Fibh harrumphed. “Jesu, if we sent along everyone with some deficit to the nunnery or even a monastery, we’d no have anyone left here.” He glanced at Tamsin, shoving bits of herring into his mouth, so much of it seeming to miss, dropping back onto his trencher. “We’d send you off first, lad.”
General laughter ensued while Tamsin looked around as if he’d missed something. They talked then of the stores set up for winter, with the Kincaid showing a slight concern for the amount of grains they’d amassed, while hoping for a mild winter, and Torren reminding him that if needed, the sea had often provided when the land did not.
“What are you smiling about, lass?” Asked Gregor then, which had all eyes at the table turned toward Anice.
Glancing about, she ducked her head a bit, embarrassed, and shook off his query.
“Aye, now, you have to tell us,” said Fibh. “That’s a mighty pleased grin you got there.”
“Out with it, sister,” encouraged Kinnon, wagging his brows.
“Aye, she’s all red now,” added Tamsin. “Something shocking, sister?”
“Sister’ll no be having shocking thoughts,” insisted Sim.
Anice laughed at all their conjecture. “First, I’ll be telling you that you will all have new names as Torren did if you dinna stop calling me sister.” They laughed at her imitation of their thicker language. She glanced around at them, grinning still. “I was just thinking I am very happy to be here.” Her gaze found Gregor and her eyes softened. “I’m glad I was put into the stocks that night at Jardine.” He met her gaze evenly and she thought she read pleasure in his eyes, though she was never quite sure with the Kincaid.
“But you never did tell us, sis—eh, lass—what you did to be put into the stocks.” This, from Kinnon.
Her eyes lit up. “But that’s the ironic part. Word had reached Jardine that soldiers, both English and Scottish, were very near to the abbey and we had been warned to stay close and not venture out of doors if we hadn’t need. When everyone else slept after the evening meal, I stayed awake, watching out the window, hoping for just a glimpse of the braw Scottish defenders, which I never did get to see that night. But then I was so tired, and I fell asleep during our first prayers and, well,” she said, adding a shrug, “you know the rest.”
“You dinna look so happy to see us when we did find you, though,” laughed Arik.
“But you had your long swords pointed at my face,” she reminded them, turning to Torren, bumping her shoulder against him, which moved him not at all. “Yours was the first face I saw.”
“Surprised you dinna faint away dead,” Tamsin said, laughing loudest at his own quip until Torren’s mock severe glare quieted the younger man.
“Aye, we’re happy to have you, lass,” said Torren then, looking down at her.
“Bit of sunshine in our dreary little corner of the world,” Fibh said poetically.
Kinnon reminded them, “Piss yellow sunshine.” And laughter filled the hall once more.
Anice cradled her cup in her hands and wondered if her smile might become a permanent thing. She found the Kincaid’s eyes on her once more, his expression filled with a smoldering heat that near sent a shiver down her spine.
“TORREN, WILL YOU TEACH me how to light a fire?” She asked the next morning, seated around the same table, with the same group of soldiers. She’d learned that so much of the army had gone home to their families either in the village or beyond, and that the castle itself garrisoned only about forty soldiers regularly, and these were mostly men who hadn’t wives or families who counted on them to be at home when not in service to the Kincaid.
“And why would you be needing to be lighting a fire?” Torren asked. His beefy forearms sat upon the table, while his hands worked his knife around the golden skin of an apple.
Anice picked up one of the slices from the pile Torren had cut for her from the first apple he’d carved. “The chamber I’ve been given has a hearth—”
“All the rooms have hearths,” Sim said, looking quite small seated next to Arik. His eyes, which generally showed so much lid, seemed even heavier today.
“I’ve never had a hearth in my bedchambers,” Anice said with some excitement. “I aim to have a warm fire every night.”
“Aye, lass, but you dinna need to ken that now.”
“I could start practicing.” She bit into the soft, sweet flesh of the apple, savoring the taste and texture of so beautiful a fruit.
