Chapter Four
Not till late afternoon did Mistress Katrin come to Finlay once more, finding him standing in the open air watching some of Murtray’s men drilling.
“I am sorry it has taken me so long to prepare your quarters,” she told him politely enough, yet still with that edge of impatience that seemed to characterize her. “There was much to do.”
“That is well,” he replied easily, using it as an excuse to let his gaze rest on her.
She appeared frazzled, her hair—which surely she had not touched since morning—in disarray, her clothing smudged with dust. Her cheeks appeared similarly smudged.
Had she shed tears amid her duties? Despite all that, she was the bonniest thing he had ever seen.
Ashen hair she had, not blonde nor brown, thick and heavy, agleam in the afternoon light. A strong frame that somehow managed to appear utterly feminine. A stubborn chin and a proud nose. Eyes that defied the world to pity her.
Ah, he would not pity her. Love? Love was another thing. Had he not been born to love this woman?
“I am in nay hurry,” he added. “Let me collect my things from the hut. ’Twill take no time at all.”
She followed him hence, the two of them skirting the activity in the yard. When they ducked into the hut she gazed around. Likely she believed this was what he deserved, a clean, comfortable, yet plain accommodation. Not a favored chamber in the master’s house.
He reached for his pack and she forestalled him. “I will tak’ that. Ye carry yer harp.”
“Mistress, I am used to toting my belongings all about Scotland and beyond.”
“No matter. I can help.”
He let her do so and, carrying Brada, followed her back through the busy yard into the house. It grew quieter as they ascended the stairs and headed along a stone corridor.
She paused outside a door, and he saw her shoulders set before she led him in.
“I ha’ changed the linen and we ha’ given the place a good sweep. Put my brother’s things in storage. Ye will let me know if there is aught else ye need.”
“I canna imagine there will be.” Finlay let his gaze explore the room. He could understand why she did not want him here—a stranger taking up a place at the very heart of her home. “I shall be quite comfortable. Thank ye.”
“Aye.” The word sounded bleak.
“And I regret if I ha’ caused ye extra trouble.”
She looked at him then, the wide eyes—pale gray with a dark rim of blue around the irises—finding his. Holding.
“’Tis no fault o’ yours,” she allowed.
“Still and all—”
“I must go begin the preparations for supper.” She turned away. He longed to reach for her hand, make her stay but a moment longer. Somehow, he refrained.
Yet she turned back almost as if she felt his desire. “Will ye play for us tonight?”
“Aye, mistress, to be sure, if your father requests it.” And would that please her? Did his music find its way to her heart?
No way to tell, for she merely nodded and went out, leaving barely a whisper behind.
She did not want him here in her brother’s room. Taking her brother’s place.
He could not help that.
He placed Brada against the wall beside the bed and explored the place. It had been thoroughly if hastily cleared. The carved wooden wardrobe over against the opposite wall stood open and empty.
What had she done with her brother’s things? Stored them, she’d said. And what did she imagine he, a wanderer, might have to fill that space?
He could not fill this space.
But after some thought, he untied his pack and went to the window to look out. The room faced the rear and a great stretch of garden. A woman worked there in what must be a space for kitchen herbs. Farther out, a kale yard and a wild tangle of flowers and fruit trees invited the eye.
He could still hear the sea. Even on a mild day such as this he could, as if it were the life’s blood of this place.
It might lull him to sleep.
He turned back to survey the chamber and almost thought he caught a glimpse of a figure there. Big and bluff and hearty, with sandy hair like his sister’s and great energy.
Ah, and would he have to share this space with a ghost?
“I mean yer sister nay harm,” he said aloud into the air of the room. “Pray, do no’ begrudge me.”
Did the air of the chamber stir? A response, mayhap.
Och, enough of such fancy. He had come here, the end of a long, long journey, to turn dreams into reality.
If he could.
Even if it were more than fancy, sharing a chamber with a spirit was not about to deter him.
*
Katrin ordered an extra board laid that night for the Gallowglass, but they did not arrive. All through the meal she half expected them to come crashing in, but by the time Finlay took up his harp, a certain peace had settled around the hall.
