Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy (52 page)

Brother David did not join in. Nor did the men. They stared at him, eyebrows furrowed. One man scratched his head and whispered to another.

Shawn sang the second verse somewhat more hesitantly. "
An' ye had been where I ha' been, Ye wouldna been so jolly-o.
"

These men had probably been far worse places than he'd been. Realization rushed upon him. He drew to a finish with a full chord. "No one knows this one?" Heads shook all around.

"I ha' heard o' Gilliekrankie," said Hugh, "but naught ha' happened there o' which to sing."

"The battle..." Shawn began. He looked around the blank faces of men who must surely know their battles. Awkward silence followed. Perhaps no battle had yet happened there. He wondered how he would explain this.

"Weel then!" cried Hugh. He clapped his beefy hands with a crack that set several evening birds to flight. "The neeps are cooked!" The men dug in, stabbing chunks of meat with their dirks. "Tell me why my brother has risked sending ye, and with his daughter no less!" The men turned to Shawn.

"Edward is sending troops to Stirling," he said. "Your men are needed."

The men waited expectantly. The sun glowed pink and orange behind the hills. Fire threw flickering shadows across tough faces, and flashed off golden-red beards.

"They're needed very badly?" Shawn added. He looked from one to another, wondering what else they wanted.

"Ye've become a man o' few words, ha' ye not, laddie!" Hugh said with mirth. "When is the Sassenach fool due to arrive at Stirling?"

Shawn looked helplessly at Allene, who bowed her head. Brother David spoke. "Midsummer's day. They say his army will shake the land as it passes, and that he will destroy Scotland once and for all."

"The Laird is on his way," Shawn added, "to train his men with Bruce. He begs you to join."

"So," said Hugh. He gazed around the campfire. So did Shawn. The trees had darkened to black shapes with silver-gray leaves, rising around them in the night. Thin wisps of mist trailed close to the forest floor. Flames lit and shadowed the faces of dozens of men. They sat in tartans and tunics, chewing meat and turnips, swatting now and again at midges. And every one watched Hugh. Hugh himself stared silently into the flames. Beside him, Allene tensed, looking to Shawn with worried eyes.

Shawn lowered his meat, clinging to the end of his dirk. "You can't leave them to fight alone!" The words flew from his mouth. It had not occurred to him that Hugh would not immediately agree. Even less had it occurred to him that he would care.

Hugh lifted his eyes from the fire, to Shawn. For once, he didn't smile. "The greatest army ever? Thousands upon thousands? We can field but a fraction o' that. 'Twill be slaughter."

Murmurs whispered around the campfire. A breeze rustled the black leaves above.

"If you don't come, it will be," Shawn said fiercely. "The Laird, your brother! Will you leave him to be slaughtered when maybe you could have made the difference?"

"Can we make a difference?" asked a little man with a missing tooth. "Would it no be better to wait here that we may yet fight another day?"

Shawn leaned forward, his eyes darkening, biting each word. "There will be no more fighting, if they are not stopped at Stirling!" The men around the fire leaned close to one another, speaking in low agitation. Hugh conferred with the men on either side of him.

Shawn's heart hammered, waiting.

Hugh stood, commanding silence.

Shawn drew in a breath.

"We'll aw' most likely die, an we meet Edward at Stirling," Hugh said.

"An what are we to protect our skins for?" shouted a man with coarse black hair springing up in wild curls from his head. "To continue hiding? Better to die for the chance of freedom, than live forever this way." He stood, fixing an iron gaze on each man around the circle, one by one. "Is it no for just such a moment we've waited?"

Some men muttered. Some nodded. Hugh held up a hand, and silence fell. "It seems as ever my big brother needs me to save his skin! Imagine fighting an army so large!" He gave a hearty laugh. "Perchance 'tis time to leave our mountain retreat and remind the Sassenach whose country 'tis." Shawn held his breath. Hugh's smile fell, his eyes turned black. "Or perhaps it is not yet time. "MacGregor, what say ye?"

The little man with the missing tooth stood, his face solemn. His few men rose beside him. "To Stirling, my lord."

"Clan Grant?" A cry went up from the far side of the fire. Three lanky young men leapt to their feet, shouting, "To Stirling!"

