Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03]

by The Sword Maiden

  "Are those the weapons?" she asked, looking past him toward the pile of steel that glittered in the low light.

  "Some of them," he answered. He reached above her head to grasp the horn handle of the great bellows, its huge leather casing braced behind the stone structure of the forge. Pausing, arm high, he looked down at her. He could not pull the handle without asking her to move, yet he did not want her to leave.

  "Well, then." She glanced along his arm to his hand. "I suppose I must go."

  "Congratulations to you," he said stiffly. "I hear you will be married soon."

  She shrugged, her cheeks rosy in the forge light. "My father says I have had much freedom, but it is time for me to marry. He has made a decision for the good of Clan Arthur."

  "How does that sit with you, my friend?" he asked quietly. "You always liked your independence and never let others tell you what to do." He smiled a little.

  "I understand my duties as a MacArthur daughter." Her blush deepened. "I love my father and my kinsmen. And our clan faces troubled times, with the king displeased with most of the Highland chiefs. If my marriage brings favor to my clan, I must do this."

  "Ah," he said, gripping the bellows handle just above her head.

  "I see I am keeping you from your work. Farewell, Lachlann. I hope to see you again before you leave. If not..." Her gaze met his. "I wish you blessings on your journey."

  "Blessings," he murmured, "Eva."

  She watched him, seemed to melt toward him slightly. In her uplifted gaze he saw trust, saw a clear sincerity. The air between them pulsed with the invisible heat of the forge. He felt himself incline toward her, drawn to her, as if he could not stop.

  Never again would he stand alone with her like this, he thought. Never again would there be this peace and accord between them. He knew he could not love her, but yet it existed, untapped and deep, within him.

  Just once, he wanted to savor its purity.

  He leaned down, blood surging, grip tight on the bellows handle, and he touched his lips to hers.

  Her mouth was pliant, warm, and as soft as he had known it would be. He sighed, and she did too, leaning into him and resting her hand upon his chest.

  The kiss scarcely ended before it was somehow renewed, tentative but exquisite. What spun through him had force enough to buckle his knees. He stood strong despite it, stood still, hand lifted, heart thundering. Honeyed fire, brilliant and sweet, poured through him. With his free hand, he took her by the waist and drew her closer to kiss her again. She uttered a quiet little cry, joyful and astonished.

  Water to flame, that sound. She trusted him, and one day he might destroy her life. This instant of joy would soon become a bitter memory for both of them. He released her.

  "Farewell, Eva my friend," he murmured. He ought to apologize, but he could not regret that simple, stirring kiss, which would never happen again. Her eyes sparkled, her breath was quick; he thought she did not mind the kiss.

  "Was that... a token of friendship?" she asked.

  "If you like," he whispered. He smiled with deliberate casualness. If he dared reveal what he truly felt, his very soul would be laid open to her. He could not let that happen. "Thank you for a sweet token."

  She nodded, and glanced at his raised arm. "You must finish your work." She stepped back.

  He pulled the handle down, and a long, low sigh of air fed the fire in the forge bed. The flames grew, flickering like hot gold. When Lachlann looked up, Eva stood in the doorway. Using the tongs, he lifted the length of steel from the fiery bed of charcoal. The metal glowed pale yellow.

  She lingered, then left. He did not glance up, but knew she was gone. Felt it, somehow. As he gave his attention to the work, his hands, always steady and strong, trembled a bit.

  Hot new steel gleamed as he tipped the raw blade into the fire and watched yellow flow into a deep brown. The dirk would be strong and true when it was done, as fine as any weapon made in this smithy when his foster father was alive.

  Once again he would work late into the night, he thought. The subtle, beautiful color changes that told the state of the metal were brightest in the darkness, and he still had much to do now that he worked alone. He had become a master smith while still a lanky youth; he could handle the commissions easily. But he missed Finlay's wry wit, generous guidance, and companionship, both in the smithy and at home.

  He glanced at the pile of weapons in the corner, work already paid for in part; some of those pieces showed Finlay's skilled hand, and the sight tugged at him. Weaponsmithing had provided strong medicine for grief in the last weeks. Heating iron into steel, hammering it, shaping and cooling it, Lachlann could forget, for a while, all but the work itself.

