The Winter Stone: One Legend, Three Enchanting Novellas

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  “After I'm gone,” she murmured. “That's what ye were goin' to say, wasn't it?” He could hear the pain in her voice. “Ye want me gone.”

  “I didn't say that.”

  “Ye didn't have to.” She turned away from him in the bed, but he could see her shoulders tense.

  “Ah, ye know 'twas never meant to be, lass.” He said it for his own benefit as much as hers. “We were never meant to be. Ye'll find a man one day, a whole man who will—”

  “Ye are a whole man,” she insisted.

  “A man who can provide for ye, protect ye, give ye a proper life.” He scowled. The thought of Alisoune with another man left a sour taste in his mouth.

  She bristled at that, turning toward him with angry, tear-filled eyes. “I built ye a brace, made ye a wood and water carrier, and designed ye a prosthesis. Do ye think I need a man to provide for me? My parents left me their spectacle trade, which I've managed on my own for the last year. I'm not exactly helpless.”

  “I meant no insult. 'Tisn't that ye can't provide for yourself. But ye shouldn't have to.” He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Ye deserve better.”

  Alisoune's throat ached from holding back sobs. Better? She wasn't going to find better.

  But she saw through his words. He pretended that her leaving was for her own good, but she knew the truth. He was only being polite to spare her feelings. He obviously didn't love her the way she loved him. And he didn't want to tell her that.

  There was nothing she could do about it. She'd tried every weapon in her arsenal. She'd transformed his cottage into a warm home. She'd created tools he could use to improve the quality of his life. She'd made him laugh. She'd even given him the gift of her body.

  But 'twas impossible to force a person to feel an emotion that didn't exist inside them. Love wasn't a hypothesis, to be proved or disproved by scientific fact, but neither was it something that could be altered by alchemy. If Lachlan didn't love her, there was nothing she could do to change that.

  She got out of bed before he could hear the sob in her chest and see the stricken tears in her eyes. Gathering her discarded clothing, she dressed quickly, trying not to think about her breaking heart.

  Even the hound knew something was awry, for he sat alert, keeping his distance and whining softly.

  She couldn't blame Lachlan...for any of it. She'd burst into his cottage, after all. She'd imposed herself upon him. It had been her idea to kiss him and, ultimately, to make love to him. She'd instigated everything. He'd only followed her lead.

  Behind her, she heard him rise from the bed and pull on his trews. She brushed a tear from her cheek with her thumb. With trembling fingers, she combed her hair into a rough semblance of order and gathered her things into her satchel.

  “Ye'll need food,” he said behind her.

  “I'm not hungry.”

  “'Tis a long journey.”

  “I'll be fine.”

  He sighed. “At least let me pack ye some oatcakes and cider.” He limped toward the cupboard.

  Then she remembered—her tools, her coin, her clothing, everything she owned was locked in her room at the Keirfield inn. She couldn't just leave them behind. She might be able to travel home to Stirling, 'Twas only six or seven miles. But without her tools and with no coin, she wouldn't survive long there.

  Her shoulders slumping, she pushed the spectacles up on her nose. She didn't want to impose any further on Lachlan. But she didn't know what else to do.

  “I hate to trouble ye,” she said quietly, “but I can't leave quite yet. All my things...”

  “They're in Keirfield?”

  She nodded.

  “I'll fetch them.”

  “Thank ye.”

  Their talk was so stilted, 'twas hard to believe that only an hour before, they'd been in bed together, locked in a lovers' embrace.

  He continued to assemble food for her as if he provisioned her for a pilgrimage.

  Campbell ambled up with his head lowered, and Alisoune scratched him behind the ears. Her eyes grew moist. She'd miss the silly hound as well.

  Once Lachlan finished packing the fare and knotting it into a great linen cloth, he threw on his shirt and doublet and began tugging on his boot.

  Determined not to cry, the most Alisoune could muster was a wee hopeful smile as she held out the prosthesis to him. “Maybe ye can try out your new leg on the way to Keirfield.”

  He paused in his labors, sighed, then resumed them. “I can't accept it.”

