Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03]

by The Sword Maiden

  "It is so quiet here now. I take care of the house and the animals, and I see Alpin often, though I do not go to the castle anymore. Sometimes I see Simon, or Mairi, or the priest—Father Alasdair is at the chapel only a day or two a month now; he serves four parishes since ours is so small. I see Margaret too, though her children keep her busy. There was always so much to do here... before so much changed."

  "Lives change, Eva," he murmured. "We have changed. Tell me about Margaret. She is married?"

  "She married Angus Lamont, the carpenter. They have two little ones now."

  He smiled. "I am glad for all of them."

  "You will see them soon, no doubt. They live not far from here. Otherwise, there are few left in this glen. Many MacArthurs settled here when my father married my mother, but they are gone now—thanks to the king." Her voice caught.

  He felt a swift pull like a taut thread between them, and he wanted to comfort her. But she stood and turned toward the fire. "I heard what happened, and I am sorry, Eva. Iain MacArthur deserved better."

  She nodded. "I was sad, and angry at first. Now I think I am resigned to it." In profile he could see that her eyes were glossy with tears, but her chin was set stubbornly.

  He approached her. "I lost Finlay not long before I left here. Grief has an edge that dulls with time," he said quietly.

  "My father's death was unjust, and my kinsmen have suffered, too. The edge of my grief is very sharp."

  "Eva, I am sorry I was not here for you... for all of you."

  She sucked in a breath. "My brother Donal is still imprisoned. Our only hope now is that Colin will secure his release and the clan's pardon. Colin promised he would try."

  Her anticipation of her betrothed's help felt like a dousing of icy water. Lachlann reminded himself that Eva did not need him—nor did he need her. "I am sure all of this will sort itself out in time. I wish you well of it," he said.

  She nodded. "I... we thought you were dead," she said abruptly. "My cousins said you rode with the French girl who led the army over there, but they did not know what became of you when she was captured and tried. She was burned, we heard. Yet another horrible and unjust death."

  Concern and compassion softened her gaze, but he looked away. He did not want to discuss that part of his life. "I would have sent word again had I known you and Muime thought me dead."

  "I wanted to send word to you, but did not know how. I wanted to tell you about my... father—" She gasped suddenly, and covered her mouth to suppress a sob.

  He touched her shoulder. "I am sorry," he whispered, bowing his head toward hers, aware that her hair smelled like heather flowers. He felt swamped by the urge to hold her. Even more, he wanted to kiss her, though that was not in keeping with the moment or with her grief.

  She sighed, looked up at him. "I am glad you came back safely, Lachlann. And I still remember our... leavetaking."

  He had not forgotten either, and he already struggled against the natural allure she held for him. He shook his head and smiled a little, as if in dismissal.

  "Do you mean Beltane night?" he asked. "We were younger then. Though I certainly was old enough to know better." He tried to make light of it, though he disliked doing so, with her gaze so wide and trusting upon him. "And here you are about to be wed. Best forgotten, my friend. It is late, and I am tired. Good night to you."

  Brusque and harsh, he knew, but he did not want her to fear being alone with him. He feared that enough himself.

  She stared up at him, and the glimmer in her eyes confirmed that he had hurt her. Grief and strain had made her more vulnerable, though she was still the bold girl he remembered. Turning, she crossed the room, climbed into the bed niche, and yanked the curtains shut.

  Perturbed with himself, he went into Mairi's little chamber and kicked off his boots. He fell into the springy comfort of the heather-filled mattress, which released its faint, sweet scent. Sleep came swiftly, despite his awareness that Eva lay not far away, in his own bed.

  Tomorrow, he thought, as he succumbed, he would move his belongings into the smithy.

  Chapter 8

  Before dawn, Eva woke, blurred with sleep and still wrapped in the wonder of a dream in which she had lingered in Lachlann's arms. She sat up, skimming a hand through her tousled hair, and remembered that he was home at last, and here in the house. Blushing at her dream, she slipped out of bed and dressed quickly in the shirt, woolen trews, and plaid that she wore for sword practice. She tiptoed past the sleeping dogs, who did not stir beyond the flip of a tail; they were used to her early risings.

