That had gone pretty well, all things considered. He’d had some donations of food while he’d been standing there, and he really couldn’t complain about the ripeness of the treats tossed his way. After all, the local yokels probably didn’t have a whole lot of extra cash. That they’d been willing to part with parts of their lunch said a lot about how much they liked his performances. Of course, some of the locals had parted with their lunches a little more enthusiastically than others, but he hadn’t complained. Food was food, whether it was scraped off the floor or off your shirt.
Too bad no one had wanted to contribute any doctor’s fees to the cause. He supposed he might have been able to pop back through that time gate, grab some stuff out of Mrs. Pruitt’s medicine chest, then get right back to business on the seedy side of the Thames. Then again, he might not have managed that, so there was really no sense in trying.
Besides, Othello was going to be a smash hit and then he’d have all the fame and fortune he could handle. He’d hire the best damned doctor in all of Elizabethan London.
He stared off into space for a moment and tilted his head at the best angle to contemplate that amazing bit of sorcery. Who would have thought an innocent tramp through innocent-looking grass could transport a man back centuries in time to the precise place where he could best become a star.
Unbelievable.
He realized, after a while, that he was still staring off into space and that it was becoming all he could do.
This was not good.
He forced himself to lower his aching arm to the really crappy paper he’d been able to afford and begin the first and only draft of his genius.
He could hear the applause already.
Chapter 21
Connor stood in the shadows of a very lovely, very recently built Tudor building and considered the past se’nnight. It had been strange, somehow, to pass time into a century that wasn’t his own. True, he had lived through these times once already, but he hadn’t come to London. He’d had enough to do terrorizing souls at Thorpewold, which, having been built in the late fourteenth century, had just begun to boast proper hauntings.
He wondered if James MacLeod did this often, this tromping about in a time that wasn’t his own. It would have been interesting, to see a different world, but Connor suspected that the novelty of it would have worn quite thin for him after just a time or two. Truth be told, what he had wished for in life had been home and hearth.
A pity he found a wench he would have gladly shared the like with seven centuries past his expiration date.
As it were.
He looked at the woman in question. She was currently standing with her sister, watching events going on across the street. Connor found it in him to smile. Jennifer had spent the previous few days traipsing happily about London, blending in with the natives as if she’d been born in their century. Victoria had scowled at everyone as if they’d been actors performing poorly on her stage, then spent any leftover time warning her sister about the condition of the water.
And judging by the condition of the sewage in the street, Connor had been inclined to agree with Victoria.
But the se’nnight had been survived and there they were, standing across the way from the infamous Globe and pondering their next move. Connor put his hand on his sword, wishing that it was tangible. He would have used it without hesitation on Michael Fellini, who was holding court in front of the theater, carrying on in a most unhinged fashion.
“Well,” Victoria said, taking a deep breath, “let’s go get him.”
“Vikki, I don’t think he’s all there,” Jennifer warned.
“I agree,” Mary said. “Let’s be careful.”
“We just have to get him pointed in the right direction and Connor can terrify him into moving forward.”
Connor nodded and hoped that would be the case. Fellini did not look well, but Connor supposed that could have come from the layer of food that seemed to encrust the man. Had he been pelted with rotten food, or was he dressing that way for effect? Hard to say.
Victoria led the way across the street. She stopped in front of Fellini.
“Michael, you don’t look well,” Victoria said bluntly. “Let me get you a doctor.”
“No!” Fellini bellowed, wrenching away from her. He pointed a shaking finger at her. “I thought I saw you before.”
“I hired you to do my play, remember?”
“No, here,” he snapped, then weaved unsteadily. “I saw you here.”
“Yes, you did. Right now. Now, come with me—”
“I’m not leaving!” he shouted. He looked around him wildly. “I’m going to be a famous playwright.”
Victoria rolled her eyes. “Sure you are. But let’s get you to the doctor first.”
“Shakespeare had better watch his back,” Fellini said, lowering his voice suddenly. “I’m having inspiration.”
“I think you’re having a hallucination,” Victoria muttered. “You know, if you don’t come with us, the king’s men are going to come and throw you in the Tower of London to rot.”
Connor refrained from commenting on the potential enjoyment he might have had from the sight of that.
“The King’s Men,” Fellini said, his ears perking up. “Shakespeare was one of them. Good company—”
Victoria punched him in the nose.
Fellini fell backward, cracked his head on the side of a low brick wall, and slipped into oblivion.
Connor stared at Victoria in amazement. Why, there were few men of his clan who could have dealt such a blow.
“Well done,” he praised.
“Yes,” Jennifer said, “but now that he’s unconscious, how do we haul him?”
“I have a cart waiting in an alley,” Mary said. “Girls, can you get him that far?”
“You bet,” Victoria said. “He’s a welterweight.” She looked at Connor. “I’m glad I’m not hauling you.”
“You wouldn’t manage it,” he said. “You’d be dragging me by the heels and then I would wake very cross indeed.” He stood idly by and watched as Jennifer and Victoria wrestled Fellini across the street to the cart that Mary had so kindly provided. The lout remained senseless through the entire exercise—unsurprising, and a boon to all involved.
