Susan King - [Celtic Nights 01]

by The Stone Maiden

  "Not a fool. A desperate girl who loves her kin. There is no shame in that. I wish that I could do what you want." He smiled sadly at her, watching her for a long moment. Then he turned to walk toward his grazing garron.

  Alainna stood on the beach while the water whispered at her heels, and watched Giric mount up and ride to join the company of knights. Sebastien le Bret reined in his ivory stallion and looked over at her, his gaze an intense flash of awareness across the meadow.

  Wanting to look away, she could not. The sky grew gray and overcast, the edge in the wind grew sharper, and she felt a few drops of chilly rain. She watched him ride past her, and hugged her arms about herself, feeling the cold.

  A storm was about to roll through her life as well, bringing powerful forces that could destroy as easily as they might renew.

  Chapter 11

  Cold dawn air invigorated Sebastien as he ran past the loch that mirrored the wide pewter sky. Frost iced blades of grass and formed delicate patterns on the rocks and pebbles on the narrow beach. He ran to the rushing sound of the water, steadying his sheathed sword with one hand, his breath misting.

  Ahead, the pillar stone thrust into the gray sky, and he followed the path through the meadow toward it. Waking before dawn was a longstanding habit that had proved true every day that he had been at Kinlochan.

  Near the pillar, the ground was flat. He dropped his cloak on the grass and unsheathed his well-balanced sword to begin the thrusts, spins, and lunges that filled his practices. He flexed his grip on the leather-wrapped hilt, hand wedged between the straight guard and the disc-shaped pommel of shining brass. He circled the stone, his footsteps sure and his swing strong.

  He did not think about his skills, nor did he strive, as he often did, to challenge the periphery of his sight. Instead, he thought about the striking beauty of this place, and its people, and he thought about the lovely girl at the center of all of it, like the brightest flame in a hearth.

  He brought no glad news to Clan Laren, but these people—with the exception of their fiery-tempered chief—had accepted him, and the news of the king's decision, with generosity, warmth and even enthusiasm. They praised him still for his prowess with the boar on the first day of his arrival, and they had showed him only their approval, although he brought the tide of change into their lives.

  He recalled the previous night, when he had sat late in the great hall with the rest of the clan and with his own knights to listen to another story told by Lome. Alainna had not been there, and Una had told him that she worked late at her carvings, as she often did. In her absence, he and Giric had translated for the knights. The Gaelic was clear enough to follow, and Lome's phrases were simple but poetic. While forming his own translations, Sebastien had felt his soul stir in response to the courage and beauty the bard described in the tale.

  Perhaps, he told himself now, as the sword whistled and sliced through the air, he had felt the effects of the uisge beatha and not the rousing of any part of his soul.

  Alainna had called his soul a wanderer in search of a home. He spun in the cold air, remembering. Although he would not have admitted it to her or to anyone, he knew she was accurate. This girl who scarcely knew him had seen the truth in him when no one else ever had, this girl whose eyes were as blue as a deep sea, whose hair was sunset bright—

  There, he thought, stopping, breathing hard, sword lowered. Their poetry had already seeped into his soul, as their heady drink had seeped into his blood.

  He frowned and shifted his shoulders, swiped the sword blade to the left, keeping the pillar stone at the edge of his vision.

  Alainna had thrown him off balance with her direct gaze and her rose-lush cheeks and lips, and with her quick grasp of his secrets. He preferred the mystery that silence and privacy had always given him. That aura had taken him far, from an orphan squire with no name to a knight of property and some renown.

  Yet she saw past his shield of silence. He found that disconcerting and exciting.

  The blade cut crisp and clean through nothing. He sank its tip into the earth, where the hilt swayed and stilled.

  He stood, breath heaving, and looked at the long, mirrored loch, the white-ringed mountains, the brightening sky. Poetry and savagery mingled in the land, in the very air here, he thought. No wonder Scotland produced bards as well as warriors.

  He passed his arm over his damp brow and walked down toward the edge of the loch to sit on a large boulder near the stony beach. He scanned the mountains and the narrow loch, noting for the first time the long, low island that jutted up from the glassy surface a good distance away.

