Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03] (15 page)

She nodded and bounced, adjusting her stance.

"And keep that left leg back—you place it forward when you are not thinking. Move the right forward for better protection."

She gave him a wry glance. "I have nothing protruding there to protect, as men do." She gestured at her crotch.

He laughed outright. "True! But guard your chest, eh?"

Rotating the smooth pommel in the palm of her hand, she swung the wooden sword in an arc and settled her hand around the hilt again. Spinning on her feet, she came toward Alpin from a different angle, lifting the sword to bring it down.

"Put more strength in the stroke," he advised. "Try again."

She repeated the drill several times, until her breath burned in her lungs. And still she tried again, adding her own flair for quick footwork and rapid shifts in position. The muffled wooden blades clacked in the quiet, and the morning light increased to a silvery glow.

Pausing to catch her breath, she listened while Alpin explained a fine point of quick-changing her grip on the hilt. A movement in the bushes, and the surprising sheen of thick new gold among the russet autumn leaves, caught her attention.

"Alpin," she whispered. The tree leaves rustled. "Someone is watching us! This has happened before!"

"Ach
, it is the lad in the tree again. Come down, boy."

"What boy?" she asked in astonishment.

"The little page from the castle. He has been running around these woods for weeks, but I finally met him, and now we are friends. And I tell you, that boy needs a friend or two," he added in a whisper. "Come out, it is all right!"

The leaves shifted and parted, and a small, lithe form dropped to the ground. A child came forward, dressed in a shabby plaid and shirt far too big for his slight frame. He paused in the shadow of the trees, dawn mist drifting around him, birds twittering overhead. His face was narrow and pale, his eyes large and blue, his hair a thick mop of burnished gold.

"This is Eva," Alpin said in a mild tone. He beckoned the boy forward. "She is a good friend of mine, and so she will be a friend to you, too." The old man smiled.

The boy kept one hand over his mouth, his eyes wide and timid as he watched Alpin, then Eva. He did not move, but stood tense and ready to flee. He reminded her of someone, but she could not think who just then. Small, perhaps nine years old, and tentative, he lacked the bold manner of most boys of similar age. He reminded her of a delicate golden fawn, lost from its mother and about to bolt.

"Good day," she said gently. "I am Eva. Who are you?"

He kept his hand over his mouth. "Nyahn," he said. The sound was nasal, full of air and effort. "Nyahn-yahn."

Puzzled, she blinked at him, then looked at Alpin. "This is Ninian," Alpin said in translation.

"Ninian?" She looked at the boy in astonishment. "Ninian, the son of Colin Campbell?"

He nodded, golden hair flopping in his eyes. Alpin nodded, too; the boy's identity was clearly no surprise to him.

"I met him only recently myself," Alpin said. "I saw him around the island for weeks, hiding in the trees. Ninian climbs like a wild cat, he does." Ninian nodded.

"You are a page at the castle?" Eva asked. The boy nodded again, and kept his hand over his mouth, as if he was extremely shy.

"He wanders the island, and Robson lets him have a little freedom—a good man, John Robson, and ineffectual enough to keep your kinsmen safe in the hills, eh?" Alpin added. "Ninian was a help to me in the rose garden this week. I gave him a little knife to cut down the old blooms, and he did it very well. Come here," Alpin said, beckoning. "The soldiers will not see you on this side of the island. And Eva will not tell anyone that you escaped your duties in the castle again."

Eva smiled and waved him toward her, as Alpin did. Noticing that the boy looked at her wooden sword with real interest, she lifted it. "Would you like to hold this, Ninian?"

He came forward, fist still folded over his mouth, and took the hilt in his other hand. His fingers, though smudged and dirty, were elegantly shaped.

"It is all right to show Eva," Alpin said. "She will not mind. And you need two hands to hold that great sword."

Ninian slid a cautious glance from Alpin to Eva. Then he took his hand from his face.

Eva hid her startled reaction. His upper lip bore an angular scar where a cleft had been sewn together, and his teeth were small and crooked. She had heard of such deformities, which Mairi had mentioned seeing in some of the births she had attended. Some of the children had split lips, and some also had gaps in the roofs of their mouths; Eva knew that many babies with this affliction did not survive for long, since they had difficulty feeding and so did not thrive.

This boy appeared to be strong and healthy. The split in his lip had been closed, but his speech indicated that his palate was cleft, and that could not be repaired. Clearly he had been carefully nursed in the early years of his life, and he had mastered language—such personal challenges needed effort, determination, and intelligence. He was certainly no oaf or idiot, although Colin had described him that way to Eva years ago, when Ninian must still have been quite small.

Remembering Colin's unkind remarks about his son, she frowned. Had she known then about Ninian, she would not have tolerated such lack of compassion in the father.

Ninian watched her, jaw set stubbornly, cheeks pink. She realized he expected her to act repulsed by him. Calmly she reached out to adjust the wrap of his fingers on the hilt.

"Hold it like this," she said. "Use two hands if it feels more comfortable to you. How is that?" She smiled at him.

He nodded and seemed to relax as he tested his grip on the hilt. Alpin corrected his stance, and praised him with such warmth that Eva smiled to herself. By habit, Alpin was miserly with praise, but he was always generous when it mattered.

Despite the scarred lip, Ninian's features had an elegant, feline grace, and his mop of golden hair was wild and beautiful. She could see the father in his coloring and the proportion of his features, though his delicacy must have come from his mother, whomever she had been. Ninian was small and thin, but his arms and legs were muscled and well made, and he was coordinated and quick. He understood what Alpin and Eva showed him, and soon had a nearly perfect stance and grip.

"You will be a fine knight one day." Eva tilted her head. "Ninian, I know your father."