  She peered around the partition of the fireplace to see Lachlann through the shadows. He slept deeply, his faint snores and his long, solid form beneath the coverlet somehow reassuring. She gazed at him for a long moment, then turned in haste, realizing that Alpin would be waiting.

  Tucking an oatcake into her bundle, she left extra cakes for Lachlann, covered and placed where the dogs could not get them. Then she opened the door quietly, struggling a little with the hasp bar, and stepped out into the cool, crisp air.

  Scattering feed to the chickens and the goats, she took a few minutes to milk the cow, and then led the animal to the meadow; her chores must be tended to now, for she would be out most of the day. After meeting Alpin, she intended to walk up into the hills and find Simon to tell him about the smith's return.

  She ran down the long bank to the loch, and found Alpin already waiting. In silence, she climbed into the boat and drew part of the plaid up to hide her head and shoulders. Although she was bursting inside with her news, she waited while he had rowed them to the hidden side of the island and walked with her into the shelter of the trees before she spoke quietly.

  "Last night Lachlann MacKerron arrived at Balnagovan."

  "The smith's lad?" Alpin grinned. "So he survived the French war. Good! We need a skilled smith here once again." He stood beside her, not much taller than she but solid as oak, his white hair somewhat wild, his blue eyes vivid, creased with age and sun, and narrowed in curiosity.

  "He intends to stay for a short while only. He offered to live in the smithy so I could stay in the house."

  "Ah. That one always cared about you." He winked at her.

  "He tolerated me, that is all. He is a knight and a king's man now."

  "I want to hear about his adventures in France. Your cousins said he rode with that remarkable peasant girl. Sent by God, they say she was. The French called her a savior—and the English called her a witch and burned her. A pity," he muttered, shaking his head. "From what I have heard, she was surely a bold girl with a good heart, to sacrifice so much for her people."

  Eva sighed, nodding. She looked at the castle, watchful for activity. The dawn sky brightened, and she could not stay long.

  "Lachlann will have stories to tell!" Alpin went on.

  "He seems reluctant to talk about France, or much else. I am not certain why he came back. I think he hides something."

  "That lad always kept to himself. But he is a good smith, and we need one. And Mairi MacKerron will be pleased."

  "He wants to see her when she returns from Glen Brae."

  "Tell him I will take him over the loch as soon as Mairi MacKerron is back." He paused, peering into the trees. Eva heard a rustling sound, and a thump or two, and she looked around. For a moment she was sure she saw a flash of gold and a small, faerylike visage that quickly disappeared. She blinked.

  "Someone is there!" she whispered. "I saw a face!"

  "Hmm... no one. You may have seen an otter." Alpin shrugged. "Eva, I have news too. A messenger came to Innisfarna since I saw you last. He came to the far side of the loch and called out for the ferryman—he might have stood there all day if I had not looked in that direction!" Alpin chuckled. "When he sat with the king's men, I stayed close to listen. I even served their dinner. And you know I am no servant." He sniffed.

  "I know," Eva said. "Did he bring a message from the king?"

  He frowned. "From G
reen Colin. He is in Edinburgh now."

  Her heart plummeted. "So he has finally returned."

  "He is not free to come here yet, but says he will soon."

  "Do you know if he sent word about Donal, or my clan's appeal for pardon?"

  "Nothing was mentioned of that in his message to Robson, though he inquired after you—the safety and well-being of his beloved bride, he wrote."

  Dread filled her. "If Robson sent word to Colin, I hope he told him that I left Innisfarna. Was there anything else?"

  "Apparently the Campbells in Argyll complained to King James about raids and stolen cattle at the hands of the outlawed MacArthurs." Alpin lifted a brow meaningfully.

  "Surely Colin knows my kinsmen are responsible."

  "If not, he will know quick enough. The messenger said the king will send a man to deliver a warning to the renegades, and troops will be sent to quell them with fire and sword."

  Eva gasped. Fire and sword—the brutal persecution of a clan by royal troops in order to stamp out disobedience—was rare and unforgiving punishment. "Lachlann said he has a message for Simon from the king."

