Knight's Blood

by Julianne Lee

  She reached over to place a hand on his arm. “Not in front of the boy, dear.”

  An amused smile tugged at his face, though he knew he was going to get an earful from her later.

  And he was right. Though that evening he tried to avoid hearing it by keeping clear of the laird’s chambers until she might be asleep, she sought him out and eventually found him on the quay outside the lower bailey, staring out over the heaving seas as the sun set over the western hills of his island. To the southwest, just over the horizon, lay Cruachan, whose name he now carried as earl.

  He wondered what the place might be like. Donnchadh and Alasdair Ruadh had called it a “wilderness,” and there were plenty of those around in these times when the English, Irish, and Scottish populations were still very small. And they would be even sparser once the coming plagues of this century were done with them. On the mainland of Scotland were still wolves and bears, and hunting was a good livelihood. He wondered how the people on Cruachan lived, or if they might be like the strange folks one often found in pockets in mountainous regions. Like American hillbillies who had lived secluded from cultural, and often technological, influence. It was an idle musing, for he would find out in a few days whether the MacDonalds of Cruachan were wild men or civilized.

  A voice came from behind. Lindsay’s, and it startled him. “I must admit there’s a raw sort of beauty about this place one doesn’t find in England.”

  He turned to find her bundled in a traveling cloak, hugging herself against the late evening chill, bits of hair loosed from her headdress drifting about her face in a blustenng wind off the water. Her beauty made him smile, and he considered that any place might be specially graced if she were in it. “Out in California I’ve seen two-thousand-year-old trees as big around as a house and so tall I couldn’t see the top. I’ve seen mountainscapes and deserts that would take your breath away. Certain American scenery can make Scotland look positively ordinary.” He turned to nod toward the purple sky where the sun had just disappeared beyond cliffs and rocky surf. “I’ve been pretty much everywhere, but this place is me. It’s where my soul belongs. It’s who I am and what I’m made of.”

  “Race memory?”

  He shrugged. “Could be. Or destiny. You believe in a higher power; right now I think I could, too, if I tried.”

  “A higher power that took my baby away from me? He did that so you could return to your castle?”

  Alex sighed, and went to put an arm around her shoulders and kiss her cheek. “Yeah, I hate it, too. Those blasted faeries...” He let that hang, and there was silence.

  Then Lindsay spoke. “I came to talk about the fishermen.”

  “It’s settled, hon. Don’t give me grief about this. It has to be this way. I’ve got to weigh a week’s fishing against the certainty of losing men if there’s an uprising like we had before.”

  “Donnchadh was telling the truth about that old woman. She’s likely to die if there is a hard winter. I talk to the villagers sometimes when they come to do odd jobs or sell things in the castle. They don’t like to open up, particularly to the upper classes, and so it’s often a bit dodgy to get any real information. One must be gentle and persistent, and it helps not to be the one threatening folks with hanging.” Alex grunted at that, and she continued. “What Donnchadh neglected to tell you, probably because he didn’t think you would be moved by it, is that the woman is highly thought of within the village and her loss would be considered an enormous tragedy. Furthermore, I would tend to agree with that. She’s very old and at best has a very few years left to her, but her knowledge of the natural world is quite extensive and she teaches it. Medicine, home craft, animal husbandry, things like that. She bore twelve children, seven of whom grew to adulthood, and currently living and still residing in the village are two sons, nine grandsons, three granddaughters, and forty-seven great-grandchildren. With one on the way.”

  “I didn’t make this decision because I thought the woman was worthless. I don’t. I believe she’ll live, and nobody will suffer for the lack of a few fish.”

  “I know you do. But the villagers do not. They’re afraid. And there is something else you may or may not realize. Her descendants are also well thought of. Everybody hopes the new child will be a boy, because the sons stay within the clan and the daughters tend to marry away. The men are very brave and eager to fight well when they believe in the cause.” She leaned toward him. “I don’t need to point out to you the importance of their faith in their laird.”

