Son of the Sword

by J. Ardian Lee

  He looked around, wondering what the facilities might look like. The house was only a single room with dividers that didn’t reach the ceiling. Planks sectioned off the corner where the animals lived, and a wicker sort of wall obscured the bedroom, which the women had commandeered and where they now all giggled and chattered in whispers. The five men had all slept on the dirt floor, around the hearth which was little more than a shallow hole dug in the floor beneath a gap in the thatching above. Everything lurked in shadows, for the sun didn’t make much headway through the small windows in this close, earthen hole.

  Dylan, peering through his hangover, focused on a dark corner and witnessed Ailig Og moving his bowels into a wooden pot atop a short stool, his sark bunched up and dangling between his knees. Dylan looked away. Uh uh. Not ready for that. He climbed to his feet, adjusted his kilt, and went outside to find a place to relieve himself in private.

  As he ducked out the low door, there was a voice from above. “There you are!”

  He turned, and was not surprised to see Sinann perched on the roof thatching, munching on a piece of bannock she’d torn from the loaf over the door. “Here I am,” he agreed. He looked around, wishing there were outhouses in Scotland, then found himself astonished he was wishing for outhouses instead of toilets. A porcelain bathroom with running water and toilet paper seemed like an impossible dream. He took a stroll down the slope where some trees and thick underbrush near a small creek were likely shelter.

  “I looked everywhere for you yesterday morning!” She fluttered behind him.

  “You found me. What do you want?”

  She ignored his question and continued to rant. “I’d like to know what you mean, running off like that. I looked everywhere for you. I had to ask Ranald where you’d gone, that’s how desperate I was.”

  He stopped walking and peered at her. “Where did you think I was going to go? Home?” He looked back between the white birch trunks at the peat house and decided there were enough trees between himself and it.

  She only frowned. “Ranald. You had me talking to Ranald !”

  “Relax, Tink. I’m not going anywhere you don’t send me. I—”

  Sinann grabbed his right hand and gasped, “Who did this?” A bit of pink had seeped through the bandages, but Dylan didn’t think they looked bad at all.

  He withdrew his hand. “I was in a fight. Some men attacked us and I killed one of them.”

  “You? You killed someone? Defending your family, I have nae doubt.”

  Dylan nodded.

  She beamed and fluttered off the ground, and looked like she might burst with pride. “That’s my lad. I knew ye had it in ye.” Dylan frowned. He sure hadn’t known any such thing. Sinann continued to enthuse, “Was he English? Please tell me he was English.”

  With a sigh he turned to lift his kilt and ignored the question. “You always show up when I’m not fully dressed. Why is that?”

  “Och, laddie, be assured that if I wanted to glimpse your bare thóin I would see it at my leisure.”

  Dylan laughed. “Right.”

  Sinann’s eyes narrowed and she muttered under her breath in a language Dylan didn’t recognize as Gaelic. She waved her hand, and his belt buckle slipped open.

  As he reached for it to keep his kilt from falling off, his plaid fell from his shoulder. He grabbed for it, but all the buttons on both his shirts flew from their holes, one after another. He managed to get his belt buckle secured around his kilt again, but when he tried to button his shirts the belt popped open and fell to the ground.

  By now Sinann was screaming with laughter. The entire feileadh mór followed the belt, leaving Dylan grasping his shirt fronts to keep them together as they tried to slip from his shoulders. They jumped and jerked as if someone behind were yanking them.

  “All right! You win! You’ve made your point! Stop it, it’s cold!”

  His shirts relaxed, and he shrugged them back onto his shoulders.

  He narrowed his eyes at her, and began the tedious job of putting his kilt back on. “How come you can’t do that to the English army and win some battles for these people you’re so hot to save?”

  Her eyes snapped with anger. “Be assured that if I had the power over that many men at once, every Sassunach north of the Border country would find himself without his stitches in an instant. But, alas, things just dinnae work that way and more’s the pity, for it would be entertaining in the extreme.”

  “I thought women in this century were supposed to be demure. Modest.”

