Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03] (13 page)

The anvil, shaped of cast iron with a flat top and two beaked ends protruding like horns, stood a few feet away from the forge, anchored to a stout upright log. Tools—tongs, hammers, chisels, swages, pokers, shovels, and points—hung on racks on the walls and the forge. Others were stored in a wooden chest on a table. Inside another chest were small, essential items: nails and rivets, vials of oil for polishing, scraps of leather for wrapping hilts and making sheaths.

A wooden tub stood near the door, stacked beside empty buckets. Leather gloves and aprons hung on pegs, and other implements were scattered on the table. Dust and soot lay thick upon most surfaces. Beneath a canvas beside the narrow back door of the smithy, a store of iron—broken pieces as well as rods and ingots—required sorting and cleaning before he could determine what materials were available for forging.

He sighed, aware that much needed to be done before any smithing work could begin.

He fetched the pack that he had left on the doorstep and brought it inside, closing the door. Rummaging among his few items of clothing and possessions, he withdrew a wrapped object and laid it on the anvil face. Carefully he unknotted the twine ties and peeled away the layered cloth.

Two halves of a broken sword shone bright in the dimness. He traced his fingers over the brass pommel and leather hilt, and touched the second piece, the separate remnant of the blade. The first time he had seen this weapon, it had gleamed like molten gold reflecting a sunset sky in France. A girl who shone with courage had gripped the hilt.

Its design was simple but elegant, a single-handed hilt with a brass disc pommel and a sloping crossbar. The blade, cracked in half, was tapered, its fuller engraved with five fleurs-de-lis filled with gold. He took the worn leather hilt and turned the sword point upright.

The gold engravings glittered. Even broken, it was a fair sword, he thought, and he felt privileged to have the safeguarding of it. Light caught the steel, set it afire in his hands. Brilliance rayed outward like diamond strands as he turned the blade.

Magical swords and warrior maidens, he mused. Strangely, they seemed to be a repeating motif in his life. Sighing sadly, he wrapped the blade in its cloth again.

Jehanne had once told him to keep the sword because one day he would know what to do with it. But he did not know, and neither heart nor reason told him.

He did not think he could fix the break. Regardless of his flawed eyesight, he could not touch fire to the marred beauty of this particular blade.

He tucked the cloth bundle high on a ledge and walked away.

Chapter 9

"We must find out what Lachlann intends to do now that he has returned," Simon said, frowning thoughtfully. Eva sat beside him, having already explained what she knew, while her brother and kinsmen listened in grim silence.

A few of the fourteen men in Simon's band of rebels had gathered in a clearing on a wooded slope in the wild hills above Loch Fhionn. The view through the autumn leaves revealed the loch at the foot of broad mountains. Far out, Innisfarna and its castle seemed to float upon the water like a jewel.

"He must be the king's messenger," Simon mused, frowning.

"We cannot trust him, if so." Iain Og spoke; he was the oldest of the MacArthurs—despite his nickname, Og, "the younger"—who followed Simon. Iain was a huge man, tall and wide, though Eva noted that his bulk had lessened in the years with the rebels. He stood apart from the rest, his arms folded, brow creased beneath a shock of graying hair.

"You do not know the man, Iain Og," her cousin Parian said. Margaret's eldest brother, like his younger brothers, was brown-haired and lean; with his siblings, he shared finely made features that suited their blond sister better than five young men. "Lachlann was trustworthy before. Why would he change?"

"Eva says he seems different now," Simon reminded them.

"We must be careful not to trust him too quickly."

"All of us are changed," Micheil, another of Margaret's brothers, said. He had grown into a tall and quiet-spoken young man. "Some of us went to France, like Lachlann and Parian and William, in good faith to fight a war that was not ours. The rest of us stayed here—Simon and Andra, Fergus and I, and the others—to be betrayed by our own king. Our lands are lost, our old chief gone and our young chief in prison, our good name taken from us. How could any of us be the same?"

Eva nodded in sympathy. With their lives torn asunder, her kinsmen had sent their families to safety, then banded together, hiding in the hills to fight those who had taken over their lands by king's grant. They would not give up those lands easily, nor would they accept the wrongful forfeiture of them.

"The MacKerron smith is not one of the MacArthur dispossessed," Iain Og pointed out. "He has no allegiance to us. He is a king's man from Perth—even if he grew up a lad in Balnagovan."

"His family have been smiths near Loch Fhionn for generations," Fergus said. "We were all children together."

"And we were with him in France," Parian said, nodding to William, his twin; they were similar though not identical. "I will trust him, no matter his message." William nodded.

"And I," Andra echoed. The youngest of the renegade MacArthurs at nearly sixteen, with light brown hair and a slender build, he had turned a youthful taste for mischief into a talent for clever spying whenever the king's men rode out on patrol.

Simon ran his thumb along his whiskered chin. His dark hair gleamed in the sunlight. "Eva, what do you think? Is Lachlann for us or against us?"

"Ask him yourself," she said stubbornly.

"No matter what his message, or his intent, nothing can keep us from our business," Simon told the others. "We will win back our rights, and protest the wrong that was done to our people." His kinsmen nodded grim acknowledgment of their shared purpose.

"Raids in the night will not do that," Eva said.

"You seem to think Colin will solve all our troubles," Simon said.

"And you believe attacks will gain back our rights and save Donal," she returned bitterly. The dispute was old between them.

