Dark Lord of Kismera: Knights of Kismera (40 page)

DRACE AND CERISE CASUALLY strolled the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle. They went up the hill and walked across the Castle esplanade. When they finished their tour, they stopped at the gift shop where Drace bought a book on the history of the castle and another on Scotland.

“You and your books, I swear.”

“You shouldn’t. It’s rude, or so I’ve been told,” Drace replied, flipping through one of his books as they walked back down the hill to Princes Street. “What great treasure did you find?” he asked her, tucking the book back into his bag.

“A small painting of the castle that caught my eye.”

On Princes Street they saw a store that specialized in publications of various clan histories. Drace found a volume on the MacKinnon’s and his mother’s family, the MacGillivrays. They left the store and poked around in several shops until they found one with tartans of the various clans. A sales person helped them find the MacKinnon plaids in one section. Cerise found a large throw blanket and a lady’s shawl. The shawl was fashioned in the more modern dress pattern of red with bold green stripes; where the colors overlapped were thinner blue stripes and squares of a white stripe.

Drace found a traditional plaid in the more muted colors of red and green done in the ancient dress tartan and then one in the ancient hunting tartan. It was green with muted red stripes and the white squares. He saw how it could blend into the grass or forest. The salesman showed him how to drape it over his head and around his shoulders for camouflage, and then how to wear it over one shoulder and pin it with a broach or a clan badge.

In another shop they found a MacKinnon clan badge. It was a boar’s head that held a bone in its mouth. The Latin motto read:
Audentes Fortuna Juvat.
The salesperson translated for them; Fortune assists the daring.

“I’ll be damned,” Drace muttered as they left.

“What?” Cerise asked, fingering the soft wool of her new shawl.

“The motto. It’s ironic, like there’s a message or an inspiration in it.” His grumbling stomach interrupted his thoughts. “I’m starving,” he declared.

“Me too, but I refuse to eat haggis.” She made a gagging face that made Drace laugh.

At dinner they dined on salmon with vegetables. Afterwards, Cerise sipped a pleasant white wine while Drace enjoyed the Scottish national drink: whiskey. She tried a sample from his glass. “Ugh,” she exclaimed with a shudder. “This is nasty and it burns.” She coughed and waved a hand in front of her face.

Drace gasped. “Blasphemy,” he exclaimed, refilling his glass. “This is twelve year old Scotch. It is
not
nasty.” He took a big swallow from his glass to emphasize point, and then leaned back with a lazy smile. “It’s beautiful.”

“Hear, hear,” the voice of one of the pub’s patrons came from behind him.

Cerise looked up and saw a couple of older gentlemen. They lifted their glasses to salute her then each downed their drinks as easily as if it were milk.

Drace turned in his chair and returned the toast. When he turned back to Cerise he sat sprawled in his chair, looking as Scottish as the two men.

“Going native, are we?” she quipped. “Drace MacKinnon, I believe you are drunk.”

“I told you he had the blood.” One of the men at the bar poked his comrade in the ribs with his elbow. “All the lad needs is a kilt and a plaid. He’d look like he was in the Bonnie Prince’s army.”

Their soft burr made Cerise take a closer look at Drace. His dark hair had come down and hung in disarray. His shirt was stretched tight across his chest and his jeans hugged his muscular thighs. He had a languorous smile and his eyes were even bluer with amusement.

“I think I better get you back to your room before you get into trouble,” she decided.

“What kind of trouble is that?” he slurred.

“I’m not sure. You may kilt up and go play highlander.” She stood up and put out her hand to help him up.

Drace rose to his feet and dipped his head to the two gentlemen at the bar. They raised their glasses in farewell, smiling broadly. Drace shook off her assistance, made it across the floor and out the door, swaying slightly as he went.

“Drunk as a skunk,” she muttered.

“No, lass. The wee lad’s not drunk. He still has his legs,” one of the men told her.

Cerise handed them what was left of Drace’s bottle of Scotch. “Here, compliments of the wee lad.” She picked up her purse and headed out after Drace. She hoped the wee lad kept his legs because there was no way she’d be able to pick him up.

Cerise caught up to him partway up the street. He was moving forward pretty well, only occasionally drifting to the side. He was singing under his breath, but she was clueless as to the language.

“Hi,” he said when she appeared at his side.

“Hi, yourself. What’s the song?”

“It’s a Dwarven drinking song about a woman. Jumon taught it to me one night over ale during a snowstorm,” Drace explained and sang a couple of lines for her.

“Translation, please.”

