I said, “Does that date mean anything?”
“I canna think of any reason why we would be here. Tis... not a usual time. If Magnus has been born he is likely verra young, tis likely there inna time travel here.”
He counted on his fingers. “I daena even ken if Lady Mairead is around. Hae Sean and Lizbeth been born?”
He added, “I dinna ken…Buthe did tell me we are close tae the time of the big market gathering, drovers from all across Scotland come tae sell their cattle, twill be likely crowded and rowdy in town.”
“Should we try to jump again?”
He looked over his shoulder. “We are verra close tae the village. I need a meal and tae think this through. I think we ought tae continue on.”
I nodded and we grew quiet again as Finny headed toward the village.
I finally asked, “So as far as you know this doesn’t happen… like,usuallywhen you want to time jump it takes you where you mean to go?”
“Aye, it always has before.”
“Damn it. That’s not good.”
We left Finny in the stables behind the village inn and went around to the front entrance.
Moving from the bright outdoors to the dark interior, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The downstairs of the inn smelled like smoke and that sweet sickly breath of a hangover day. The wood floor was sticky with old ale. The carved chairs looked rickety. There was a surly man behind the bar, and a woman carrying a plate of food from a darker room in the back. It looked like every dive bar I’d ever been in, but with an ancient vibe. Men were packed around some long tables through the middle of the room, being boisterous and loud. But near the hearth was a small open table.
Lochie nodded toward it. “Grab us two stools, I will get some ale and a meal.”
He went to the bar while I found two stools and dragged them to the table. Using my peripheral vision to watch the men in the room, while not making any eye-contact. The two men at the next table sized me up, narrowing their eyes, and elbowin’ each other, speaking in whispers.
I ignored them, directing my gaze at the fire, heat drawing up my face. I wasn’t dressed right, I hadn’t covered my head, I didn’t know much but I knew my hair was too short.
Lochie returned with two ales. He snarled at the men and they turned away. Lochie sat down, ran his hands through his hair, then took my hand in his. “I am sorry Ash, I will get us from this place, but I needed sustenance tae be able tae think through our predicament.”
“Me too, Lochie. But this is okay, I’ve been in a dive bar, and I worked at the Palace Saloon, I know my way around drunks.”
“Good, so here is the issue, we dinna make it tae the eighteenth century. I believe we are in the seventeenth — what did the man say?”
“I think you said it was 1683.”
“Aye, that sounds right, though tis the wrong date. We are not in Stirling or Balloch, but halfway between. And we felt the pull — ye said ye felt the pull, dinna ye?”
I nodded. “It’s like someone dragged us to another place. But why here?”
He said, “This is a small town in the middle of nowhere, a couple of weeks afore the big market convenes. It daena make sense. But we must be on guard, whoever brought us here might be layin’ in wait.”
“But wouldn’t they have picked us up when we first landed? Or when we were alone on the path? We’ve been alone most of the day, if someone wanted us they could have just taken us. Now that we’re in an inn it seems like we are safer, you know? At least there are witnesses.”
“Tis true.”
“Maybe someone just moved us out of the way?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Out of the way from what...?”
“I don’t know… like who do you think? Who would know how to do this?”
“Perhaps Magnus, though he’s never mentioned it, definitely Lady Mairead.”
“And where is Lady Mairead?”
“She’s in Magnus’s kingdom.”