  He opened the pouch looped at his belt, taking from it a wax tablet in a leather case, larger than his palm, and a thin, sharp bone stylus. A small drawing of a castle filled the center of the tablet. With quick, deft lines, he drew an island beneath the building, then scraped it away and redrew the base, replacing it with a rocky promontory jutting out of a high mountain.

  If he had grown to manhood in such a place, if he had been part of a caring family, part of a legacy—he added a square tower and made the surrounding wall higher—he would never give it up on a king's whim. He would fight to the death for it. If Clan Laren had had the strength to resist the grant of their lands to a Norman, he did not doubt they would have done so.

  Across the water, the wooden fortress sat solid and peaceful on its mound, a home to those who shared a name, a heritage. He, a man who lacked what these people had in abundance, would forever alter their lives and their future.

  He would ring the changes, and he would leave. He could not remain here. Once he left Scotland for Brittany, he was not sure when he would see Kinlochan or its beautiful chatelaine again.

  She would be his wife, and he knew well that he should not leave her. He had learned that bitter lesson long ago, at a high price. The ironic choice he was forced to make between the wife he had not asked for and the child he loved so much cut hard and deep into him. The dilemma seemed insurmountable. Alainna MacLaren would not take his name and leave Kinlochan for Brittany, and he could not take her name and stay at Kinlochan.

  He shook his head in utter dismay, unable to understand why the king would have demanded this of both of them. By rules of heart and honor, he should not marry her. He should not hold Kinlochan. By rules of law and king's writ, he had no choice, bound by his pledge.

  Honor was indeed a tender thing, as Una had said.

  He put the wax tablet back into his pouch and left his perch. Pulling his sword free from the ground, he sheathed it in his sword belt and picked up his cloak.

  Remembered words, spoken in a soft, lovely voice, haunted him like a litany as he walked away.

  I am weary, and I a stranger....

  * * *

  "Did you not set aside hay to winter the animals?" Heavy footsteps sounded across the wooden floorboards of the great hall, and the Breton knight's voice, sharp with impatience, echoed in the nearly deserted chamber.

  Alainna glanced up as he came toward the hearth, where she sat with Una and Morag. She lowered the distaff and spindle she held and looked up at him calmly, though her heart pounded.

  "Set hay aside? What do you mean?" she asked.

  He shoved his chain mail hood from his head and stripped off his leather gloves. He looked tired, Alainna thought, and angry, his eyes shadowed, his brown-whiskered jaw taut.

  "We have just returned after being out all day, and I now learn that there is no supply of fodder for the horses, nor for cattle," he told her. "Just sacks of oats, Niall says. Did your people not cut grass from the fields and meadows to feed the animals in the winter months?"

  Alainna glanced at Una and Morag, who blinked in silent reply and bent to their tasks of pulling tufts of dyed wool into strands and winding them around handheld spindles.

  "We have never done that," Alainna answered.

  "Why not?" he demanded. He slapped his gloves down on the table. "How do you expect to feed animals in the cold months, when
they cannot graze due to the weather?"

  "It is not a Highland custom to harvest hay."

  "Not a custom? Then it should be." He gave an exasperated sigh and shoved his fingers through his hair, a sheen of dark gold in the dim light. "What are we to feed twenty horses?" he asked, half to himself.

  "Oats and barley, as we feed ours," she said. She glanced at the other women and translated what had been said into Gaelic. "Is there enough for the Norman horses?" she asked them.

  Una shrugged, and Morag shook her head. "I doubt it," she answered, as she drew a length of blue yarn through her fingers.

  Alainna looked up at Sebastien. "If we had known you were coming," she snapped, "we would have grown more oats."

  "We have a problem, lady. Give me none of your temper."

  "Then give me none of yours! I will not be reprimanded for what was not my doing. I am sorry if Highland customs do not match Norman standards, but so be it."

  He tossed his cloak over a bench, and sat, dangling his hands from his knees. "Something must be done about it if we are to stay here."