“It’s a tad naughty, come here.” Drace leaned against her, the scent of whiskey coming from him as he whispered in her ear.

Her eyes grew huge. “He wants to do WHAT to her with his beard?” Her face went scarlet. “That’s not naughty. That’s downright vulgar.” Cerise fanned her hot face. “Holy Mary, I’m glad no one can understand that.”

Drace burst out laughing at her expression and then continued on his way. Once in his room, he wove his way to his bathroom and was in there for a while.

“Are you okay in there?” Cerise asked from the other side of the door.

“Yeah,” he called back then opened the door a moment later. He had not managed to get the top button done back up on his jeans. “I’m good.”

“You smell like a distillery. Why don’t you lie down before you fall down?

“Am not,” Drace argued as he sat heavily on the side of his bed. “I’m fine.” He looked up at Cerise and smiled, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and with her palm pushing gently against his forehead, she directed his tilt backwards.

CERISE WOKE TO THE SMELL of coffee under her nose. She rolled from her side to her back to gaze up into smiling blue-gray eyes. She frowned in puzzlement at Drace’s chipper expression.
Shouldn’t he be wanting to die, or at least crawl under the bed until he knows his head wouldn’t explode?
Instead she asked, “How do you feel this morning?” She scooted up, leaned against the headboard, and took the offered mug.

“Fine,” Drace lied. He’d awakened fully dressed with a gym sock taste in his mouth and a headache. Some aspirin, a shower and shave, and two cups of strong black coffee had sobered him up considerably.

Drace sat next to her on the bed. “Ready to go find your dream horse?”

Cerise looked at him wide-eyed over the rim of her cup as she took a small sip. “That’s right,” she remembered. “It’s my turn.” She took another sip and then blew gently into her cup. “How did you sleep?”

“Like I was dead,” he admitted. If he had dreamed, he didn’t remember it. “I’ll call room service if you want while you shower and dress.”

“That would be nice.” she headed for her bathroom.

An hour later they were packed and headed to a hunter, jumper farm in Ben Nevi.

Drace rode six horses before he found the horse that he liked for Cerise. He jumped the big silver-gray gelding over several small jumps and then took it over a big jump at close to five feet. The big gray went willingly and jumped beautifully.

Cerise rode the horse next, taking the same jumps as Drace.

The horse was a very tall Thoroughbred-Oldenburg cross that had even done some cross-country jumping. Cerise stood on tiptoe to ruffle the big gray’s short mane, standing it upright. “His name is Mitch,” the owner informed her.

“He’s good, Cerise. Do you like him?” Drace asked her as he ran a hand over the horse’s silky coat.

“Oh yes, he’s wonderful! He’s very quiet for a five-year-old.”

“You’ll have a lot of years with him. Let’s go make the deal.”

Cerise was still bubbling with excitement when they left and headed to Inverness.

It was well after midnight when they found Culloden House Hotel. They slept in the next morning and after a lunch at noon drove to Loch Ness. There they joined a tour group taking a boat cruise and spent the afternoon on the loch.

Cerise asked an older woman to take a picture of herself and Drace with Urquhart Castle in the background.

They came back to the hotel damp from a persistent misting rain that had started on the way back. The two ate a hearty supper then spent a couple of hours in a pub, listening to a local band. This time Drace nursed his whiskey, not ready to replay the hangover from yesterday. He did however make arrangements with the pub’s owner to have two cases of Scotch sent to his farm.

The pair retired to Cerise’s room and he propped himself up on her bed to read his clan history book while Cerise checked her emails.

She turned her head to him when she heard him make a thoughtful noise.

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. He felt her eyes on him and looked up. “Do you remember when I told you of Ki and Oralia and the conversation I had with Nimbus when I first arrived?”

Cerise turned in her chair “Yes, most of it anyway.”

“He said, and I remember this clearly, that I was from aristocracy but it was so many generations back that our family had forgotten.”

“I seem to recall you telling me that. Go on. Did you find something?”

“Yes. It says in here,” he tapped the book with a long finger, “that the MacKinnon’s claim descendants from the royal family of Kenneth MacAlpine, or Cinaed mac Ailpin, son of Alpin. He was the thirty-fourth King of Dalriada. He professed himself as the fist King of the Picts and Scots. That was in 843 AD.”

“Oh my,” Cerise exclaimed. “We are royalty of sorts.”

Drace read on, “A long line of rulers can claim descent from him. If there is dispute over him being the first king of Scotland, he does have claim to founding the dynasty that ruled for much of the medieval period.

