Chapter Two
Finlay turned slowly and surveyed the room in which he found himself. A poor enough chamber built of stone, barely furnished with a narrow bed and not much more. But someone had laid a fire and he had only to put flint to it in order to be warm.
He had subsisted in worse places, much worse, both back when he had traveled with Caradoc and later, on his own.
But he had hoped for lodgings in the chief’s house, where he would be nearer the heart of things.
He reminded himself he was but an itinerant musician who had turned up—felicitously, as Chief Anders claimed—for a few scant days or so.
Rooms in the keep alongside the family were reserved for honored guests.
Which he was not.
He must be patient. On the whole, he was a patient man, one who took his time and thought through his decisions before he implemented them.
Using that patience, he had wandered his known world picking up pieces and laying them together in his mind.
Following a trail so ancient that at times he feared he would never reach its end.
Here, at the age of eight and twenty and no longer such a young man, he had found that end. As if the ever-turning wheel of life had paused, and at last he was where he meant to be.
He had only to await the rest of it. But och, when the heart was involved, patience was a difficult virtue to achieve.
He caught up the flint that hung from a cord beside the fire and hunkered down to strike the flame. The kindling had been well placed, and the flames rose swiftly, spreading almost magical warmth. Something to fight against the damp chill that threatened to invade him.
He rose and unwrapped the harp, wiping the last bit of moisture from her with a cloth he kept for the purpose, guarding her comfort ahead of his own. A prize she was, her price earned through a thousand performances, made to his order by the masters in Erin.
Brada.
Bradana.
An image of a woman’s face swam through the mists in his mind. Wide, bonny blue eyes. Features a tad too strong to represent beauty but so beautiful, aye, to him.
He had followed her. Followed.
Longingly, he stroked the strings of the harp, knowing his fingers traced the trail of hers, evoking ancient songs.
Briskly now, for he despised self-pity, he turned from the harp and shed his wet clothing, donning instead dry garments from his pack before he lay down upon the cot.
He wondered by whom the tiny hut—one of a number, as he’d seen when Mistress Katrin led him here—had been occupied in the past. Other chief’s servants or warriors, Mistress Katrin had said, which seemed a curious thing.
Also perhaps messengers forced to take lodging overnight.
Knights bearing military orders, who stopped on their way.
The stronghold, being old and reasonably prosperous, would accommodate such. He was provided a bed, as he would no doubt be offered silver come morning. Would he be expected then to leave? Go on his way up the road?
The kingdom of Scotland, caught in the midst of ongoing war, lay in chaos. Surely he might claim refuge here for a time.
He closed his eyes. Would he be allowed sleep this night? Some nights, he slept like a dead man. Others, the dreams and longings racked him and brought him awake time after time, alive with memories, some wondrous and some so terrible he could scarce endure them.
This night, the old gods blessed him and he slept without dreaming.
He woke to find the rain had flown, chased by a blustery wind from off the sea. He left his quarters neat, as was his habit, and went out to look at the day. He required, with a deep need, to view the place.
A glorious holding was MacMurtray’s, situated at the very edge of the Scottish mainland and facing the Western Isles.
The sea, dark blue today and edged with white combers, stretched wide, and contained a number of small, offshore islands lying like sleeping green dragons.
A strip of shingle traced the shore like a stone necklace, and away to the south the path climbed to a headland.
The settlement had spread northward to encompass what had once been a Norse encampment, some three hundred years before.
So much had changed.
So much had not.
“Master harper?” someone hailed him, and he spun where he stood. Chief Anders himself it was, with a couple other men at his side. Advisors, perhaps, beside whom Finlay had noticed him sitting last evening.
“Come and tak’ yer breakfast,” Anders invited him.
At the chief’s gesture, Finlay joined the men. “Thank ye, Chief MacMurtray. I am indebted for yer hospitality.”
“Nonsense. Ye more than earned it wi’ the wondrous stories ye told. By my soul! I ha’ never heard the like.”
Anders MacMurtray was a big, bluff, hearty man scarcely a shade taller than Finlay himself, but two of him in bulk, with strong bones and shrewd blue eyes.
His recent worries concerning the country’s current state of upheaval, no less than the loss of his son, had scored deep lines in a face that had once been handsome, and carried the remnants still.
A widower he was, and said to be much sought after by the widows of the district.
“I am very glad ye enjoyed my tales, Chief MacMurtray.”
“Enjoyed? More than that, master harper—your tales lifted me fro’ mysel’. I felt as if I’d been on a long journey.”
“As are we all, chief.”
