The Mer- Lion (7 page)

"Beatum Joannem Baptistim, sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum, Omnes Sanctos."

As Father Cariolinus moved nearer the torchlight he was recognized. "What do you do here, Father, at this hour?"

"Et te, Pater, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum."
Seamus had come to the end of the confessional. What now? In desperation, he began over again, praying the brother would be too interested in the Dominican priest's explanation to notice the repetition.

"Not my idea, frater, his. Our earl, as you may have heard, has taken a deadly wound in the arm. They may have to amputate. Nothing would do but that Seamus would have me accompany him here to pray to St. Giles for the earl's safety."

"Aye, we have many who appeal to the Saint for succor for the wounded"—despite his words the brother still sounded suspicious— "but few come at midnight. And none in the dark."

"The Saints do not sleep, that's why the church is kept open, is it not?" the father replied. "Besides, we did have light, but the giant there stumbled over his own big feet and dropped it. Didn't you hear the clatter? I feared it might wake the dead!"

"I heard something. But the only one you woke, I fear, was I. I must have dozed off. Well, no matter. Do you stay much longer? I can keep you company with my torch."

Seamus had had enough of prayers. Crossing himself reverently, he slowly rose to his feet, his eyes slowly coming up level with the metallic case he had just helped put in place. The reliquary was, on closer inspection and in torchlight, a beauteous thing. Now Seamus could understand how something so small could be so heavy. It was covered with cloisonne" in a rainbow of sparkling shades. Never had Seamus seen its like, at least not up this close. He was a man more familiar with kitchens and stables than altars within a cathedral. And, under the circumstances, he preferred to save a closer inspection for some other time.

"Are you ready, my son?" the chaplain asked solicitously.

"Aye, father. More than." Approaching the two men, priest and serving brother, he genuflected before the latter. "Your blessings, lord bishop?"

The priest, flattered, opened his mouth to deny the title, then decided if the foolish peasant thought he had the appearance of so worthy a servant of Christ, why disillusion him. Instead, with a wink for the chaplain, the brother unctuously gave his benediction to the still-kneeling-giant. Then, he ushered the two men out, conversing the while with the chaplain regarding state of the Earl of Seaforth's health. As they were leaving, Seamus turned to the brother and asked, with genuine curiosity, "Does the Saint grant many of the prayers?"

"Ah, the tales I could tell you," he sighed. "Of course, usually only the prayers of those who buy and light candles are granted."

Seamus took the hint and reached into his nearly flat purse and pulled out a coin. "Then light one for my lord, if you will, and say a prayer for him."

"I will, and if you would hear of miracles, return tomorrow." The brother palmed the coin expertly and barely waited until the two men had descended from the porch before he assayed its quality between his teeth. Tin! He was disgusted. But then, what could he expect from a servant so ignorant and easily impressed as to think him a lord bishop. Of course, I do look a bit like Beaton, especially about the middle, he thought, patting himself heartily.

Seamus could scarcely wait until they were out of earshot to ask his questions. But Father Cariolinus would have none of them. "I am tired. I am not so facile as you with my tongue. Nor does twisting the truth come easy to me. Leave me to my rosary, I must ask forgiveness of God for my venal sins of this night."

Seamus was adamant. "Just one question, good father, only one."

Finally, the priest gave in. "Well, what is it?" "The other hand? Whose was it?"

"St. Giles's, of course, to whom the cathedral is dedicated. The patron saint of cripples like our poor earl." "But the cathedral has been here hundreds of years." "I know. So, has the hand."

"I felt it. It was whole. And no more cold than Seaforth's." "Blessed be the works of our Lord."

Seamus wasn't content "How will we know which is winch later?" "By the feel." "What do you mean?"

"Your hands will tell you. Your nose, too. The hand that rots will be the earl's."

"You mean I'll have to go back and get it out again myself?"

"Who else?" the priest replied in his most saintly, unperturbed voice. "You are the arm's spirtual guardian, aren't you?"

