Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03]

by The Sword Maiden

  Tears rose then, and she dashed them away, nodding. "I do love him," she whispered. "And now I know he loves me, too."

  "And you want to be together," he said. "As it should be. Though I think you have been together already," he added gently, and patted her shoulder. "I was young once, and I remember that sort of fire. Did you think I would lecture you for it? Ach, I kept a watch over you when you were younger, Eva girl, but now you are old enough to know what you want. And I like the fellow you love, and so do your kinsmen. Just follow your heart, and all will be well. Do not worry about Green Colin."

  She sniffled. "I want to refuse Colin, but I dread the trouble it will cause."

  "No matter what it stirs up, we want you to be happy. Your young lads will survive this and regain their rights without the help of that snake."

  "What about Ninian? I cannot desert him to Colin's care. He is happy now, thinking he will be my stepson."

  "Ninian will always have your friendship. You need not wed his father to give him that. And I will not desert the boy either. But do not let sympathy rule you. Obey your heart, and you will never regret the choices you make."

  Impulsively, she hugged him. "We must go, before the soldiers see me here, dressed like this," she said, indicating her plaid and shirt. "Thank you for the roses. I will make you a wonderful pillow stuffed with them."

  "That would only make me sneeze," he said gruffly. "If you want to thank me, use that new-sharpened sword to cut down a few soldiers and take this island into your keeping. I have trained a new Aeife, and I think she is ready."

  Eva was silent as they headed toward the beach, where Lachlann and Ninian waited beside the boat. She felt a vague, dark sense of dread, not only at the thought of facing Colin, but at the thought of raising her sword to him.

  Alpin handed her in, waited for the others, and took up the oars. "Make sure you get that hot bath," he said as he rowed. "My wife always said roses had healing properties. The blacksmith can help you heat the water." He grinned again.

  "Alpin," she warned him. He chortled, and Lachlann sent them a perplexed look.

  Alpin rowed hard to pull the boat out into the water. "Think of the princess Aeife," he murmured to Eva. "Remember how much she loved Innisfarna, and how she fought for it." She nodded, watching him. "And remember that Aeife had her prince. You need yours, too." He waggled his white brows.

  The boat skimmed over the wavelets toward Balnagovan, and Eva thought about the shining sword lost in those depths. She thought about Aeife and her prince, and remembered that, in her daydreams as a girl, he had always resembled Lachlann.

  Chapter 25

  Lachlann woke beside Eva, who slept like a dove, quiet and still. Rising carefully, he left the house and walked down to the smithy. After starting the fire in the forge, he took Jehanne's sword from its hiding place on the ledge.

  Flames licked bright and hot in the forge bed as he unwrapped the sword' and turned. He stretched his hand near the blaze, and the heat seared his skin, dared him to draw back. Finally he pulled away.

  Fire had destroyed her, yet he knew, in his faith and in his heart, that she was remade now without suffering, finer than she had ever been on the earth. In the profound depth of his soul, he knew she was joyous and fulfilled. Each day, he mourned her less. He was grateful for having known her and he cherished his encounter with her. Because of it, he was a stronger man than he had been.

  But his anger at the injustice done to her lingered, and a sense of guilt still darkened his heart. He had a promise to fulfill. Until it was met, he would never feel the burden lift.

  He passed his hand through the flames, feeling no burn. But he still could not touch fire to her sword. He snatched up the twig brush to rake the ashes inward and smother the flames.

  "Stop," Eva said. He turned. She stood inside the door, just closing it, her plaid draped over her head, her cheeks pink from wind and rain. She came toward him. "Please do not put the fire out, or hide that beautiful sword again. She wanted you to repair it."

  He looked at the bright, broken sword now resting on the anvil. "Eva, I cannot."

  "Lachlann, why?" she asked, looking up at him. "Why do you always deny your ability to make swords? You are a gifted bladesmith. I do not understand."

  He sighed heavily, pushed the broken blade away, and sighed again. "Here is the truth of it, then. I can no longer forge steel."