  “What?”

  “The leg, I can't accept it.”

  “What do ye mean, ye can't accept it?”

  “Maybe ye can save it for someone else.”

  “Someone else?” 'Twouldn't fit anyone else. Besides, 'twasn't as if one-legged men were around every corner. “But I made it for ye.”

  “I don't need it.”

  She flinched. “Ye're not even goin' to try it?” All the hours she'd spent customizing the armor—measuring the steel plate, carving the wood, adjusting the spring tension—and he was refusing it? She felt crushed.

  He hastened to assure her, “'Tis brilliant. Ye should show it to one o' those brainy scientist fellows o' yours.”

  “But why wouldn't ye...?” she choked out. “I mean, I made it for ye...to make your life better.”

  “That's just it,” he muttered under his breath as he wrenched up his boot the rest of the way. “Maybe my life shouldn't be better.”

  She blinked. “What in the name o' Pythagoras are ye talkin' about? Don't ye want to be happy?”

  “'Tisn't a matter o' what I want. 'Tis a matter...a matter o' what I deserve.”

  “What?” she said, incredulous. “Why wouldn't ye deserve to be happy?”

  He slipped the crutch under his arm. “Ye wouldn't understand.”

  “I might understand.”

  “Nae, ye can't,” he said, pulling himself up. “Ye're not a soldier.”

  She crossed her arms. “I'm not a dog either, but that doesn't stop me from knowin' what pleases Campbell.”

  “That's different.”

  “How?”

  “Damn it! Dogs are their own creatures. They only look after themselves. They don't have a...a king to fight for or...or fellow soldiers to watch over. They don't have young men entrustin' them with their lives!”

  His voice cracked, and for an instant, she thought he might break down. But he steeled his jaw and stared at the flagstones. Eventually, his eyes grew distant with memory.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was as bleak and chilling as the edge of a sharp sword. “The battle where I lost my leg, the battle at Haddon Rig, they said we won it. 'Twas a great victory for King James.” He shook his head. “Not for me. My four brothers were killed in that battle. I should have been killed as well.” He sniffed. “But nae, that would have been too easy. Better to leave me alive, lamed and worthless, to suffer.” He frowned. “My father bid me watch over them. I failed. Because o' me, all o' my brothers are dead. And I have to atone for that.”

  Alisoune swallowed hard. She didn't know what to say. To lose four brothers in one battle...

  “So ye see why I cannot accept your pros-...”

  “Prosthesis,” she breathed.

  “'Tis my penance.” He turned aside and hobbled off to fetch his cloak. “Payment for their souls.”

  Her jaw dropped. Surely he didn't believe that.

  “'Twasn't your fault they were killed,” she said, “was it?”

  “I made a vow to my father to keep them safe.”

  “A vow impossible to keep. How could ye watch o'er anyone in the chaos of a battle?”

  He punched the wall suddenly with the side of his fist, snarling in frustration. “I could have! I could have saved them. I could have clapped them in irons or...or ordered them home...or gotten them too drunk to stand. If I'd kept them from the fightin'...they'd still be alive.”

  “And they'd hate ye for keepin' them from the fightin'.”
r />   “Maybe. But they'd be alive to hate me.”

  “Ye can't blame yourself, Lachlan,” she insisted. “'Twasn't your fault. Even your brothers wouldn't condemn ye. I'm sure ye did your best to protect them. What ye're feelin'—all this guilt and sufferin' as if ye're somehow to blame... Can't ye see? 'Tis like your phantom pain. 'Tisn't real.”

  “Ye don't know that. Ye can't know that.”

  “Your penance and sufferin' is not goin' to bring them back, Lachlan, any more than wishin' for your leg will grow ye a new one.” She approached him cautiously and offered him the prosthesis again. “The best gift ye can give your brothers is to live your own life.”

  He shook his head as his eyes filled with tears. “I can't. I don't deserve a new leg.” He snatched the cloak from its peg and flung open the door. “And I sure as hell don't deserve ye.”

  With that, he set out at a limp for Keirfield, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Lachlan's sight blurred as he headed for the village. He wiped away a rogue tear that rolled down his cheek.