"Chisholm? MacLeod." Two more men stood with their groups, and with each name on the roll call of the doomed, Hugh's voice grew stronger. "Fraser. Mackenzie!"

Again and again, cheers went up, signaling the assent, each of dozens more men, to their own slaughter—to their chance at freedom, self-sacrifice for their loved ones.

Shawn's skin tingled. His heart raced. Hugh's voice beat a quickening tattoo: "Sutherland! Gunn! Munro!"

Now the whole camp stood, bellowing to meet the Sassenach. The men demanded a song from Shawn, bawling out the lyrics of war and victory. They downed ale and raised cheers to driving the Sassenach into the sea.

Finally, sated with meat and music, with the light dying in the west, they drifted to their corners for a night's sleep. Hugh and the clan leaders gathered around the embers of the fire and murmured with the chirping insects. Their beards close together, they chose runners and messengers and laid plans to gather another thousand to war.

Inverness, Scotland, Present

They burst through the sliding glass doors of the train station into a white, high-ceilinged chamber with bright banners and streaks of color everywhere. Amy stopped for only a minute, a minute in which people turned to stare at them both. "Dress up day?" someone said.

At the far end, the station opened to the outside. Long, slithering behemoths faced them, each staring with a large, single eye. "This way," Amy said. They jogged toward the things, Niall with impatience and energy to burn, Amy lagging with exhaustion. Niall looked around in confusion. Half a dozen of the chutes ran into the station. "Help me out here," she said, but Niall had no idea how. He stared at the huge metal contraptions littering the area, some in hues of forest green and others sporting bold splashes of bright, unnatural colors. These must be the trains of which Amy had spoken. "This way," she said. A rumble filled the air. She grabbed his hand. "It's leaving!" Niall jogged after her, lost and helpless. "What if he followed us?" she panted.

A man waved frantically from the door of one of the metal beasts. The thing snorted. "Wait!" Amy yelled.

"Hurry!" the man called back. He braced one hand against the door, holding the other out to them.

Niall got there first and jumped in. The man shoved him through, and reached for Amy. The train shuddered and trembled.

"Hey, you!"

Amy looked back, one foot on the platform, one on the train, and went pale. Niall's heart leaped. Jimmy's friend shouted from the station doors. Niall yanked her hand. She stumbled into the train, catching herself against a wall. The doors slid shut. Niall looked out the windows. The platform was moving, at a nauseating pace, away from the train.

* * *

Despite his stomach lurching at this bizarre contraption's motion, and his mind screaming to flee, Niall led Amy to the most isolated seats. She dropped into one near the window, clenched her hands in her lap, and closed her eyes. Her face was pale, bone white against her jet black hair and black clothing. He pushed aside his own nausea, thinking of the child she carried. She didn't need this strain. He wished he hadn't brought this on her. He could have asked Aaron. But he'd had his reasons.

He took her hand. It trembled in his.

Gradually, she relaxed, and her hand became still. A little color—not much, but a little—crept back to her cheeks. She opened her eyes and turned to him. "Tell me what's going on."

He searched for words. Maybe he'd start with the good news. He pulled the crucifix from his tunic, over his head.

She stared, uncomprehending. He wanted to yank it back. "Take it," he said. He pressed it into her hand, closing her fingers over it. Then he dug in the sporran, for the roll of bills he'd collected from the wall. "It took some time." He smiled ruefully at his own ineptitude in this era.

She sucked in her breath, thumbing through it. "It must be a thousand dollars!"

"Much more. After a bit, it wouldna let me take more. Here's the card. The code is zero-eight one three, the day his father died." Trees flashed past the window, giving him vertigo. He tried to focus on her.

Amy bit her lip. "You were walking around with thousands of dollars in cash?"

"How else was I to give it to ye?"

"Someone might have stolen it!" Amy's eyes widened as she fanned the money. "Is this what that was about, behind the theater?"

Niall shook his head. "I doona think so. Someone gave him bad money."

"You were gambling. Did you have anything to do with it?"

Niall sighed. His stomach heaved at the rattling and swaying of the train. "I did not."

"Well," she said, "Why? Why are you giving me all this?"