She’d meant to walk out once the entertainment began. Take some time away on her own. Mayhap hike up the slope to Geordie’s grave where he slept beside Ma.
When first he’d been laid there, she’d gone every day. Stood fighting tears—for a warrior, even be she female, rarely wept—and indulging in memories. Now it had been a while.
But Master Finlay’s music caught hold of her, persuaded and seduced her. He did not tell a tale this night, merely gave them glorious music that seemed to wend its way deep into her mind.
Leaning back from her bench against the wall, she closed her eyes and saw—
A small, close room made of wattle and stone. Surely she knew this place. It was dark in the tiny chamber, or nearly so. Beyond its walls, music played.
Music played, the same sort of music she listened to here in her father’s hall. Light, tripping, graceful notes. A song she knew.
A man held her in his arms. Nay, not a man—the man, the one in all the world who possessed her heart. He held her and made love to her with such sweetness, such devotion, it fair convulsed her heart.
Such love. Such belonging. Love and parting.
They were to part.
Her eyes flew open. She found the hall just the same. The fire burning lazily. Da sitting as if spellbound by the bard’s music. The others at their ease, drinking ale. And Finlay, Finlay with his head bent gracefully over the strings of his harp.
Everything just the same, yet nothing was the same. It felt almost as if, somewhere, a wheel had turned.
Why should she imagine such a scene as that one, even in a brief flash? It had never happened; she’d never made love with a man, any man, in a tiny room while harp music swirled around them.
It must be pure fancy, though she was not a fanciful woman.
But ah—had not Finlay told a tale of such? The two lovers, Deathan and Darlei, set to part and making desperate love together in a tiny chamber adjacent to his father’s hall.
It must be that, which Finlay’s music brought to mind. For an instant she’d imagined she was Darlei, that wild-hearted Caledonian princess held fast in the arms of the man she adored.
She stirred, took up a pitcher, and moved about the room refilling cups, even though there were two serving women already at that task. She could not keep still.
Finlay, as caught up in his music as she, did not glance at her. But she paused near him, the better to hear him play. The exquisite quiver of each string. The beauty of his hands moving across them.
He ended one tune with a shimmering flicker of notes and began another in an odd key, sad and beguiling, that once more sent her senses skittering away. An old tune it must be. Unfamiliar. Familiar.
Surely she’d heard it before, mayhap long ago in childhood, come from another harper’s hands. Da used to invite in any that were passing. And she had a good ear.
She would have to ask Finlay where he got his tunes. From all over, he would likely say. Had he not told her he had gathered them in Wales and Brittany and Ireland?
She needed to ask him again, with more insistence, where he’d got the tales he had told. How he knew so much of them. She must sit and speak with him—
The tune ended and the spell broke. All at once, Katrin was able to move. People stirred. The evening was done.
She would, however, carry that last tune into her dreams.
She went out and walked, once the hall had cleared, through the soft dark of the evening.
She could hear voices from behind her, the last of the clan’s folk straggling home.
A big treat it was for them to be called to the chief’s hall so often, for a chance to listen to a harper of Master Finlay’s ilk.
He had gone off already to his chamber. Geordie’s chamber.
She listened as the voices died away, and the hiss and draw of the waves filled the night. There was no moon, but a stone path led the way up the slope to the graveyard.
Was anybody here? Hard to tell among the yew trees, the rowans, and the heather. She paused at Geordie’s grave and began to speak.
“Are ye here? Are ye back in yer room? I swear sometimes I can feel ye, as if I might turn around and ye will be standing there. Is there somewhat ye want of me? Something ye need for me to do? If so, just say so. I will do anything.”
Silence but for the sea behind her. Long ago, if the harper could be believed, this place had belonged to her ancestress’s grandsire. Bradana’s.
Katrin’s roots ran deep into the stony soil. If Geordie’s did also, how could he be anywhere else?
“Tell me what to do with these wild feelings that fill me,” she bade her brother. She had never imagined such a love as the harper had described between her ancestors, those two who seemed to have journeyed together through time from life to life.
Such was but pure fancy, was it not?