  Now he had something else to forget, for his heated blood still pounded. Yet he knew that he would never give up the tender memory of kissing Eva.

  Once, when life had been peaceful and the future a reliable thing, he had planned to craft fine swords in his own forge one day—he even dared to dream of a fine wife, a chief's daughter. But Finlay had grown ill unexpectedly, and told Lachlann more than a peaceful man needed to know about revenge.

  He had also learned, in Finlay's failing words, the most carefully guarded secret of the MacKerrons, passed from one generation to another: the method of forging a faery blade.

  The shock of that day still resounded in him. Like a bloom of iron newly fetched from the fire, he had been heated and reshaped.

  As he held the length of steel in the fiery charcoal, he watched brown burst into purple. That clue told him the fire had peaked. He pulled out the blade and plunged it into a trough of warm brine. The metal sizzled and the salty quench bubbled as the brittle steel was tempered. He felt a little in need of tempering himself.

  He frowned as he worked, and sighed, bitter and slow. To Eva, he was a childhood friend, the smith's lad who shod her pony and repaired her father's weapons. But if the blacksmith's lad killed Eva's husband, as he might well do one day, she would regard him as the one who had destroyed her happiness.

  A poor choice indeed for a man's future.

  He plunged the hot blade into the fire and sprinkled white sand over it, gathered under a new moon, to add brilliance to the steel surface. The sand particles sparked and flew about like a rain of stars.

  Another secret of his craft: the gathering of the sand. His foster father had taught him to protect his knowledge—but the newest secrets in his cache had to do with the smith, not the smithing.

  Soon the weapons would be finished and he would be gone. Yet before he returned to Scotland, he must harden his heart.

  Chapter 2

  "Come with us, Eva," Margaret coaxed. "It is Beltane night, and so we are free to roam the hills and do what we will until dawn. Do not go home so soon. Come with us to the faery hill to roll bannock cakes down the slope—if the burned side or the plain side comes up, we will know if we will marry soon or not!" She tipped her golden head, pale and graceful in the dim light of the moonless evening, and smiled.

  Eva glanced past her cousin toward the group, including her two brothers, who waited beneath some trees at the edge of the lochside beach. She shook her head and looked out at the water.

  "I am not in a very festive mood," she said. "What good can rolling a bannock do me? My father has decided to promise me to Green Colin Campbell soon. Go on, Margaret, they are waiting. I will call for Alpin to ferry me back over to Innisfarna."

  Margaret sighed. "Well, if that is what you want. Besides, you already know who will wed you. I wish I knew my own true love. Perhaps I will learn it tonight—on Beltane, I might even hear it in the faery winds." She smiled again, prettily.

  "Colin Campbell is hardly my true love. He just wants my island," Eva muttered. She glanced toward Innisfarna, where light twinkled in the island castle in the center of the loch. "But my father insists his influence will benefit our clan."

  "If it were me, I would marry Green Colin. He has the king's favor, and likes you well. He even
gave you a puppy from one of his castle litters. Marriage with him will not be unpleasant—he is rather handsome."

  Eva smiled, thinking of Grainne, the tiny gray terrier that Colin had given her the last time he visited Innisfarna. But the thought of the surly, authoritative man who had handed her the puppy made her frown. "Then you marry Green Colin," she muttered, "and I will keep the pup, for her temperament is better than his. Go on, Margaret, they are waving to you. Angus the carpenter's son is with them. I think he likes you well."

  "Angus is always the jester," Margaret said dismissively. "Oh—who are your brothers talking to? The blacksmith's lad!" she whispered. "I did hope Lachlann would come out tonight!"

  Eva felt her heart leap as she glanced again at the group beneath the trees. She saw that Lachlann, taller than the rest, had joined them. Beside him, she saw the pale form of his white deerhound, a leggy pup.

  "Perhaps I can convince Lachlann to walk out with me on the moors later," Margaret said. "Eva, do you think he likes me a bit? I think he is the most beautiful man in Argyll," she confided in a quick whisper, then giggled.