  "I do not understand," she said. "Do you lack materials?"

  "It is the eye injury," he said, touching his left brow. "I told you about the changes in my vision, and the odd lights and color shifts that I sometimes see." She nodded. "Without good eyesight, especially for colors, I cannot forge good steel. That is why I work only black iron now. Those simple color changes even I can see."

  She slipped her cool fingers into his, and he grasped her hand, feeling compassion flow from her. Her strength shored him up now, while he hurt inside for what he could not do, what he had lost in himself. Her faith in him, her very presence, eased that ache considerably. His time with Jehanne had strengthened and hardened him; but Eva's warmth and love tempered him, made him whole, made him complete again, though he had been shattered.

  Realizing that, he lifted their joined hands and touched his lips to her fingers. But he still could not do what she urged.

  She looked up, her eyes earnest and steady. "If it is the making of the steel, the watching of it, let me help you," she said. "I can help you."

  He shook his head. "You have made a few hooks, Eva, and seen me make a chain and some other things. You do not know what is involved in the making of steel—"

  "What I know," she interrupted, stepping so close that she angled her head and he could feel the warmth of her breasts, "is that you must do this. You are a bladesmith in your heart, Lachlann, more than an ironsmith. You will never be truly happy until you work white metal again. You were born to that. It is part of you—as I am part of you, and you of me, now."

  He tilted his head until the shadows shifted and the sparkles appeared around her like faery stars. "I can no longer see the true colors of the steel. My blades would be faulty, and a flawed blade is a hazard to its owner. How can I give such a blade to any of your kinsmen?"

  She looked up at him. "Let me be your eyes."

  As he watched her, the rain began again, thrumming on the planked roof of the smithy, gusting against the walls. And he thought, suddenly, how Eva was like a flame, strong and true. He closed his eyes, and the tiny stars faded.

  "I would be your eyes," she said, while he stood in the darkness of his own making. "I can help you tell the colors, one from the other. Together we can make a new blade."

  He pulled her to him then, hardly able to speak for the tightness in his throat. "Be my heart instead," he said, and cupped her face in his hand, kissing her.

  Lifting her easily into his arms, feeling her arms circle lightly around his neck, he carried her across the room and laid her down on the wild, soft, deep bed of heather that she had made for him, the bed that he had dreamed of so many times, when he slept lonely in a strange place so far from home. He had ached for her then, but real fervor filled him now.

  She drew him down with her, and the gusting rain echoed the cadence of their breathing as he slid her simple gown off, as he slipped his hands into her damp curls, framing her face while he kissed her fiercely. Rain poured down while he poured out his love for her, easing the long years without her, the years before that when she had been so much a part of him, yet so unattainable.

  He touched her with awe, with reverence, for she was finely made, crafted like a miracle, smooth and perfect, warm and brilliant in his arms. In the red light of the forge and the slow heat of the room, he brimmed with passion, with the force of his own spirit, irresistibly drawn to her.

  Each kiss, each soft cry, the soothe of her fingers along his body, brought sweet, slow, inexorable rushes that heightened his own ardor. In her hands, he became hot iron, and the melding, when it came, felt like
a searing explosion of solid light, of flame. The deepening of her own passion beneath him, surrounding him, carried him to a higher, finer peak.

  Dear God, how he loved her, he thought later, and he kissed her closed eyes and thanked whatever angels had seen fit to link his soul to hers.

  * * *

  "Tell me," Eva said later, as they lay together in the heather bed, while the crimson glow of the forge bed colored the darkness. "Tell me what happened to her."

  After the incandescence of loving, when his hands had been skillful and warm, and love had spiraled through her like a bright, hot light, she lay with him in warmth and peace, and he began to talk about Jehanne at last. Eva knew that the darkness and the love enveloping them allowed him to open that protected part of himself. She listened in silence, her head upon his shoulder while he spoke.

