MacDuff’s Secret #3
Peter jumped to his feet. “No way! I have a soccer match this weekend. This is all bullshit.”
Before she could admonish him, MacDuff was at her side and had Peter by the upper arms, holding him at eye level.
“Laddie,” MacDuff snarled, one hand moving to Peter’s jaw, “heed well for I shan’t spake of this but once. Spaniel is a lady and ye shall treat her as such.”
Fearing he’d snap Peter’s neck, she grabbed MacDuff’s arm. “Put him down! Please.”
Ignoring her, MacDuff hissed, “Do ye ken me, lad?”
Peter, white faced, nodded. MacDuff humphed, opened his hands and Peter, gasping, fell to the ground. Sarah dropped to her knees and checked the red marks beneath Peter’s jaw. “Are you all right?” When Peter nodded she snarled, “MacDuff, you could’ve killed him!”
MacDuff, standing with legs splayed, hands fisted on his hips, shook his unruly sun-streaked mane. “Nay. He appears a good lad for all his ratsbane of a tongue.” To the others he said, “Who among ye best wields a sword?”
Mark, turning pale, raised a tentative hand. “Uhmm … I’m on the fencing team.”
MacDuff eyed him then, apparently satisfied, asked, “Who best tends coos?” When they looked at him blankly, he pointed to the three shaggy, long-horned beasts grazing beyond the pool. “Who kens those?”
When they all raised hands, MacDuff pulled a rough-hewed bucket from a peg imbedded in his stone croft’s wall and tossed it to Ty. “Dress then milk, laddie.”
Apparently deciding it was wiser to obey than admit he’d never milked in his life, Ty elbowed Bryce. “Come on.”
Sarah whispered to the other boys, “Gentlemen, why don’t the rest of you get dressed.” She had to speak to MacDuff. Alone.
They took off at a dead run as MacDuff settled on his haunches to pick up the remains of the boys’ lunch. “What say you, Spaniel? Do you stay or go?”
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “You can’t manhandle children that way.”
His eyebrows shot together as he came to his feet. “Is it not the rule of clan and church to discipline in a parent’s absence? Ye told the lad three times within my hearing – and God only kens how many more times without it – to mind his tongue and he had yet to pay ye any heed.”
“Yes, but—”
He leaned forwards and tapped the tip of her nose. “Nay buts, mistress. Ye want them to grow into good men who respect women, aye?”
She heaved a sigh. “Yes, of course. But please don’t pick him up like that again.”
MacDuff grinned. “Ye’ll find I shan’t have need. He’s learned his lesson.”
“And please don’t call me Spaniel.”
“Oh? ’Tis what the lads shouted when they could not find ye.”
“My name is Sarah.”
“Why then do they call ye Spaniel?”
Bone weary, she settled on the grass and tucked the huge, coarse linen tunic reeking of male musk, sawdust and smoke that he’d loaned her about her legs. “They think I look like one.” When his brow furrowed, she said, “A spaniel is a spotted hunting dog.”
Laughing, he sat down next to her. “Ye have bonnie brown eyes and charming spots upon yer cheeks, but without a long snout and tail I have to say nay, ye do not.”
“Thank you.”
He studied the boys for a moment. “Ye call them children, not bairns. Are they of royal blood then?”
She watched Peter, Jeremy and Mark romp through the field as if they hadn’t a care. “In our world, yes.”
“And ye?”
“I’m their teacher. Well, one of them. The children often move from place to place. Our school, with its many branches in different cities, provides continuity, some measure of stability.”
“And where is yer world?”
Dare she tell him? Would he think the boys and her bewitched? “You won’t believe me.”
He grinned. “I believe there is more to life and this place than priests will allow.”
Didn’t she know it. “We live in London but in a different—”
“Nay!” MacDuff had jumped to his feet and was pointing at Bryce and Ty who’d been peering beneath one of the long-coated cows. “Are ye daft, lads?” he shouted. “Them’s bollocks!”
Bryce straightened and looked over his shoulder. “Huh?”
MacDuff grabbed his crotch. “Bollocks!”
When the boys just looked at each other then shrugged, MacDuff raised his kilt and swung his hips. “These, lads!”
“Ohmigod, MacDuff! Stop that!”
MacDuff didn’t so much as glance at her as his kilt fell back in place and he pointed to the two hairy beasts grazing to the boys’ right. “Ye yank on coos, lads. Those with teats!”
Boyish hoots and laughter erupted on both sides of the field as understanding dawned and MacDuff blew through his teeth.
Turning his attention to her, he said, “Two of yer princes were nearly knocked into the morrow. What have ye been teaching them that they have yet to ken the difference betwixt bullocks and teats?”
Aghast that he had the nerve to call her to task, Sarah shouted, “I can’t believe you just exposed yourself like that! Are you out of your mind?”
