by Julianne Lee
Lingering, tasting, wanting never to stop, Alex finally had to take his mouth from hers when the blood in his other parts began to pound. Not now. He said, “You need to go back upstairs, so the men won’t start muttering ugly things about us again.”
“Right.” She reached behind his head to steal another kiss, then took her candle from the room and went upstairs to the Great Hall.
Alex watched her go, then stood by the window for a few minutes and gazed out at the water, restless in the moonlight, thinking about how he wished she were safely his wife. No more watching her ride into battle, no more seeing her cut open, no more terror of being discovered. She’d relax, then, he was sure. She’d be happy, and that would make him happy. If only she’d agree to marry him.
He closed the window and returned to the Great Hall to find a place to sleep the night.
The next morning the sun was well into the sky when Alex was awakened by the call of Sir Henry. “Sir Alasdair! Come see!”
Alex struggled awake in a hurry, and his body ached from too little sleep. Patches of sunlight from the chimney holes above lay across the stone floor, and he wondered if he would ever get used to dawn coming so early in the morning. Then he figured he’d be used to it by the time the days became shorter and he wouldn’t see the sun till almost noon.
“Sir Alasdair!”
He climbed to his bare feet and found Henry calling him from the roof stairwell. As he picked his way across the floor, he was glad he hadn’t seen much of this crap strewn everywhere the day before. All sorts of broken and rotting things were lying about: chicken bones, leather pieces, wooden bowls, and rodents skittering in and out of it. It was like a garbage dump in here. Henry disappeared up the stairwell, and Alex followed.
On the roof, Henry pointed across the bailey and past the curtain walls. “Look.”
People were coming. From all over the island, it seemed, but especially from the village. They carried buckets and brooms, and there were far more of them than Alex had even hoped for. More than twice the number he’d seen yesterday, he was certain.
He muttered to Henry, “We’ll need two cows slaughtered today. Get the spits going. And bread. See if we can rustle up some bread. Snag a couple of the women and put them to work at it if you have to.” Henry went. “And mead! We’ll need mead,” Alex called after, then returned his attention to the approaching villagers.
Vassals.
MacConnells and Bretons swarmed over the castle, sweeping, scrubbing, and hauling dead people away to be buried. In addition to the corpse in the family quarters, there were three more dead guys stinking up the kitchen, and one that had fallen in a crevice between a stone slope and the rear wall of the servants’ quarters in the inner bailey. Alex set his twenty knights and squires to work bringing wood from the forest, and he himself spent the day going from one villager to the next, meeting people and monitoring the work.
Women carried water from the well in the bailey to the Great Hall, and threw it across the keep floors to loosen up the dried blood. Then they set to scrubbing, some singing as they did so. Alex took a few moments to help carry a bucket, and it was suggested he dump the water down the garderobe.
Then he went down to the barbican to see about the gate on the quay, and found ash-smeared village men hauling out the burnt remains of outbuildings and throwing them into the sea. Pieces of charred wood floated across the surface of the sea and bumped up against the stone, some tossed onto the rocks along the shore to the west.
Alasdair Ruadh was there, taking measurements of the gatehouse with a knotted cord and the efficient movements of an experienced workman. He was not a bulky man, but had strong, ropy muscles worthy of his craft, and his bright red hair cascaded over his shoulders to fight for attention with the yellowish linen shirt he wore. When the blacksmith saw Alex, he straightened from his work and began talking in Gaelic, but stopped when Alex held up a hand and shook his head. Too fast; Alex wasn’t even picking out the words. He looked around for an interpreter, hut Henry was off with the woodcutters looking for deadfall and Donnchadh was nowhere near.
Alasdair Ruadh pointed to the burnt gate lying on the ground and shook his head, making a gesture to indicate the thing was useless. “Neofheun, ail,” he said carefully so Alex would understand. Okay. Alex had figured that, and nodded. He knelt and pointed to the iron fittings in hopes of salvaging them, and Alasdair crossed his arms and repeated, with strained patience, “Neo-fheumail.”