  Alisoune's words haunted him all the way to town. 'Twasn't your fault. How could his brothers' deaths not be his fault? He was the eldest. He was supposed to look after them.

  And yet she'd stumbled upon the truth. 'Twould have been almost impossible to keep his brothers from the fighting. The Mar lads were brave and brawny, and their father had raised them up to be warriors. Sooner or later, whether Lachlan willed it or not, they'd have taken up arms in some war or another.

  Then why did he feel so guilty? Why couldn't he accept their loss as just a casualty of war? Was it only because he hadn't been killed with them?

  Maybe Alisoune was right. Maybe all his suffering was like his phantom pain—a cruel trick of his mind.

  By the time he reached the inn in Keirfield, paid her bill, and collected her things, he decided it didn't matter if he blamed himself or not. Alisoune was leaving, taking away his only hope of happiness.

  Halfway home, his leg began to throb. Remembering how Alisoune had said that cold triggered the pain, he took the liberty of digging a few rags out of her things to stuff into the knotted knee of his trews, hoping to insulate his leg against the cold.

  It seemed to help, but 'twas still a long journey home. He didn't arrive at his cottage until well into the afternoon. And when he opened the door, the sight that met him made a hard lump form in his throat.

  Alisoune was fast asleep, curled up on the floor in front of the hearth with her arms around his hound. Campbell raised his eyes when he saw his master, but didn't lift his head, seeming to know not to disturb the lass. Lachlan smiled ruefully, wondering which of them would be more upset when she left.

  Not wishing to trouble her, he closed the door carefully behind him and quietly added a log to the fire. Then he sat on the bed with his bottle of sack, gazing down at her.

  She was so beautiful to him now. He no longer saw her as a gawky, awkward, skinny lass, but as a lovely, kind, desirable woman. His heart ached when he thought about her walking out of his cottage door and never coming back.

  For that reason perhaps, he felt in no hurry to wake her, instead letting his eyes drink their fill of her as she slept. He took several pulls of the sack, hoping to numb the pain—of his leg and his heart. And because she lay there for so long, with Campbell snoring beside her, perfectly content to let her remain there, Lachlan himself grew drowsy watching them slumber. Before he knew it, he was fast asleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I saw Mar leave town not an hour ago,” the secretary confided to Father Ninian, arching a smug brow. “I learned from the innkeeper that he paid the woman's bill and gathered her things.”

  The father tapped thoughtfully at his pursed lips. When the secretary had come to him with the tale of Mar and the spectacle-seller copulating in the snow, he'd dismissed it as the ravings of the man's overactive imagination. After all, according to Margaret's last confession, Lachlan Mar was incapable of such things.

  But now the issue with the spectacle-seller had become complicated in ways the secretary wouldn't understand.

  “'Twould be a failin' on my part were I to allow her to spread her heresy to other villages,” the father said.

  The secretary nodded. “Oh, aye.”

  That was what he claimed—that he feared she might infect other towns with her ideas. But the truth was more personal than that.

  He'd expected the furor caused by the woman's impious ravings to have died down by now. After all, he'd run her out of town, and no one had seen her in days.

  But this morn he'd overheard several of his flock still discussing her claim—the claim that that mad Prussian Copernicus had put forth about the Sun being the center of the galaxy—as if such a heretical notion might have true merit.

  And if the townspeople started questioning the nature of the universe, 'twouldn't be long before they began to question the nature of God and, more significantly, the role of priests in such a world. Father Ninian held a certain comfortable authority in Keirfield, and he couldn't afford to lose it because of a spectacle-seller...a spectacle-seller, for God's sake!

  “Why, even the woman's trade is an insult to the church,” he decided, stroking his flabby chin. “Imagine the effrontery—claimin' to correct the vision that God gave us, as if 'twas somehow less than perfect.”

  “What will ye do, Father?” the secretary asked eagerly.