Whatever Torren was about to say, and Anice was quite sure it would have been something to put off teaching her just yet, was lost as a commotion at the door of the hall drew their attention.
Several people entered, ones Anice had never seen before. First came a short but well-dressed man, his gray hair and beard sheared close to his head and face, the pleats and folds of his red and gold and blue plaid laid rather precisely about his narrow chest and over a tunic with puffed sleeves gathered just above his elbow before falling loosely to his wrist. From his waist and belt dangled a neat sporran of fine leather sewn with gold thread. Anice noted that his sword, encased in a sheath of engraved silver metal, was much shorter that the long swords of the Kincaid men. She assumed the shortened length was made to accommodate the man’s sparse height. His face was unremarkable—small dark eyes and narrow lips above a rounded chin—save that it sat so prettily atop the tunic’s unusual collar of fur.
“Son of a bitch,” Torren breathed next to Anice. She spared him a glance and a curious frown as she scrutinized those who’d entered the keep with this tidy and garish man. Two soldiers followed, their faces covered in so much leather as to be unrecognized, and their short stature causing Anice to wonder if all the people of this red and gold and blue tartan-ed clan were so lacking in height, or did this pretentious man only choose these men as to not overshadow himself.
“Where is the Kincaid?” The gaudy man asked the room, having stopped well inside the door, flapping his dark leather gloves upon his thigh.
Two more men, dressed more severely in all black, entered, followed by a young woman who presented herself in such a way that a person was forced to notice her ill-humors first before her great beauty, a look of disenchantment so plainly written on her face.
Stonehaven’s bailiff, Sir Alasdair, whom Anice had only seen in passing, shuffled over to the group, and made some welcome, though the words were lost to the distance from this table to the door.
Anice herself had wondered earlier where the Kincaid was, as he’d not shown for breakfast, but he came now, from the stairway, passing a glance over these arrivals, Anice noted, with no hint of a warm welcome. He turned his head and found the table at which she sat, and his eyes darkened yet more. This troubled Anice greatly as his annoyance, his very keen displeasure, was plain to see.
“Who is that?” She whispered to Torren as the Kincaid met and towered over the very small man and greeted him.
“Duncan.” Torren said, and he sounded about as happy with their coming as the Kincaid looked.
“Do we not like the Duncan?” She asked.
“Nae, lass, we dinna like the Duncan.”
Anice continued to watch, as the young woman was summoned by the short man flicking his fingers at her, without actually turning around. She stepped forward and curtsied to the Kincaid and received the bow of his head. Anice stared unabashedly at the woman, who might well be five or more years older than herself. She was the most beautiful person Anice had ever seen, which said not much, as Anice had for so long been surrounded by the sisters with their drab habits and pale skin and mostly mirthless expressions.
But this woman had Anice staring at her with her own lips parted in wonder that such a creature existed. Her long blonde hair curled against the rich dark green velvet of her dress. Berry red lips formed a perfect heart shape when she spoke. Anice stared rather enviously and for quite some time upon all that beautiful golden hair before she noted the Kincaid’s reaction to this woman. His look seemed to denote some faithful tolerance
but more, a want to be away, as his jaw sat rigid and his eyes stared at the open doorway.
Torren bent toward Anice and said in a low voice, “C’mon then, sister, let’s get you out into the sunshine.” He stood and pulled Anice to her feet and Fibh and the other’s rose as well.
Torren’s hand pushed at the small of Anice’s back, herding her toward the space between the short man’s group and the open door to the bailey, just as that Duncan man said, “Kincaid, you’ve tarried long enough, and I find my patience has been sufficiently tried—”
Anice felt herself being rushed now, Torren’s hand applying more pressure, forcing her to quicken her steps.
“—so that I must now insist that you take my daughter to wife. Or is it your plan to dishonor our longstanding contract?”
These words stopped Anice at the door, her hand on the frame. She turned backed, ignoring Torren’s guiding hand. The Kincaid’s eyes must have followed Torren bustling her out of the hall, as his gaze rested on Anice and not the man speaking to him. His eyes glinted with something dark while his nostrils flared.
