Susan King - [Celtic Nights 01] (15 page)

"It is early," Alainna said. "The others are still abed."

He shrugged. "I am often up early. I like this part of the day. I thought to walk out to look at your Stone Maiden again. It is peaceful there." He spoke in English, and she nodded.

"Peaceful it is, unless MacNechtans are about."

"I can protect myself."

"Surely you do not intend to go out on patrol so early, and alone."

"Not yet. I have long kept the habit of practicing sword skills early in the day. I think I may do that this morning. Later your foster brother has agreed to ride out with me and some of my men to look at the property." He ruffled the dog's head and shoulders. Finan rumbled his pleasure. Sebastien glanced at Alainna. "You are awake early, too," he remarked.

"I often begin my work before the others are about."

He looked at her curiously. "Your work?"

"My stonework."

He blinked in surprise. "Stone?" He thought she would answer baking or cooking, for her hands and clothing were dusted with a pale powder that he had assumed was milled grain.

"Stonecarving. This was my cousin Malcolm's workshop. 'Tis mine now."

Intrigued, he peered past her shoulder. "May I see?"

She stepped back. He ducked his head to clear the lintel post and entered. The room was long, low-ceilinged, and cluttered, crowded with benches and stones. A square window in the front wall provided some light, but was partly shuttered against the chill. An iron brazier at the center of the room created a circle of heat. Sebastien saw the cool vapor of his breath in the dimness as Alainna closed the door.

A thick layer of stone chips covered the floor, crunching beneath his boots as he stepped forward. Benches held stones of various sizes and colors, and wall shelves were filled with tools, candles, and other items. A long table against one wall supported several flat, carved stones. The air seemed permeated with the vaguely earthy smell of stone, and a sense of coolness.

He noticed that the whitewashed walls were covered with drawings, some on cloths tacked up with nails, some drawn directly on the walls. In a far corner, a large slab of pinkish stone rested like a thick tabletop on stout trestles.

Finan padded toward the brazier and lay down on a thick pallet there, resting his great head on his crossed paws. He watched the humans languidly before drifting back to sleep.

Sebastien turned. "All this is your work?" he asked.

"It is mine." Alainna walked toward a bench that held a stone propped at an angle. Tools tumbled alongside as if recently laid down. A small table supported an iron bracket holding two flaming candles.

"You never told me that you were a stonemason, even at the abbey when we looked at your cousin's work."

"You did not ask."

He half smiled and shrugged to admit her logic. "I knew you were an
imagier,
but I never thought you might be a stonecarver. 'Tis not a usual occupation for a woman."

"My cousin traveled to many cities to do stonemasonry. He told me that women are often artisans and artists alongside their husbands and brothers, trained by them and working with them in painting, book crafting, and sculpture as well. Women are not limited by their delicate natures to embroidery, sirrah, as some knights-errant might think."

"I did not think that. And I have seen female artisans and merchants in cities. Did you learn the craft from your cousin?"

She nodded. "Malcolm spent several months each year at Kinlochan with his kinsmen, since masons do little work in the winter. He traveled a great deal, but when he stayed here, he did work for the local parish churches—crosses, corbels and tympana, tombstones. He set up this workshop, and tried to do carvings here as much as possible, except when he had to work
in situ."
She shrugged. "I had a quick eye and a quick hand, and he needed an assistant. So he taught me the basics of the craft. I am not a highly skilled carver, as he was."

Sebastien glanced at some of the stones. "I think you have skill enough for any stonecarver, male or female," he said. "These show a fine strong hand for design and technique."

"My thanks," she said.

He strolled around the room, looking at the carved and half-carved stones, at iron chisels, wooden mallets, measuring devices, and other tools he did not recognize. He lifted a tool that looked like a small iron poker, and hefted its weight.

"That is a point, or a punch," she said. "It is used to clear chunks of stone away, when driven with the mallet."

He put it down, and shook his head a little in bemusement. "I confess that I am still amazed that a woman does such work."

She came closer. "'Tis not difficult. The tools require a careful hand more than brute strength, and the softer types of stone are no harder to carve than wood."

"I see." He glanced around. "How do you manage to move the stones? Some of these are very large blocks."

"I am not helpless," she said.

He tilted a brow at her. "I do not doubt that."

"A stone of any size can be moved with levers and rollers. If a stone is small enough to lift, I either do it myself, or find someone to help me. I am stronger than I look."

His gaze skimmed her body appreciatively. This time he took note of the straight, square set of her shoulders, the balanced grace of her slim body, her long, nimble hands, the firm shape of her arms beneath her gown. She undoubtedly had some strength, and he was sure she would excel at work requiring dexterity. He knew she had determination enough for any task.

He wandered around the room, looking at the stone carvings. Alainna watched in silence. He paused by the long table. The stones arranged there varied from the size of bread loaves to several much larger. All were carved in raised relief in designs that showed the same firm hand, skilled at fine detail.

"This is excellent work," he said. The smaller stones were shaped like crosses and carved with linear, complex relief designs in the Celtic manner. He touched one of the crosses. "You gave a piece like this to King William. That was your work, then, although you did not claim so at the time."

"It was. Those I am making for our parish church. Father Padruig wants a set to mark the stations of the cross."

He nodded. Nailed to the wall in front of him was the cloth that he recognized from the abbey church, which held a few sketches and the rubbed impression he had made of her cousin's mason's mark. He noticed, too, a small drawing of a standing knight in chain mail. The figure's sword looked very much like his own. He made no comment, nor did she, although he noticed a rising blush in her cheeks while he examined it.

