Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03] by The Sword Maiden

Author:The Sword Maiden
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

As the two boats beached on the shore below the smithy property, Eva recognized Alpin rowing the first, with three of the king's men and Ninian inside. The second boat held more soldiers, rowed by one of them.

"The soldiers cross the loch nearly every day to look after their horses, and they often ride out after my brother and the other rebels." She glanced at Lachlann. "Some of the soldiers have been discourteous to me, and so I avoid them if I can."

He nodded his understanding. When the men began to climb the hill, he stepped in front of her, his wide shoulders and plaid-draped back forming a shield.

Her reaction to that, from another man, would have been to step forward to show she could defend herself. Yet she accepted it easily from him, glad of his gesture of support.

John Robson was a large man, brawny and blond, with a relaxed confidence that Eva found reassuring. She watched him walk nearer. "I have no quarrel with Robson," she said, "though I do not like having the garrison on the island."

"He seems trustworthy... for a king's man," he said wryly.

She shot him a little glare at the inference to her initial mistrust of him upon his return to Balnagovan. "I do not hold a good opinion of all of his men. -A few showed me such scant respect at Innisfarna that I felt it wisest to leave. That is when I came to stay with Mairi MacKerron."

"Barricading yourself behind locks and latches."

"Exactly so. And to be truthful, I am glad you came back to Balnagovan. I feel safer here."

"Now that I am here, or now that the locks are repaired?" he drawled. "Greetings, John Robson," he called in English, as the men attained the crest of the long hill.

"MacKerron! How are you, sir?"

"Well, and yourself? Another patrol, is it?"

"Aye. Good morn to you, Lady Eva," Robson said, nodding.

"Sir John, greetings," she murmured in English, using the schooled accent of the native Gael: precise, formal, and melodious. Lachlann, she noticed, had mastered the rolling rhythms of Lowland Scots, though he next addressed Alpin in Gaelic, murmuring low and clasping his hand.

"And the boy?" Lachlann asked then, peering at Ninian, who stood partly behind Alpin, his shoulders hunched, head ducked.

"This is Ninian Campbell. He is a page at Innisfarna," Eva said, beckoning the boy forward. He cupped his hand over his lower face to hide his scarred lip, as he often did with strangers. "And this is Lachlann the smith," she told the boy.

"Failte," Lachlann said in greeting. Ninian looked at him with wide blue eyes, as if he had never seen a man quite so tall or so banded with muscle. In the cool morning air, while the other men wore armor and cloaks, Lachlann, by contrast, still wore only the belted plaid, without a shirt. His bare torso and long dark hair gave him a savage appearance, Eva thought, and a wild, elemental sort of beauty. But she knew that he was more civilized and intelligent than most of the men now facing him.

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