  Alex considered that information. Keeping the vassals happy was a more important task than the history books would one day have it. To ignore the condition of so important a villager might come back to him in ways he couldn’t foresee. And one he could foresee involved the loyalty of this woman’s grandsons when they would be asked to defend his claim on Cruachan. “I see.”

  “Were you to remove your guards from the fishing boats and allow them to sail, nobody would think you weak or unwise. They would all recognize your compassion in this situation, and your trust in the fishermen who are loyal to you.”

  Alex snorted. “A fantasy in practice, even if more or less true. It would only take one guy to mess me up.” Lindsay opened her mouth to protest, but he put a finger on her lips and said, “But I think there may be something I can do. We’ll step up the loading of the boats tomorrow and leave as quickly as possible. I’ll tell the villagers to get their fifty guys together, and we’ll leave tomorrow night instead of next week. No dilly-dallying.”

  Lindsay nodded. “That should do the trick, if you can make the preparations quickly.”

  “If we get the stuff on the boats as is, then we can take over that tower Donnchadh mentioned and make our preparations there. The men are in good shape and ready to fight; we might be able to drill on Cruachan before anything happens. Many of the horses aren’t in such great fitness, but we can limit ourselves to only the better ones for this trip.”

  Lindsay smiled. “See, it’ll work out — “

  “Oh, look, it’s the parental units.”

  Alex and Lindsay turned to find Trefor standing on the quay behind them. Alex glanced back out over the surf breaking against the stone below and decided he should rethink letting himself be found alone in a place where he couldn’t hear approaching footsteps. Lindsay huddled tighter into her cloak and stared at her feet. Alex said to Trefor, “Need something?”

  “I came to tell you you’re going to kill that old lady.”

  “No, I’m not. I’ve figured out a way to let the boats go out tomorrow night. Anything else you want to gripe about?”

  Trefor was nonplussed, but then said, “I’d like to talk to my mother, then, if I may.”

  “No.”

  Trefor addressed Lindsay. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  She said nothing, and Alex wished she would. It would be so much simpler if she’d just face Trefor and have done with it. But he couldn’t force her. Forcing her would do about as much good as trying to get toothpaste back into a tube. It would make a mess and accomplish nothing. But Trefor either wasn’t aware of that or didn’t care. “Mom — “

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “You are my mother.” Not pleading, but angry. The rage was gathering, and it was aimed at her.

  “Stop it.” Her body was tense, leaning into Alex. She was afraid of Trefor. Afraid of what he would say to her. Alex wished he would leave her alone. Her voice shook. “Please leave, Trefor.”

  “There, you’ve finally said my name.” A sharp note of bitter victory sharpened his voice.

  Alex said, “You heard her, then. She asked you to leave.”

  “Why? I don’t get it.”

  Alex didn’t get it either, but it was his place to defend Lindsay and if she wanted to approach this in her own time he would make sure she would be allowed.

  “Mom — “

  “Trefor!” Alex let go of Lindsay and took some steps toward his son. “Let it go. Just... leave her al
one for now.”

  “But why — “

  “Just go.”

  Trefor glared at him with a hatred so palpable Alex could almost smell it. And he was sorry for it. He didn’t know what he felt for the guy, but it was painful and confusing. It made him want to smack him. To just haul off and knock him sideways for making him feel so awful. He gazed back with as stern a look as he had, and he hoped Trefor would listen this time and let them alone until Lindsay could straighten out her own feelings and face him. If ever that would happen.

  Trefor glanced over at Lindsay, who still gazed down at her feet, then back at Alex. For a moment it looked as if he would try to get past Alex to speak to her, but finally he turned without a word and made his way from the quay and back up the long steps to the castle.

