The Mer- Lion Page 6

  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."

  Only as they were about to leave the mews did the little boy venture a question. "Will he live, do you think, Master Seamus?" Try as he might, the boy couldn't keep the catch out of his voice.

  "He's a good man, a godly man, a clean-living man," Seamus

  temporized. "

  Jamie ignored the obvious, and seized upon the essential. "Is clean living important, then?"

  "Oh, very."

  "More than praying?"

  Seamus fell back upon his area of expertise. "I don't know. But the horse with good habits, who eats temperately, getting neither thick nor thin, seems to live the longest and heal the fastest."

  "My father never gets thick nor thin."

  "No, he always stays just right."

  "So he should heal fast. But just the same, I'll pray for him. Will you pray for him, too, Seamus?"

  "With all my heart, my lord, and for your good mother as well." There was a long pause. "Pray for me too, Seamus." "For you too, my lord."

  Content that the conversation had gone the way he wished, the child said no more, but left Seamus and started across the courtyard toward the outside stair that led up to the family's apartments. Seamus watched him for a moment, then turned about, to go to the comfort of his bed and Nelly's arms. Abruptly, he was grabbed about the legs by two very determined arms.

  "Thank you, Seamus. I love you, Seamus. Good night, Seamus."

  Before Seamus could say a word, he was released and sturdy legs propelled their owner back to the stairway. And as suddenly as had come that declaration from a child he'd ignored until now, so suddenly did Seamus transfer to her son much of the unrequited, useless love he'd lavished on his lady.

  CHAPTER 3

  The earl lived, a tribute more to his constitution than to his physicking. His mind healed less quickly. At first, he refused to believe his arm was gone, claiming it itched or the sheets felt cool to it. Only after he had reached out finitely with an invisible arm was he forced to acknowledge its loss. He found refuge in anger, but such rage could not be contained, spilling over to include all about him.

  Since Seamus's strength was needed daily in the sickroom, his presence was tolerated, but he was reviled for his clumsiness and for . having the audacity to rescue the earl from a good death on the battlefield. Boorde, whether present or not, was ignored, casually dismissed as a butcher in physician's robes. Seaforth refused to see or be seen by the Lady Islean whom he loudly and profanely blamed for his maiming. Though she covered her ears, still she heard and often fled the room in tears.

  But it was a dead man who was the special target of the earl's hatred. Ten times a day or more, Seaforth consigned James IV to purgatory for his benighted leadership. And when the king's queen was delivered of a dead son, Seaforth professed himself glad, though his malediction sounded hollow. His little son Jamie alone was spared a fair share of curses, but only on good days. On bad days, when the missing arm ached unbearably, Jamie, like everyone else, suffered.

  Eventually the entire household learned to avoid the sickroom as

  much as possible on those days when anger gave way to depression; at those times a deep all-pervasive self-pity wrenched at the hearts of those who loved him, making them wish that the fury would return. He sat for hours luxuriating in his misfortune. A new book arrived? Too heavy to hold in one hand. Would he write instructions for the seneschal at Seaforth? The quill needed sharpening, a task for two hands. A little music perhaps? Impossible to tune a lute one-handed.

  The one thing that presented him with no difficulty was filling and refilling his cup. In the morning he began with their best home brew. By midday the ale was replaced with canary or madeira. At nightfall, usquebaugh was his choice... smoky, tawny, heady... a potent distillate that could and did lay the strongest man low.

  On a night no different from others, Seamus sat quietly in a corner. The earl was well into his fourth or fifth usquebaugh, though it was not dampening the fire of anger that raged through his nerve fibres. Occasionally he shouted a command for another flagon of brew, or a silk cloth to wipe his perspiring brow, just to see a serving man jump at his command.

  The Lady Islean quietly worked at her tapestry frame in one corner of the huge room. When her husband bellowed, her hand would still for long minutes at a time. Eyes averted from the drunkard, she stared at the flames in the large stone fireplace or at * the one joy in this new existence: young Jamie, playing with toy soldiers while sprawled on the fur before the fire. He took the part of first one, then another of the miniature wooden soldiers, long in need of fresh paint but beautifully carved and detailed.

  The soldiers had belonged once to the Lady Islean's full brother, James Stewart, the bastard Earl of Moray, and many other royal tykes before him. Many a battle these soldiers had fought and won or lost. The armored knight rode a charger trapped with chain mail. The mounted esquire carried a spear with a knightly banner. The third, who wore no mail but went on foot and carried a long bow, was the five-year-old's favorite. Even though his armor was leather and his uniform was drab, he could go where horses could not and so often won the day with spear, sword, or bow.

  "Scout, I, your king, command you to ride forth and locate the enemy," Jamie said, picking up the foot soldier.

  "By your command, sire," he answered himself in a small quiet voice. He had learned long since not to disturb his father when he was drinking.

  ~~ Jamie's tiny hand slowly slid the lowly sergeant across the rug and out onto the broad plain of the slate floor.

  "Master Meredith, set up camp at the base of that hill yonder."

  "Right away, sire," the esquire replied through his third-party voice. And Jamie moved him smartly over by the wolfs head at one end of the rug.

  "As for you, Lord Lachlan," he said, reaching for the knight, "deploy your—"

  An anguished howl and then a curse cut him short. The earl had lurched from his huge chair, and in three unsteady steps had managed to plop his stockinged foot down on the bowman. Surprised and in pain, he h
owled with rage and savagely kicked the tiny soldier into the fireplace.

  Jamie rushed to rescue his man, but not fast enough. His humble soldier caught fire like kindling and the flames drove back the daring hand that would have saved him.

  "Why did you do that?" the boy cried, tears blackening his blue eyes. "He didn't hurt you deliberately."

  Seaforth desperately held onto the mantel with his only hand, in real need to steady himself, for not only did his head spin from the sudden exertion, but he was also taken aback by the look in his son's eyes. He did not, however, intend to be put on the defensive by one so young, so he quickly took up a theme he had preached before.

  "Why do you play with toy soldiers? Why are you not practicing with real weapons? At your age, I could set a lance and run a course and wield a 'mercy'* with either hand. Hear that? With either—" His voice broke; he grew maudlin, "I'll never joust again... or ride to the hunt... or show myself at court again." With the mercurial change of mood drink can cause, he grew angered. "Hear me? I'm crippled, and you play with toys!" With that, the earl kicked the two remaining soldiers in the direction of the flames. The miniature squire had fought his last battle, but the wooden knight was rescued by the great andiron on the near side of the fireplace.

  *The misencorde, a straight, thin-bladed dagger used to give the coup de grace to a fallen foe.

  Jamie didn't wait to watch the second of his beloved soldiers turn to ashes. Instead, he lunged for his one remaining treasure and ran from the room without another word, the tiny nobleman squeezed tight in his hand.

  "Come back here!" the father roared. "Do you hear me? Come back here before I take a belt to your bottom."