Anice’s fingers tightened on the smooth wood of the door jamb. She stared at the Kincaid, while still the scent of today’s fresh apple hung about her and a charged silence gathered in the air. He returned her gaze, but she could not name the emotion that crossed his dark features.
Torren stepped in front of her and Anice lifted her eyes to his. The big man’s sorry countenance told her she’d heard correctly. He then ushered her out the door completely.
Chapter 10
The sunshine hit Anice immediately and she blamed this for her sudden blurry vision. She pushed back against Torren’s hand, once again propelling her forward. He dropped his hand when Anice asked, “Who is that woman?”
“Nathara.”
“And they are to be married?” She squinted up at him, holding her hand over her brow to keep out the sun.
The big man did not want to answer, she could see, but he nodded.
Our longstanding contract.
“Oh,” she breathed, and it all crashed into her. Her chest burned. “But he...” kissed me. “Oh.”
Torren watched, a grimace about his face, waiting...for something.
“Excuse me,” Anice said and pinched her lips together and turned in a circle, needing to be away. She glanced around the bailey but hadn’t any idea where she might find privacy enough to cry unseen. Spying the open gate, she walked in that direction, and through the tunnel and outside the castle proper. She picked up the skirts of her sheep’s piss gown and dashed down the road and the hill, ignoring people and horses and carts coming and going up and down.
At the bottom, she ducked off toward the right, circling the hill, and thus the castle, hoping to find the back of it, where she imagined there were fewer people. She walked through much taller grass around the side, and then more trees until she found a well-trod path and followed that instead, as it seemed to still angle around the back of the castle. The path turned sandy, which made sense as the sea was just beyond Stonehaven. Nevertheless, she was completely unprepared for the view that greeted her as she emerged from the path and the trees to find an amazing section of open beach. She stopped and stared, rather in awe of the fabulous blue of the water, of the sound of its low rolling waves crashing upon the shore and traveling so far up into the sand before receding quickly as another wave crashed. She turned and glanced back, finding that she’d come at an angle onto the beach, but that Stonehaven was now directly above her, to the left, atop an unscalable stone cliff. She noticed that further down the beach there stood a set of man-made concrete stairs, worn at the bottom where the water sometimes reached, she guessed, but climbing all the way to the back of the castle.
She wiped jerkily at the tears upon her cheeks and plopped down right there, many feet from the wrack line, the highest spot the water reached, as told by the stripe of debris, eel grass and shells and feathers. She hadn’t seen a beach in years, not since she was a child in Dunbar, but it still seemed natural that she should inhale great big breaths of the misted and salty air.
And then the beauty of the scenery faded as her thoughts protruded.
Betrothed.
The Kincaid was betrothed to that beautiful creature.
Nathara.
The jumble of thoughts that had chased her out of the keep crashed upon her now, all at once. Why hadn’t he told her? Why had he kissed her? Where could she go now? She did not want to remain at Stonehaven and watch him wed another.
She buried her face in her hands as more tears fell until sounds rose above the steady roar of the waves. Anice glanced around and saw a small fishing boat coming onto the shore. Someone within the boat waved to her, but they were too far yet for her to see who came.
She used her sleeve now to swipe at her tears and waited for the boat to come closer. Two men leapt into the water, which rose to about their thighs, and guided the boat fully onto the shore, giving it a great shove into the sand.
Two more men hopped out then, and Anice recognized Kinnon as he came closer. She watched as he picked up the thick rope hung at the bow and waited until a short barrel was lifted out of the boat before he lifted the rope, and the boat, out of the sand and dragged it behind him toward Anice. Two other men each put a hand at either side of the barrel, lifted it between them and carried it up the beach.
Anice stood as they neared, wiping the sand from her bottom.
“Aye, sister,” called Kinnon, his face as pale as the sand, seeming unable to be colored by the sun, “you found the beach.”