"To care for yourself and the child." He nodded at the crucifix. "I couldna sell it so fast, not for what it's worth. Keep it, an' you need more, sell it." His heart cried out, seeing his last remnant of his father slip away. He wanted to see it around Allene's neck. But Amy needed it. And Amy would not see what it cost him to let it go. She would refuse, if she understood. "'Tis from 1297." He kept his voice steady, tearing his eyes from his memories. He reached into his pouch for a folded sheet of paper. "I've written the history here, and places that will give ye a good price."

Amy looked from the paper, to the crucifix, to Niall. "I don't understand. You said you got it at the pawn shop." She started to say more, but her mouth moved wordlessly. She lifted her hand, trying to speak. Her eyes became damp, and she said, "This means you're leaving me when we get there." He heard resignation in her voice. "Is it guilt money?"

His heart sank at her grief. "'Tis doing the right thing. I doona ken if I'll be back." The train
chick-chick-chicked
under him. He felt as green as those fish Lord Darnley used to throw on the banks of the loch. Thoughts of Darnley brought on another ill feeling. He wondered at the ease with which Amy accepted this jolting, rumbling machine in which they were trapped. "Amy." He took her hand again. "You must see what you already knew, deep down."

"You're not Shawn." Her voice came out thin and gray. Her eyes met his steadily. But something in them looked as ill as he felt. "You understand why I haven't believed it, don't you?"

"Aye. But you knew Shawn better than anyone."

She was silent a moment, studying him, before saying, "The handwriting. The scars on your back. I tried to believe they were from trees, but they're old, aren't they?"

He nodded, with a slight smile. "The laird caught me kissing his daughter."

"They still do that in the Highlands?"

Niall shrugged. "Some would do worse."

"The way you speak," she added. "And you're kind. Always." The train rumbled under them. She stared out the window into the evening. "I wanted to believe it," she said. "That the Shawn I'd believed in really existed." He watched her reflection in the glass, superimposed on the trees racing by, until she turned back. "And it's too strange that someone who looks just like him showed up exactly where I left him."

"I canna explain that." Niall spread his hands in apology.

They sat in silence for several minutes before she asked, "So who are you? Where is he? Did you do something to him? I can't imagine it, unless he attacked you. I saw in the alley you can take care of yourself."

Niall held up a palm, stopping her. "You misunderstand. I never met Shawn. I doona ken where he is. But I think he took my place."

"Took your...?" She searched for words. "What does that mean, your place?"

"Glenmirril."

She shook her head, eyes shut tight. "No!" Her knuckles turned white around the crucifix in her hand. She opened her eyes, sitting upright. "No. Nobody lives in that castle. I searched it that day. I called him, over and over. There was only you!"

He touched her shoulder. "You doona understand yet, d' ye?" he said softly. "He was in the castle. At least I believe he was, in the tower."

"I looked there. I went all the way up."

"But you couldna see him, for he was in 1314."

She became eerily still. She closed her eyes and clutched the crucifix to her chest. "Please don't start this again," she whispered.

"D' ye no think 'twas a shock to me?" he asked. "It still is, every moment, to think I am seven hundred years from my own time." He tried to keep his eyes off the crucifix. "D' ye ken what was happening in June of 1314?"

For another minute, she didn't move. He wondered if she'd heard him. She opened her eyes. "The Battle of the Pools," she guessed, her voice flat and frightened. "It would explain why you didn't understand the internet. Why you ordered so much food. You weren't just being arrogant like Shawn." The crucifix shook in her hand. "You know this is impossible, don't you?"

He nodded. "Aye. And yet, here I am. I went to sleep in 1314 and woke to find you and Rob on the shores of my loch. I was meant to go for a man named Hugh." He told her of the journey he was supposed to make, of the Laird's knowledge of a traitor in the castle, of England's aggression.

"That's why you wanted to know so much about the Battle of the Pools. And that means..." She bit her lip and suddenly pressed her fingers against her mouth. Voices chattered around them. She lowered her hand. "If Shawn woke up in your time and they thought he was you—he's out there somewhere!"

Heads turned at her sharp words. Niall touched her arm. He didn't know what to say. His heart bled at sight of her fear for him. He didn't mention Allene would guide him. It would be small consolation to her. To him, it was worse than none.

"And someone wants to kill him."