  "Then he is the one who was sent." Alpin rubbed his chin. "When Colin arrives, you will be wed quick... unless you change your mind, as some think you should do," he added pointedly.

  Eva looked away. Ever since the forfeiture, her kinsmen, including Alpin and Simon, had objected to her betrothal. But she had never told them of Colin's cruel threat toward her brothers. "I cannot change my mind," she said. "I am caught."

  Alpin frowned, watching her, but she would not elaborate. Now Lachlann's arrival brought out another thread in the weave, one that was already in the design, discrete and strong. For years she had yearned for him, wondering if he would survive the war and return to her. Now he was back, but instead of seeing her dreams come true, she was trapped by her promise to Colin.

  "So Lachlann refused to tell you what he came here to do," Alpin said. "Might he lead the king's troops against our lads?"

  "I do not know." She shook her head, confused, unwilling to believe that the smith's son who had grown up among her kinfolk could betray them. Yet he was not the same man she had known before. Secrets lurked in his eyes.

  "Eva," Alpin said. "The messenger said the king may forfeit your right to Innisfarna, and grant it to a man who will champion his interests in the Highlands."

  "You mean a man who will support central government in Scotland," she said bitterly.

  "I mean Colin," Alpin said. "He will fawn for the king's favor in this matter and arrive here with the deed to the isle in his pocket. We cannot let him take this place from you."

  "I agree. At least I have a choice in that matter."

  "You do, and I am training you for it."

  "Then we should get to it." She walked over to a tree where Alpin had left the two wooden swords they normally used.

  Eva lifted her weapon, its polished oak blade gleaming in the early light. She faced Alpin, who held a matching carved, wooden practice weapon. Having advanced to the use of steel, she still preferred the wooden wasters, as they were called, for practice. Alpin had wrapped the blades with cloth to muffle the clacking sounds and keep their practices secret.

  Adopting a basic stance, she placed her right foot—her sword foot—ahead, balancing her weight between her forward and back feet, knees slightly bent. She raised the sword and waited.

  Alpin lifted his sword and brought it down in a rapid, controlled movement, which Eva expected. She swung to counter the strike. The wooden blades knocked together, and she felt the jar in her bones. Swinging again, she lunged diagonally forward and out of the path of his answering stroke, so that he missed.

  As she moved, she raised the hilt and let the wooden shaft angle downward, hanging behind her shoulder to defend her back. She resumed the guarding position and waited for Alpin's next overhead strike, then repeated the moves like a dance. She defended while he attacked; then they switched roles. All the while, she stayed alert, quick, and watchful while she and Alpin circled within the alder grove.

  The short, intense practice left her heart pumping hard and her body taut and alert. When it ended, Eva followed Alpin back to the beach and stepped into the boat. Dawn poured rose and lavender over the water as he rowed back to the mainland.

  Behind them, Innisfarna, isle and stone, glowed in the lovely light. Aeife's legend demanded that Eva fight for the isle. Now that she had some skill with a sword, she felt better prepared to demand her rights at sword point, if need be.

  The prospect frightened her, although she would never have admitted it to Alpin. He expected her to rise to the impossible example of Aeife the Radiant One.

  But she had no illusions about herself. She was no faery-bright, enchanted warrior princess. She was an ordinary girl who had some skill with a sword, temper enough to fake bravado, and no stomach at all for hurting anyone.

  She sighed, watching the calm, glassy water, and wondered if Aeife and her prince had been real, in ages past—or if Eva defended only a tale, as lovely and empty as the mist.

  * * *

  Pausing on the sunlit doorstep of the smithy, Lachlann inhaled the crisp air. He glanced toward the loch, shining beneath hills carpeted in autumn golds. A night's rest had improved his eyesight somewhat—but then the sun flashed on the water, and the sparkles appeared again in his vision.

  A breeze fluttered his hair and the hem of his belted plaid. He shaded his eyes with his hand to gaze over the meadow and the hills, and wondered where Eva was. Waking late, he had found himself alone but for the dogs, and he had felt disappointed. Loneliness for her—that same longing he had resisted for years—tainted the pleasure of his first morning at home.

