Susan King - [Celtic Nights 01] (42 page)

Chapter 26

Alainna bent over the stone propped on her workbench, frowning in concentration. She maneuvered the chisel with a delicate hand, driving it with light taps of the mallet, as she carefully edged the tip around the elaborate twists and turns in an interlaced border. The chisel's path was a detailed design, drawn with chalk on the stone, which required caution and focus to follow.

Finan, lying in the warmth near the iron brazier, lifted his head and barked softly, then stood. Over the thunk of the mallet and scrape of the chisel edge, Alainna heard shouts in the bailey, and looked up.

She set aside her tools and went to the door to pull it open. The snow had thickened, and the light had a lavender sheen. The floor of the bailey was white and drifts had gathered at the base of the palisade. She wrapped her plaid over her head and shoulders against the wind, and stepped outside. The dog went out with her, and they moved side by side through a pale, stinging haze of snowflakes.

She saw Lorne, Niall, and some of the others running toward the gate, and she quickened her step while Finan ran ahead, barking furiously. "What is it?" she called to her kinsmen. "What has happened?"

Niall turned, gesturing with his single hand toward the entrance. "Giric and the knights are back! Aenghus saw them coming through the snow. Something has happened. Some of the men are wounded."

"Who is hurt?" she called, feeling the chill of true fear as she thought of Sebastien and her kinsmen wounded—or worse.

Niall ran past to join Lome and Aenghus as they lifted the wooden beam that secured the palisade gate. After they swung the gate wide, horses and riders began to straggle into the bailey. Giric rode in the lead, and Lulach followed behind.

Alainna sighed out with relief to see them safe. She scanned past him to see who followed, recognizing Robert, Etienne, Richard, and several other knights. Blood smeared their faces and darkened their armor and weapons. Lulach looked haggard but unhurt, while Giric's face was bloody. Alainna scanned them all frantically. Nineteen men had left that morning, but only thirteen came through the gate.

Sebastien was not with them. Her heart plummeted.

While her kinfolk helped the knights dismount, she ran toward Giric. He looked at her, his brow bruised and bleeding.

"Ach Dhia,"
she cried, reaching up to him. "Oh God, what happened? Where... where are the rest of them?" She looked toward the empty gate, then again at Giric.

She saw shock and sadness and devastation in his eyes, a look she had seen too often before in other kinsmen returning from battle. Sobs tore at her throat.

"Giric, what happened?" She reached for his hand.

"Ambush," he said hoarsely. His fingers did not grip hers. "Cormac betrayed our trust."

"He gave you no chance to speak with him?"

"We spoke. We met with him at Turroch," Giric answered. He wiped a hand over his face, streaking blood across his brow from a wound beneath his hair. "Sebastien gave them the king's message. We left for home." He sighed out, shoulders bowing. "They attacked us and trapped us in a pass between two hills. Cormac and Struan must have planned it well ahead of time, to be so many waiting for us. They must have taken a quick route to get there when we left Turroch. The Normans were trapped in their heavy armor, with their horses—not suited to—"

"Get down," she said, seeing him lean forward, weakening. "Let Morag or Una tend to your head quickly. Save the tale for later." She reached up to help him as he dismounted.

Around her, her elderly kinfolk assisted those who had returned, helping them to dismount and walk toward the hall, while the three squires came out and led the horses to the stable. Niall and Donal half carried Robert, who seemed unable to walk on his own. Lome led Etienne, whose arm was saturated in blood. Una approached with bandages and stanched the bleeding as they stood in the whirling snow.

Alainna gazed at the gate, but no others came through. Sebastien had not returned. She felt stunned, as if the breath had been knocked from her. She swallowed another sob as she supported Giric standing beside her.

"Giric... where is Sebastien?" she asked, dreading, hoping.

"He... I do not know,"—he gasped and shook his head—"I do not know where he is. I did not see him when we made our escape. Alainna, he fought like Fionn himself."

Her heart froze. Just then, Giric lurched and she instinctively slid her arm around his waist. He leaned his weight on her. Blood seeped down his face.

"Ach,"
she said. "Wait. You should not try to walk."

"It is nothing," he said. "I gave worse than this." More blood darkened his brow. He lifted his hand to cover the wound and stepped forward, Alainna under the weight of his arm.

"Una! Lome!" she called. They left the knights they were with to Morag and Donal's care and hurried toward them. Alainna handed Giric over to Lome's sinewy embrace, and Una pressed Giric's brow with a cloth. He nearly collapsed against Lome, and roused himself to look at Alainna. "I must tell you—" he began.

"Later," Alainna pleaded. "Not now. Go inside."

"You must know. Ruari was there," Giric rasped out.

Alainna stared at him. "Ruari?" She heard Lome echo her.

"Poor lad, he's having visions of those who have gone before," Una said.

"He lives there," Giric insisted. "He helped us, Alainna. When Sebastien was put upon by five men at once, Ruari fought at his back. And then he came to my aid, and saved Robert's life too. I saw that with my own eyes. We all did."

"Giric—" Lome began.

"Where is Ruari now?" Alainna asked quickly.

Giric shook his head. "I do not know."

Lome, frowning thoughtfully, nodded. "If Ruari is out there," he said, "we will find him. I will ask Donal and Aenghus to search for him."

Alainna looked at Giric, who nodded. She knew he felt the same tremendous relief that she felt. "Send them to the island on the loch," she said.

