Susan King - [Celtic Nights 01]

by The Stone Maiden

  But he had done just that.

  She walked away, and the dog barked. "Come, Finan Mor," she said. "I am sorry to keep you out here. Come, now." She beckoned to him and walked ahead.

  Finan barked again, then whined. He nosed at her arm. She grabbed his collar and pulled. He set his feet into the mud and refused to go, barking again.

  Then she heard the thunder of horses' hooves, and looked up. Four riders came through the gate, one of them leading a creamy, riderless Arabian. She ran forward, alarmed, knowing Sebastien's horse, and knowing the leader. "Robert!" she called.

  He dismounted and turned. "My lady," he said, smiling. "We are back from Dunfermline." Behind him, she noted three cloaked men, one of them holding a large bundle. She nodded toward them, and hardly looked further. Sebastien was not among them.

  "Sebastien," she said to Robert. "You have his horse! Where is he?"

  "He will be here," he said simply. "May we go into the stables, and then to the hall?" He smiled as he spoke, and she looked at him, puzzled.

  "Please," she said wearily, "go inside and get warm and dry. I will wait for Sebastien." She turned toward the gate, and stopped in surprise.

  A man stood in the rain outside the gate. A Highland man, dressed in a breacan, without a horse. The rain soaked his hair from gold to dark brown, drenched the wrapped and belted plaid and the shirt beneath it, soaked the hide of the wolfskin boots.

  She stared at him, speechless.

  "A thousand blessings on you," he said in Gaelic in formal greeting. "May God make smooth the path before you."

  "A... a thousand blessings on you," she said in return, taking a step closer. "May you be safe from every harm."

  Sebastien took a step closer, too, but did not cross the threshold of the open gate. "Long ago," he said, "a beautiful woman once came to a king's court. And the lady asked a favor of the king."

  Alainna tilted her head, listening, her heart beating hard within her breast. "And what did she ask?"

  "She asked the king to send her a warrior," he answered. "A fine Celtic warrior, she wanted. A man whose lineage was as ancient as her own, a man of compassion and courage, a man to defeat her clan's enemy."

  "Ah," she said. "She wanted an exemplary warrior."

  "She did," he agreed. "She asked that the king find a warrior who could speak the Gaelic, and who could travel to her home from his own lands within a day's time."

  She fisted her hands against her hips. "And what happened, then, to this woman? Did she find her warrior?"

  "He came to her," he said. "Dressed in fine Highland style... though he was wet as a pup in a bath," he added, "for the spring rains arrived with him. He walked to her fortress from his own lands within a moment's time, for his lands encompassed her own. And he spoke the Gaelic to her as best he could—which was rather well, actually." He smiled, while the rain ran down his cheeks, dripped from his chin, soaked his hair.

  She pressed back her own smile. "And was he a man with heart and courage?" she asked, stepping closer. Finan went with her, panting and whining, longing in his way for the man's love and devotion, as she yearned in hers.

  "He was," he said, "although the woman, who was finer than the moon and brighter than the sun to him, challenged him to be a better man than he had been before."

  She choked back a sob. "And what of his lineage, which the woman so foolishly asked, though it did not matter?"

  "He was from a land of ancient Celts himself, though it was far from her own land," he said. "It was the best lineage he could offer her, and he hoped she would accept it."

  "I am sure she thought it an excellent heritage."

  "He defeated her enemy," he went on. "Though his heart nearly burst within him, he did that for her. And for her kin as well, whom he loved like his own family."

  Alainna felt tears well and overflow as she watched him, adoring him. Tears mixed with the rain that poured over her, over him, and over Finan, who circled between them now, confused but happy.

  "There was one other condition she gave," he said. "And that was the hardest one of all."

  Her heart surged within her. "What was that?" she asked, breathless.

  "A name. She wanted to gift her warrior with her name. But he refused out of great pride, for he liked his own name well."

  "Ah," she answered. "And what happened then?"

