Saraid.”
The woman settled back against the wall.
“We do have the room for the entire night.”
Peadar took in a deep breath.
“When I was ten and three, Caileen Liath Campbell indentured me to an Englishman keen to settle in the new world—”
“The new world. How exciting.”
“Aye, it does sound so, but my days were spent herding cattle, much the same as home—”
But Saraid had turned her attention back to Vange.
“She is one of the new world natives, then, what are being called Indians?”
Vange ground her teeth and bit her tongue several times.
Peadar put his arm around her shoulders.
She wanted to push him aside and run out the door and down the stairs and outside… but where would she go? Besides, his touch calmed her, made her feel a little at home, even. It was nice.
And she reminded herself that Peadar didn’t have to protect her. He could have just left her behind numerous times, but he had carried her and helped her and … cared for her.
“Nay,” he told Saraid. “She and my father and my father’s wife came from another time to save me from my indenture...” He told the story Vange didn’t remember, about what she had done the last time she had been in 1560: rescued him from his time as a ‘cow boy’. And at the end of that story, Peadar said, “And she has my undying gratitude for that.”
For a moment while Peadar told the tale, Saraid’s gaze had been lucid and her eyes had been cunning.
Vange had felt Peadar’s grip tighten around her shoulders.
But after he finished, Saraid spoke again, slurring her words as before.
“And how do you come to be here, on Mull?”
“Aye, it is much to fathom. We were on our way about Glen Strae when we were set upon and taken here by ship, you ken. We just got away from our captors not three hours past.”
There, thought Vange.
That was a story worthy of a meal and a night’s rest. Now leave us to it, Saraid. I could sleep a week, but a night will do.
What Saraid said and did next must have surprised Peadar as much as it had Vange, because he spat out a mouthful of ale.
“Well.” Saraid said cheerfully, “tis a good turn I am here, then—to keep you honest till you do marry, and to see to it you can.”
Saraid nodded then, and went to the door. She hollered something in Gaelic down the stairs, and her three guards came bounding up.
Vange and Peadar sat side by side on the bed hissing at each other all through the hubbub that followed—the tables and dishes being removed, a cot being brought into the room…
“Why did you have to tell her we were getting married.”
“Lass, I would not have you hear her to say what she was going to say about you.”
“What could be so bad.”
“She was going to ask if you were a whore, lass.”
“So what?”
“We cannot have people thinking that of you.”
“We can if I’m back home in my own time and not here.”
“But we are not.”
And then one of Saraid’s guards held out his hand to help Peadar up.
“Come with me to the other room, lad.”
Peadar looked at Vange with near panic in his eyes.
Saraid laughed.
“I will stay with the lass.”
He didn’t budge.
Saraid urged her guard to bend down and grab Peadar’s hand, forcing him up.
“She will be in good company.”
Peadar looked from one to the next of the three highlanders in the room, with that battle look in his eyes.
Saraid stepped back and got out of their way.
Vange was afraid for him. The three looked every bit as battle worthy as Peadar, and perhaps even more so.
“There’s no need for you to worry.”
On hearing this from her, Peadar at last left the room peacefully with the three guards.
Vange slept on the cot, and Saraid got the bed. That was fine. Sleep was going to come very fast, with no time even to notice comfort, she somehow knew.
Vange took off her belt with all of its dangling pouches, but she kept it with her under the covers. She left her boots on, never knowing when she might have to run.
She was loosening her English bodice to make it more comfortable to sleep in when she felt something poke her. Cursing the invention of boning, she took the bodice off, still under the covers. When she used her hands to examine the bodice a little closer, she felt a folded piece of paper that had been slipped into a new hole in the lining.
Being careful not to tear it, she eased the paper out of the hole. It was crisp and new. Overwhelmingly curious to know what it was, she painstakingly unfolded it under the blanket and then cautiously
exposed the top of it to the dim moonlight that was coming in through the window.
It was the print-out of an email.
It was too dark for her to read it, but it was distinctly signed by Emily.
Vange folded the paper back up, stuffed it down into her boot, and then fell fast asleep.
“Rise and shine, Evangeline. It’s your wedding day.”
“Huh?”
“You can wear your belt with all you have on it, but I have nice highlands clothing for you. More suitable for the wife of a highlander, aye.”
Vange poked her head out from under the covers.
Saraid had laid out on the bed a beautiful women’s set of red MacLean plaid clothes: two skirts whose plaid were opposites, a bodice in the same plaid as the outskirt, and a lovely embroidered shift with wide sleeves. The plaid was homespun wool, and the shift was homespun linen.
“I can’t take this from you, Saraid. It’s too much of a gift.”
“Aw, quit your fussing and get dressed, lass. The men have been ready for an hour now. I have let you sleep as long as I dared.”
When Vange still hesitated, Saraid laughed.
“Och. I shall wait out in the hallway, then. But I shall open the door on the count of three hundred, so do not dawdle.”
Sure enough, she went out into the hallway, and Vange could hear her slowly counting.
“One, two, three…”
Figuring she had about five minutes and desperately wanting to be clean all of a sudden, Vange tore off everything except her boots and gave herself a sponge bath at the washstand. She used the cleanest bits of her English clothing to dry off, and then she hurriedly put on the Scottish outfit.
She had barely laced up the bodice and was reaching for her belt when the door opened.
“Oh, good good. You will do nicely, aye.”
Saraid waited while Vange put on the belt, and then she came right up to Vange.
“What are you doing, Saraid?”
“Your hair, lass. Tis a fine head you have, but tis a ratty mess.”
Vange was horrified not to have her usual shampoo and conditioner, but Saraid had come prepared with a pouch full of toiletries from this time period. They smelled wonderful, like lilac.
Very deftly, Saraid washed, combed, and braided Vange’s hair.
“Come on down, now. They have waited the breakfast on you.”