It was probably just as well for Fellini, given the cart Mary provided had, by the looks of it, recently carried quite a bit of refuse.
“Nasty,” Connor commented happily as Victoria and Jennifer heaved Fellini into the depths of it.
“I do what I can for the cause,” Mary said. “Now, shall we be going?”
Victoria took several deep breaths, wrinkling her nose as she did so. “Are you finished with your business here? Finally?”
“Why are you complaining?” Mary asked, giving Victoria an affectionate pinch on the cheek. “You lifted a glass with William Shakespeare yesterday. Aren’t you satisfied?”
Jennifer laughed. “She’s still speechless. If she were ever speechless, that is.”
Connor looked at Victoria and found that aye, indeed she seemed to have little to say. She’d had little to say the day before, as well, when her grandmother had appeared with Master Shakespeare escorting her. Connor had stood back and listened to Mary and Shakespeare carry on an animated discussion of women and their rights to liberty and happiness, while Victoria looked on as if she hadn’t an intelligent thought in her fair head.
In the end, duty had called, and Shakespeare had been off to another rehearsal. He’d kissed Mary on both cheeks. He’d gallantly if not slightly uneasily kissed Victoria on the hand. He had then treated Jennifer to the same affection he had their grandmother before he’d trotted out of the pub.
Jennifer had managed to keep her mouth closed and her drool checked during the interview.
Unlike her sister.
It had taken hours before Victoria had regained her powers of speech. She’d said pithy bits, such as wow and unbelievable and great.
Connor had begun to fret a bit over what would be left o
f her if she didn’t regain her sensibilities.
Fortunately sleep seemed to have restored some of them. Seeing Fellini on the street corner, babbling about his new play and demanding to see Shakespeare as quickly as possible, had put Victoria back in fighting form.
For the most part. Now that she was face-to-face with the infamous Globe, she had gone a bit daft in the head again.
“We’ll let her ruminate a bit longer,” Mary said. “For now, let’s get this pile of crap—”
“Granny!” Jennifer exclaimed.
“An apt description,” Mary said unrepentantly. “He hasn’t bathed in days and I think he’s had a douse or two of chamber-pot water. But, however he smells, I suppose we must get him home.”
Connor sighed as he watched the three women pull the cart between them. Mary looked at him once and clucked her tongue at him. He understood. It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t help, so there was no use in berating himself for it.
He berated himself just the same.
He also spent his share of time frowning fiercely at those who looked tempted to question them. Most looked with pity on them for having a drunken fool to cart about through public streets. Connor exchanged a glance of commiseration with a likely lad or two and found himself somewhat thankful he wasn’t kin to Michael Fellini, though less for his imbibing habits than just on general purposes.
And then he realized, as they turned into the little close where they had used the time gate, that Fellini might not be intoxicated.
“Victoria,” he said, “look at his arm.”
She put her end of the cart down and looked Fellini over. “What are you seeing?”
Connor leaned closer. “Look at his upper arm. I daresay that has made him out of his head.”
“Good heavens,” she gasped. “Look at that cut. It’s oozing green stuff.” She looked up at Connor. “I’m no doctor, but—”
“This is dire,” Connor said. “Let us return him to the inn as quickly as may be.”
“Here?” she asked in astonishment. “The inn here?”
“Nay, the Boar’s Head,” Connor said. “They will have nothing here to cure that infection save bleeding him, and that will likely kill him.”
“And I suppose we can’t let that happen,” she said, sounding as if she didn’t find it such an unappealing alternative after all.
“Let us be away,” Connor said. “While we can manage it.”
Victoria nodded and entered the alleyway unwillingly, but whether that was due to leaving Shakespeare’s environs or because she had foul memories of the place, Connor couldn’t have said. Connor waited until the women were safely in the spot they had determined a day or two earlier, then he drew his sword and approached. He ascertained that the close was empty save for them, then he turned his back on his ladies and stood with his face forward, his sword bare in his hand, and a fierce frown on his face.
“All right,” Mary said, “how is it we go about this again?”
“Think about the Boar’s Head Inn in 2005,” Victoria said. “And don’t think about anything else. Jamie says the way to get the gate to work is to focus your mind on where you want to go.”
“If he says so,” Mary said easily.
“Granny, what were you thinking about when you wandered into the fairy ring?” Jennifer asked.
Mary seemed to give that a bit of thought. “I was thinking about what a tremendous bore Michael Fellini is and how I wished I could see Shakespeare for myself to see how it had been done originally.”
“Well, there you go,” Victoria said. “Let’s have equally interesting thoughts about getting this tremendous bore back to a doctor so I’m not accused of murdering him.”
Connor wondered if he should close his eyes and say a little prayer, but thought that might be sacrilegious.
But nothing seemed to be happening.
He was reconsidering his doubts when Fellini awoke and began squealing in the manner of a skewered pig. Connor turned, prepared to deliver a stern lecture or a purposeful blow, but he was distracted by Victoria’s gasp.
“Look!” she exclaimed.
Connor saw the grass beneath his feet before he turned and saw what a more hopeful man might have called Farris’s field.