  "Soon he will be the most beautiful man in France," Eva said wryly. "He is leaving with my cousins in two days."

  "How could you understand? He is like a brother to you!"

  "Indeed," Eva murmured, understanding better than Margaret suspected. His kiss the other day, though meant as a token of friendship, had stunned her to her core. She had always regarded him as a cherished friend, but the astonishing burst of passion she had felt for him, and from him, had opened a door—and she did not know what lay on the other side of it.

  "I am sure Lachlann likes you," she assured Margaret. "How could he not? You are charming and lovely."

  "Well, with a widowed mother, I must find myself a husband. I have little dowry to bring to a marriage, though my five brothers might be able to help a man at his tasks."

  "Might help," Eva said, chuckling. "Between pranks. Go on, now. You never know what sort of good fortune you might have on a night like this. Good night to you." She gave Margaret a breezy hug and walked away, her feet in leather brogues digging slightly into the soft sand. Margaret hastened toward the others, and Eva heard them chatting near the trees. She glanced back once when she heard the deep, familiar rumble of Lachlann's laughter. But he seemed engaged in conversation with Margaret and did not look toward Eva.

  Cold and willful, the wind pushed at her as she stood near the water's edge. Under a dark new moon, only starshine reflected in the sifting sand and the loch's surface. Glancing around, she saw torchlight starring the hillsides, and she heard singing and laughter faintly on the wind. She sighed.

  On Beltane, unmarried young people walked about in groups or as couples to celebrate the coming of spring. No one wanted to walk out with her, or discover with her the joy of true love, as Margaret hoped to find for herself. Eva's betrothal to a main of her father's choosing was inevitable, and it weighed upon her mind.

  Wavelets lapped at her feet, and the dark water sparkled. Far out on the loch, Innisfarna's lights gleamed. Her island had passed from mother to daughter in a direct line for generations, roots tracing to an ancient clan, and further back, it was said, to the faeries. Eva had been ten years old when her mother's death left the island to her daughter, as tradition demanded.

  The isle, the castle, and the ancient treasure—Claidheamh Soluis, the Sword of Light said to lie beneath the island—were in her safekeeping now. The legendary sword guarded the border between the earthly and the faery realms; that magical threshold must remain in the protection of Innisfarna's lady, or disaster would befall Scotland. Eva shivered at the thought.

  She faced into the wind, her plaid shawl billowing and her dark, braided hair nearly unraveling, and cupped her hands to call out. Alpin MacDewar, her late mother's cousin and her father's old comrade-in-arms, would fetch her soon. More like an uncle to her than a servant, Alpin had guided the crossing boat for as long as Eva could remember.

  Although her father held his own properties as chief of the clan, Eva preferred her mother's island. She loved its tall stone castle and its alder trees, surrounded by loch and legends, and the kin and friends who lived in the glen.

  At Innisfarna, she felt balanced and safe. She could never live elsewhere, nor could she allow anyone to take it from her.

  The loch rushed and the wind sighed, creating a soft, urgent harmony that seemed to speak to her. Eisg, o eisg, it said; listen, oh listen. Chills ran along her arms, for that phrase was the war cry of the Mac Arthurs. For a moment she sensed a formless, ancient knowingness all around her, as if the sky were about to open like curtains to reveal something timeless and powerful. She waited, utterly still.

  Eisg, o eisg, wind and water said again. Lachh... lannn.

  She heard the name clearly, and her very soul seemed to turn like a fish inside her. Lachlannnn...

  She shook her head. Yearning conjured that name, born of her desperate wish for something wonderful, something other than the marriage her father planned for her. Or could the wind have named her true love, as Margaret said? She wanted to laugh.

  She wanted to cry.

  Hearing more chatter behind her, she turned. The others were leaving the beach at last. And Lachlann was walking over the sand toward her, alone. Her heart quickened.

  * * *

  He had come to the lochside beach to gather white sand in the darkness of a new moon for the working of steel; he had hoped for peace and privacy, even on Beltane night. But when he saw Eva there, his desire for solitude vanished as if it had never been.