Drace rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking. Finally he looked at Cerise, “When I was in Kismera, I always had in the back of my mind that I wasn’t the match for Ki her father would have selected. Does that make sense?”

“Not of high enough rank or quality for the family?” Cerise suggested. “You know that’s not true, even if you had descended from a MacAlpin’s stable boy.”

“I know. It’s hard to explain the feeling. Guess you’d have to be in that situation.” He returned his attention to the book and she went back to her email.

“You still want to go to Culloden tomorrow?” Drace asked a while later.

“Uh-huh. Why?”

“Some men from Clan MacKinnon were with the Clan Chattan Regiment during that battle. They were in the centerline. Later, after the defeat, the seventy-year-old chief of the MacKinnon’s hid the prince and helped him escape. The chief spent four years on a prison ship for his aid.”

“Interesting,” Cerise said and then yawned. “Sorry.”

Drace rolled off her bed. He took his book and kissed her on the top of her head. “Good night, C,” he said and went to his room.

It was a gray morning when Drace and Cerise arrived at Culloden Battlefield, both dressed in jeans, boots, and warm sweaters.

Cerise noticed that Drace had been fidgety and distracted all morning. He changed the subject every time she asked him what was wrong.

They went to the Visitor Center first and spent a good part of the morning there, exploring all the exhibits, going to the gift shop, and then a meal at the restaurant.

Once outside, the pair walked the park and viewed the different points of interest and history. They stopped for sometime in front of the Memorial Cairn, which stood twenty feet high. From there, Drace walked with Cerise down the road where the graves of the clans were located, looking for the MacKinnon’s stone marker.

Drace looked up from one stone and saw that Cerise had tears in her eyes.

“This is so sad. I can’t help but think of those poor men, starving, outnumbered. They were so brave,” she commented.

Then they walked to the battleground and Drace stopped so suddenly Cerise bumped into him. “Sorry,” he murmured, his eyes riveted to the moor.

Cerise stood in the bleak place and observed Drace. His left hand move at his side and he repeated the motion unconsciously several times before Cerise realized what he was doing. His hand would be resting on the hilt of his sword if he were wearing one. She looked up at his face and saw he was pale and had a haunted look. She placed her hand on his arm and felt him trembling so hard he was practically vibrating.

“Please don’t touch me right now, Cerise,” he whispered, his voice low and thick.

She realized that he shook with suppressed violence and quickly let go of him. “Drace, you’re scaring me,” she said, looking to see if anyone was near them. Luckily, they stood off to themselves for the time being.

“I can hear them screaming,” he said softly as the voices of the Highlanders continued roaring in his head.

He was unable to look away. He saw them as clearly as if he had been there. He made an involuntary noise and one of the Highlanders turned to look at him, sword raised, kilt swirling around his knees, before an English soldier stuck a bayonet in his stomach. The Scot screamed and then went down as the English soldier jerked free his bayonet and ran on. Drace knew he had just seen the death of his MacKinnon ancestor.

He looked down at the man on the ground and the blood that soaked into the moor. He heard his name being called and his head jerked back up. Cearan was running toward him, sword ready as he went after the English soldier who had killed the Scot. He never made it to his target as several warriors from the Southern forces took him down.

Drace shook his head as the two battles merged in his mind, Highlanders and Werre. “Brother,” he heard Cearan calling to him. “Come back to us.”

Cearan raised a hand in a pleading gesture from where he lay on the ground and then let it fall. His hand fell over the body of the MacKinnon man.

“Drace!” came a sharp voice beside him and his hands clenched into fists, ready to attack this new threat.

Cerise saw this and knew better than to touch him. Drace’s face was paper white under his tan, his expression tortured. She took an involuntary step back.

Slowly, the visions and the screams left him, but the iron smell of blood still filled his nostrils. Drace blinked and then he was seeing the damp barren moor of Culloden. His knees threatened to buckle and he reached for Cerise.

“Drace?” she questioned as she took his arm. “What happened?”

His eyes still haunted, he looked straight at her. “I’m going home,” he stated.

Cerise got a better grip on his arm. “We’ll go back to the hotel right now.”

“No, home. I need to go home.” He was pale but more composed.

Cerise knew from his determined expression not to contradict him. “We will go home, Drace. I promise. But we have to go to the hotel first so I can book a flight, okay?”

Drace came to total awareness and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

Cerise moved her hand from his arm and took his hand. “ Are you
alright now?”

Drace took one last look at the battlefield and another tremor ran through him. “I doubt I’ll ever be alright again,” he said. He put his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker, pulled it closer around him, and walked away.