Page 47 of Once Upon A Haunted Castle
The host stiffed in rage. “Bring hot wine and food,” he boomed. “Do it before I throw you to the waves!”
The old man turned and fled, so quickly that the big raven lost its balance and flew up into the shadows of the room, perching somewhere out of sight. They couldn’t see him but they could hear him. Frightened and upset, Havilland stood up from where she had been kneeling by the fire.
“Truly, my lord, you needn’t become upset,” she said, brushing the dust off of her knees. “I could just as easily fetch the wine and warm it, if you will only tell me where I can find some. We do not mean to be any trouble.”
The rage drained from the host’s face. He cooled himself with unusual speed, his expression once again calm. He simply stared at Havilland a moment, his gaze drifting over her dark head.
“You are my guests,” he said, looking between Havilland and Jamison. “I do not mean that you should fetch your own food. Please, continue to warm yourself by the fire and let us speak. It is rare that I have guests to enjoy. Tell me where you are going.”
Jamison was increasingly on his guard as Havilland sank to her knees again. He stood next to her, between her and the host, in fact, in case the man should make a move. Truth be told, he would much rather be lying down because his illness made standing more of an effort than he could bear. But this entire situation was vastly strange to him, and growing stranger by the moment, and he wouldn’t show weakness in front of a Northman.
In front of their very odd host.
“We are returning tae me home, north of Inverness,” he said after a moment.
The host was looking at him. “Where did you come from?”
“Wales.”
The host nodded faintly. “That is a very long journey.”
“It ’tis.”
“How long have you been about?”
“A little over a month.”
The host turned his attention to the flames, seemingly pensive. “I have never traveled further south than Carlisle,” he said. “Through great and rolling hills I have traveled and on great and rolling seas. You know that I was not born here.”
“I know.”
The host turned to look at Jamison again as the man stood like a massive sentinel next to his kneeling wife. “Have you come to take this castle back for your kinsmen?” he asked.
Jamison shook his head at the unexpected question. “I am not,” he said. “Why do ye ask?”
The host shrugged, weakly. “Because the Scots have been trying for years to reclaim that which we possess,” he said. “They no longer come. I thought mayhap you were a fresh warrior come to claim my fortress.”
Jamison eyed the man. “I told ye that me wife and I are traveling north,” he said. “Ye truly think that I would be lying? It is just the two of us. I hardly think that constitutes an army.”
The host snorted softly. “It is just me and my servant,” he said. “I believe it would be a fair statement to say that the two of you could wrest this place from me if you wanted to.”
Havilland had been listening to the conversation carefully. There seemed to be a good deal of defeat in his tone. “If you were not born here, why can you not go home?” she dared to speak up. “Do you not have kin you can return to if you do not wish to stay?”
The host’s gaze moved to her. “I have spent more of my life here than in my homeland,” he said. “I came to these shores as a very young man and I served the man that the Scots call the garrison commander. Aidrick the Just, they called him. But my comrades have long since left me. It is just me living within these walls old walls, a sad shadow of what once was. Soon I will be forgotten lore.”
Havilland was becoming curious about the host. “And Lenore?” she asked. “Was she born in your homeland, too?”
The host nodded, his features softening somewhat. “The lovely Lenore,” he murmured. “She was strong, my wife. She came with me over the dark seas and we found a new life here, together. A beautiful woman with hair of gold, she was fond of this new world. She made friends with the local Scots even though I told her to remain within the fortress. She would not listen to me. Lenore saw all the word as something to explore and she would wander these shores, dreaming and singing. My lovely, lovely Lenore.”
He said it so sweetly, so longingly. Havilland began to feel some pity for him and she looked up at Jamison to see how he was reacting, but his expression remained emotionless. It was typical of him, especially in a situation like this. He didn’t really trust anyone he didn’t know but Havilland, with a softer heart than her husband had, was sorry for their host and his lost Lenore.
“My sister can be a dreamer also,” Havilland said, sympathizing with the man she was so recently so frightened of. Maybe she was coming to understand him just a bit, or so she thought. “I understand the breed. I am sorry you lost your Lenore.”
The host continued to stare into the fire, perhaps remembering the days of his fair Lenore. Those days never left him, truthfully, because he still expected to see her. She was still here, with him, in more ways than his guests would ever understand. She had never really left him at all.
“She would sing, too,” he said after a moment. “She had a harp she would play and she would sing for me. When we were first married, I could not afford to give her a wedding gift so she played a harp she had made herself. Then, years later, I was able to purchase a beautiful harp for her in Inverness. I even bought her a necklace that had a golden harp charm. It was lovely, truly. She wore it always.”
The frightening, odd man who had greeted them upon their arrival had somehow morphed into a grieving husband, capable of sorrow and emotion. Havilland could sense a lonely, sad man.