Groaning in reply, Seamus hastily crossed himself, wishing now that he'd asked the fat watch-brother to light a candle and say a prayer for the Irish victim of this night's work. The chaplain beside him paid him no heed; he was too busy saying his beads:
150
Hail Marys,
15
Our Fathers, and
15
Glory Be to the Fathers, as well. It would take him the whole trip back, and then some, to finish it.

Left to his thoughts and dwelling upon his new, totally unasked-for position in life as godfather to a dead right arm, he remembered mat the Earl of Seaforth for the past four years,had been a father himself. Not once, however, since his return with the earl's body hanging practically lifeless from the packhorse had Seamus caught sight of the boy. Of course, Seamus admitted to himself, he had not gone out of his way to look for the child. Worriedly he interrupted the priest, "Have you seen the young master?"

The priest would have to start his rosary all over again. Only a godly man such as the chaplain could have borne the interruption so patiently. "I did, I believe, see the child earlier this day."

"Not tonight?"

"Tonight? No. Well, let me think. No—yes, Yes! He was there when the physicians arrived. I remember asking him why he was up so late and if he had studied his catechism."

"Then, best say a prayer for him too, Father, if he suspected the purpose of these late night arrivals."

He quickened his pace until the priest had to run to keep up, Seamus saying his own prayer for Lady Islean. "Oh, God, no more. Father dead, husband wounded near unto death, do not let anything happen to her son."

Returning to the house on St. Mary's Wynd, Seamus organized a search, cautioning the servants not to let the lady know that there was any problem. Seamus wondered where he would go if he were small, confused, and fearful for his own father's life. To the mews! Inside that dark, but warm and somehow alive place with its rhythmic sounds of horses' chomping on hay, swishing their tails and stomping their feet. Seamus made his way to the stalls of his own favorites: the famous destriers. The tall grays. The "Great Horses" for whose breeding the Mackenzies of Seaforth were famous.

These enormous, awesome horses fascinated him, and unless his memory proved him wrong, they had always had a certain fascination for little boys as well. Seamus realized as he proceeded down the rows of stalls, answering the demands of outstretched velvety, curious muzzles, that he had not paid much attention to the Lady Islean's child before. Was it, he asked himself, because he couldn't bear to admit that another man had begotten a child upon his lady's body? By denying the child, was he denying Seaforth possession, above and beyond what Seamus himself had, of the Lady Islean?

He stopped short. Tonight was a night of unwanted revelations.

He loved the lady, and even, at one time, had wished Seaforth dead. But no longer. The trip back from Flodden Field, the scene in the solarium, and then the rite in the chapel followed by the ordeal in the cathedral—all these had cleansed Seamus somehow. True, he loved the Lady Islean. But did he lust after her still? Yes. He admitted that, too. Would he gladly give his right arm to Seaforth if he could have the lady in return? Yes, oh God, yes.

But such desires, he also knew, were the dreamings of simpletons. He had to face reality. If the lord lived (and Seamus for the first time realized he loved the man and wanted him to continue), Seaforth would be crippled, unable to lead the life he had pursued before. To tourney, to hunt, to joust, to dance, to fight, to make music, to do all the things he had been trained from childhood to do—these things were now out of the realm of possibility for James Mackenzie, Fourth Earl of Seaforth. Now, more than ever, he would need his lady wife. And she would need Seamus.

And if the earl didn't survive? Could Seamus hope that the daughter of a king, the widow of the fifth-ranking earl in the land, would look with favor upon a bought man, a serving man, a horsegroom? Could Seamus himself accept her alliance with a man as ill-born as himself?

Standing there, absently stroking a horse, Seamus vowed not to love his Lady Islean less but to attempt to love her husband more
...
and to forgive the child his father. The child! Seamus, disgusted with himself for his self-pity and introspection, remembered why he was here.

