Chapter Three
When Katrin entered the great hall and saw her father sitting with the harper, she frowned. A hundred things to do this morn and Da sat chattering away to the minstrel as if they had not a care in the world.
In truth, they had cares aplenty. She had herself been up before dawn, only vaguely glad the fierce rain had ceased while numbering the details in her mind.
Since Ma’s death four years ago, she—with the help of Da’s seneschal, Angus—had seen to the running of this place, the small and gritty details that raised life here from subsistent to comfortable. Or so she hoped.
It was a role to which she considered herself singularly ill suited. She detested domestic chores, and, in fact, when Ma was alive, she had run from them at all cost. She had likewise avoided any offers of marriage.
Not that she failed to admire men—from a reasonable distance. She quite liked looking at them, some more than others. A battle-fit fighting man could stir her blood. But she’d yet to meet the man who was not more trouble than he was worth.
The idea of being tied to one in marriage? Bah!
Now she found her father sitting with the harper who was anything but a warrior, although…
As she approached the pair seated at the head table, she put her head to one side. There was something about Master Finlay. She could not lay her finger on what.
In truth, she supposed it was fortuitous she’d caught him here with Da after all.
“Excuse me.” She paused beside them.
Finlay rose smoothly to his feet. She tended to forget how tall he was till she stood beside him, and she was no delicate flower. He did not look so when seated with his harp. For he was slim as a whipcord and graceful in his movements.
“Mistress Katrin.”
“Good morning. I trust ye slept well, Master Finlay?”
“Tolerably well, aye.”
He continued to look at her so, with such close attention. An odd fellow withal.
“Da, we are come up short on housing for the soldiers ye ha’ hired. And that affects ye, Master Finlay, as I am sorry to say. I shall ha’ to change yer lodging. That is, if ye plan to stay on wi’ us.”
He had entertained them all and done it well, but surely he must grasp that this was a house in flux. He might as well clear out of her way.
Da spoke from his bench, not having bothered to rise. “I ha’ just finished asking Master Finlay to stay. He can help to entertain the Gallowglass.”
Katrin tried not to let her annoyance show. “Shall we have need to entertain them? They are but hired soldiers.”
“Highly honored ones. Captain O’Hanlon and his troop are famed across several lands. We were lucky to get them.”
And foolish to pay them, Katrin thought. They did not come cheap. And now she would have to feed them—and feed the harper, if he was required to entertain them—until they marched out to fight this proxy war.
The preparation for which had cost her brother’s life.
The pain of that kept on hitting her over and over again, sometimes when she least expected it. In a curious way, it seemed a very old hurt, as well as a fresh one—a thing Katrin felt more than understood.
This war would beggar them before it was done, in both people and silver. Already too many lost. Not that she did not believe in the cause, she who possessed a loyal Scots heart. But…
She looked again at the bard. He stood yet on his feet, waiting patiently for her to speak. Ah, well, she expected a man who dwelt on the sufferance of others must acquire patience.
Yet when he looked at her, something besides patience lay in those green eyes.
“The long and the short of it is, master harper, if ye are to stay I shall have to move ye from yer lodgings. I can fit two soldiers at least into the hut where ye are staying. I understand most will billet out in the bailey, but”—she looked at her father—“O’Hanlon, ye said the leader is called, has requested lodging for his officers. ”
“’Tis no’ a problem,” Finlay said promptly.
Would he now choose to leave? Realize hers was a household under fierce demand and take himself off out of the way despite Da’s insistence?
“I can fit in any small space ye can spare.”
“Nonsense,” said Da, speaking before Katrin could. “Daughter, ye will put him in Geordie’s room.”
“What?” Katrin drew a breath, and a scalding heat flooded through her. Ma used to say that was one of her faults—she reacted too swiftly and often without due thought, when her emotions became involved.
In this instance, her emotions were valid.
No one had entered her brother’s chamber since his body had been brought home. Well, only herself in order to finger his belongings once or twice, to catch his scent. To throw herself on his bed and weep.
Geordie had been one of the few who knew her, truly knew her and accepted all she was.
Gone.
For the harper to step into his place—och, nay!
Finlay watched her face closely, and Da said with a carelessness that did not fool her, “We need the space, aye? And ’tis no’ as if yer brother will be back again.”
“But—” Katrin sucked in another breath between clenched teeth.
Finlay said, “I can sleep outside if need be. Or in the stable. ’Tis no’ as if I have not done so many a time.”
“No’ beneath my roof!” Da thundered. “Such an honored and gifted guest as Master Finlay shall be offered the best accommodation we can provide.”
“Aye, Da.” Katrin did not look at Finlay now but at a spot in the air over his left shoulder. “Ye will ha’ to gi’ me a bit o’ time. That chamber has no’ been touched since—”
“There is nay hurry, mistress. We ha’ the day long.”
He had the day long to sit here beside the fire and talk with Da until, presumably, he was required to weave more beautiful music. A luxury they could not at this time afford.
But such decisions were scarcely up to her. She needed merely to make what her father decided upon happen. A singularly frustrating position in which to be.
“Sit back down and finish yer breakfast,” she told the bard. “I will let ye know when to gather yer things and shift to—to the chamber here in the house.”
He did not move until she walked away from him. She might well consider such a man, limited in his autonomy, to be weak. But aye, there was something about Master Finlay that, despite his gentle voice and biddable demeanor, declared him anything but weak.
He had spun tales of strong warriors and fearless women—all supposedly her own ancestors—as if he knew and understood them. As if he too possessed an utterly loyal and unflinching heart. A loving one. So how could she declare him weak?
There must be steel at the core of that graceful frame, and strength behind those green eyes.
And why was she still thinking of the harper when she had so much else to do?
She worked her way through several tasks before heading to her brother’s chamber, which lay only steps from Da’s and her own. Outside the door she came to a dead stop, unable to lift the latch.
She had not entered here more than five times since their men had arrived home from their assignment with Earl John Randolph, bringing Geordie’s body.
She had dashed in here then to find clothing in which he could go to his grave—the finest he owned.
She’d helped to wash and dress him too, though she could do nothing but weep all the while.
So powerful was the memory that standing here, with one hand on the latch and the other splayed against the oak panel, she almost expected to find him inside.
There stretched out upon his bed, perhaps, or sitting at the window with his nose in a book, for he had a fine mind as well as prowess at arms. If she opened this door he would turn, smile the way he always did when he saw her, make some quip, and unleash that big laugh of his that always made her feel safe and loved.
How could that be gone? All his energy, all his warmth?
She used to talk to Geordie the way she did to no one else, just go on at him so much that she was surprised, looking back, he had not grown tired of her prattling.
He’d always listened patiently. She’d complained to him about how she could not see why she couldn’t be trained at arms. Was she not strong?
Quick? Able to withstand any hurts she might acquire?
Just because she was a woman, should she be denied the right to defend herself?
He’d given her training. Even stood up to Da, when their father learned about it.
It came to Katrin now that had she been his brother rather than his sister, and at his side in training as she wished, she might have prevented the terrible accident that resulted in his death. She might have kept him with her still.
She opened the door.
The room lay empty except for Geordie’s belongings.
Bright daylight came in through the single window, and the air from the door set dust motes dancing.
The bed lay in shadow, almost as if someone did lie there.
Items were scattered. Some of those garments she had flung about on that terrible day.
But nay, Geordie had never been a tidy man.
It looked, despite the dust, as if he’d only just walked out.
With a sigh and an enormous effort of will, Katrin went in.