Four Times the Trouble, Four Times the Charm

Nightmares, the theif and exploring the castle

          Early the next morning, Diana  woke up before the alarm went off on her phone. She turned it off before it sounded. She had had the nightmare again but this time she hadn't woken up screaming in fear. She was bathed in sweat and heated some water in the fireplace to get washed up with. As she washed, she thought about what had been different about the dream this time. Someone had called her name and it had pushed back the darkness that had threatened to swallow her up. She dried off and dressed quickly in an old pair of jeans, sweatshirt and hiking boots. She wandered down to the kitchen and made herself a breakfast of eggs, ham, toast and  lavender tea with honey. She was just finishing up when the cook came in to start the morning meal. "Goodness gracious milady, ye startled me" she said, holding her hand to her heart. "I see ye have already broken yer fast, would ye like anything else?" she asked. "No, thank you anyway. I had a bad dream and it woke me up and I couldn't fall back to sleep. I decided to come downstairs and make myself breakfast. I just didn't want to disturb anyone either" she explained. The cook noticed the scars on the younger woman's face and neck and let out a small gasp. Diana looked at her and saw the cook looking at her face and realized she had noticed her scars. Diana felt she owed the cook an explanation. "I had been engaged before and when I had called off the engagement, he did this to me, he had tried to kill me. What he had done is the reason for my nightmares. He was charged with four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death" Diana explained. The cook had sat down and listened to her story and understood her pain. "Yer a brave Lassie to have survived it and he has paid fer his crimes with his life. The nightmares should soon go away, especially living here. This place is good fer the soul and ye will feel it right enough. It has a magical was about it that helps those who need it" the cook said and placed a hand over Diana's. Diana smiled. "I hope so. When my kin wake up, tell them I'll meet them at the stables. We're going up to the castle today and are going to need a picnic basket to take with us, please?" Diana requested as she drank the last of her tea. "Aye, milady. I will have one made up fer ye as soon as the others have broken their fast too. And I will tell them where ye be at" the cook replied and smiled. Diana stood up and went to the sink to clean her dishes up before heading out. 'Aye, these lassies be so different than the last one afore the old lady returned' she thought. It had been funny to see her running from the castle in fear.