Anders smiled. “Ye will break your fast wi’ me.” He turned to the men who accompanied him, one of whom Finlay now recognized as his seneschal. “Ye will see to the lodging for the new arrivals? They should be here by this afternoon.”
“Aye, Chief MacMurtray.”
The men hurried off.
Politely, Finlay asked, “New arrivals?”
“Aye. We ha’ a troop o’ Gallowglass warriors comin’ in.”
“Gallowglass?” Legendary mercenaries they were, warriors supposedly without equal. What need might MacMurtray have for such?
MacMurtray hesitated. “They are fine warriors out for hire. Mostly fro’ Ireland, but they tak’ their ranks fro’ Scottish men too, who find themsel’s at loose ends.”
“Aye, Chief MacMurtray, I’m familiar wi’ them. But I do wonder at yer need for them.”
“Come, sit down.”
Anders led Finlay into the hall, still being cleared after last night’s feasting, which had run late. The room bustled. Maids hurried everywhere. A man raked out the fire, preparing to lay a fresh one.
Anders led Finlay to the head table where he’d sat last night. It had already been cleared.
“Sit, sit,” Anders told him. He called to one of the serving women. “Bring us plenty to eat, lass.”
So simple a command, bring us plenty to eat. Yet there had been times both when in Caradoc’s company and after when plenty had been beyond Finlay’s reach. When his stomach had been fair stuck to his backbone with emptiness.
He had always been assured of a welcome in Wales. But Scotland was where he needed to be. And at some of the land’s dingier keeps he’d been turned away with no more than a snarl, despite his hunger.
Now Anders looked at him across the table with those shrewd blue eyes. “Ye will ha’ heard about the death o’ my son, Geordie.”
“Aye, indeed, Chief MacMurtray. Ye ha’ my sympathy.”
“Geordie was as fine a son as a man could have. My wife—God rest her—gave me but the two bairns, a son and a daughter. But my Geordie was a lad of whom anyone would be proud.”
“How long past did ye lose him?”
“Ye mean to tell me ye donna ken? Ye seem to know more than I, o’ my family’s history.” Anders softened the words with a smile. “Ye’ve heard o’ Earl John Randolph, of Moray?”
“Aye, so. A staunch supporter o’ the king, is he no’?”
“I sent my son there into his service wi’ a number o’ our other warriors.
The others came home, though he did no’.
An accident on the practice field, it was said, and the others only returned carryin’ him.
Aye, and well loved he was. The wailin’ o’ the women when he came home thus would fair hurt yer ears. ”
“I see.” So, Katrin had lost her brother in an incident on the training field. The mere thought of it sent a shiver down Finlay’s spine. Truly and truly, the wheel of time did sometimes turn back upon itself.
“I lost my heir, and his only cousin dead also as a wee lad. There may be other members o’ the family far flung.
If there are, I do not know o’ them. My daughter”—Anders paused again and scanned the room as if he expected to see Katrin there—“has nay agreed to tak’ a husband.
A stubborn, headstrong lass she is, and has refused every man who has come her way till, as ye may ha’ noticed, she is well past the age o’ marrying. ”
Was she? Katrin could not be above a score and six.
“So I ha’ nay grandson from her, to whom I might leave the holding. Geordie had nay issue either, being too busy wi’ training and fulfilling my obligations to tak’ a wife.”
Finlay said nothing. He was good at listening quietly.
“But,” Anders went on heavily, “that is no’ my concern now—though it will be, eh? I canna live forever. We are at war, and me wi’ an obligation toward John Randolph to supply men. Since I ha’ more wealth than men o’ blood, I thought o’ the Gallowglass.”
Finlay nodded. A risky business, taking on mercenaries who could not always be trusted to keep from deserting. Though for all he had heard of the Gallowglass—orderly companies of some renown—they had their own code of honor.
Anders could have chosen worse.
The maid brought their breakfast. Anders set to it like a man without a care in the world, even though trouble still lay in his eyes.
“The troop o’ Gallowglass I have hired will be mustering here, helping to train some o’ my younger lads, and waiting for Earl Randolph’s order to march south. That is why we are tryin’ to find lodgings.”
Finlay nodded.
“I hope, master harper, ye will oblige us by staying on and help to entertain them wi’ yer grand stories, before we ha’ to move out. They are mostly from Ireland, but as I know full well, ye will ha’ stories fro’ there, to their liking.”
“I ha’ stories fro’ Ireland, aye.” Besides the first he’d told here. “It is a generous offer o’ your hospitality, Chief MacMurtray.”
“Nonsense. I ha’ never before heard a shanachie o’ yer skill. It lightens my heart to listen to ye. Now eat yer breakfast. There is a busy day ahead.”