Warrior and the Wanderer (11 page)

“Ian?” Bess asked from up on her horse.

He did not take his stare from the castle. He had sung in its the shadow, collected money from the throngs of tourists. This castle was the same, yet in spirit it was vastly different.

“No,” he whispered, “it can’t be….”

The castle loomed high like it always had against the grey Edinburgh sky. Always grey. That was too bloody familiar. Ian swallowed down the bile in his throat. But the wall was not familiar. It was something right out of history. Wooden battlements hung on the side of this partially built wall with men patrolling back and forth, bows strapped to their backs.

Ian turned slowly around. He looked at Bess. She had dis-mounted and now stood beside her horse. Her hands clasped about the reins.

His mind struggled to find purchase with any logical explanation for the existence of this edifice they had reached. Was he dead? Was he dreaming? Was he experiencing some crazy hallucination brought on by some drug Bess had slipped into his food? None of those made any sense and neither did the possible answer Bess was sure to give him after he dared ask her, “When am I?”

“Ye’ve asked me that before,” she said, “’Tis the year of our Lord, fifteen twenty-three.

He lunged forward, grabbing her by the arms, yanking her body against his. “Tell me the truth,” he said through clenched teeth. “What year is this?”

“’Tis the year of our Lord fifteen twenty—”

“Three,” he finished. “Aye, so you’ve said.” He loosened his grip on her arms and slid his hands down her body until he knelt on the damp ground.

The truth was no colder than the rain falling on his back. He gripped handfuls of Bess’s gown and buried his face in them. They did not smell musty with five centuries worth of old; they smelled of the land they had travelled, fresh with rainwater, and a perfume like pine and heather. He had seen more than his fair share of rain and heather on this journey. Both of which were not common to California.

“I have gone back in time, by almost five hundred years,” he breathed into the thick fabric of Bess’ gown. No one else could hear him; no one else should hear him. “Dear God, they’d burn me at the stake. What the hell do I do now?”

A hand, gentle and strong, rested on top of his head.

He looked up.

Bess offered him an encouraging smile. “Are ye unwell? I thought ye were wanting to see Edinburgh.”

He shook his head. “I don’t remember the wall.” It was all he could say. He had to find a way to blend in while he found a way to leave this time. Being burned at the stake was not an option.

“After Flodden,” Bess said, “the wall was built, the guards have grown five-fold about the royal city. Ye never know when those English bastards might return.”

“Aye, English bastards,” Ian repeated, barely able to breathe.

He stood, facing Bess. He had better get a grip and fast. Blend in. That was what he needed to do. What the hell did he know about this time? He thought of anything he knew about the sixteenth century and could only come up with vague images from film and television.

He suddenly gave Bess a courtly bow. “I need a drink, a tankard of ale forthwith, m’Lady.”

She gave him an unflinching stare. “What is amiss with yer voice?”

Ian shifted his gaze to Alasdair, who joined them; furrowed brows indicating confusion or building anger. Ian guessed it was the latter. Bloody hell, he needed a drink. “Uh…persooth we should haste forward to the nearest ale house…establishment…place. Quicketh…noweth….” Why in hell was he talking like that?

The aghast, confused looks on his companions’ faces told him that he was making a complete arse of himself. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down, assess his situation so far. He had been in sixteenth century Scotland for several days now, had acted himself, and so far had not been ear-marked for the chopping block or the stake.

He glanced at Bess. She was no longer paying him any attention, but was surveying the gate just ahead of them and the lessening crowd between them and it. She was a sixteenth century lass. Not at all whatever stereotype he once had thought a sixteenth century woman to be. She was clean. Her teeth would make any dentist smile. And, God knows, she was beautiful. She had a natural, low-maintenance loveliness even when she was wielding that claymore and screaming at him like hell’s banshee.

