Page 48 of The Falcon Laird
“Gavin Faulkener,” she said, “thank you for saving my mother.”
He bowed. “You are welcome, Lady Michaelmas.”
She grinned and ran back toward the great tower. Gavin stared at her for a long moment. That undefined resemblance suddenly came clear. The child looked like his mother, who had been in the convent where Michaelmas was born. A relative, perhaps. Did his mother have cousins, or sisters—he was notsure. John might know, for he had been an older stepbrother to her, making him Gavin’s uncle.
Shaking his head, he crossed the bailey yard in the rising dawn.
Chapter Twelve
Stepping carefully overbits of fallen timbers and broken stone, Christian climbed toward the level of the great hall to wait for Gavin, who was in the bailey talking with John Keith. Shivering, she pulled her cloak snug around her. The air was chilly here, her breaths in pale puffs. Cool light sliced through an arrowslit in the wall, brightening the gloom of the scorched stone walls. She peered into the great hall, or what was left of it. Once bright and vast, it was a wide hole filled with wreckage where the timber floor beams had collapsed through the ceilings of the bakery and storage rooms below.
The damage throughout the castle still shocked her. It was all her doing, and she had needed stark will and courage to torch that pile of straw last summer. But she had done it. She had destroyed Kilglassie and its legend. And now fate had brought her back. She needed courage just to look around.
She wiped away the tears that rose, and rested her back against cold stone.
Jammed into fixedposition overhead, the iron grille of the portcullis slanted down on one side at a precarious tilt. Reaching up, Gavin tugged on the lowest horizontal bar, then hung for a moment, testing if it would budge. It did not.
“Welded fast,” he muttered. A blacksmith would have to dismantle the thing to repair it, he thought.
“John Keith will scold you,” a light voice said. He glanced over to see Michaelmas looking up at him. He dropped to the ground and dusted his hands.
“Will he?”
“Aye. You must not swing from the yett. It is dangerous. John said it would smash Patrick flat.”
“He is right to caution you. There are many dangerous spots in this castle now. If you want to play somewhere, we must first make sure it is safe.”
“The laddies do not care if it is safe. They’re brave.” Michaelmas watched him, her eyes wide and honest, a fine blue that wholly disconcerted him. “Patrick and Robbie and I played at Kilglassie before you came here. Robbie can climb to the top o’ the yett and down, like a squirrel.”
“Talented lad, that Robbie,” he said. “But I want you and your friends to be careful here.”
She nodded. “May I swing?”
“So long as I am here.”
Her small hands reached up. “Lift me, please, Gavin Faulkener,” she said primly. He took her by the waist, such a slight girl, and held her so that she could grab the lowest bar. “Will’s mother will not let him climb the gate,” she said, beginning to swing. “A Sassenach lad, but we like him well enough. He knows some sinful words,” she added.
“He does. Will your mother mind if you do this?” he asked as she dangled from the bar. He stood with arms up in case she fell, but he had rarely seen this child show uncertainty.
“She does not mind if I do what the lads do.” Grabbing hand over hand, she traveled a bit to show him, her breaths tiny puffs of mist.
“Well done. And your father—would he have let you climb the gate?”
She swung like the hammer of a bell. “He would say it is not a lady’s way. But he did not care what I did. And you are the one let me do this, though it is not ladylike.”
He smiled. “You will be a lady one day. But it is fine to be a child for now.”
“Gavin Faulkener, are you my father now?”
“I suppose. But I have never been a father, and I am not sure how to do it.”
“It is not hard. It is only me. Fergus Macnab has eight lads, and a flock of God’s children to father.”
“That’s quite a task,” Gavin said. “What was your father like?”
She swung for a long moment. “He was muckle busy with his horses and his soldiers. He was not here much, for his work was important.” She moved along the bar with her hands. “He had a yell like thunder. I did not like it.”
“Did he shout at you?”