The iron couldn’t be reused. So Alex stood and asked, “How much to build another?”
That got a blank look, so Alex drew out his purse from his belt and took a silver penny from it. “How much?” He plundered his memory and attempted it in Gaelic. “Dé a’phris?”
Alasdair again shook his head. Then he held up one finger and made a baa like a sheep. “Caora.”
No money. He wanted livestock. That made sense in a place where there were no shops. Alex put his hand near the ground to indicate the size of a lamb, but Alasdair shook his head again. He put his hand farther up, to indicate a full-grown sheep. Then he put his hands out in front of him to suggest a full belly.
“A pregnant ewe?” Highwayman. “No. Cha bhi.” Alex shook his head and looked over his livestock. He had plenty of sheep, but he wasn’t going to feed Alasdair’s ewe until she was bred then hand her over. He pointed to a good-sized animal, then to Alasdair.
The blacksmith thought that over, then nodded and immediately picked up a big, black hammer and began whaling on the twisted iron on the gatehouse. Alex moved on, and decided he really needed to learn to speak better Gaelic if he was going to live here.
As he approached the stairs, he noticed a thin, brown stream coming from a hole at the bottom of the keep wall. It was slow and sludgy, and so far had only made it to the barbican floor, but he could see the old runnel where it would eventually wend its way across the flat and spill out the gate and into the water. It smelled of sewage. He looked up at the keep, visualizing the inside behind that hole, and realized where it was coming from.
“The garderobe.” He groaned. Open sewers were okay for other folks here, but he didn’t want his bedroom window to look out over this. He’d need to build a duct of some sort and run it out past the wall, away from the quay. He added that project to his growing mental list of things that needed reconstruction.
Then he went looking for Donnchadh, and found him stacking pieces of broken furniture in the hearth, where dried peats were already smoldering atop wood coals. Two beef carcasses had been spitted, and the fire was just beginning to burn well. The hearth ran nearly the length of the room, and could accommodate five such roasts if necessary.
He asked Donnchadh, “Where are the hides?”
The vassal faced him, nearly at attention. “Being made ready for tanning. You’ll have them in a few days, sir. The entrails, heads, and hooves are in the kitchen.”
“Excellent. Thank you. Donnchadh, is there a rope in the village I can buy? A new one? Long enough and strong enough to replace the one on the hoist outside.”
Donnchadh nodded. “I’ll need some eggs for it.”
“I haven’t got any eggs yet.” Chickens, from Glasgow where he’d spent most of his gold on supplies and furnishings, but no eggs.
“A single chicken, then. I’ll get you the rope you need.”
“Perhaps the beef livers waiting in the kitchen?”
Donnchadh’s eyebrows went up. “I’ll have ye your rope tonight, personally, and a good one.”
“Tomorrow will be soon enough, and if it’s a heavy rope I’ll be pleased. And another thing. How good is Alasdair Ruadh at building things from a diagram?”
Donnchadh frowned. “I’m afraid I dinnae ken the word ‘diagram.’”
“A picture. If I drew a picture of something, could Alasdair build it?”
“Oh, aye. He’ll make you the best armor you ever had, sir.”
“Not armor. I want to redesign that hoist out there. Make it work better.�
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Donnchadh hesitated, but then nodded. “I think our blacksmith can give you what you desire. He’s a talented lad, that one.”
“Very well. Tell him when he’s finished with the gate I’ll want him to come to me about the hoist.”
“Aye, sir.”
The work about the castle went quickly with so many hands. Alex recruited Donnchadh as his interpreter and began going from villager to villager, learning names and asking questions. He wanted to know who was who, and what was what, and certainly got an earful. Having seen how Sir Hector ruled the people of Barra, he knew his new role included settling disputes among the vassals. Some of them recognized MacDonald as laird, and others recognized MacLeod, but it became clear in the course of the day that they all understood Alex was the guy currently with the power, and both factions did their best to gain his ear.