  "He came to her—in the rain," he added. "And he offered a trade. He would take her name, and carry it into the future as she wanted him to, through their sons and daughters. But she must take something of his in return."

  The rain streamed down, and the thin light bloomed brighter as they faced each other across the threshold of the gate.

  "What was that?" she asked.

  "His heart."

  Her own heart leaped within her, and she smiled, stepping closer. He took a long stride, and she stood face-to-face with him, breast to chest, a delicate layer of rain between them.

  " A name," she said, "is not so valuable as a heart. She got the better part of the bargain."

  He bent his head, and she tipped her face to him. Drops of rain jeweled his eyelashes, and funneled from his hair to fall onto her cheeks. "The bargain could be made more equal," he said. "She could give him her heart in return."

  "She could." Alainna smiled up into his eyes, gray and soft as the rain. "A heart for a heart. What then, for the name?"

  "Ah, well. He could give her a child to carry the name."

  She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him, her lips under his. He took her into his embrace, his hands firm and strong at her back, his mouth wet and cool, warm within.

  He pulled back to look at her, smiling. "Well? Do you want a husband, lady, as well as a warrior?"

  "I do," she said, laughing, her arms looped around him, her body pressed to him. "Do you want a Highland wife?"

  "I do," he said, and kissed her again, deep and full and endless. The dog circled them, barking. Sebastien chuckled against her mouth and drew back again.

  "Alainna, mo caran, will you let a man in out of the rain?"

  She laughed again and pulled him inside the gate. His arm was strong and warm about her as they walked toward the tower, where the light of torches showed within, and the sound of laughter drifted through the open door.

  At the foot of the steps, when she would have climbed up, he stopped her. "There is something more the warrior brought to the woman," he said. He reached out and brushed the wet tendrils of her hair away from her brow.

  "What was that?" she asked.

  "A son," he said. "His own."

  "Conan?" she breathed.

  He nodded, then looked up the steps and smiled, and she saw the silver flash of deep love in his eyes. But it was not for her this time.

  She followed his gaze. Just inside the open door, Una and Giric stood with a small boy standing between them, his hands in theirs. His eyes were dark and beautiful, his hair fine spun gold.

  She gasped, and Sebastien tightened his arm around her. "Robert brought him back," he murmured. "Come up, mo caran, for the rain is cold. Come inside where the hearth is warm, and meet the youngest member of Clan Laren."

  She placed her foot upon the step beside his, and they moved upward together.

  Epilogue

  Summer, 1171

  "Is it time to go across the loch yet?" Conan asked in Gaelic, looking up at his father. Sebastien smiled, thankful that his son had a gift for language, for Conan had learned almost as much Gaelic in a few months at Kinlochan as Sebastien had learned in three years at the king's court. "I want to walk on the new path that the men made to the island!"

  "Causeway," Sebastien said. "Not yet, though I know you are eager. We are waiting for the others, for we will all walk across today and see what the stonemasons have done. Have patience."

  Conan jumped up and down on the stony beach of the loch beside his friend Eoghan, a year younger. The boys, dressed in wrapped plaids and shirts, ran toward the white-foamed waves that
swirled around their small bare feet. They giggled and splashed, their glossy hair floating around their heads like dark and pale silk.

  "When, Sebastien Ban?" Eoghan asked. "When can we go?"

  "Patience, my lads," Sebastien said again, but neither listened. He looked up when he heard a silvery laugh, and saw Alainna. She moved with the same grace he had always seen in her, though more slowly now, with their child increasing within her. As it grew, so did her lush beauty, and his endless love for her. He smiled, watching her.

  "Patience, you say to them, and they but small boys," she said, smiling, teasing.

  "Ah," he said. "They say that patience will wear out stone. It is a good virtue to have."

  She tucked her hand inside the crook of his arm. "We will all need patience for your project at Kinlochan."

  "Two years," he said. "Perhaps three, until our island castle is finished." He lifted a brow as he looked down at her. "Speaking of patience, you could hardly wait for the first cartloads of stone to come over the hills."

