Beyond the Highland Myst(410)

"What kind of choices?" Gwen asked, stepping into the kitchen.

"Know ye aught about bakin', Gwen?" Nell withdrew her hands from the dough.

Gwen nibbled her lip uncertainly. "Not really, but I'm game to try." Is that what Nell meant about choices? Were they going to offer her a job in the kitchen? A dismal vision of herself cooking for Drustan and his wife made her scowl.

"Ye've two fine hands and, if ye dinna mind, I could start on the lamb. Just poke 'em in there and knead. Wash up first."

Gwen washed and dried her hands before poking tentatively at the mound. Once she'd sunk her hands in it, she decided it was rather fun. Sort of like Play-Doh, which of course she'd not been allowed to have. No Silly Putty either. Her Sunday comics (neatly removed from the paper before she ever got to it) had consisted of her father's witty drawings of black holes sucking up all the Democrats who preferred to fund the environment over the Department of Defense's obscenely expensive research projects.

"That's it, lass," Nell encouraged, watching her. She skewered a large roast on a spit. "Now, do ye wish to talk about it?"

"About what?" Gwen asked uncertainly.

"What happened the night ye arrived. If ye dinna wish to, I willna pry, but I've a willin' ear and a shoulder if yer needin' it."

Gwen's hands stilled deep in the dough and she was silent a long moment, thinking. "How long have you been here, Nell?"

"Nigh on twelve years," Nell answered proudly.

"And have you ever noticed anything… er, unusual about Drustan? Or any of the MacKeltars," she added, wondering how much Nell knew. A part of her longed to confide in Nell; there was no question in her mind how loyal the housekeeper was to her men. Still, it would be safer to acquire more information before revealing any.

Nell finished basting the roast, then slid it above the fire before answering. Wiping her hands on a cloth, she regarded Gwen levelly. "Be ye meanin' their magic ways?" she said bluntly.

Magic. That was exactly what Drustan's unusual intelligence and command of cosmology would seem to a sixteenth-century woman. Heavens, it was exactly what it seemed to her. Although she knew there was a scientific theory behind his use of the stones, she couldn't begin to comprehend how he'd done it. "Yes, that's what I mean. Like the voice Drustan can use—"

"Ye've heard it?" Nell said, surprised, making a mental note to pass that tidbit on to Silvan. "The one that sounds like many voices?"

"Yes."

"He dinna use it on ye, did he?" Nell frowned.

"No. Well, once, sort of, when he asked me to leave him alone for a little while." And that other time, she thought, remembering what he'd said after they'd made love, but telling Nell about that would definitely be overdisclosing.

"I'm surprised. They're overcautious of that spell. Most often they use the healin' and protectin' spells."

Gwen gawked.

"If ye've heard Drustan use the voice, ye shouldna be too surprised. Druids have many unusual abilities." Nell let it slip casually.

Druids! The mythical alchemists and astronomers, who'd studied the sacred geometry of the ancients! They'd really existed? "I thought Druidry died out long ago."

Nell shook her head. " 'Tis what Druids wish people to believe, but nay. The MacKeltar descend from the oldest line of Druids who served the Tuatha de Danaan."

"The fairy?" Gwen squeaked, remembering that Drustan had claimed they were one and the same.

"Aye, the fae. But the fae have long gone elsewhere and now the Druids nurture the land. They tend the soil and beckon the seasons with their rituals. They honor the old ways. They scour the land after storms and heal the wee creatures harmed by the tempest. They protect the villages, and legends tell that if a grave threat should e'er come against the land, they have powers most scarce dare not whisper of."

"Oh, God," Gwen murmured, as the pieces began to slip into place. A Druid. Possessed of alchemy and sacred mathematics and magic.

There's no such thing as magic, the scientist protested.

Right, there's no such thing as time travel either, she retorted acerbically. Whatever it was, he had knowledge beyond her comprehension. Druids existed, and the man who'd taken her virginity was one.

"Tell me, lass, knowing he's a Druid, do ye still have a fondness for Drustan MacKeltar?"

Gwen nodded without hesitation.

Nell wiped her hands on her apron and propped them at her waist. "Three times now that man has been betrothed, and three times the woman has abandoned him before the formal vows. Did ye know that?"

Gwen's jaw dropped. "This is his fourth betrothal?"

"Aye," Nell said. "But'tis not because he's not a fine man," she said defensively. " 'Tis because the lasses fear him. And much though he wishes otherwise, I suspect Anya Elliott will be no different. The lass has been sheltered all her young life." Her lip curled disdainfully. "Och, but he's arranged things quite tidily this time. In the past, he handfasted first, and each of the three, after passin' time at Castle Keltar, upon overseeing or overhearing somethin' that fashed 'em, packed up and left with scarce a farewell. And as braw and rich in coin and land as that man is—well, let me tell you it's left him fair uncertain of his charms. Imagine that!"