The MacConnell women complained about the Breton women seducing their men. The Breton women complained that the MacConnell women declined to trade to them goods they needed. The MacConnell men bad-mouthed the Breton men and vice versa, even though most everyone on the island was related on one level or another through intermarriage, it was an incredibly weird network of alliances and enmities.
Each family on the island also seemed to be related to folks on every other island around as well, distantly and not so distantly. Donnchadh spoke to Alex at length on it, spinning out the web of relations, but there was no untangling it all in one day. In addition, Donnchadh had opinions of his own regarding everyone who brought complaints to Alex, and the new master recognized a man with an agenda, for the Bretons rarely came out looking very good. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what lurked there, but there was surely something underlying Donnchadh’s helpfulness.
Alex looked into who had worked at the castle before the fall of the English lord, and began recruiting a small staff of people who seemed experienced in the work. Kitchen maids, chamber maids, stable boys, and shepherds came first. He would eventually need specialists for brewing and baking and such, but that could come later.
Tomorrow he would need to sit down with each of the householders in the village and work out whether and how much this labor would figure into the tribute owed to him by his vassals.
“Vassals. I still can’t get used to it,” Alex murmured to Lindsay as they stood in the lord’s chamber and watched two village men hammer together the bed he’d had made in Glasgow.
She murmured in reply, “It’s not really such a thing as you’re making it out to be. In another few centuries they’ll be called tenants. Same thing, basically. Just be glad none of them are serfs. Then you’d be a true slave owner and you couldn’t hold your head up in America when you returned home.”
He grunted and looked at her as he realized she still expected to go home eventually. Was that what was taking her so long to answer his proposal? She first wanted to be certain she wasn’t going to see Derek again? His heart crumpled at the thought, and he returned his attention to the workers so she wouldn’t see his eyes.
As the workers lifted the feather mattress onto the box frame before hanging the curtains, she asked, “What are you going to use for sheets on this bed?”
You, she’d said. He cut his eyes at her that she didn’t sound as if she anticipated sleeping there. “Well, I’ve got twelve humongous bolts of silk. How about silk?”
She smiled. “I suppose the fact you think like them is in some ways a good thing.”
He turned to her. “Why do you keep saying that? That I think like them?”
“You do. You fit right in here. It’s practically seamless.”
“Okay, so I have excellent coping skills.”
She appeared amused and irritated at once by his difficulty in seeing her point. “You revel in the system, Alex, and you’ve become as dark as the times. I even doubt you’re as uncomfortable about having vassals as you say you are. I know you get off on being called ‘sir’ all the time.”
“I was an officer in the United States Navy. Of course I like being called ‘sir.’ Don’t you?”
“Was. You just said ‘was.’ You don’t think of yourself as a lieutenant anymore. I don’t think you even think of yourself as an American anymore.”
“America doesn’t exist yet. Besides, I should think you’d take that as a good thing.”
“I’m not so sure these days.”
Then she fell silent and looked away, and Alex didn’t know what to say. Finally he said, “But you love me and want to marry me anyway.”
She gave him a glance sideways. “Don’t, Alex.”
Now it was his turn to go quiet.
After a while, she murmured, “I do love you.”
He tried to believe it, but just then it was a stretch.
By sunset late that night the castle was livable. Though furniture was scant, it was sufficient for the time being. Alex’s bed and its fluffy feather mattress were sheeted and hung with silks of deep red and black. Some tables and benches lined one wall of the Great Hall. Hearths everywhere in the keep blazed with fires that began to work against the rank air, throwing the welcoming scent of wood and peat all through the chambers. The enormous fireside in the Great Hall, aided by torches lined along the walls, made the cavernous room visible, if not exactly cheery.
Like every other castle Alex had been in, the flames threw dancing shadows across walls, furniture and faces, and gave the place a gloomy, cavelike atmosphere. The stench of decayed body fluids was gone, replaced by wintergreen, peat and wood smoke, and burnt grease. The bare walls echoed every spoken word, but the floors had been strewn with reeds that acted as a sort of air-freshening carpet. The green smell they loosed into the rooms when crushed was as pleasant and earthy as mowed hayfield. Alex gazed across the Great Hall filled with people, and felt a part of it; the shifting darkness as well as the fiery light, the strength of stone, and the fragility of the lives now placed in his command and care.