  She laughed, lifting her face to the warm summer wind, which played with the tails of her long braids. "I confess," she said. "I was eager to see the stone. You chose well. The honey-colored sandstone quarried in the hills to the south will be beautiful on our island. It will shine like a tower of gold."

  "John, the master mason, told me that they expect another load of stone today," he said. "And more loads over several days, until the stone for the foundation and first level is here. Then stone will be quarried and sent as it is needed."

  She nodded. "And the limestone for the chapel?"

  "That will arrive this week, I think."

  "Master John finally seems to have accepted that a woman is going to carve the decorative reliefs for the chapel," she said. "He did not think that was possible."

  "Until you showed him the work that you have done, and charmed him as well," Sebastien said.

  "And assured him that I would wait until my child was born to begin," she added.

  "That reassures me, too," he said. "About the stone that is to arrive today or tomorrow—Master John is certain that the Caen limestone will be with it."

  She gasped with joy. "The cream stone! Here, already, from Normandy?" She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. "You are indeed a wonderful husband, to ask the Breton monks to have that sent to me!"

  "I could hardly go myself—if I left you, our handfasting vows would be annulled." He smiled. "When is our wedding to be? Can I not convince you to hold it before Christmas?"

  "My kinfolk want us to wait the year and a day, so that they can have a Christmas wedding and benefit from all the luck that such an event would bring. And our child will be born by then, so I would prefer to wait as well."

  He frowned, and stood silently, watching his golden-haired son chattering with Eoghan as they stacked stones on the beach.

  "What is it? Does the idea of handfasting still concern you? We are married, in God's eyes, and in the eyes of every Highlander."

  He nodded. "I know."

  "You are worried about the birth," she said gently.

  He shrugged, unwilling to admit to her how concerned he was, how fearful he sometimes felt when he thought of what Alainna would face with the birth of a child, and how his first wife had not survived her second travail. He could not bear to lose Alainna. He took her hand in silence.

  "We will be fine," she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. "This I know. Our future is bright and long before us."

  He slipped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her close as they looked out over the loch. He kissed the top of her head.

  "It is indeed," he said. "And we will live together in that castle on the green isle."

  He pointed across the loch toward the island. The base of the tower, partly constructed of sandstone blocks, was golden in the sunlight. From the shore to the pebbled island beach a wide new causeway, built of stone and rubble, formed a walkway. The sound of mallets and chisels wielded by the masons echoed over the loch.

  Alainna turned and looked over her shoulder. "Ah," she said, "here they come. Now the children need not wait much longer to see your castle."

  "Our castle," he murmured. He heard a dog bark and looked up to see Finan dashing across the green meadow that skirted the loch, with the members of Clan Laren following him. Conan and Eoghan scampered to meet them, calling and waving. The dog barked ecstatically and ran up to lick their faces. Giric lunged forward to keep the dog from knocking the boys over with his enthusiasm.

  Lorne and Una walked in the lead, with Ruari and Esa behind them. Niall, Lulach, Beitris, Donal, Aenghus, and the rest came behind them. Lorne laughed and bent down as the two small boys greeted him and showed him the stones they had collected. Giric picked Conan up and hoisted him to his shoulders, and Ruari swooped Eoghan onto his own shoulders.

  Sebastien chuckled, watching them. "I sent word to Struan that I would be happy to foster Eoghan here at Kinlochan when he reaches that age," he said.

  "I am glad. Lileas is not yet ready to give him up, but I have good news—she told me that she and Struan expect a child of their own by next spring."

  Sebastien lifted a brow. "That wedding was a surprise to me, I will admit."

  "Not to me. Cormac was never as good to her as his own brother was. And there is an old custom in ancient Celtic tradition that encourages a man to wed a widowed sister-in-law to take care of her and his brother's children. Struan saw fit to follow that old tradition. I think he has always cared for Lileas, and Father Padruig was certainly pleased. Clan Nechtan will be a different clan now, with Struan as their leader until Eoghan reaches manhood."