MacDuff looked at her blankly for a moment then laughed, a deep and rich rumble that rolled like thunder about the glen. When he finally collected himself he asked, “And what did my lady see?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “Well, nothing – naught, but—”
He tapped her nose. “Then ’tis naught for ye to fash over, now is there? Men ken these things.” He pointed to Ty and Bryce in earnest conversation squatting beside a cow. “The quiet one has the look of ye about the eyes. Is he yer bairn?”
The man was impossible. “No, I have no children, and his name is Ty. He’s an orphan.”
MacDuff’s brow furrowed. “And the rest? Have they no parents as well?”
“The rest do have parents.” Parents, who are doubtless going out of their minds right now, listening to news broadcasts, punching cell phones, wondering why their children aren’t answering their calls, can’t be reached.
He bent and plucked a blade of grass. Chewing it, he eyed her in speculative fashion, the corner of his eyes crinkling. “Are ye not spoken for, then?”
“No.” Men rarely gave her a second glance. So why was he scrutinizing her so closely?
“Humph. Ye’ve slothful kin, then.”
“No, no kin, slothful or otherwise. My parents married late in life, never expected to have a child, then I came along. My father died when I was three and then my mother developed Alzheimer’s.
” Seeing his frown deepen she clarified, “A disease that destroys the mind and then the body. She passed – died – last summer.” Which, although leaving Sarah bereft, had been a blessing for her mother.
“My sympathies.” To her relief he turned his attention back to the boys. “Ah, they’re done.”
A heartbeat later, Bryce and Ty, grinning from ear to ear, placed their bucket on the ground before her.
She was amazed to find it half full. “Wow!” They’d not known the difference between a bull and cow when they started. But them drinking raw milk was out of the question. Their parents would never forgive her if they came down with tuberculosis.
To MacDuff, she said, “Before they can drink it—”
“Drink it? God’s teeth, woman, why would ye have them do that?” He shuddered and grabbed the bucket. “Nay, ’tis for making crowdie. Come along, lads, we’ve much to do.”
Skipping to keep up with MacDuff’s long strides, Bryce asked, “What’s crowdie?”
As she said, “Cheese,” she heard MacDuff say, “Ye’ve not had crowdie?”
When they shook their heads MacDuff gave her another incredulous look then, leading the boys away, muttered, “’Tis a wonder any of ye live.”
Hamish looked about his crowded croft, at the exhausted lads curled in sleep on their pallets, and warmth bloomed in his chest. Far too many years had passed since he’d shared a meal or heard bairns laugh. Were it not so unmanly to shed tears, he would have.
He sighed. If only the Spaniel were as relaxed as the lads in his company.
She would have taken her brood off to Edinburgh had the lads, consumed with their fishing, not begged her wait just a wee bit. Thankfully, gloaming came early to his glen.
By the time the lads were done fishing, the sun was setting and they were hungry. Then the moon rose and the wolves of the forest started to howl, which proved too much for the lady and she agreed they should spend the night.
He reached out and ruffled Ty’s hair as the lad sat beside him carving a rabbit from a soft hunk of pine.
In a whisper Ty said, “We were at this pub when a bomb went off. Miss Colbert got us into the basement but it was flooded. Then we somehow ended up here.”
“What means bomb?” The Spaniel had said much the same but he’d been loath to admit to her that here was yet another thing he did not understand.
“A device made from gunpowder and metal that can kill hundreds of people all at once.” When Hamish continued to frown in confusion Ty crafted an imaginary ball in his hands, lobbed it, then saying kaboooom, fell backwards and feigned death.
Alarmed, Hamish pulled him upright. “Ye have such weapons?”
Ty, his brown eyes welling with tears, nodded. “My parents were killed by a bomb two years ago. Dad was a foreign diplomat.”
Hamish brushed a tear from the lad’s cheek. “My heart greets for ye, lad.”
“Mine, too.”
“Here ye may rest easy, lad. We have no such weapons. To kill ye must look a man in the eye as is only right.”
After a long moment Ty whispered, “Did she tell you that we come from centuries ahead of this time?”
Hamish nodded. “But ’tis difficult for me to give such wild tales credence.”
“You should because it’s true. You saw Peter and Mark’s iPods. We have loads more stuff than that. Like aeroplanes and computers. Stuff you haven’t even dreamed of yet.”
Hamish had no idea what he meant by air plains but had seen the lads’ pods. Not that the shiny boxes adorned with strange squiggles did anything, much to the lads’ consternation.
Taking up his carving and wee blade again, Ty asked, “I don’t suppose you know how we came to be here?”
Hamish did – or rather suspected he did, but he wasn’t about to speak of it just yet. “Tell me about the Spaniel. Is she content where she lives?”
Ty gave the question some thought. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t smile much and the kids take advantage of her.”
“How so?”