  "Then do not stay," she retorted. She saw his mouth tense, saw a muscle jump in his jaw, watched his eyes narrow. Expecting a sharp reply, she looked away and concentrated on wrapping more strands of red wool around her distaff and spindle.

  He blew out a long breath. "Your kinsman said there is neither hay nor fodder kept anywhere, here or on the small tenant farms," he said more calmly. "What exactly is the custom in the Highlands for feeding livestock in the winter?"

  "We have but a few horses, and those we feed on oats and barley. We do not keep much cattle or sheep over the winter, but for a milk cow or two, a bull, a few sheep. The rest we either slaughter in November to smoke the meat, or we let them go."

  "You let them go? To fend for themselves like deer?"

  "Of course. What are we to feed them?"

  "Hay," he snapped. "When spring comes, you have no herds?"

  "Those that survive the winter we gather into herds again," Alainna said. "We take them to grassy pastures to feed until they are healthy. Though some of them are so weak they need to be carried," she admitted.

  "Carried?" Sebastien asked incredulously. "Cows?"

  "It is the way it is done."

  "Then it must change in the future."

  "It does not have to change. Nothing has to change but one thing—take your twenty horses and go south again."

  He stared at her. "We will find a way to feed the horses if I have to go out into the meadows and cut brown grasses myself."

  "You could," she said blithely. "Or you could go home."

  Sebastien looked away, huffing out a long breath in clear exasperation. He pounded his fist softly into his palm as if he wanted to master his temper. "What of the other animals?" he asked. "Aenghus said there are but three cattle and four sheep in the pens out there."

  "That is true," she said. "The MacNechtans took the rest. We lacked men and women to herd and protect our cattle and sheep, and so we lost them to raids, or to wolves."

  He watched her for a moment. "And you do not want things to change here," he commented wryly.

  She wound the wool, shifting the distaff and adjusting the weight of the spindle. "Some things should stay the same," she said.

  "What of food stores for your people, and mine?"

  "We have stores of oats and barley, baskets of apples, carrots, onions—" She turned to Una and Morag and translated his request into Gaelic.

  "We have food," Una said. "And barely enough for the king's champions through the winter, too, if that is what he wants to know. The king did not send fodder for his knights or his horses." She grinned at her jest. "But they can hunt and fish for additional food while they are out hunting MacNechtans."

  Sebastien sighed. "She is right, of course. We will help provide food so long as we are here."

  " And how long will that be?" Alainna asked.

  "Until my tasks are met."

  "Too long," she murmured. Her fingers fumbled, and she dropped the spindle. It rolled across the floor, spinning out a trail of red yarn. Sebastien stopped it with his booted foot. She went near him to fetch it back, bending down.

  He leaned over to pick it up as she did. Her head knocked into his with an audible thunk. Wincing, she reached out to touch his head, sure she had hurt him worse than he had hurt her.

  At the same instant, he rested his palm on her brow. "Are you hurt?" he asked, still leaning over her. The warmth of his hand was amazingly effective, and dispelled the pain almost immediately. She caressed his high, smooth brow, his hair thick and surprisingly silken to the touch.

  "I am not. I thought you were," she said.

  "Not I." He withdrew his hand, and she lowered her own a moment later. "Your head is hard," he admitted, rubbing his temple.

  "As is yours," she said, and reached for the spindle.

  "That must be the sign of a stubborn girl," he murmured.

  "Did you need a sign to tell you that?"

  He chuckled. "Not at all." He began to wind the spilled yarn into place while she held the distaff upright. "One way or another," he murmured as he worked, so low that only she could hear him, "you will have to ease some of that stubbornness, and accept that your life is going to change, Lady Alainna."

  She was silent, for she had no answer for truth. She watched his long, agile fingers handle the wool gently and deftly. A chill went through her, for she suddenly felt as if he held the thread of her very soul in his strong, capable hands.

  She snatched the tail of the yarn from him and went back to the hearth.