  Sebastien gazed over his shoulder, where the Stone Maiden rose, silver gray and gleaming in the sun, overlooking the loch. "The Maiden must be greatly pleased by these changes, by the peace that has finally come to her land, and to her people."

  "It is what she wants for us," Alainna said. Her smile was soft and beautiful, and he leaned down to kiss her lips, unable to resist that sweetness.

  "Did I show you the newest design for the castle?" he asked.

  "You show me a new one nearly every week, adding this feature, improving that, as the work goes along," she said. "You and the master mason have become fast friends, and you are on the island so much these days that I think I have lost you to your stone castle."

  "You will never lose me," he said. "And besides, you have your own stones to keep you happy. Whenever you want me for any reason—"

  "Any reason?" she asked, eyes glittering, smile delightfully wicked.

  He kissed her then, hard and deep and fast, so that she moaned beneath his mouth, and he felt her begin to melt in his arms. "Any reason," he emphasized, as he drew back. "Just send someone across that new causeway, and I will run back to you." He smiled at her. "Master John and I have designed the walls of the great hall with niches all around the room, to allow for other stones to be inserted later."

  She looked up. "My stones?" she asked.

  He nodded. "Each one, as you finish it, will be set into place in the great hall, where the story of Clan Laren will be seen by generations of this clan, long into the future."

  She hugged him, her head on his shoulder. "Thank you," she said, her voice muffled against his chest. "A thousand blessings on you for thinking of that."

  "A thousand blessings, mo caran," he murmured, "are already mine."

  "We are ready to see this island castle of yours, Sebastien Ban," Lorne called as he and the others drew near. "And a fine day it is to see such a place." He smiled, his white hair blowing in the soft breeze.

  "Then we shall go," Sebastien said, and took Alainna's hand to lead her down to the stony beach, the others falling into line behind them.

  The causeway, built of a variety of limestone, sandstone, shale, and rubble, stretched in a bridge of stone from the beach below the Maiden toward the island, wide enough for three horses to ride abreast, high enough that the water, even in spring flux, would
not cover the stones. Men sent by the king had worked for months to construct it, and although it was not yet done, it was ready to be used.

  "What will you call this place?" Niall asked, as they stood together on the pebbled beach and looked across the water.

  "We have not yet decided," Sebastien said.

  "Castle MacLaren," Lulach said, and others nodded agreement.

  "Kinlochan," Donal said. "Castle Kinlochan."

  "Maiden Castle," Esa suggested.

  Sebastien smiled as he listened to each one. He lifted his head to the winds that swept across the loch, and looked up at the stone pillar, and then smiled down at Alainna.

  "What do you think we should call our castle, my love?" he murmured.

  She tilted her head, considering. "Castle Promise," she said. "For the island that it rests on is the Land of Promise."

  He smiled, and felt his soul fill to the brim with love for her, and for these people—his own—and for this place, his home. He reached down and took Conan's hand in one of his, and Alainna's in the other, and he stepped forward with them to cross over to the Land of Promise.

  * * *

  Alainna left an offering at the foot of the pillar stone at dawn, a handful of flowers and a small stone carved by her own hand, a relief of an endless knot inside a circle. She looked up at the Stone Maiden and whispered a chant of gratitude.

  Then she stepped back, the green of summer all around her, the sun gentle and warm, a scattering of bright flowers in the grass at her feet. She began to walk away, while the waves of the loch shushed peacefully and birds sang in the trees.

  She felt her skin prickle gently, and she turned back.

  In front of the pillar, where the rising sun should have cast the stone's first shadow, a young girl stood gazing toward the loch. Newborn sunlight lent a soft glow to her form.

  She was slim and delicate, with hair like pale gold spilling down her back. Her plain gown was the same dove gray as the stone. Alainna noticed that the long, trailing hem of the gown touched the granite and seemed to disappear within it, as if the girl were the stone's shadow come to life.