  He crafted the tale well, his voice like black velvet, quiet and deep. Eva could imagine the girl, bright with courage, could see in her mind the armies spreading over the fields, beneath blue skies clustered with smoke. She could almost hear the cries of the men, and the girl's melodic voice lifted over all, filled with passion and verve and the true fire of the soul. Feeling Lachlann's pain, his misery, his adoration, his devotion, she brushed away the tears that pooled in her eyes.

  He told her of the day Jehanne had been captured, how the portcullis had slammed down at the city gates, separating her from her men. Betrayal and anguish marked that day, and he had taken serious injuries to head and gut as he strove to get to her and failed. His words grew halting as he described that day and the months of recovery afterward. Then he spoke of his frantic journey to Rouen to see her, shut in a tower room made into a prison. She was a waif, only a shadow of herself, by then, but the zeal was still bright in her eyes.

  "They said that the ashes and the smoke of her pyre spread over all of France," he told her. "She called for the Lord, and those watching wept, and knew they had burned a saint, not a sinner. I heard later, from men who had been there—Englishmen, those who had condemned her—that a white dove rose into the sky above the smoke of her pyre. And those men wept, too.

  "Afterward, there were enough tears in France, they said, to put out that ferocious fire, but it was too late. She was gone, and her like will never be seen again in this world. I believe she was of the angels, and she has gone back to them."

  Eva was silent and tearful while she lay in his arms, her hand upon his slow-beating heart. "And you loved her," she said.

  "I loved her," he whispered. "In my way."

  "I am glad," she said. She kissed him, her lips gentle upon the bristle of his jaw, over the scar that he had taken in defense of the angel.

  * * *

  He turned the blade in his hand once again, considering its features, its damages, as if he had never seen it before. The hilt was good, the attached blade short and angled. Two fleurs-de-lis remained of the original five along the fuller, tarnished glints of gold. A new blade could not be attached. The only way to repair it was to remake the blade entirely.

  Frowning, he traced his fingers over the hilt, pommel, and cross guard. This sad, jagged bit of steel and brass was nearly all that was left of Jehanne's extraordinary magic. Her armor was somewhere in English possession; nothing else remained.

  It was the last shining thread that connected him to her. Yet she herself had wanted him to take it, change it, remake it.

  Releasing a harsh breath, he knew that he was done with doubt, with mourning, with holding himself back. He had always been a man of directness and action, a man who kept his secrets close and relied on his own considerable strength, physical and mental. He must call upon that fortitude now, and let grief and heartaches fall away.

  Eva had offered her help, and suddenly he knew he could accept it. He wanted her to be part of the sword's rebirth.

  He turned the blade, watched light flow along its surfaces. What he owed Jehanne, he realized then, was not the preservation and concealment of this tragic, broken reflection of her life. What he owed her was a rekindling of its beauty and its power. Jehanne would have wanted that, he was sure.

  He could continue to grieve for her, or he could cast that aside, find his courage, and honor her memory with a perfect sword. There had been no way to do that in the field, or in the short time left to her. He must do it now, or he would never lose the haunting sense that he had failed her.

  Taking up a small, sharp-edged chisel, he pried loose the top rivet that held the pommel in place. When it came away, he slid the pommel sphere free, then the hollow tube of the hilt—wood wrapped with brass wire and leather—and loosened the cross guard. He slid each piece off the tang, the rough steel extension of the blade hidden inside the hilt pieces. The bare tang, its unpolished steel merged with the angled, shining bit of blade, gave the sword a skeletal pathos.

  Cradling the naked sword remnant, turning it, he considered how best to begin.

  Chapter 26

  "Two thousand nails?" Eva asked, incredulous. "In one day?"

  Lachlann chuckled as he worked, and she smiled. He looked beautiful to her, powerful, as the golden-red light of the forge slipped fluidly over his face and bare chest. His compelling strength made her think of his hard-wrought body pressed against hers. Such thoughts had distracted her ever since she had entered the dim, firelit smithy out of a cold rain. Smiling again, she looked into his penetrating blue eyes.

