Susan King - [Celtic Nights 01] (35 page)

Alainna heard Una and Beitris laughing, and looked up to see several of her kinfolk rising from their seats to come toward their table. Most of them wore broad smiles and most were chattering at once. Esa moved among them too, tall and dignified.

"We have yet to have the bedding of the bride, and it grows late," Una said, walking in the lead. She carried two folded plaids in her arms. "Stand up now, the pair of you!"

Sebastien stood, stepping outside the bench, as Alainna did. She felt her stomach lurch, and her heartbeat grew fast and heavy.

"A bedding for a handfasting is done differently than for a marriage," Beitris told Sebastien. She lifted the plaids out of Una's arms and handed one to him and the other to Alainna. "We will not escort you to the bedchamber with songs and blessings, for that is reserved for weddings. You two are to go outside, and find yourselves a place to be alone in one of the other buildings."

"Or up the steps in Alainna's warm bedchamber, if you want to sneak past us," Morag added, smiling. "We will pretend not to see." She looked the other way pointedly, while laughter rippled around her.

"We will not follow you," Una promised. "You will have your privacy to do what you will." She grinned, to more laughter.

For all their delight, Alainna could not smile. Her cheeks grew hot. She glanced at Sebastien, and saw with surprise that his cheeks were stained rosy. She had never seen him blush before, although he was a fair man. He looked awkward, standing with the plaid in his arms as if he was not sure what to do with it.

"We will not follow you," Lorne said. "But we will give you a
seun,
a charm of blessing. Come here, and stand with me." He beckoned to them.

Alainna went toward him, as did Sebastien, while the rest stood back, creating a wide circle around them.

Lorne lifted his hand. A length of red thread, knotted and strung with small, shining crystals, dangled from his fingers. He shook the string gently, so that it rang and sparkled.

Alainna stood beside Sebastien while Lorne walked around them sunwise, and shook the string in a sweet rhythm. He recited a blessing as he moved, and Alainna closed her eyes and listened.

Be the smooth path for the other

Be the bright star for the other

Be the kind eye for the other

Be sun and moon for the other

Be grace and peace for the other

Be shield and strength for the other.

He shook the string of crystals and circled them again.

Each day be joyous

No day be grievous

All days be blessed

And well and seven times well

May you spend your days.

Lorne stood still and let the crystals fall silent. Alainna felt the warmth of Sebastien beside her, and sensed his presence like a rock, like the fortress of the vows she had taken.

Quiet lingered like a veil of peace. Alainna opened her eyes and saw her kinfolk watching her, smiling fondly, forming a wide circle around her and Sebastien. Lome had stepped back too. Standing among the Highlanders, the knights watched, their expressions somber and respectful, aware that they watched something sacred.

She looked up at Sebastien. Shadows and firelight flickered across his sculpted profile. Then he turned his gaze upon her and tilted his head to indicate that it was time for them to leave the hall.

She turned toward the door. The crowd parted like a wave of the sea as she and Sebastien moved forward together.

Chapter 22

In the starlit bailey, their breaths formed pale frosted clouds. Alainna was silent as she walked beside Sebastien, hearing the light strains of Lorne's music wafting out behind them.

"We can go in here," she said as they neared her workshop. She opened the door and Sebastien entered behind her, ducking his head beneath the lintel.

The room was cold, dim, and eerily silent, the carvings mute, pale presences on benches and tables. A faint red glow emanated from the brazier in the center of the room. Alainna crossed over to it, her footsteps crunching on the layer of stone chips. She grasped an iron poker and bent to coax the live coals to better brightness. After adding a few peat chunks, she brushed off her hands and straightened.

She turned uncertainly. Sebastien crossed the room toward her, his boot soles loud on the crushed stone. He took a tallow candle from a shelf and hunkered down to light it at the brazier. Then, standing beside her, candle held high and folded plaid beneath his arm, he lifted his brow laconically.

"Shall we sleep here tonight?"

She hugged the plaid to her chest. "I spend many nights here. It is cold just now, but it will soon be warmer." She watched him scan the room with his gaze: floor littered with stone chips, benches and tables crowded with carved and raw-cut stones, shelves full of iron and wooden implements, and a coating of fine, pale dust on nearly everything.

"Cozy," he drawled.

She laughed a little, and went to the far corner of the room, where she laid her plaid out on a long slab of pinkish sandstone, which rested, tablelike, on three stout wooden trestles, one end inclined a little higher than the other. Sebastien joined her, tossing his plaid down beside hers and setting the candle on a corner of the stone.

"If you are tired and do not wish to go back into the hall to seek a bed, you can rest here." She patted the slab. "It is not an appealing bed, I know, but..." She let her voice trail off.

He brushed his fingers over the slightly grainy surface. A border of knotwork, composed of interwoven lines in endless circles, had been carved in low relief to form a frame. The interior section was flat and blank.

"Is this one of your projects?" he asked.

"Malcolm began this," she said, touching the stone. "It is the last of the pink sandstone slabs that he brought here several years ago. The other pieces were made into the tombstones that you saw in the church." She frowned. "I hope I will never have to finish this carving."