“Think we made it?” Jennifer asked.
“There’s only one way to tell,” Victoria said, sounding rather relieved. “Let’s see if the inn is where it should be.” She paused. “I suppose we’ll have to take Michael with us.”
“We should,” Mary said with a smile. “Well, shall we chance it?”
“If there’s the potential of a hot shower down the road, you bet,” Jennifer said with feeling. “I’d settle for clean water of any temperature at this point.”
“I would like some tea,” Mary said with a contented sigh.
“I would like my master list of things to do,” Victoria said, taking a determined hold on the cart. “Michael, shut up. We’re taking you to the doctor.”
“But I need to go back to the Globe,” Fellini muttered. “I have a mission there, to bring great acting to the people of Renaissance London! Hey,” he complained, rubbing his face, “my nose hurts.”
“Don’t talk too much, dear,” Mary said soothingly. “Save your strength.”
He looked up at her with very bleary eyes. “Should I?”
“You should,” Mary said, giving him a pat. “Don’t talk, don’t fret. In fact, I would do my best to remain completely still until the doctor tells you differently.”
“You’re right,” Fellini said in a very weak voice. “I should conserve what strength I have. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Of course, dear.”
Connor looked at Victoria who was rolling her eyes quite vigorously. He shared her sentiments perfectly. Now, if they could have, in good conscience, left Fellini to his fate in Renaissance London, he would have been content. But they couldn’t have, again in good conscience, left him to rot in some madhouse—which was where he would have found himself if he had at some point begun to make any sense to the Elizabethans.
Connor sighed. It looked as if more overacting would be the dish of the day, as it were, for as long as Michael was serving things up on the boards of Thorpewold Castle.
Connor walked along behind the cart, feeling more confident with every step that they had come back to the proper point in time. He had almost decided to run ahead for help when help arrived in the persons of James MacLeod and Thomas McKinnon.
“We’ll carry him,” Thomas said. Then he came to an abrupt halt some ten paces away. “Then again, maybe we’ll watch you keep pulling him. He reeks.”
“Nice to see you, too,” Victoria said tartly. “Yes, we had a successful trip, yes, we found Michael and Granny, and yes, I saw the Globe and met Shakespeare.”
Thomas looked at her in shock. “You’re kidding.”
Connor watched as she suddenly broke into a smile such as he had never seen before. It was one of wonder, disbelief, and elation.
“I did,” she said, sounding almost giddy.
“What did you say to him?”
“Not a thing,” she said happily. “I just listened to him shoot the breeze with Mary. But he kissed my hand.”
“He kissed my hand and both my cheeks,” Jennifer put in, grinning. “I think Vikki scared him. She was totally starstruck.”
“I’ll just bet,” Thomas said, looking equally pleased. He gave Mary a big hug. “Granny, good to see you.”
“You too, love,” Mary said. “Thanks for the cavalry. Our good Laird MacDougal was fierce enough to keep all thugs at bay and we’re very grateful to him.”
Connor waved her words aside dismissively. There was so much more he could have done, but it was behind them and he was damned grateful for it. He watched Victoria, Jennifer, and Mary walk ahead while Thomas pulled Fellini. He hung back, to give them time to celebrate their successful mission. James MacLeod fell back to walk along with him.
“How was it?” Jamie a
sked.
“Difficult,” Connor said quietly. “Frustrating. Dangerous for the women. They were accosted the moment we arrived and though I used my fierceness to its utmost advantage, the ruffians soon saw what I really was.”
“How did you best them?”
“I used what poor strength I have with things from the mortal world and managed to plunge a sword into the leader’s back.” He paused. “’Tis a miracle I didn’t stab Victoria, as well.”
“Let us hope such heroism is not called for again any time soon. Though I daresay you would be equal to it in any case.”
Connor looked at James MacLeod and allowed himself—now that the danger had passed—to wonder. The man certainly seemed comfortable in his modern clothing, but there was something about him that hinted at a life lived in more primitive circumstances. He cleared his throat.
“You aren’t modern, are you?”
Jamie only lifted one eyebrow and smiled. “What do you think?”
“I suspect . . . thirteenth century. Late thirteenth century. Perhaps early fourteenth.”
Jamie shrugged, with another easy smile. “Very perceptive.”
“But you came to the Future.”
“I did. I married a girl from the Future. She had accidently, or fortuitously if you prefer, traveled back to my time. We loved, wed, and planned to live out our lives in my day. But when I escaped death at the hands of my enemies, I saw that there was no reason for me not to come forward with her.”
“Hence your experience with the time gates.”
Jamie grinned. “Och, but that would imply I’d used them but once and you know that cannot possibly be the case.”
Connor found himself smiling, as well. “Where have you gone?”
“Where haven’t I gone?”
Connor laughed in spite of himself. “That poor wench you wed. How she must fret.”
“Aye, well, she’s come along on enough adventures of her own. Not so often now that we have wee bairns, but there will no doubt come a day when she joins me again.”
Connor sighed. “It must be a pleasant life.”
Jamie nodded. “It is and I’m grateful for it.”
“How did you find the modern world?” Connor asked. “At first?”