"Green Colin will not do it," Simon snapped. "You set great store by his promises, yet we see no result."

"Donal is still alive," she pointed out. She looked away, sighing. She and Simon argued so often lately that she felt as if she faced a man of stone with a stranger's face rather than the easygoing brother she once had known.

"Perhaps Colin truly loves the girl and means well," Micheil suggested. "Who could resist our Eva?" He winked at his cousin.

"Bah," Simon growled. "Colin loves her island. He kept her dowry lands, too, after the forfeiture, and put his kin there in place of the dispossessed MacArthurs."

"A shame those lands have been so short of cattle and sheep lately," Fergus drawled. "Raiders are a persistent problem, I hear. Or is it that livestock wander in their sleep?" Andra laughed, and Fergus grinned. "We will get rich if we continue to take such fine fat cattle to the Lowland markets."

Eva frowned, well aware of their activities after dark. "I beg you to be cautious. Stealing from Colin's kin will not help our clan's cause."

"And we beg you again to reconsider the marriage," Simon answered. "There are other ways to win back our lands."

"Why do you think I bruise myself learning swordplay? I have my own rights to consider," she said. "You will not fight for Innisfarna, and I understand that. It is not part of your inheritance, but came to me through my mother, and you have other concerns. Innisfarna is my trouble, and I must solve it."

"Alpin wants to turn you into a warrior maiden to solve it. That is as foolish as waiting for Colin," Simon muttered.

"Foolish? Have you seen the girl fight? She is not bad," Micheil said. "Colin will run for cover when he comes home."

"He will not, because Eva hates to fight," Simon said. "I do not think she will do it when the time comes."

Though she scowled at him, she knew there was truth in what he said. She enjoyed the grace and the power of wielding the sword, but she could not bear to hurt anyone, nor did she want to risk being hurt herself.

"And there is the Sword of Light to consider," Fergus said. "It must be protected, or all Scotland will fail."

"You should be listening to stories at your mother's knee, young one—and not wasting our time with fantasies," Iain Og muttered. "Eva, if you draw a sword on your new husband, make sure you use it on him," he added. "That will end the trouble."

"She would not slice an apple with that thing, for fear of harming the apple," Simon said.

"You cannot just wave it about and scare Green Colin off your isle," Parian told her. "We have seen war, girl. It is not so easy to win back lands lost to the enemy. Be careful."

"I mean to show Colin that I will not give up my privilege as guardian of Innisfarna," Eva answered. "I alone have the right to the isle. I will marry him if I must, but I will not let him have my isle."

"Do not sacrifice yourself for us. We can sacrifice ourselves on our own, if we have to," Simon said sarcastically.

"Oh, Simon, please, let there be peace between us again," she said wearily. He looked away, sighed, and did not answer.

"If you two are finished squabbling," Parian said sternly, "we have more immediate problems. Our best hope is rebellion."

"A fine and brave word," Eva answered. "And meaningless if it takes your lives and leaves your clan with nothing gained and Donal dead too! There are but fourteen of you, with too few weapons or armor!"

"Fifteen, if we can trust the smith," Parian said.

"Sixteen, with Eva," Fergus said. "Seventeen, with Alpin."

"Seventeen is still just a handful," Eva pointed out.

"There have been insurrections all over the Highlands since the arrests at Inverness," Simon reminded her. "Each small rebellion is a pocket of fire. If those flames come together, they will make a great blaze."

"We have something we did not have before," Fergus said. He smiled.

"A master weaponsmith!" Andra said, grinning.

Simon whistled low. "True! That could make the difference for us. Lachlann has the knack of making good weapons."

"Does he have the knack to turn away the king's forces, and change the king's mind?" Eva asked. "That is what you need."

"We could take Innisfarna and make it our stronghold," William suggested.

Simon nodded. "I have been thinking that very thing."

She shook her head. "The legend says—"

"Hang the legend," Iain Og said irritably. "Women's tales. A faery princess and her magical sword! Hah! I say we arm ourselves and take Innisfarna. That solves Eva's trouble."

"Listen to me," she pleaded. "I will show my sword and show Colin that I am not afraid of him—and prove to him that the legend has power."

Iain Og snorted in disdain. William shook his head. "Dreams, cousin," he said. "There is only one way to use a sword if you want results."

"Eva, what we are doing may come to real war someday," Simon said earnestly. "Real battles. We need that swordsmith. Find out which way his loyalties lie. You are a woman, and he is a man. Use that to gain his help for us."

She lifted her chin. "I will not use wiles."

"Knowing him, I would guess that he would not mind if you did," Simon murmured.

Parian grinned. "If Eva would wed the blacksmith instead of Colin, we would have the smith's loyalty for certain—and his skills!"

"Oh, I like that," Iain Og said in his booming voice.

"Interesting," Simon mused, watching his sister.

"Ridiculous," Eva muttered, though her heart pounded. "That would gain you nothing! He has no influence to help Donal!"

"At the very least, it would gain you a better man than Colin," Parian told her, while his twin brother nodded.

Simon huffed impatiently. "Marry the blacksmith or bed him, make his dinner or mend his plaid. Whatever you do, find out what he intends, and where his loyalties lie, quick as you can."

"What if he means harm to you?"

"Convince him over to our side," Simon said. "You can be quite charming when you control that temper of yours. If Lachlann is not the king's man, then he is our man. As it should be."