  She laughed. “Women are women in any century, and I’ve lived through enough of them to know.”

  He buckled his kilt around his waist and stood. “Is that why Sarah was making goo-goo eyes at me when I left Ciorram?”

  There was a long, stiff pause, and he waited for an answer. Then she said, “Was she?”

  “Yeah. Very weird.” He draped his plaid and secured it in his belt. “A month ago she was crying her eyes out over her dead husband, and now she’s looking at me like a love-sick puppy. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  Sinann hesitated again, then said, “Why would I?”

  Dylan thought about pressing her, but changed his mind and shrugged. “Dunno. I just thought it was strange.” He settled his belt around his waist, and headed back to the MacKenzie house, leaving Sinann to follow or not follow as she chose.

  They stayed in Killilan for a week while Una and Caitrionagh visited with Deirdre. The men of the household spent their days working around the house, restacking dried peat, repairing tools and utensils, and other post-harvest activity, and in the evenings hung out by the hearth and talked. The women stayed by Deirdre’s bedside, and the baby made one brief appearance among the men to be admired. Una brought the child, who was wrapped in wool over a linen baby shirt, and relinquished him to Ailig Og.

  The men gathered around the new father, who held his newborn as if the child might slip through his arms and fall to the floor. William made a joke that Dylan didn’t understand. Sinann, hovering to see, explained he’d said what a tragedy it was the child looked like his father. Dylan chuckled, and everyone peered at him for being so slow.

  The baby was a marvel of miniaturization. Dylan had never in his life seen a person this young, and it seemed almost impossible a human so tiny could live. But there he was, breathing and making faces and everything. It was fascinating, like gazing at a work of art that was always changing. He’d always liked kids, which in his business was a good thing. The way they soaked up what he would teach was what made teaching more worthwhile than just about anything else he could do. But four years old was as young as he would allow a kid in his classes. This baby was something wholly new to him.

  Before long the child was retrieved from his father and returned to the company of his mother, and the men returned to their talk.

  Dylan had never seen a group of people who could be so quiet during the day, then open up with a flood of chatter once the work was done. He’d already learned that céilidh was what they called the informal evening gathering where there was gossip, music, and storytelling, and each evening during the visit the men had a small céilidh where there was plenty of talk and as much ale. They sat on stools before the fire, which threw dancing orange light and deep shadows against the walls.

  Sinann stayed by Dylan’s side to interpret. Only Malcolm spoke enough English to converse with Dylan, so the conversation was entirely in Gaelic. But soon Dylan was shushing Sinann with a raised hand, and attempting to speak in Gaelic himself. It was halting, but Malcolm, William, and the Alexanders were patient and even seemed pleased he was trying. They spoke a little slower than usual, and if Dylan repeated a Gaelic word Malcolm provided the English for it. Dylan still didn’t understand everything, but now he could get the gist of a conversation without giving himself a headache.

  They were talking politics tonight, their faces serious in the close, smoky air and shifting light. William, as he packed a tiny amount
of tobacco into a small pipe, defended the Queen to his Jacobite brother, pointing out that she was the daughter of James II. This was sneered at by both Ailig Og and his father-in-law, who declared that Anne’s half brother, being male and the son of James II, had the true right to the throne. William gave little shakes of his head as he lit a piece of pinewood in the fire and held it to his pipe, then crushed it out once the tobacco was smoking.

  The real trouble, Dylan gathered as he listened, was that religion had its big, fat foot in the controversy. The throne had been handed to Anne after her sister and brother-in-law, Mary II and William III, had died without children. Dylan gathered the reason for the disruption of the rules of succession after the forced abdication of James II was that Anne was Protestant while her brother James was as Catholic as his deposed father, and unwilling or unable to pretend he wasn’t. Their uncle, Charles II, had been secretly Catholic while publicly Protestant, but James wasn’t likely to pull that off. Catholic France was making a lot of noise in support of James, but because of various treaties with England wouldn’t step in with arms for an uprising to gain him the throne. Young James was screwed coming and going.

  Then the talk turned to speculation as to who would succeed Anne, since none of her seventeen children had survived.