He looked around at the sea of people in wool and linen, and had never felt so lost, or such a strong need to hold his nose. He probably smelled just as ripe, although he could not tell it on himself. He glanced up at the castle. Edinburgh was once his town. He grew up in its streets, and knew every lane, close, and wynd. Knew every pub—

He paused, looking at the gate and wall about his city, both of which were not there in his time.

“Pub,” he said. There was one from his time that had also existed in Bess’s past. And he really wanted to get to it.

First they had to get beyond the gate and the frowning guards bearing their pikes. It would have been easier fighting the A9 motorway during rush hour to get into Edinburgh. The wall rose out of a mud field crowded with men, women, children, horses, sheep, and cattle. Ian stood above all of them, his boots squishing through the mire pockmarked with thousands of hoof prints and footprints, both shod and bare. Beast and humanity funneled to a gate manned by a half-dozen men dressed in armor and carrying spears. Some of the people were denied access by a side ways jerk of their helmeted heads or a simple glare.

Ian turned to Bess and Alasdair, finding both of them had returned to the saddle.

“Can we get into the city?” he asked her.

“Aye, we will,” she said with a confident nod.

Bess stared straight ahead. She reached over her shoulder and adjusted her claymore, covering it with the piece of plaid she wore over her shoulder. She glanced down at him.

“’Tis best ye ride with me, rather than walk in.”

“Why?”

“Looks better, being that ye’re my prisoner.”

“If that’s the truth, wouldn’t it look better if you tied me to the back of your horse?”

She sighed. “Get ye on my mount.”

“Where are we going once we get inside that wall?” he asked.

“To the castle.”

“We should get a drink before,” Ian said. “I know a place.”

Alasdair grunted in agreement.

“Aye, that we can do,” Bess agreed. “Refresh ourselves.”

“Great, I’ll guide us.” Ian climbed onto the horse behind her.

They rode forward to the open gate. The teeth of the portcullis hung savagely over their heads when they halted by the guard’s order. Ian tried to keep his gaze to himself, his mind buzzed with questions, his gaze wanted to take in every detail of the parade of living history around him.

The guard gave Bess a thin smile.

“M’Lady,” he said with a nod. “Have ye affairs in the city?”

Bess gave him a curt nod back. “I have, with the Duke of Argyll.”

“His Lordship passed through this very port half a fortnight ago, bound for the castle, m’Lady. ’Tis where ye’re bound?”

“Where the Duke goes,” she said. “I too, must go.”

The guard gave her a nod. Ian relaxed a bit. Bess and the guard had exchanged pleasantries; soon they would be inside this vast wall.

The guard shot Ian a hard glance.

Bess spoke immediately. “He’s with me, my prisoner, I’m taking him to the gaol in the castle. A gift for the Duke of Argyll.”

The guard looked Ian up and down. He held his pike in a bloodless fist. “If ye say so, m’Lady. I wouldna let him from my sight, if I were ye.”

“Thank ye for the advice.” Bess clicked to her mount and they rode under the gate and into the city Ian had called home for most of the first half of his life.

Yet, he was a stranger here.

The first thing he noticed about this Athens of the north, built on seven hills, was the stench as thick as the wall separating the city from the outside world and the marauding English. He sniffed once before thrusting his arm up under his nose, the odor of garbage and, in particular, the odor of fish remained in his nostrils. He glanced down at the street covered in a layer of vile, muddy sludge. He glanced up to keep from gagging.

The view above was not much better. The buildings were precarious affairs, some as high as ten stories. Each individual floor canted out from the one below it, an inverted ziggurat any twenty-first century building inspector would condemn.

Ian coughed a few times.

“The stench of the city can be a bit much,” Bess said. “Here.” She produced a sprig of some plant from inside her doublet. “Wormwood. Will help clear yer head so ye can direct us to that tavern ye ken.”

Ian accepted the herb and gave it a long sniff. It didn’t work. He would need two corks up his nostrils to block out the smell of Edinburgh. He hoped that soon he would grow used to it.

