Page 49 of The Falcon Laird
“Not me, but my mother. Help me down, please, Gavin Faulkener.” He did so. “Sir John Keith is coming now. He yells, too.”
“Only a little,” Gavin said, looking over his shoulder as John approached.
“Those bairnies will be hurt one day,” John grumbled. Michaelmas gave him a smile and ran off.
“She’s cautious, that girl,” Gavin said. “She reminds me of my mother, somehow.”
John frowned at that. “I can see it. That fine pale hair, those eyes. Your mother looked like that when she was a wee lass.”
“Christian said Henry adopted Michaelmas from the priory where my mother stayed,” Gavin said.
John looked at him sharply. “When was this?”
“Just after Hastings destroyed the place,” Gavin said. “Michaelmas was born there a bit earlier.”
“Was she indeed.” John rubbed his blunt fingers over his bearded chin. “I remember Dame Joan was prioress there. Did she say who the wee bairn’s mother was, or her father?”
“Christian never learned who they were. I wonder if Henry was her father. The Faulkeners are blond, and so was my mother, though she was a Keith. That could explain the similarity.”
John drew a breath and looked at Gavin. “Well,” he said, and hesitated. “I do not mean to imply any ill thoughts, but it does come to my mind that Henry and your mother were close. He wanted to wed her before she wed your father.”
“I had heard that, long ago.”
“But we should not think ill of them, hey? I would not want to suspect my stepsister of being the child’s mother. Very unlikely.”
Gavin nodded. “Likely any record of her mother’s name was burned with the convent.”
“Though I would not doubt Henry sired the lass. And there you have the Faulkener resemblance. She could be your daughter sir,” John said. “Anyone might believe it.”
“I could see that too. What then of the chimneys? You looked at them?”
“Outside the large tower, there are smoke vents and a chimney for the kitchens. We could convert a privy shaft to make a chimney for a new hearth and rebuild.”
“I will look at that. Lady Christian is waiting for me up there, to look at the hall and bedchambers.”
“Be careful she does not decide to drop you through one o’ the floors,” John said, laughing.
“There was roomenough in here for a dozen trestle tables for a dinner feast,” Christian said later, as Gavin stood with her looking into the remainder of the great hall. “We had direct access to the kitchens, there. Glass windows in high archedwindows, and great painted beams with carved bosses. A design of thistles was painted high the walls beneath the beams.”
He nodded, listening, glancing at what remained—part of the lofty arch-vaulted stone ceiling above charred dark walls, and the frames of tall arched windows. “This was a fine chamber.”
“It was. We had a huge iron basket, see there, in the center of the room. We usually burned peats there, though Henry complained and preferred log fires. The fire basket has fallen among the floor timbers.” She pointed downward.
“I see. A hooded fireplace might be best. They heat the rooms well, with less smoke.”
“Kilglassie is older, built generations ago. We had fireplaces in the bakery and the kitchen, with fire baskets and iron braziers for heat elsewhere.”
“We can wall hearths or fire baskets, whatever you want.”
She glanced at him. The morning sun touched his hair with gold, and his profile against the open sky, where the roof was gone, had a lean beauty. She wanted to touch his jaw, feel the texture of his beard, feel his warmth near her once again. Yearning pulled at her. But she scowled it away.
“How many men did Henry have here?”
She did not want to be reminded of his plan to fill the place with English soldiers. “A hundred or more,” she said. “I never knew, always. Their quarters were in the others towers, southeast and northeast.” She slid him a glance. “Do you mean to bring that many?”
“It is not my decision. But we cannot house them here for a long while. Those towers are weak.”
“Those towers are the oldest here, and had cracks in them when I was a child. My father said there was a basic fault in the stone or in the foundation. He wanted to rebuild. But this was my mother’s castle, and his own was in the Highlands. He put work into that one, and never found time for this.”
