Chapter Nine #3
“She does draw like Mhàiri, doesn’t she?” Conan acknowledged. “And being able to draw like you do, Nairne, isn’t silly. You should never stop as long as you like to do it.”
“My papa says I should be busy doing other things.”
Conan nodded. “Those other things I’m sure are very important, and you should learn to do them and make your papa proud. But you should also know that there is something special about people who can draw what they see.”
Bonny tossed her stick as far as she could. “You should draw maps so people know where clans are and how to get to places.”
“Aye, she could, but it is also important to be able to just draw pictures that people enjoy and make them smile.”
“Like our mamas’ tapestries,” Bonny offered.
“Do you draw?” Nairne asked.
“In a way,” Conan answered. “I draw the maps Bonny was talking about. Do you want to see?”
The little girl bobbed her red head. Conan smoothed a section of dirt with his hand and then, taking Nairne’s stick, quickly drew a small map on the ground of McTiernay Castle, its village and the main features surrounding them—the loch, the forest and the mountains.
Nairne looked up at him, her brown eyes large with awe. Then she looked at Bonny, who just shrugged. “I told you he was a good drawer.”
Conan shook his head and gave the stick back to Nairne. “Not yet, but I try all the time to get better.”
“How?” The question had come from Nairne, who was clearly curious at how one became better at being an artist.
Conan pushed up from the ground to stand up. He leaned against the boulder and looked down. “By asking for help from someone.”
“Like Mhàiri,” Bonny stated.
“Like Mhàiri,” Conan agreed.
Bonny tilted her head to look up at her uncle. She had been curious about something for a while. “Mhàiri used to help you with your drawing all the time. She doesn’t anymore. Is that because of what you said when you and Seamus were building her those fancy bookshelves?”
“Aye, she heard some things that she didn’t like, but,” Conan cautioned, “as you know she was eavesdropping at the time.”
Nairne pushed the stick around his drawing, adding small details here and there. “Do you not want any more lessons?”
Conan took a deep breath. Both girls were young and he could tell them anything to end this line of questioning, but he had never once treated Bonny that way.
It was one of the reasons she loved him so much.
And her direct, though often child-like, honesty was one of the reasons he enjoyed her company when he tolerated that of so few others.
“Aye. I would like more lessons,” he answered honestly. “But that is very unlikely to happen.”
Bonny looked up, squinting into the sun.
“Why don’t you just tell her you’re sorry?
” she asked innocently. “Brenna always forgives Braeden for coming into our room and making a mess, but not until he says sorry. I don’t know why he doesn’t just say it right away, but he never does.
Why?” Conan could hear the inquisitive tone in her voice and knew that she was being sincere.
“Why would Braeden rather be miserable dealing with Brenna being mad at him than just say he was sorry right away?”
Conan sighed and crossed his arms. This seemed to be a reoccurring theme in his life these days.
He had told Mhàiri and said as much again at the widows’ circle, and she had had mixed feelings about his response.
So, if Bonny wanted to know, he was going to tell her what he had told everyone else.
“Braeden probably refuses to apologize because Brenna is making him say it.”
“But I thought you were supposed to say I’m sorry when you felt bad. I always do.”
“That’s because you are a girl,” Nairne explained. “Boys don’t like it when you make them do anything. Whenever I try to make my little brothers do something, they hate it and cause a fit.” Nairne moved to stand up.
Bonny joined her wiping the dirt off her hands using her gown. “Is that what happened with you and Mhàiri?”
Conan nodded.
“Then maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t apologize to Mhàiri. It would be like saying a lie if you said I’m sorry when you weren’t. Just like it would be a lie to let her think you weren’t sorry when you really were.”
Conan stood still, regarding his beloved niece, digesting the simple truth behind what she had just said. “You know what, Bonny? I’m going to miss you when I leave. More than you will ever know.”
Bonny leaned in and hugged him around his middle. “I’ll miss you too, Uncle Conan.”
* * *
Mhàiri and Maegan had sat frozen, eyes wide, barely breathing the entire time Conan, Bonny, and Nairne had been talking.