Lome agreed, while Una stared at all of them in disbelief, but neither of them asked questions. They guided Giric toward the tower, while Alainna turned away.

She lingered, watching the open, empty gate, where the snow blew in gusts. She felt as if a hole had formed in the center of her being, as cold and desolate as the deserted entrance.

A few men still stood in the bailey, though most had been helped into the tower. Two Norman squires soothed a restless horse and pulled him toward the stable. She saw nothing else. No one else.

She walked toward the gate and looked out. A gauzy white veil diminished the world beyond the fortress. She could barely make out the loch, and could see neither the Stone Maiden nor the forest and mountains.

The snow stung her cheeks, and the cold wind whistled around her, tugging at her plaid. She should go inside, she knew, and help those who had returned.

Yet she could not leave the gate. She stood like a pillar, alone in the whipping wind and snow, and wanted to plunge into the freezing haze to find him. Hugging her arms about herself, she stamped her feet against the cold, and waited.

She walked back and forth or stood prancing from one foot to the other for so long that darkness began to gather, lit eerily by the constantly falling snow. Numb and exhausted, Alainna paced, or stopped to scan the endless curtain of flakes. She was aware that she was watched now and then from the firelit doorway of the tower. But she could not go inside where it was warm, and where she was undoubtedly needed. She was needed here, too, to stand like a beacon at the gate.

To leave her sentry position would be to give up hope. She could not do that, for she was sure that she sensed Sebastien's presence like a heartfelt pull between them. She could only pray fervently that it was his living spirit she sensed, homing toward her through the increasing blizzard.

At long last, when she thought she could stand upright no longer, she saw a blur of figures emerging through the whiteness. A man on horseback slowly mounted the hill toward the palisade, leading other horses behind him. Riderless horses. Alainna gasped and ran forward as he cleared the top of the rocky slope and came toward the clearing that fronted the gate.

Sebastien swayed in a weary rhythm with the horse, a dirge of movement that tore at Alainna's heart to watch. In one hand he gripped the reins of three horses, which bore the bodies of five fallen knights. She nearly cried out, hands covering her mouth.

He rode through the frozen veil of snow, his face still and fierce. His mail coif sagged on his shoulders, his surcoat was torn and bloody, and his hair was matted and darkened. But he was alive. He was here, and her relief felt like golden sunlight.

She ran to him, skirts flying, feet wading through the powdered snow. "Sebastien!" she called, her voice catching on a rising sob. "Sebastien!"

He halted his horse. Alainna stopped an arm's length from the Arabian, whose creamy coat seemed eerily pale in the lavender light. The horse snorted, blew out, hung his head with weariness, and pawed at the snow that collected around his hooves.

Alainna looked up at Sebastien as the snow danced and deepened around them. He watched her, mouth hard, cheeks drawn, his silvery eyes vivid with sorrow, deep with a need that she had not seen in him before, as if she saw clear through to his soul.

She reached out. He grasped her hand fiercely, his fingers cold on hers, and let go. She sensed the devastation he felt, and tears filled her eyes.

She glanced past him at the bodies arched over the backs of the three horses he led. "So many," she said.

"Too many." The mellow voice that she craved to hear was wooden, flat. "Hugo is gone, Alainna. Hugo."

A sob wrenched her, but she stifled it, pressing a hand to her chest, looking at the sad burden of lost friends on the horses behind him. She knew Hugo had been like a brother to him.

With stiff, careful movements, he dismounted and stood beside her. She gasped as she saw how much blood covered the front of his surcoat, and she prayed it was not his. He held his left hand over his stomach, the arm tight against his side.

Wordlessly, with the reins bunched in his hand, he turned and led the horses toward the open gate. Alainna walked beside him, extending her palm in a silent plea for some of the leads.

He gripped them hard and did not look at her. She understood, and waited as he entered the enclosure alone, leading the horses in a slow walk.

Inside the bailey, he halted the horses, patting the Arabian's broad neck. Alainna saw him lean against his horse's side for a moment, then move around the horse, staggering slightly. She ran to him just as he took his hand away from his side. His fingers were red with blood.

Fear struck through her like lightning, but she strived to remain calm. "Come inside," she said quietly, touching his arm. "Someone will take the horses, and... see to the men."

He shook his head. "I cannot leave them like that. There are prayers that must be said over them. We cannot send for the priest in this blizzard, but we can—"

"Later," she said firmly. She touched his hand, fisted over the reins. His fingers, long and cold, opened at her touch. "First we will tend to the living."

She put her arm around his back, and he circled his arm around her shoulders. His partial weight and the pressure of his body beside hers felt solid and good amid chill and hurt and death. She held back her tears and her questions and gave him her support, moving forward in patient tandem with him.

Lorne emerged from the falling snow like a ghost, his face gray. Donal was behind him. Alainna handed the clutch of reins to Donal, who nodded to Sebastien. "I will see to this," he said. "Do not worry. See to yourself."

"Come," Lorne said. He tossed a plaid about Sebastien's shoulders. "You are weary, my son, and in need of a hearth." His subdued voice was warm and reassuring. He put an arm around Sebastien's shoulders and turned with him.

Alainna saw the growing pallor in Sebastien's cheeks, but he walked forward without faltering. He did not lean on either of them, but she kept her arm around his waist. Whether he needed it of her or not, she needed to help him.

As they approached the tower, the door opened at the top of the steps, and torchlight flared there.