          Diana was crossing the courtyard when an eerie scream pierced the quiet air of the early morning. Suddenly Shadow burst from the stables, the whites showing around his eyes and right away Diana knew what had happened. Someone had opened his stall and he had attacked in fear. She ran in as the stableman came running over at hearing the commotion. Diana whistled for her horse and he went to her immediately. She tied him up and bother her and the stableman went to the stallion's stall. They both looked into the stall and saw a skinny, dirty man holding his bloodied, broken arm to his chest. "Are you stupid!? This sign says, 'Stay Out, Dangerous Horse!" she yelled at the man. The stableman moved closer and recognized the injured man. "By the  blessed Saints above, this man be wanted fer stealin' horses all over the countryside, he is. This time he tried stealin' the wrong horse, he did. I'll lock him up in one o' the boxstalls and ring fer the police then tend to his wounds. Ye go tend to get laddie. After I ring the police, I'll clean out his stall fer ye" the stableman said and pulled the man to his feet and locked him up in a boxstalls. Diana nodded and went back outside to calm down her nervous stallion. He put his head down and made a whuffling noise as she scratched him from his ears and his neck and down his back. He shook his body in pleasure. "You're just like a big dog the way you shake after I scratch you. "Diana said. The stableman smiled at them as he went about cleaning out the stall and giving him fresh hay and water. "He's a good laddie. Yer cousins told me about what happened to him and how you rescued him. It does me heart good to know that ye saved him from the slaughter. Most horses wind up crazy and destroyed by what had been done to them. He was young enough to be helped" the stableman said and stepped back as Diana led her horse back into his stall. She went over to the boxstalls and peered in at the man, who was pacing around and holding his arm to his chest. He seemed familiar to her but from where, she couldn't say. Had she seen him hanging around the stables in the village the day they had ridden away? Maybe her sister and cousins would remember seeing him there. She went back into the kitchen and found them eating their breakfast. "We just had an incident in the stables. Some moron ignored the sign on Shadow's stall and tried to steal him" she told them. They looked at her incredulously. Shadow's fine but I think the man's arm is severely broken for his troubles. I want  you to come down to the stables and see if you recognize him from the village" she explained. They finished their meal quickly and accompanied her to the stables. They looked into the stall. A couple of men were helping the stableman tend to the man's wound. Yeah, I remember seeing him hanging around the stable while we were there. He must have followed us back here and tried to take Shadow" Marian stated. The men had finished tending to the man's injury  and bound his hands then placed him up on the pack horse, mounted up on a couple of other horses and rode off with him. They were taking him to meet up with the police at the village. The women turned out their horses out to pasture, went back to the manor house and grabbed their equipment and the picnic basket. They only brought a minimum of equipment and would bring the rest up to the castle in a wagon tomorrow. They hiked up to the castle and entered in through what had once been the portcullis. The iron gate that had once served as protection was now a rusted, broken reminder of the past. Devon stood there and studied the remains of the gate. She had a notepad in hand and was drawing down the structure and making notes about it. "You know, we could take this one down and have a new one made out of stainless steel like the one we did for the museum exhibit" she said. Maris looked affronted at the idea. Devon had caught the look on her cousin's face and went on to explain, "The steel could be powder coated to look like the original, am I right Diana?" Diana looked over it and agreed. "It would work out for the best and it would last longer than this did. The museum  exhibit looked authentic and what was left of the original was placed in a hermetically sealed display to stop further deterioration. The powder coating will look authentic and stop the steel from rusting out like this" she said and pointed to the gate. Devon as we go through the gates and castle, make notes on needed repairs, restorations  or replacements right down to the furniture. I want to bring this place back to its former, imposing condition. Then maybe we could open it to the public and show that we care about our heritage and history. We could live here and use the Manor house as a bed and breakfast." The four women looked up at the towering edifice above them then looked at each other and smiled broadly. They continued through the portcullis and into the first Bailey. This was probably where the workshops and market place were. Some of the structures were still standing but we're in need of repairs. Devon made notes on these. They came to a narrow drawbridge which had been recently repaired. Devon wrote down: 'drawbridge, recently repaired, very narrow, why?' "There are fifty rooms and sleeping chambers and a few secret passages. Only a couple of them are accessible right now without climbing gear or lighting and safety equipment. We figured we would wait until you got here and do it the right way" Marian explained. They passed through a gate made of wood which was new so Devon made a note about it. They entered the main bailey and walked up the steps that led to the castle doors. As they climbed up the steps, the font door opened and a couple of workmen came out to greet them. They reached the top steps and the older man said, "I'm Willie and this here be me son, Joshie." The older man had grey hair and eyes that matched. The four women introduced themselves and shook the men's hands. Joshie looked around at them in wonder. "Lordy Da, these four be looking so alike" he said. His father elbowed him in the ribs. "Joshie have a care how ye speak about others. Ye never know if they be offended by what ye say" his father said. Diana smiled and said to him, "Dinna fash ye sef" in perfect Gaelic. Willie smiled brightly at her. "Good speaking, milady" he replied. "I havena gone over all the repairs needed but the great hall needs the most as of now. I will have me men back at work here in three days and we will start there" Willie said. Diana looked at him. "Please don't touch the Great Hall. We want to go over everything in there first, especially the murals and anything else that we may seem necessary. Could you have you're men work on the portcullis gate, you know the iron one at the entrance. Take it down carefully so that Devon can get the measurements. We are going to have it replaced with an exact copy and all the mechanisms for the gate and the mechanisms for the drawbridge as well. We want them copied and replaced so that everything will be functional again. The the roofing needs to be replaced. The structures in the village by the manor house and the workshops in the outer bailey need to be reconstructed. We are going to restore this place to its former glory" Diana explained. Willie's eyes grew round at hearing all this. He had always wanted to see the castle, village and grounds the way it was in those bygone days, just as the young woman said. The second to last one was too cheap and so was the couple before her. The last lady had been so old when she had returned, that it wasn't feasible to start at that time. She had told Willie that she had four great nieces that would do it as they were all Professors in ancient history especially of Scotland. Now the cost of the repairs was going to be astronomical. He had to know. "At any cost fer the repairs?" he asked. The four women laughed. "At any cost whatsoever. We are very rich women and it is our duty to our family and our history" Marian stated and Willie choked, then smiled broadly. "Bless ye lassies. The last two afore yet great auntie returned were too greedy and dinna care to use their money fer anything but themselves" he said. Devon accompanied him and Joshie outside to discuss their ideas for the gate, the drawbridge and all their mechanisms. Willie scratched his head at their ideas. He loved them but had to know. "That'll cost ye at least one hundred thousand pounds Stirling at least" he said. " That will come out to about seventy thousand dollars in U.S. currency", Devon figured out in her head and said, "No problem. That is less than I figured anyway." Willie smiled again. They set about measuring the items and drawing out the schematics for the mechanisms, chains and the gate itself. Then they went to the drawbridge and did the same there. She asked him why it was so narrow. "It be that way so that Invaders had to cross it two abreast, making it easy for archers to pick them off" he replied. Devon nodded at the sound reasoning. They headed back to the castle.