Brenna had coaxed them away from the warmth of the fire to the outdoors, professing it would be their last chance before the cold winter winds came. That alone had been enough to get Mhàiri to agree. Eventually, Maegan had capitulated, and the three had ventured outside.
Mhàiri had wanted to head to the loch, for she had started a sketch she had yet to finish there.
Maegan had wanted to stay close to the castle in case the wind picked up and it became too cold, but it was Brenna who had finally decided where they were to go.
Mostly because she would not take no for an answer.
Soon after they had settled down on a large blanket, Brenna had jumped up, saying that she had forgotten something, and then run off to fetch it.
Mhàiri had already gotten out her paper and stylus, and Maegan, not wanting to walk all the way to the castle and back again, had decided to remain with Mhàiri.
Mhàiri had been teasing Maegan about Seamus and whether he was finally going to make his feelings known during the festivities when Bonny and Conan’s voices could be heard just on the other side of the large rock.
The boulder was enormous and no one knew exactly how it got there.
There were a few massive rocks randomly found in the area.
The most prominent one was by the loch. The boulders, like the big oak, were common meeting points, so Mhàiri had thought nothing of it when Brenna had suggested they sit there that afternoon.
But the moment she had heard Conan’s deep baritone sounds she had known that Brenna had laid a trap. It was not until she had seen the shock in Maegan’s face that she had believed her friend had not been involved. But she, too, had come to the same conclusion.
Recovering from the jolt, Mhàiri had been about to plop her things down on the ground, stand up, and make her presence known when she heard Conan start to talk about Nairne’s ability to draw and how it was a special gift.
When he mentioned that it was just as important to create something for people to enjoy as it was to produce a map, tears had formed in her eyes.
But it had been the end, the discussion between him and Bonny about why men sometimes don’t like to apologize, that had made her finally understand what Conan had been trying to say to her.
It wasn’t that he was not sorry. He was.
But like any normal man, he did not want to be told what to feel or say.
Mhàiri quietly stood up and smoothed out her gown. “Perhaps you and I should stop eavesdropping.”
Maegan nodded, and both women stepped around the boulder into Conan’s line of sight.
He was leaning against the large rock with both his ankles and arms crossed, looking more handsome than any man should.
When he only cocked a brow, she took a deep breath and exhaled. “How long did you know we were there?”
“Not long,” he assured her. “I only knew when I heard you stand up. I thought you might be trying to sneak away.”
“I thought about it,” Mhàiri acknowledged.
Maegan appeared, grumbling. “I was not an accomplice to this”—she swirled her finger to include everyone—“supposedly impromptu get-together. Not only is it too cold, but its purpose eludes me.”
Conan glanced at Bonny, who quickly looked away, and said, “I think we all know who was behind today’s scheme.”
Mhàiri looked down to see what the redheaded girl was drawing.
And, indeed, a representation of the winter solstice was staring up at her.
She wondered what Nairne would be able to accomplish with an actual stylus and decided that she would have to seek her out to show her how to build a cloth board.
“So is this what brought you out today?”
Nairne looked up, shaking her head. She pointed a finger at Conan. “He was telling us about maps.”
“Very interesting.” A bemused smile formed on Mhàiri’s lips as she glanced back at Conan. “Do you know in all the times we came out here, you never once told me about your maps or showed me what it is to be a mapmaker? It was always me showing you what I did. Never the reverse.”
“Are you asking now?”
“I suppose I am.”
Conan studied her for a moment, assessing whether or not she was serious.
He must have decided she was, for he pushed himself erect.
“First, most scholars do not call those who draw maps mapmakers, but map painters. That is because most have no interest in creating actual maps, but in creating art. Their fabricated symmetry holds little accuracy and certainly nothing that shows where bodies of land and water are. Instead, they illustrate concepts, and almost always religious ones.”
Mhàiri was already fascinated. She loved learning anything new and moved to get more comfortable by leaning on the boulder, in the very space he had just vacated.
“Those that aren’t religious still are not very useful, for no measurements are used to demonstrate scale. Almost every one I have ever seen does not make use of longitudes and latitudes but instead uses methods that predate Ptolemy and Anaximander.”
“Who’s Anaximander?”