He thought hard about where they were headed. He remembered the name of the pub, remembered that it had not changed in five hundred years. What he could remember of the pub was a weathered wooden sign next to a newer sign both hanging over the door, a blend of the old and new. The old sign, what was left of it, had a carved picture with a few flecks of gold leaf still on it: a golden deer, a stag with a great rack.

“The Stag,” he spit out, startling Bess.

“What?” she asked.

“I remember the place. The Golden Stag it’s in…uh…Cowgate.”

“’Tis near here,” Alasdair said. “’Tis a stable nearby, in the West Port wynd.”

Bess turned to him, her profile to Ian, one pale brow raised high. “Alasdair, ye surprise me. When have ye been to Edinburgh?”

The gruff warrior grunted a few times as if caught in one huge truth he did not wish to reveal. But this Highlander loyalty knew no bounds and he told her, “M’lady, I have visited
Dùn Eideann
with yer brother, my chief. The Stag was a place he favored.”

“Why in particular?” she asked.

A thought entered Ian’s mind. He had heard that The Stag had once been the most notorious cathouse in Edinburgh.

Alasdair grunted searching for an answer.

“I hear the ale is quite good there,” Ian interjected tossing Alasdair a wink.

The Highlander grunted and nodded.

“Ale, is it?” Bess asked. “We’ll see.”

They continued through the shadowy narrow streets, until they arrived at a stable. A boy rushed out from the shadows.

Bess and Alasdair dismounted.

Ian slid from the horse into a toxic mire of garbage and excrement. He followed Bess and Alasdair after they handed the reins and a coin to the grimy but grinning boy.

Ian looked up from the mire that coursed through the narrow wynd. A wooden sign, with fresh paint and a shiny gilded carving of a great stag, welcomed his weary body and spirit. He would have a pint of ale or two, perhaps three or four. Whatever it took to help him face the fact that he was in Edinburgh five hundred years in the past. Perhaps relaxing with a few pints would allow him to figure out how to get back to his own time.

* * * *

Alasdair barred Bess’s way into the tavern.

“I’m sorry, m’Lady,” he said, body filling the doorway of the Stag. “But ye cannae go within.”

“Ye’ve led me here, ye big lummox. Tell me why I cannae go inside.” She placed her hands on her hips and waited. Ian stood to one side of her, eyes looking over each inch of the facade. He had been wide-eyed ever since they had arrived at the West Port. He had boasted that he had been to Edinburgh, yet he looked about the city with the intense gaze of a man who was a stranger here.

“’Tis for men. There’s ale, aye, some of the finest I’ve tasted, but there’s….” He looked at his big feet as a flush crossed his meaty cheeks.

“What, Alasdair? Tell me,” Bess urged.

Her champion finally answered her. “There’s women within.”

“Then I should be welcome among them. Step aside.”

“Nae, m’Lady. No’ women.” He lowered his voice and looked at Ian as if he was about to reveal some male secret. “
Women.
”

Bess crinkled her brow. “Speak plainly.”

Ian pressed a hand to her shoulder, leaned over, his lips a breath from her ear. “What your furry friend is trying to tell you, Blaze, is that ale isn’t the only thing on the bill of fare. There’s offerings to satisfy more carnal urgings.”

“Ye mean prostitutes? Well, I dinnae plan to take advantage of their talents, like ye, Ian MacLean, I would like a tankard to refresh myself. If ’twas good enough for my brother the chief,’twill be good enough for me.”

“Ye cannae go in, m”lady,” Alasdair said. “’Tis no’ fittin’.”

“I am chief of Clan Campbell,” she said. “’Tis perfectly fittin’ for me to enter.”

“M’Lady, ye cannae—” Alasdair began.

“I can and I will,” she said.

“Perhaps if you blended in,” Ian said. “Since keeping you outside is clearly not an option, and I need a pint in the worst way right now, so let’s find a compromise.”

“What d’ye mean by ‘compromise?’” she asked warily.

He studied her. “First off, working ladies don’t wear armor. Remove it.”