  Alex let some moments pass before taking Lindsay’s hand and guiding her from the quay, darkened now that the sun was quite down. They went straight to the apartments, for it was late and the sun would be back up in only a few hours. Tomorrow was going to be a hard, busy day.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lindsay felt strangely comfortable in her chain mail. Two days ago she’d gone to the servant who did all the sewing for the castle and commissioned a bra to replace the ratty elastic bandage she’d been using. The garment was not entirely like the ones to be found in the twenty-first century, but was more like armor padding in the form of a tank top. Thick and quilted, it fit snugly around her rib cage and pressed her breasts rather than thrust them high to be seen. It neither hid them nor put them on display, but held them still and protected them from harm. It took some explaining to make the sewer understand what she wanted, but he was an industrious fellow and accomplished the task in good time.

  Now she wore the thing beneath linens and silks from Alex’s wardrobe, and her Psalter tucked in between her tunic and sark. The tiny book was like a talisman she carried in hopes of gleaning whatever power it might hold. At least it might remind her of her connection to Danu, and that was something. Over Alex’s clothes she wore her own mail armor, and a surcoat of red and black bearing the stylized bald eagle element of Alex’s arms. Her shield, newly painted, bore the complete arms: bordure, compony azure and argent; gules, bald eagle displayed or; sable, a lymphad sail furled, oars in action, or. In other words, the shield had a border of blue and silver to indicate Alex’s ostensible illegitimate birth, a mythical bald eagle in gold against a red background, and below that a sailing ship in gold against a black background. The blue in the border was, of course, navy blue. To her, it seemed Alex had stopped just short of incorporating stars and stripes, and that amused her.

  She stood among the men on the boat as it approached Cruachan. The deck was crowded, for Alex’s boats were small and few. Lindsay and Alex stood at the bow of the lead boat, the men taking every available space behind them. The deck heaved beneath their feet. Donnchadh and his fifty villagers rode the boat behind, carrying pitchforks and hunting bows.

  When the knights of Eilean Aonarach had first seen Lindsay in her armor, ready to sail to Cruachan, there had been a bit of an uproar. Though those who had fought under Alex before Bannockburn recognized her as the knight they’d once known as Lindsay Pawlowski, some of them had personal objection to the idea of a woman in chain mail regardless of how well she might have proven herself in battle. The shock was compounded by very mixed reactions at finding their compatriot still alive but not nearly who they’d thought he’d been, and there was a thick feeling of betrayal in the group. Stares and grumbling made the hairs on the back of Lindsay’s head stand up. These guys seemed even less accepting of her than An Reubair’s rough men of the lower nobility. Lindsay had expected better of men pledged to her husband.

  Neither she nor Alex addressed the issue to the men, but only presented her as Alex’s wife who would be accompanying them to Cruachan. Never mind that it was plain by her armor she intended to fight. Alex left it to the men to decide how to react and made it clear they were free to take their hired swords elsewhere. None left so far. It remained to be seen whether Lindsay’s presence on the battlefield would be deemed a benefit. Again she would need to prove herself, and she wondered if there would ever come a time when her reputation would be enough for acceptance.

  Now, approaching the island, the stares quit as more important concerns took their attention. The knights under Alex’s command were no longer concerned about the moral weakness of the earl, and the earl’s wife who had apparently lost her mind, and were focused on meeting what might turn out to be obedient vassals or a wild enemy. Nobody knew which way this would go. Lindsay felt a little relieved her husband’s men had enough sense not to let their pride distract them from their job.

  Like the rest of them, Lindsay hoped the change of regime would be peaceful, though a small corner of her balked at that hope. A tiny voice in the back of her mind niggled at her that she needed to demonstrate her ability to hold her own among the men, and this would be an opportune moment for it. Her pulse thudded in her ears as the boat landed at the tiny bit of rock on which the tower stood, and like the others she scanned the high, craggy horizon for greeters.

  Alex looked out over the bow of the boat, also searching the shore for signs. Worry etched his face in ways only she would see. He’d arranged his face to be expressionless, and but for the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes and the one slightly raised eyebrow it would have been. His men could never know how he felt about anything, but she did.

  Especially Trefor wouldn’t know. He’d brought his men along in support of the earl and stood with them at a distance from Alex, where they clustered and watched the shore. Alex was ignoring him. Had been ignoring him the entire trip. It was hard to tell whether the earl was merely focused on the task at hand, or if he meant to cut Trefor dead, and thereby put him in his place. Whatever place that might be.