  “Fourteen children,” said Ailig Og.

  “No, seventeen,” insisted William.

  Dylan said, “Very many. Too many.”

  The other men agreed, and let the minor issue drop. Ailig Og suggested the next monarch could be James, by simple succession, if he outlived Anne.

  Dylan said, “George of Hanover.”

  The other four men fell silent and stared at him, and he would have felt stupid if he hadn’t known he was right. Malcolm said, “George of Hanover?”

  Dylan had to revert to English, and Malcolm translated, “The Elector of Hanover. Great-grandson of James I of England, through James’s daughter, Elizabeth.”

  That brought gales of laughter, and even Malcolm smiled. William declared the idea ridiculous and Ailig Og reached over with a broad-fingered hand and patted Malcolm’s silly colonial cousin on the head. Dylan shrugged and said in Gaelic, “You will see.” All too soon.

  At the end of a week Malcolm and Dylan escorted Caitrionagh back home, leaving Lady Ciorram to return accompanied by her brother-in-law at a later date. They left at dawn to make the trip in one day.

  They arrived at Tigh a’ Mhadaidh Bhàin in the early evening, just as supper was over and the clan was gathering. The three travelers were greeted and fed, and gossip from Killilan was shared with the Ciorram Mathesons. More and more people from the glen came, and more torches and candles were lit as the room filled. Dylan ate in silence at a trestle table, listening to the Gaelic chatter, and happened to see Malcolm in a dim corner with Iain Mór, in conference. When they returned to the céilidh, Dylan was mildly surprised when the conversation quickly shifted to the fight in which he’d obtained the sword that now hung with the other men’s swords near the entrance of the Great Hall.

  The onlookers turned to him, almost as one, and demanded he tell the story. Gathered before the hearth on stools and benches, some of the men and children perched on tables, in a céilidh that included many folk from the village, the local members of Clan Matheson looked to Dylan for their evening’s entertainment.

  He shook his head. “I’m not . . . I don’t think . . .” Over Dylan’s protests, Iain Mór hauled his bulky frame from his chair by the hearth and decreed that Dylan would tell the story of how he’d saved the lives of his wife and daughter. Then he sat back in the large, wooden chair to listen, the smile on his face confident Dylan would comply. Caitrionagh smiled, and Dylan thought he saw sympathy there.

  Malcolm handed him a quaiche filled with ale. “Tell it, it’s a fine story.”

  Dylan remembered Sinann’s words: There’s no such thing as just a story. He knew his next words would become his reputation. He was stuck. He shoved his plate aside to sit atop the table and face the room. A big slug of ale from the wooden cup bolstered him and gave him some thinking time, then he cleared his throat and began in English. Malcolm interpreted in a low voice. As he spoke, Dylan relived that horrible morning and the fear and disgust crept back. His chest tightened. It took effort to keep his voice even. He found himself making light of the fight as if it had been no big deal to defeat a man wielding a broadsword while armed with a blade only three inches long. Children were wide-eyed. Sarah leaned so far from her seat to listen, he thought she might slip off her bench and fall to her knees. He downplayed the spattered blood, and ended the story by saying merely that he’d stabbed the man, who had then died. That simple.

  There was a murmur of approval, and Iain praised the brave act. Dylan’s ears warmed. He didn’t much care for all this attention he was getting for having killed someone, even if the guy had been under a death sentence for a horrible crime. Then Iain announced, “By protecting my family you have proven yourself a brave man, a Dhilein, and a Matheson for true.” He paused for a moment, thoughtful, then continued in the formal voice of a man who has decided something weighty, “Tonight you’ll leave the barracks to live in the West Tower, and you’ll be charged with the safety of my daughter.”

  There was a gasp from someone among the onlookers. Dylan looked, and thought it might have been Sarah, but her face betrayed nothing.

  Iain continued, “You’ve shown you would defend her with your life, and with a skill unimaginable. There’s no man other I would trust so well with what I hold so precious.” Artair said a single word, which Dylan didn’t understand, then muttered something to Coll. Coll said nothing in reply, but glowered under thick, white eyebrows.