"Colhn Camhbuh," he said with effort. He peered thoughtfully at her. "Will you be... my mother?" The words were breathy and forced:
hmoh hmah-harrh.
But Eva understood and smiled. Ninian looked at her with hopeful blue eyes, as if he regarded an angel.

"Your father is my betrothed husband, so I may be your stepmother one day." Despite a binding agreement, she found it hard to admit she would wed Colin—but his young son looked at her with real hope and pleasure. She sighed.

"Will you live with me and my father?" he asked, and Eva understood him this time with better ease.

"I do not yet know what will happen," she answered as honestly as she could. "Colin told me about you. He said his son was grown and did not need a mother. I assumed you were older—even a young man."

Ninian held up a hand, spreading his fingers twice.

"You are ten?" she asked, surprised, thinking him younger.

"And I do not need a mother," he said. Each word was distorted with nasal effort and too much air, his nostrils flaring, for he made some sounds through his nose.

Now she understood him clearly, as if a fog had lifted. She had only needed time to adjust to his mode of articulation.

"Of course you do not need a mother for most things, at your age. You are on your own now, a page for the knights. I am sure you do well at that, for you are a quick-witted boy." He smiled sweetly at the compliment.

Eva felt a surge of anger for Colin's loathsome attitude toward his son. Ninian was clearly intelligent, with the tender sensitivity of any boy his age. "Even older boys need a mother now and then, or a friend who is like a mother," she said, "when they are sick, or hungry, or if they want to hear a story."

He nodded. "I like stories."

"I do too. I would love to tell some to you. Perhaps Alpin can bring you to my house. I live near the smithy."

He looked intrigued. "Near the stable?" he asked. "I have been there with the soldiers, but I did not see you." Eva tipped her head, trying to understand what he said, for he spoke more rapidly now. He repeated it patiently.

"I usually go elsewhere when the soldiers come," she said. "But if you come in the evening with Alpin, I will give you supper and tell you a story. You can see the horses in the stable, and you can play with the dog that you gave to me."

His eyes grew wide. "I remember her. I asked my father to bring her to you. He told you so?"

"He did, Ninian. That was very kind of you, and I never had a chance to thank you. She is a wonderful little dog, though a pup no longer. Come see her. I call her Grainne."

Ninian beamed, joy at the invitation glowing in his eyes. Eva smiled and touched his golden hair, thick and soft under her hand. Her gaze met Alpin's. The old man frowned thoughtfully.

She felt something well up in her, a desperate desire to give this wild, lonely little boy the loyalty and affection for which he seemed so thirsty. She smiled at him again. He grinned, quickly covering his mouth to hide it from her.

Tears stung her eyes and her breathing constricted, as if the uncomfortable knot that tied her to Colin had tightened. The boy, at least, would make the burden and the caging a little easier to bear.

* * *

Several days after his arrival, Lachlann stood back one afternoon, satisfied that the smithy was in order. He had wiped the grime from the surfaces, cleaned rust from the tools, oiled the leather casing of the bellows, and checked its wooden plates and workings. Chisel edges were sharpened, hammer handles repaired, pairs of tongs tightened and lubricated, the anvil scrubbed clean, the water tubs filled, the floor swept. After brushing the soot residue from the forge and cleaning the flue, he had collected kindling and charcoal. But he had not set the fire bed alight.

Wiping his forearm over his brow, noting a smear of grime transferred from his face, he turned to look at the immaculate, organized smithy. Later, the place would slide toward the orderly jumble that he preferred when working. The smithy had not been left in chaos, but no one had worked in here for years; dust and grime had collected, and time and climate had affected the tools. Cleaning the smithy to this extent was a necessary ritual for him, a step toward the resuming of his work.

He had taken toll of his tools, supplies, and the scrap iron pile. He knew what materials were available and what must be purchased or bargained.

For now, he would start with minor tasks in the house and the stable, along with the repairs that Robson had requested. Later he would decide if he was ready to attempt steel.

He glanced at one wall, where the top of the thick stone met the rafters under the thatch. Jehanne's sword was tucked there for now. He knew he was not ready for that task yet—if ever.

His throat felt dry, and his stomach growled. He remembered that he had eaten only once that day, fairly early, and he decided to go to the house in the hopes of finding some cheese or oatcakes stored in the wall cupboard.

Eva was gone once again, as seemed to be her habit—up and out so early that he barely glimpsed her before she had disappeared over the meadow or down the hill toward the loch. Once he had seen her in the boat with Alpin, crossing the water. He had walked down to the beach hoping for a chance to greet the old man, but by the time he got there, they were out of sight. And he had hardly spoken to her since the night he had arrived.

Likely she noticed that he was busy in the smithy and thought it best to leave him to it. Very likely, he thought sourly, that he was far too attracted to her to approach her without good reason. A little distancing was a good thing now, he told himself, remembering the overwhelming urge he had felt to kiss her—and more—the first night he had arrived. The fact that he yearned for her bothered him.

Outside, Grainne and Solas began to bark with increasing fervor, and Lachlann went to the door and peered out. Eva crossed the meadow just when he had been thinking of her. He smiled ruefully at that, aware that he had some bond to her that could not easily be broken.

She carried a plaid bundled into a huge sack, bursting full. Her dark braid trailed over one shoulder, and she moved with sure grace, head high, shoulders straight, body slim as a wand.

The bundle looked cumbersome, but he knew better than to offer to carry the pack. Independence meant much to Eva MacArthur; he remembered her protests each time he and her brothers had made allowances for her female nature.

Preceded by Solas and Grainne, she went to the house and opened the door, shooing the dogs inside. When she left the door ajar, Lachlann saw it as a gesture of welcome, although she had not looked his way while crossing the meadow.

His stomach rumbled again. Hoping that she planned to start supper, and eager against his will to be with her, he headed across the meadow toward the house.