  "Easily two thousand," he confirmed. "I have already made hundreds of them since I began this morning. It is a simple process—heating the rods, drawing them out, slicing the hot iron and so on. You could do it, if you like." He worked without stopping as he spoke, slicing hot iron into pieces as if he were cutting chunks of butter, using hammer and tongs and laying the heated rods over the upended chisel in the anvil.

  "I could cut some, but not at that pace." She watched him remove another hot iron rod from the fire and slide still another one into place. He spun toward the anvil, tapping the bright red iron with a hammer, thinning it out and slicing it rapidly on the upended chisel edge. Scraping the nails from the anvil into a bucket of water, he turned back to the forge, tongs in hand, to take up the next rod, fiercely red by now.

  "The trick of this task is in the rhythm." Sparks flew as he sliced more nails and used the hammer to sweep them, sizzling and steaming, into the bucket.

  "I am happy to watch," she said. She was fascinated by his skill and deftness, but she also loved the luminous colors in the hot iron and bright sparks, crimson, red-gold, pale yellow.

  And Lachlann himself was earthy and potent and magnificent. Sinewy muscles flexed beneath gleaming skin, slicked by sweat and firelight, and fine black hair dusted his chest and taut abdomen, arrowing beneath the wrapped plaid about his waist, leading her gaze downward.

  Blushing, she melted a little inside as she gazed upon him. Deeply in love with him, she also realized that she loved his body as well, adored its rock-hard, sheened beauty, craved his strong and willing embraces, his tender kisses. Surprised by the boldly sensual delight she took in watching him work, she felt the stirrings of desire again, and smiled to herself.

  In the past few days, while rain and dismal weather had cocooned them within the smithy property, Lachlann had helped her to discover a wellspring of desire within herself. When he took her into his arms and his lips and hands touched hers, his body joined to hers, passion quickened through her like spiritual fire, exquisite and transforming.

  She could not get enough of him, for she did not know how long she would be with him, or how their troubles would end. The confrontation with Colin was yet to come. Though wed to Colin, she felt no sin in loving Lachlann, for her pledge to the smith years before took precedence in her mind and her heart. Soon, she hoped, there would be an annulment—and a true marriage.

  Even a brief thought of Colin introduced a cold, black note into the enduring warmth that filled her. She sighed, wrapping her arms tight around her.

  "Feed the fire, Eva," Lachlann murmured wi
thout looking up. She drew down the bellows handle, releasing a whiff of air, and watched the flames dance and grow.

  Lachlann glanced at her and smiled. Her heart fluttered and her knees went weak. She placed a hand on the anvil to steady herself.

  "Not there," he said. She snatched her hand away, and leaned forward to watch him beat out a rhythm on the iron. Golden-red stars flew about. A few vanished, smoking, on her left arm, and she gasped and brushed at her stinging skin.

  Lachlann dropped tools and iron to grab her hand and dunk her arm into a bucket of water beside the anvil. He held her arm in the water for a few moments. "Does it still hurt?" he asked.

  She shook her head and drew her arm out of the water, but the stinging returned and she winced. Tiny pink burns showed clearly on her skin. "It is not much," she said, though it hurt.

  "You are lucky," he said. "When I was a lad, some sparks set my hair afire and Finlay shoved me headfirst into the bosh. Come here." He drew her by the hand toward a table. He took a cloth covering from a pottery bowl, and scooped butter out with two fingers. Slathering the butter over the little burns, he then took out a slice of onion and applied that to her skin.

  "This is not my midday meal," he said wryly. "I keep a little butter and onion, or some sort of ointment, here in case of burns. Even I get burned." He grinned at her.

  Eva sucked in her breath from pain, and then in amazement, for the sting diminished when she expected it to increase.

  "Better?" he asked. She nodded. Lachlann smiled, lifted her arm, and touched his lips to her inner wrist.

  "Even better," she breathed, as a dizzy spin began inside of her, and her knees wobbled. She rested a hand on his bare forearm, sleek and warm and taut under her touch. He kissed her arm again, then her inner elbow. "That—oh, that is better," she gasped. "Oh!" she said, as his lips touched her palm.