He nodded grimly. "The dog's pallet by the brazier will do fine for a bed."

She wrinkled her nose, and half laughed. "If you like the company of fleas."

He chuckled, the sound echoing among the stones in the room. "And if I went back to the hall, just where would I seek a bed?"

"You could hardly take a pallet beside the other knights and my kinsmen. Not now."

"True." He crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the stone. "Do you not expect us to live as man and wife now that we are handfasted? It part of the custom."

She crossed her arms too, a mirror of his pose, and leaned against the stone. "Couples who take handfasting vows also have the... privileges of marriage. But they are usually in love and eager to be married. They handfast until a priest can be summoned, and so the custom grew into a year and a day. We are fortunate to have a priest near Kinlochan, but it is not the case in much of the Highlands."

"Ah," he said, nodding his understanding. "But it can still be undone, even if it is a marriage made in the eyes of God."

"According to our custom, it can." Her heart thudded hard. "My kinfolk think that we will... complete our union. They believe that we have handfasted to keep our marriage secret from Cormac for a while." She sighed. "They want us to stay wed, and they want you to agree to take our name for your own, and give it to our children."

"I cannot do that," he murmured.

She shrugged. "Still, they expect you will. They find it hard to believe that anyone can refuse our name, or leave Kinlochan."

"It is a beautiful place, and a proud name," he agreed. "But my ties are in Brittany, just as yours are here."

"You could bring your son back here with you, to your new home—if you wanted to live here," she added.

"Home," he said, as if he had never heard the word before. He rubbed the edge of the stone with his fingers.

"They believe that you will stay here to defeat Clan Nechtan and rebuild Clan Laren. My kinfolk want to accept you not only as the champion sent by the king, but as a leader."

" You are their leader, not I."

"Now they place their faith in you, too," she said. "They believe in you, their golden warrior." She had not meant to utter her own thoughts, and bit at her lower lip.

He frowned at her. "Their what?"

"Their hero. You have proven your worth to them." She turned to spread out the plaids. "It is not a comfortable bed, but you can rest here if you want."

"And you?"

"I am not tired," she said. "I have some work to do."

"I may not know you as well as a husband knows a wife, but I can see that you are exhausted. Your voice sounds hoarse and there are shadows under your eyes. You need rest."

She shook her head. "My work eases me. I am overwrought after such a day. I will rest later."

"Here?" He tapped the sandstone, then glanced at the rough floor. "There is no suitable bed in this place. What of tomorrow, and after that?"

She had given that some thought already. "I will share my bedchamber, but not my bed. Only you and I need know that."

He nodded slowly. "You will do nearly anything to please your kinfolk, I think."

She stilled her hands on the plaid. "How can I go against their wishes? They have had so much disappointment, so much loss. I cannot tell them that we do not want this."

"Some of them may be growing fragile with age, Alainna, but they are tough, and they are wise." His voice was quick and stern, almost a reprimand. "They are not so needy as you think. There is no reason to protect them from the truth."

She shook her head. "I cannot tell them. Our handfasting, and your arrival here, has brought them hope and joy. I did not know how much it meant to them until I saw their faces this evening, heard their laughter. I will not shatter that. Not yet." She stepped away.

He reached out to cup her shoulder. She halted, her back to him. "You love them so much," he murmured, "that you will even let them believe that we are living as man and wife. Is that respect for them, Alainna, or does it allow you to avoid the truth?"

"The truth is that we do this only to ensure help for Kinlochan... and to ensure the land grant for you."

"I did not come here just for the land."

"Why then?"

"For you," he said. "I came for you."

A chill ran through her. She looked at him, captured by the sincerity in his voice. Caught, too, by the memory of her dream.

"I watched you make your plea to the king," Sebastien said. "I saw your pride and your desperation. Clearly you cared about your people, and you greatly needed a champion. I came here to help you."

"I am grateful," she said quietly. "But we need far more than virtuous chivalry at Kinlochan."

"You have a low opinion of courtesy, I know. Yet courtesy and honor keep you safe, here and now."

"How so?" She stepped away from the pressure of his hand.

"Courtesy will keep you safe tonight in that unforgiving stone bed," he said, and indicated the slab with his thumb. "And in your own bed later, I assure you. If I had no courtesy in my nature"—he bowed in a mocking way—"I could not guarantee your virtue, my lady."

"I know how courteous you can be," she said. "And I will allow you into my bedchamber for now, but not my bed."

"So be it." His voice was smooth and cool, that polite veneer in place like opaque glass. She wanted desperately to see through that glass. She craved to know more of him, yearned for the fire, the passion, the sheer challenge she sensed in him. Yet her declaration had erected a barrier between them.

Wordlessly, she picked up the candle and carried it to a bench, which held a cloth-covered stone and several tools. She set the candle down so that its light poured over the covered stone. Lifting a plain, loose-cut tunic that lay nearby, she slipped it on to protect the fine-spun woolen gown from stone dust. Deftly and quickly, she drew the waving mass of her loose hair over her shoulder and plaited it into one long braid that she tossed back.