  Glad that his friends had decided, finally, to depart, Lachlann approached Eva, carrying the bucket that was half full of sand and whistling softly for his dog, Solas.

  The dog ignored him, as she usually did, nosing along the beach, head down, tail wagging. He called again. Solas turned to look at him, then bounded away with undisguised delight.

  Sighing, he followed in the crazy wake of the white dog, laughing when he should have scolded her. He found a stick and tossed it up the beach for her to chase. She was fast and clever, but a willful pup yet. Despite strength and heart, she would never be a well-trained hound, for her master was leaving her. Solas would become his foster mother's hearth hound instead; Lachlann was glad that Mairi MacKerron would have a loyal guardian and companion.

  Ahead, Eva faced the dark, misted loch, water frothing about her toes. She turned to glance at him, then turned back. Noticing her cool response, Lachlann slowed, suddenly wondering what to say, what to do. He had not forgotten their surprising, exquisite leavetaking in his smithy.

  Walking on, he felt drawn toward her, as he always had been. In boyhood, he had spent long hours in the smithy, but whenever he played, Simon and Donal MacArthur were among his closest friends. Their spirited, demanding sister was often with them, and Lachlann had come to know Eva well as they ran over the hills, climbing, competing, and getting into mischief.

  He smiled, remembering how he and her brothers had lost one footrace after another to Eva. But though she was swift and determined, eventually Lachlann's legs grew so long that not even Eva could outrun him.

  One day he had realized, simply and wholly, that he loved her. He was not certain how or why it had happened, but he was aware of its strength. He had always been fond of her, had always given her his loyalty, respect, and protection. Then she bloomed into a stunning young woman, strong and willful, tender and unpredictable. And his heart had dropped through him like an apple tumbling from a tree.

  Solas whipped past him, and he whistled again, lengthening his stride over the sands. Eva turned as the dog sped by her.

  "It is a good thing that dog is white," she said. "You will never catch her in the darkness, otherwise."

  "No doubt you, Eva my friend, could run fast enough to catch her no matter what." He grinned and stopped beside her.

  "No doubt." She smiled up at him. "I thought you would walk out with the others." Her gaze seemed wide and
luminous in the starlight.

  "Beltane is not for me. I came here to collect sand for the steel. Did you call for Alpin?"

  "I did, but I do not think he heard me over the wind."

  "He is probably asleep in his little cottage on the isle. You will have to use the ram's horn that hangs on a tree on the other beach. I can walk you there if you like."

  She watched him, and he wondered what she thought, if she guessed his feelings. Fool, he told himself; he should have gone on his way. Only distance would slow the drumming of his heart and cool his blood again.

  "I do not want to keep you," she said.

  "Keep me," he said generously, then regretted such a flippant, suggestive remark. "I am not in a hurry," he amended, and began to stroll beside her.

  "The water is so black tonight," she mused, "and the fog sits like faery wings upon it. I was thinking about the legend, and the Sword of Light that lies so deep in the water."

  "Aeife's tale." He smiled. "That was always one of my favorite stories when I was a boy. The loss of that sword in the water seemed such a tragedy to me. Faery blades are hard to come by," he added wryly.

  Eva laughed. "You know how much work is involved in making a sword. And it was sometimes a custom to throw a sword into water to mark the end of a feud. I think there is a tradition that MacKerrons once crafted faery blades themselves."

  He shrugged. "Long ago, a MacKerron boy was stolen by faeries. His father searched for him for years. When he finally found the boy, he was working at a faery forge, making magical blades. They went home, and the son made a good living as a weaponsmith," he finished lightly.

  "If you knew his secret, you could make an excellent living too. Then you would not have to go to France to earn a knighthood and property."

  He glanced at the loch rather than at her, for those storm-green eyes often saw too deeply into him. "But I will go."

  She paused, and he stood beside her. "They say the Sword of Light must never be disturbed in its place of peace." She gazed at the dark water. "Do you know what will happen if Innisfarna is lost from the keeping of a woman of Aeife's line?"