  Dylan was too stunned to respond to Iain’s speech, and in any case didn’t dare show his joy at the prospect of spending his days—and nights—with Caitrionagh. He struggled for a reply.

  But Caitrionagh leapt to her feet and said in a low voice, in Gaelic that Dylan understood fully, “Father! No!” Her cheeks flamed and her eyes snapped with anger.

  The gathered Mathesons murmured again, this time in surprise. It seemed everyone had assumed she would be pleased to have such a brave and skilled fighter as Dylan for a bodyguard. Dylan’s heart sank, but he arranged his face to betray nothing.

  Iain’s voice was hard and he spoke English for Dylan’s benefit. “I’ll have nae argument from you, daughter!”

  Caitrionagh’s reply was in Gaelic, and Dylan gathered she didn’t want him for a bodyguard, but would rather have Artair or Coll. Anyone but Dylan, it would seem. The two uncles in question both smirked. Artair opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted.

  “I’ll hear naught from you, little brother,” said Iain as he stood. “Nor you, cousin,” he said to Malcolm, who hadn’t shown the least interest in speaking. Iain’s face darkened, and his already ruddy cheeks fairly burned. He turned to his daughter in great anger. “Cait . . .”

  She ran from the room, through the tower door, leaving Dylan to lean elbows on knees, stare into his ale, and wonder what he’d done to deserve this. There was a deep silence among the clan while Iain fumed and muttered. Dylan shifted his seat on the table and feigned indifference, irritated by the treatment. But even more, he was mortified someone might think he was bothered by the girl’s rejection of him.

  He took a long draw from his ale, sorted some words out in his head, then slowly strung together enough Gaelic to ask the old storyteller for a tale of long ago. That broke the mood and brought smiles to a few faces, for there was always a new story to tell or an old story to tell in a new way. The old man began to talk of a battle against Vikings, while Dylan avoided looking in the direction Caitrionagh had taken.

  That night Dylan took his newly acquired sword from the rack along the wall near the main entrance doors, and followed directions to his new quarters in the West Tower. It was about halfway up the tower, he guessed after following the stone steps up and around, where he found an alcove like the othe
rs, shaped like a lopsided wedge. But unlike the others it was furnished. A bunk stood against the wall to the right. A small hearth had been built into the other side, with stone that looked newer than the surrounding walls. An iron box filled with chunks of dried peat sat next to it, an iron poker leaned against the box, and within the hearth was a grate in which a couple of small chunks burned.

  The bunk boasted linens and a blanket on its straw mattress, and beneath was a wooden trunk bound in iron, long enough for his sword and deep enough for just about anything else he could imagine obtaining in this century. Next to the bed was a short pedestal table on which a candle stood in a shallow copper holder. Dylan lit it from the fire in the hearth, then set it back on the table. At the tip of the alcove wedge was the heavy, carved door to Caitrionagh’s room, at an odd angle to the two walls. He stared at it.

  Then he sat on the bunk and looked around. “Not big on privacy, are they?” he muttered. Anyone going up or down the spiral stairs would have a full view of the alcove, which had only two walls and no curtain. Still, it was a step up from the communal barracks where the stove was at the other end of the large room and bedclothes consisted of his own kilt. Here, at least, he had a trunk for his things, a fire to himself, and bed sheets.

  He stared at the door. Caitrionagh was just the other side of it, pissed off at him, and he had no clue why.

  He shrugged. It wasn’t his problem. He now had a job that wasn’t seasonal, and he would do it to the best of his ability. He knelt to pull the trunk from under his bed and opened it. Inside he found a broken rosary of black beads with a black crucifix trimmed with silver filigree and corpus, some candles he thought looked like beeswax, and a book of English poetry bound in leather that was cracked and flaking at the edges. He removed the crucifix from the remnants of beads and put it in his sporran, flipped through the pages of the book and set it on the table next to the candle holder, then sniffed one of the candles to confirm that they were, indeed, beeswax. Then he laid his sword and sporran inside the trunk, closed it, and shoved it back under his bunk.