Down the line of stalls he went, to the big airy box stalls, three times the size of a standing stall, which each great horse needed just to be able to turn around. Each animal had to bear a full 700 pounds of man and armor while charging at great speed, turning with agility, responding with alacrity, not for just minutes or hours but for days on end. The bigger the horses were, Seamus had discovered, the more gentle they seemed to be, at least with him. Even those who knew to strike out on command with rear or forefeet at the enemy— and even to bite if needful—were, without exception and contrary to the other stablemen's belief, of the most even temperament. Even Dunstan, the famed stud named after the patron of horses, St.

Dunstan of the twelfth century, was gentler toward a child than one of the Lady Islean's jennets.

It was at Dunstan's stall that he found what he was looking for a small, black-haired child with astonishingly blue eyes. Perched on the edge of the feed trough, he was hand-feeding hay, one blade at a time, to this horse that needed bales of such per day just to stay alive. Yet the mighty Dunstan, gravely and courteously, took each blade when proffered and chewed it properly to the child's satisfaction before James Mackenzie, Master of Seaforth and Viscount Alva, picked another sprig from the large mound of fresh-mown hay before him and laid it across the palm of his hand for the stallion to mouth.

"You don't fear that you overfeed him?" asked Seamus dryly, breaking the silence. "Oh no, Master Seamus, I'm being very careful." "I see what you mean."

Seamus hitched himself up and onto the trough alongside the child. For a while the two took turns feeding the horse. When Seamus, out of pity, cheated once—offering the horse a good five pieces—a small hand knocked the offenders out of his palm and into the stall. Poor Dunstan went after it, but the child jumped down and picked up the five contrary pieces. Looking up in the moonlight at Seamus, his eyes were dark and his countenance grave.

"Don't do that, Master Seamus. You, above all men, should know it's bad to overfeed a horse."

Reaching down, Seamus gripped the young boy under the armpits. A disquieting memory suddenly came to mind, but he put it from him. Hoisting the boy back into place on the trough, he said, "And equally bad to underfeed."

The boy digested that for a few moments. Then with a laugh he reached down and grabbed two handfuls of the grass and threw them into the air. As they came swirling down about the startled horse, Dunstan retreated. But hunger got the best of him, and freed from the restraint of his own good manners, he fell to eating heartily.

The two, the little boy and the giant of a man, sat there in companionship watching the earl's favorite charger attack his food as if it were an enemy to be conquered.

"Poor Dunstan," said the boy, "he won't eat heartily anymore."

Seamus was puzzled. "Why is that, my lord?"

"He'll have no one to exercise him. So we'll need cut back on his rations, won't we, Seamus?" And the blue eyes, so disconcertingly like those of the Lady Islean, challenged him to disagree.

Seamus took his time answering. For the first time, he was looking at his lady's son. The child was beautiful. The head well shaped, the eyes large and fringed with thick lashes. The nose—his mother's—might have been more patrician, but Seamus felt certain that it would lose its upturned pertness with maturity. The mouth was generous, the lips neither thin or full, the chin determined.

The body was that of a healthy animal. Vigorous, well exercised, and, except for legs a shade too long, well proportioned. Not an inch of fat was there that Seamus could see. Overall, the impression was of sturdiness, shoulders and thighs stretching his jerkin and tights. The legs were so well shaped, Seamus saw, that if they kept their proportions, they would one day make women grow wild. All in all, Seamus decided, he had never seen a more pleasing child.

The child awaited his answer. Seamus had too much sense to deny the truth, but he had an inspiration. "Yes, for the while we'll have to cut back. But only until your father chooses to ride him again. Of course, you and I could see that he's exercised properly, if you wish."       

Jamie considered that, mulling it over before he answered. Seamus liked that. As one who, except for his swearing, was essentially laconic, he found it refreshing that the child didn't run on and on. Finally Jamie spoke. "Yes, I think that would be fitting. I'd like that but, more important, so would Dunstan. Are we then agreed?" Jamie smiled.

The unearthly beauty of that smile, so like his mother's, took Seamus's breath away. He only nodded. The child, contented, his world put in order at last, grew grave, looked Seamus full in the eye, and commanded, "Then help me down, Master Seamus. It is long past my bedtime, I must not tarry here."