  Turning, he entered the smithy. The shadowed interior was as he remembered it, and he inhaled the familiar odors of iron, charcoal, and stone. His footsteps echoed on the slate floor.

  The forge sat in the shadows to one side of the room like a dormant beast, bleak and empty. He touched the cool stone, then stepped toward the huge bellows behind the chimney. His fingers left a trail in the dust and ash on the leather casing.

  The anvil, shaped of cast iron with a flat top and two beaked ends protruding like horns, stood a few feet away from the forge, anchored to a stout upright log. Tools—tongs, hammers, chisels, swages, pokers, shovels, and points—hung on racks on the walls and the forge. Others were stored in a wooden chest on a table. Inside another chest were small, essential items: nails and rivets, vials of oil for polishing, scraps of leather for wrapping hilts and making sheaths.

  A wooden tub stood near the door, stacked beside empty buckets. Leather gloves and aprons hung on pegs, and other implements were scattered on the table. Dust and soot lay thick upon most surfaces. Beneath a canvas beside the narrow back door of the smithy, a store of iron—broken pieces as well as rods and ingots—required sorting and cleaning before he could determine what materials were available for forging.

  He sighed, aware that much needed to be done before any smithing work could begin.

  He fetched the pack that he had left on the doorstep and brought it inside, closing the door. Rummaging among his few items of clothing and possessions, he withdrew a wrapped object and laid it on the anvil face. Carefully he unknotted the twine ties and peeled away the layered cloth.

  Two halves of a broken sword shone bright in the dimness. He traced his fingers over the brass pommel and leather hilt, and touched the second piece, the separate remnant of the blade. The first time he had seen this weapon, it had gleamed like molten gold reflecting a sunset sky in France. A girl who shone with courage had gripped the hilt.

  Its design was simple but elegant, a single-handed hilt with a brass disc pommel and a sloping crossbar. The blade, cracked in half, was tapered, its fuller engraved with five fleurs-de-lis filled with gold. He took the worn leather hilt and turned the sword point upright.

  The gold engravings glittered. Even broken, it was a fair sword, he thought, and he f
elt privileged to have the safeguarding of it. Light caught the steel, set it afire in his hands. Brilliance rayed outward like diamond strands as he turned the blade.

  Magical swords and warrior maidens, he mused. Strangely, they seemed to be a repeating motif in his life. Sighing sadly, he wrapped the blade in its cloth again.

  Jehanne had once told him to keep the sword because one day he would know what to do with it. But he did not know, and neither heart nor reason told him.

  He did not think he could fix the break. Regardless of his flawed eyesight, he could not touch fire to the marred beauty of this particular blade.

  He tucked the cloth bundle high on a ledge and walked away.

  Chapter 9

  "We must find out what Lachlann intends to do now that he has returned," Simon said, frowning thoughtfully. Eva sat beside him, having already explained what she knew, while her brother and kinsmen listened in grim silence.

  A few of the fourteen men in Simon's band of rebels had gathered in a clearing on a wooded slope in the wild hills above Loch Fhionn. The view through the autumn leaves revealed the loch at the foot of broad mountains. Far out, Innisfarna and its castle seemed to float upon the water like a jewel.

  "He must be the king's messenger," Simon mused, frowning.

  "We cannot trust him, if so." Iain Og spoke; he was the oldest of the MacArthurs—despite his nickname, Og, "the younger"—who followed Simon. Iain was a huge man, tall and wide, though Eva noted that his bulk had lessened in the years with the rebels. He stood apart from the rest, his arms folded, brow creased beneath a shock of graying hair.

  "You do not know the man, Iain Og," her cousin Parian said. Margaret's eldest brother, like his younger brothers, was brown-haired and lean; with his siblings, he shared finely made features that suited their blond sister better than five young men. "Lachlann was trustworthy before. Why would he change?"

  "Eva says he seems different now," Simon reminded them.

  "We must be careful not to trust him too quickly."