  * * *

  "All the hounds and warriors of the Fianna saw that fearsome boar," Lome said as the Highlanders and knights gathered later that evening to hear a tale. The timber hall was warm and slightly smoky, and the blazing hearth cast a golden glow over the faces of the listeners. Outside, sleet pelted the outer walls, and a cold draft leaked through the door.

  Sebastien felt the chill, for he sat nearer the door than the hearth. He leaned his back against the wall and listened to the tale that Lome told in a deep, rich voice. He had come to prefer this solitary bench in a shadowed side aisle for its privacy in the midst of the crowded hall.

  "The sight of him could frighten a man to his death," Lome said. "Blue-black as a thunderstorm, bristles sharp as iron, eyes red as the flames of hell. His teeth were long and yellow in his ugly black lips, and his bellow could shake a man's bones.

  "They came toward him, hounds and men, and the beast lunged, ready to slaughter and tear any who came near. As they drew closer, some of the men shrank back, and the dogs began to yelp, and more of the men hesitated, and warned the others to beware.

  "But of them all, Diarmuid, the beloved friend and nephew of Fionn MacCumhaill, Diarmuid, who betrayed his friend for love, he alone was not afraid. And he alone went forward."

  Alainna sat on a bench flanked by Robert and Hugo, with other knights seated at her feet. She translated Lome's story into English in a quiet voice, her words interweaving with his like a velvet shadow. Sebastien watched her idly, tipping his head back against the wall, turning his wooden cup in his hands.

  "...When his friend Diarmuid lay wounded and dying," Lome went on, as Alainna echoed him softly, "Fionn had a choice to make. He could save his soul-friend, or he could seek the vengeance he deserved for the wrong done to him by Diarmuid and Fionn's own wife, who had betrayed him with their love, so strong that it overstepped the honor of marriage and friendship...."

  Sebastien listened to the artful blending of the male and female voices in two languages. He studied Alainna's swan-throated profile as she spoke, noticing how the hearth's glow deepened the blue in her eyes and brought out the red-gold luster of her braids. His gaze glided over her body, traveling its lush curves and long, firm lines. Without effort, he imagined the warm, luscious skin beneath the draped woolen clothing, and he was aware that his own body stirred in response.

  He sipped the uisge beath
a in his cup. The drink flowed into him like fire and cream, and he swallowed again. Gazing at Alainna, lost in the mellifluent sound of her voice and the allure of her finely shaped body, he felt a spark ignite deep within him, subtle and powerful.

  Later, when those around him smiled and applauded and asked for more from Lome, Sebastien realized that he had been so entranced by what he saw, so caught in his own thoughts, that he had missed the end of the story.

  Chapter 12

  Alainna walked out of the morning mist like a wraith, startling Sebastien so much that he jerked backward to avoid hitting her with his extended sword as he spun around. His left elbow knocked into the pillar behind him with an audible crack.

  Breath heaving, he glared at her as he tossed the sword to the ground and rubbed his aching elbow. "Why the devil would you walk up on a man like that?"

  "Pray your pardon," Alainna said. "I thought you would see me. I came out to talk to you. Why are you out here with the Maiden? I have seen you out here before, around dawn."

  He cradled his elbow. "I prefer to practice my swording early, and alone. I might have killed you, for love of God—you came up on my left side." He paused. "My vision is not as clear on the left."

  She set a bundle on the ground and came close to him. Her hand settled easily on his arm and she kneaded his elbow with strong, capable fingers. The pain dissolved quickly.

  "Your vision is not clear because of the scar?" she asked. "How did it happen?"

  "A few years ago, when I rode escort for the duchess of Brittany," he answered. "As we traveled through a forest, we were attacked by a host of brigands. I defended the van that the ladies were in, and several rogues took me at once. I fought them off, but—" He shrugged, unwilling to describe the bloody fray that had followed. "I was fortunate to take away only this wound. Many others died that day."

  "Ach Dhia," she murmured. She reached up toward his face. Sebastien leaned away out of instinct, but her gentle fingertips found the scar and traced its length, sending shivers along his spine. "How fortunate you were not blinded."