Most of the large rectangular stones laid side by side on the long table were carefully finished. The stones were similar in their soft gray color, which had a delicate silvery sheen, and were alike in design and size, as long as a man's arm and half that across, each a handspan in depth, clearly meant to be a set.

"What kind of stone is this?" he asked, touching one of them. It felt cool beneath his fingers.

"Gray limestone," she answered. "It is quarried a little south of here. My father had these brought here a year ago, cut and dressed with the axe by the quarrymen, after I told him that I wanted to make a series of stone pictures. There are twenty blocks of the same size. I have finished seven. But I do not think twenty blocks will be enough for what I want to do."

"What is it you want to do?" He studied a finished stone, then another as he moved the length of the table.

"I mean to record the history of Clan Laren in pictures."

He glanced at her, stunned by her ambition. Then he looked more carefully at the stones. Each completed slab featured carved border designs of interwoven vines and knots framing various interior images. He had seen similar plaited and interlaced designs in manuscripts, and in the carvings in Scottish churches. The interwoven designs Alainna had made were carefully done, rhythmic and graceful.

The overall style had a simplicity of form and design that suited the gray stone. The images portrayed human figures, animals, birds, boats, and weapons. He saw scenes of men in boats, men hunting, a woman fighting a wolf, several figures on horseback, and a scene of a mermaid on a rock.

"These are beautiful," he commented.

Alainna walked over to stand near him. "Each one tells a story from my clan. This one shows the first Labhrainn who left Ireland with his brothers and came to Scotland. He fell in love with a mermaid who lived in a loch." She pointed to the image of the mermaid seated on a rock, holding a mirror in one hand and a comb in the other.

He nodded. "And this?" He pointed to the scene of the woman facing the wolf. She clutched a knife in one hand, and in her other arm carried a swaddled child.

"Mairead the Brave, wife of Niall, son of Conall, who killed a wolf to protect her child."

"Ah. The women of your clan have courage all."

"We do what we must to protect our own."

Sebastien glanced at her. A pink blush stained her creamy cheeks. She stood so close, looking at the stones with him, that her shoulder brushed his arm. He angled toward her.

"I think," he murmured, "that Alainna, daughter of Laren, has inherited the courage of Mairead the Brave, wife of Niall. You defend your clan with all the fierceness of a warrior... or a mother." He reached out on impulse to lift away the shining strands of hair that had fallen over her brow. "God help any who threaten your clan."

She looked directly into his eyes. "Then God help you."

Sebastien sighed. "Tell me about the other stones," he said. She clearly did not want a truce with him. He would have to discover moments of peace with her along the way, or find himself striking head to head with her each time they were together.

She complied, explaining the next picture, and the next. He was entranced by the images and stories, and by the low-pitched murmur of her voice. His hand grazed hers as they touched a stone together, his large and well-knuckled, hers smooth, the fingers long and tapered.

She folded her fingers quickly, but not before he saw calluses and small healing cuts. The gesture revealed a tender vulnerability beneath her outward show of prideful strength.

"The stones tell my clan's history through generations, or they will when I finish them."

"You are fortunate to have such a rich heritage."

"Everyone has a heritage."

"Not everyone," he murmured, brushing his fingers over stone.

She did not ask, nor did he offer. "I fear our tales will be lost forever." She lifted her chin. "I mean to save our heritage by carving it in these tablets."

He was astonished by the will and determination she possessed. He had seen pride in many guises, but never entwined so exquisitely with honorable intent.

"You are a storyteller, like Lorne."

She shook her head. "I am... a guardian. A preserver. Lorne keeps hundreds of tales that go back a thousand years, into the mists of time. He is a strand in the long rope of storytelling that binds the generations to their Celtic culture, and he can spin that magic over and over. I save the stories of our clan. When they are set in stone, my task will be done."

"Others might record their heritage in a chronicle, or on a tree of genealogy."

"Parchment and ink are easily lost or ruined. And I can neither read nor write."

He leaned a hip against the table and folded his arms over his chest, facing her. "This is a lifetime's work."

"Then so be it. I will set down the tales in stone if it takes my entire life to do it. Someday we of this blood and this name may well be gone. I do not want our heritage lost to memory, and I do not want it put on parchment."

"Stone will last forever."

"It will. When there is no one of our bloodline to tell the tales of Clan Laren, these stones will hold our legacy."

"Alainna," he said, "your clan will not die."

"You have come here to destroy what has existed for generations. I am the last of my name, so my children must carry that name."

He exhaled impatiently, and circled his hand around her arm. "I did not come here to destroy anything. And I will not carry the burden of blame for your anger and sorrow."

She pulled back against his grip. "Whatever your intent, the end of this clan may well be the result."

"Listen to me," he said, keeping his hold firm. "Stay here," he said, drawing her closer with his hands on her arms when she tried to yank away. "I have listened to you. Now allow me the same courtesy." He held her as he might hold a recalcitrant child.

"Speak, then." She stilled in his grip, her brow knotted.

"I am here because you asked for a champion—"

"I did not ask for you! I asked for—"

"I know, a Celtic warrior. But I am here to do what I can to save your clan. You must accept that, for the good of all."

"Save my clan? A Norman knight who cares only for how much land he can acquire, how much wealth, how much fame? Give me none of your Norman salvation. Saving my people satisfies Norman needs—your own needs—not theirs!"

He narrowed his eyes, and drew her close until her breasts, beneath gray wool, crushed against his chest and her thighs warmed his. "If I thought only to satisfy my needs," he growled, "you would be the first to know it."