The Swan Maiden
Page 36
Weapon smithing had proven strong medicine for grief—and for rage. Heating iron into steel, hammering it, shaping and cooling it, Lachlann was able to forget, for brief periods of time, all but the work itself.
When this lot was finished, Clan MacArthur would be well armed. Some of them would sail for France to help the French fight the English. Lachlann would go with them, for that seemed the swiftest way to his new goal. He must set aside his smithing to become a warrior and a knight. Only then could he satisfy the obligation for revenge that had been placed upon him.
Once, when life had been more peaceful and the future had seemed a reliable thing, he had hoped to become a fine bladesmith and establish his own forge one day. But Finlay had died unexpectedly, uttering in his last breaths the truth of Lachlann’s past and the name of his enemy. Those revelations had heated and reshaped him, as if he were a bloom of iron newly fetched from the fire.
He held the length of steel in the coal fire, watching the hues: pale straw, glowing red, then brown and a burst of purple. Seeing that, Lachlann knew the heat had peaked enough.
He pulled out the blade and plunged it into a trough of warm brine. The metal sizzled and the quench bubbled as the brittle steel was tempered in the salty water.
Lately he felt like a blade himself, one much in need of tempering—but the time was not right for that. His anger had hardly peaked, had scarcely begun to harden him. Waiting years to learn the full truth of his childhood, he was now trapped by his knowledge. His pursuit of vengeance would hurt the girl he loved irrevocably.
He turned the steaming blade in the brine, frowning. Surely Eva MacArthur regarded him as little more than a childhood friend. To her he was only the smith’s lad who had run with her in the hills years ago, and who now made blades for her kinsmen and repaired her pony’s shoes.
And if the blacksmith’s lad killed Eva’s husband, as he ought to do, then she would regard him as a murderer and as the one who destroyed her happiness.
A poor choice indeed for a man’s future.
He pulled the hot blade from the water, its length still steaming. Etched by the brine, the blade showed the markings of iron and steel, finely layered to make a strong and flexible weapon. The old methods that Finlay had taught him were guarded closely, understood only by a few.
He sat down at a workbench and scooped a handful of sand from a sack, pouring it slowly over the new blade to begin the careful task of polishing. He would need to collect more sand to make himself a sword blade for his journey. White sand gathered under a new moon would make the steel brilliant.
Another secret of his craft, the gathering of the materials. Like most blacksmiths, Lachlann was accustomed to keeping his knowledge private. But the newest secret in his cache had to do with the smith, not the smithing.
He rubbed a bit of leather along the slender length of the blade. No one, he was certain, not even his foster mother, suspected that he yearned for a wild-spirited, dark-haired girl who could never belong to him.
He would not stay to watch her wed the man he ought to kill. Eventually, though, he would return and see her again—and see his obligation through to its end.
Before that day arrived, he must harden his heart.
The Swan Maiden
© 2001 Susan King
ISBN: 0451202139
SIGNET
Ed♥n