  Father Ninian steepled his fingers as if in pious thought, and then sighed. “What I should have done before. God's will. Purify the heathen witch with holy fire.” He made the sign of the cross. “An example must be made of her. 'Tis up to the church to prove that science is the handmaiden o' the devil, that anyone who dares challenge the will o' God must face the flames o' purification.”

  “But how will ye fetch her? The soldier—”

  “He's a cripple,” he scoffed. “By the time he comes hoppin' to intercede, the deed will be done.”

  The secretary rubbed uncertainly at his throat. His recent unpleasant altercation with Mar had apparently left him shaken. “And the hound?”

  The priest shrugged. “Toss him breakfast—meat spiced with belladonna.”

  He didn't much care for dogs. They were often depicted as consorts of the devil. True, Mar might well starve without his hound's hunting skills. But that would be in the hands of God. The man probably should have died alongside his brothers on the battlefield anyway.

  The first thing Lachlan noticed when he woke the next morn was the cold. He opened his eyes to see that the door stood half-open.

  “Campbell,” he muttered to himself. A chill wind had slipped in like a thief, stealing all the warmth from the cottage.

  Then he sat up and saw that Alisoune was gone.

  His heart sank to the pit of his stomach. He'd known the lass was leaving. Hell, he'd sent her away himself. Still, 'twas a blow to discover she'd left with no word of farewell...and no kiss goodbye.

  They'd parted on bitter words. He wished he'd made peace with her before she left. It wouldn't change anything. She'd still be walking out of his life forever. But at least her last memory of him would be pleasant.

  With a heavy heart, he rose from the bed, using the brace that every morn from now on would remind him of Alisoune.

  He adored her, he realized. 'Twas absurd. He hardly knew her. But in a harsh and stifling world where a man was judged, not by his measure, but by an accident of warfare, Alisoune, who took him as he was, was a breath of fresh air.

  He wedged the crutch under his arm. Then he happened to glance toward the kitchen. Alisoune's satchel and the bundle of food he'd prepared for her were still there.

  His foolish heart flipped over. She hadn't left yet after all. Perhaps she'd only gone outside with Campbell. Cursing himself for having false hope—after all, she was leaving, whether 'twas now or later—he nonetheless hobbled eagerly to the door and opened it wider.

  As he squinted against the sun-bright snow, he could make out t
he dark shape of his dog several yards in front of the cottage. It looked like the deerhound was stretched out on the icy slope.

  “Campbell?” He frowned. “Campbell!”

  The hound barely lifted his head, but wouldn't come. That wasn't like him at all. Something was wrong.

  “Campbell!” he yelled, limping toward the dog as fast as he could.

  God's wounds! What had happened to his beloved hound? Had he been gored by a stag? Charged by a boar? Attacked by wolves?

  Halfway there, he could see Campbell's heaving sides and the clouds of mist he huffed out with each labored breath.

  “I'm comin', lad!” he called out. “Hold on! I'm comin'!”

  But his crutch slipped on a patch of melting snow, and it went out from under him. He fell hard on his hip, and it took him a full minute of cursing to get his limbs under him again and retrieve the crutch.

  By the time he got to Campbell, the poor beast couldn't lift his head at all. He was quaking, and his pupils were reduced to pinpoints. Beside him on the ground was a small pile of dark berries. Lachlan didn't know what they were, but his gut told him 'twas no mistake they were there. Someone had poisoned his dog.

  Biting back a snarl of anger, he patted the dog's neck and murmured, “Ye'll be fine, lad.”

  He hoped he was right. If anything happened to Campbell...

  He clenched his jaw, trying not to think about it. Nothing would happen to Campbell. He'd make sure of it.

  Yet that was what he'd thought about his brothers. He'd been certain he could keep them from harm. He'd been wrong.

  Still, he couldn't let fear make a coward of him. Choking down dread, he forced himself to reason.

  First he had to get his dog inside where 'twas warm. Fortunately, the wood carrier Alisoune had made for him would be useful for that.

  Loading the big limp hound onto it was no easy feat, but he finally managed and was able to drag Campbell back toward the cottage. All the while as he trudged through the snow, an unthinkable question teased at the edges of Lachlan's mind. Where was Alisoune?