  Trefor made it plain it was a place he didn’t care for.

  Lindsay watched him, taking glances to the side so he wouldn’t see her staring. He seemed focused, like Alex, but he had a sullen look about him she didn’t understand. An anger she found alarming.

  It was hard to see him this way. Or any way at all, for that matter. She’d accepted this was the man her baby had become, but had no idea what that should mean to her. What had she ever been to him? What had she ever done for him that he should expect her to act like his mother? What on earth could she do for him now? What could it even matter to either of them?

  Those thoughts sank her deep enough into sadness that she had to consciously pull herself out of it, take a deep breath, and peel her mind from it. This was not the time for wallowing in emotion, and she returned her full attention to the island and the tower. The MacNeils were armed, swords at their sides, prepared in case of attack once they landed.

  The waiting keep was a fairly new structure. Tall and boxy, not like the crumbling, ancient tower in Lochmaben. and topped with a sharply crenellated battlement. It would shelter their men and horses, separating them from possible dangers, until they were ready to invade. At high tide the outcrop of rock on which it rested seemed like a tiny island, for the narrow arm that connected it to the main island was covered by a few feet of water. At low tide there would be a path from the tower to the island, rather less than the furlong Donnchadh had estimated, but still long enough to keep attackers at bay. A quay ran along the seaward side of the tower, where the boats would dispose of their cargo of men, horses, and supplies.

  Lindsay looked to the horizon again. Still no clansmen to be seen.

  Alex said, half to himself, “No welcoming committee. Not good.” Lindsay knew he was right, since at least some islanders would surely have spotted them coming by now and the lack of welcome suggested the natives were hanging back. Waiting. Alex would need to approach with caution.

  As soon as the first boat nudged up to the quay on the seaward side of the keep, guards on horseback were unloaded and deployed to the island, wading across the isthmus through waist-deep water and posting
along the shoreline in a semicircle. The rest of the unloading went quickly and without mishap, and mostly in silence, almost surreptitiously. Horses, weapons, supplies, and men filled the tower in an intense bustle and clopping of hooves on the stone floor. The earl’s men managed to unload all the animals and tack before a cry was heard from the pickets that an islander had been spotted.

  Alex’s head went up, and he listened. All the knights stopped to listen. At that moment Alex was on the second floor above the horses, supervising the allotment of sleeping space, but when the alarm shout came he broke off speaking to Henry Ellot, heard the call, then hurried up the stairs to see. Lindsay followed, and she was likewise followed by Ellot and Gregor.

  Looking across from the battlement atop the tower, there didn’t seem to be anything on the island but rocks and Alex’s pickets. Alex shaded his eyes and mumbled a wish for binoculars. The knights on guard down there were all moving toward a single spot, and Lindsay looked at that spot. There she found a cluster of men gathered along the rocky top of the nearest ridge. Hard to pick out, they were so still, but they seemed as wild as Donnchadh had characterized them. In midsummer they of course would not be burdened with heavy clothing. Lindsay had seen the way people dressed on Eilean Aonarach, where tunics were few, women went barefoot, and children often went entirely without clothing, but these men wore far less than the men she’d seen. Here there were no proper belts other than rope, no trews or tunics, few boots, and their sarks were unadorned with anything resembling plaid or surcoat. Armor would more than likely be a distant dream to them. Their pale, light linen garments revealed thin, hard, large-jointed frames, and flapped gently in the wind at knees and arms. Where the fashion for most Scots was to be clean shaven, these men wore full, bushy beards and long, unkempt hair. Lindsay had never seen anything like it, even in these times and even on Eilean Aonarach where the culture was decidedly rustic. But for all their lack of clothing, these men were armed more fully than even the knights from Eilean Aonarach. They held swords, maces, and pikes as well as farm tools such as those wielded by Alex’s vassals. The gathering bristled with armament.