As promised, the master of the castle provided a plentiful feast for the workers. Partiers spilled from the Great Hall into the courtyard outside, eating and laughing and talking. Rustic music echoed from the steep, rocky hillsides surrounding the castle, and there was a great deal of dancing and singing. Alex understood little of the talk, but Sir Henry assured him he’d made a favorable impression on his villagers.
The party was well begun when the blast of trumpet from the watch heralded an approach from the water. Alex climbed to the battlement to look, and found off in the moonlight a sail, making its way toward the quay. It was a small fishing vessel, not large enough to give him concern for attack, so Alex only stood and watched until the boat was about to dock. Then he hurried down the stairs, wended his way among the guests through the Great Hall, then down the rest of the way to the barbican. Sir Henry followed him without being asked, and they picked up the watchmen at the barbican gate on their way to the quay. Alex strode onto it with four men behind him and his broadsword hung at his side. It might have behooved him to don his armor, but he realized when he saw the boat up close he probably wouldn’t even need his sword.
The pilot of the boat stayed on board, and the only passenger to venture onto the quay was a black-robed priest. The man was armed, a cross-hilt sword hung from a belt that bunched his robe around his hips, but his broad smile and otherwise empty hands were reassuring.
“Good evening, my son!” The priest was young, and appeared happy to have arrived at his destination. Alex crossed his arms over his chest and wondered if the guy had found the island he’d intended. Two days earlier, and there would have been nobody here but villagers. “Welcome to Eilean Aonarach, Father. I’m the laird here. What might I do for you?”
The priest blushed and glanced around. “Forgive me if I’ve taken you from your supper, my lord—”
“Sir. Alasdair. I’m Alasdair an Dubhar MacNeil.”
“Indeed, sir, I’d heard there was a new master of this island, and I’ve certainly heard your name before. I’ve come to offer myse
lf for your chapel. If the post isn’t already occupied, I mean.”
Behind the priest, the fisherman on the boat threw a satchel, then a wooden trunk, onto the quay. It thudded with the weight of a well-packed box. Plainly the priest was quite ready to move in, and the ferryman was impatient to be on his way.
Alex said to the priest, “Where are you from?”
“The Isle of Man.” He added hopefully, “But I’m educated in France.”
Alex knew it was rare for a priest to be educated at all, but also knew the credential could be a two-edged sword, depending on what he’d been taught so far from Scotland. “You’re very young.”
“Wise beyond my years and eager to serve.” His hand rested on the pommel of his sword, which gave him more of a mercenary look than spiritual. Oddly enough, Alex found that comforting. Good attitude, but the temptation to decline was nevertheless strong. Alex was not religious and felt the church stuck its nose into far too many corners of a man’s life for anyone’s good.
On the other hand, he understood that a priest who was “eager to serve” him would be an important asset in maintaining control of his island. The people of the island had a need—even his knights, who never openly admitted dependence on anyone or anything—for a religious presence among them. Lack of a priest in his employ was a power vacuum he could ill afford to ignore. He said, “Release your boatman. Come eat with us, and you and I can talk. If we fail to come to terms, I’ll return you safely to Man and no harm done.”
The priest’s smile widened, turning even more boyish, and the tension in his body released. Alex counted the young man’s transparency as a point in his favor. “Thank you, sir!”
Alex gestured for his men to pick up the priest’s belongings, and as the fisherman shoved off they made their way into the keep.
The priest’s name was Patrick, and it was apparent he’d not eaten that day. He fell upon the plate of meat offered to him, with nary a word of thanks to God or anyone else. Then, his mouth crammed with food, he made his case to Alex about the need for a priest to guide the people in the way of life pleasing to Jesus Christ the Savior. For Alex it was enough the man was young and hungry, and apparently sincere in his eagerness to serve. He let the talk spin out, nodding in the right places, then allowed as Patrick was right about the need for someone like him on Eilean Aonarach.