“I did. It’s beautiful.” She tried to smile.
All four men now stood before her, and Anice peered into the barrel, to find it half filled with fish. Her eyes widened and she looked from one man to the next. Boys, actually, more of an age with Kinnon.
“This is Sister Anice,” Kinnon said and introduced Fergus and Eliot and Boyd.
“I’m happy to meet you,” she said.
“She saved the Kincaid,” Kinnon explained to his friends, his eyes squinting against the sun. “Sister, have you been crying?”
“No.” She averted her eyes with the lie, watching her one foot making lines in the sand. “Well, yes. I fell.”
Kinnon asked, “Again?”
Anice shrugged. “Is this supper?” referring to the fish.
Thus distracted, Kinnon said, “Aye, sister. And, oh, how I’d missed being out to sea.”
“I should never want to be away from here, given the choice.”
“Hang on, sister,” Kinnon said then. “We’ve got to haul this up, then we’ll visit with you.”
She nodded and sat again as the four boys left her. Kinnon towed the boat further up into the sand, very close to the cliff beneath the castle while the other three headed toward those stairs. Boyd ran ahead and dashed up the steps while Fergus and Eliot set the barrel down, this too directly beneath the castle. Boyd seemed to climb forever up those steps but finally reached the top and appeared above them. Anice saw that he lowered something affixed to an arm that swung out from the ground up there. She understood after a moment that he was lowering a large metal hook, attached to a rope, to fetch the bucket. When it reached to the ground, Eliot grabbed at the swinging rope, and once caught, attached the hook to the bucket’s handle. Boyd turned the handle of a wheeled contraption that slowly lifted the bucket off the ground and raised it higher and higher until it was almost upon that arm. They watched as Boyd then used a second shorter rope to swing the arm back toward him and bring the bucket onto solid ground near the castle.
Kinnon then walked back to Anice and sat beside her. Eliot and Fergus came running as well and crashed onto the ground, spraying sand up as they landed. Anice squeezed her eyes shut and laughed, though the sand only landed on her skirt.
“Do you fish all the time?” She asked.
“Aye,” said Eliot, moving his reddish-blond hair off his forehead. “But next year, I’ll become a soldier.”
“Me, too,” said Fergus. His face was long and lean and his eyes very green. All these young men had hair longer than Anice.
Kinnon explained, “The lads are the fishermen until they’re old enough to become soldiers proper, then the next group of lads take over the fishing. Boyd’ll be fishing for a few more years.”
“I see. Kinnon, do you prefer fishing or soldiering?”
The question seemed to surprise him, and he shrugged. “I love the fishing, sister, and the fighting... well, no as much. But I got to see other places.”
“Aye, but soldiers are respected and valued,” Fergus reminded him, using a flat beach stone with one hand to scoop sand over the other hand, completely burying it.
“As are the fishermen, I suspect,” said Anice. “Can a female be a fisherman?”
Three pairs of eyes looked up at her. Eliot shrugged and Kinnon wondered, “Are you wanting to fish, sister?”
“I’m not sure, but I do need to find an occupation for myself.”
“Aren’t you a nun, though?” Asked Eliot.
“No,” replied Anice. “I hadn’t taken my final vows.”
“She wasn’t very good at it,” Kinnon added, not mocking her, simply passing along information.
“You gonna let your hair grow then?” Asked Fergus.
“I guess I should. Or, could.” Then, she thought to ask these young men, “Are there things a female can do to earn a living?”
“Old Mary tans hides and sells ‘em down in Bathgate,” Fergus said. “My da carts ‘em down there for her.”
Eliot wondered, “Dinna you have to get married and raise bairns?”
Fergus jumped up and stared at something beyond them. Anice and Kinnon and Eliot turned to see the Kincaid striding toward them, coming from the steps, down from the keep. Kinnon and Fergus stood as well and Anice very adamantly decided she would stay seated. She turned around and faced the water, while the lads continued to await their chief.
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