Chapter Seven
No question but Finlay shared his borrowed chamber with a spirit that night. The fact that it was a borrowed chamber and that Mistress Katrin might well have lent it to him with some reluctance could not explain the conviction that he was not alone.
The feeling came stealing over him as soon as he doused the light and stretched out in the bed. Awareness of a presence, one that moved very softly around the room. One he could almost hear breathing.
A mouse? Ghosts did not breathe.
It might well be Mistress Katrin’s brother wondering why Finlay intruded here. Only the presence did not feel hostile, as if it wanted him gone or even as if it noticed him.
It was just there.
Still and all, it took him a while to drop off to sleep. And when he did, he dreamed.
A familiar dream, this, and one he’d inhabited before. One that in fact echoed the first song he’d sung in Murtray’s hall that night.
He rode in a chariot with a sword clutched fast in his hand.
The air all around him was alive with sound and color—the glitter of light on the edge of a shield, the green of the turf that covered the hills around him. The rattle of wheels and the voices of men.
He was not alone in the chariot. A young man stood fast beside him with the reins in his hands, controlling the ponies. He had fair hair caught up in a number of plaits, and the energy that came off him…
He was excited, aye, and edgy, for they rode into battle. But for all that, his presence provided pure comfort.
Finlay woke on his back in the bed, breathing hard.
Och, by heaven, that had been too real. So much so that, back in the dark chamber, his senses swam. His upheaval was not helped by the sudden knowledge that the energy of the young man who had ridden in the cart with him was the same as that here in this room.
He swore to himself, sat up in the bed, and whispered, “Conall?”
But how could Conall be here? He had lived years away in Ireland. His bones lay beneath the green sod of that isle. Aye, indeed, Finlay knew better than anyone that ghosts could appear. But why here and now?
He said again, more strongly this time, “Conall?” No reply, but the air of the room seemed to ripple around him.
People came and went in life—that, too, Finlay had learned. They brought comfort and left sorrow. They brought love.
“If ye be here,” he whispered, “then help me. I do no’ ken if, even wi’ the aid o’ the tales and the songs, she will see me for who I am.”
Still no reply. Finlay propped himself against the bolsters, eyes wide, and listened to the silence. He did not sleep again.
*
Despite how early Finlay rose, the Gallowglass were up and at work ahead of him, making a clatter at their practice in the field next to the bailey. The hall was still being cleared of last night’s supper, so, following the racket, Finlay went out to watch.
The day promised rain, a bank of low clouds spreading in from the sea. He was not the only one drawn by the spectacle in the field. Most those already out of their beds stood around in clusters. Finlay saw Chief MacMurtray among them, arrested like everyone else.
Aye, so, and the troop of men made an impressive sight there against the lush green turf. No wonder they carried such a fierce reputation and commanded so much respect.
They had broken up into groups and had at each other with such violence that one might be forgiven for mistaking it for true battle. Narrowing his eyes, Finlay saw it for a controlled violence, a kind of practiced fury almost beautiful to behold.
No chariots. Those had gone the way of things centuries ago. But the weapons were not so different, nor the skills they demanded. Finlay found himself caught up in it there beneath the tumbling sky.
Someone moved into place beside him. For an instant he thought it the presence from his chamber and he said, “Will ye look at this?”
“Aye.” Not his ghost after all, but Chief MacMurtray shifted to his side. “I maun say, I am pleased. I spent a high price for these fellows. Almost beggared us,” he added, as perhaps he should not to a wandering bard. “It looks to be worth it.”
“It certainly does. Though I am no’ the best judge, being nay a warrior.”
Anders turned and looked at him. “Ye ha’ seen a great deal, though, I do no’ doubt. And”—he smiled—“ye tell a damn good tale o’ warriors.”
“Aye, so,” Finlay agreed ruefully.
“That captain o’ theirs, now.”
Finlay picked O’Hanlon out with ease, the man fighting against two others on the far side of the field, fair hair flying. He moved with a smooth, restrained power that even among these warriors made him stand out.
“Aye, so.”
“I shall send a message to Earl Randolph today telling him we stand ready to fulfill our duty—wi’ our own men and these—when he calls.”
Finlay barely heard the chief. The beginnings of a tune started coming together in his mind. It contained the rhythm of the fight, the stomping of feet, the clash of weapons. But more than that, it heeded the beauty of what he saw. The unflinching courage. The fearlessness.
“O’Hanlon has asked me to make them a song. A march.” Forgetting himself, Finlay spoke to Anders as to a friend.
The chief stared at him, his eyes clear blue in the murky light. “Aye, so?”
“So I decided I had best get a feel for how they fight.”
“I do no’ doubt ye will ha’ a good length o’ time for it. No telling when Randolph will call upon us. We have already been waiting overlong.”
And when he did and they answered the call, not all these men would return. Despite their bright valiance. What folly was such business? Folly and glory all in one.
“I am certain ye will gi’ them a grand tune, one more than worthy o’ them.”
“Chief MacMurtray, if ye would prefer me to leave—” Finlay had to make the offer, loath as he was for it. Having traveled the five kingdoms in search of his heart’s need, he did not want to surrender it. “I will.”
“Nay, nay, ye are welcome.”
“Ye are pressed for room, and I am taking that up.”
Anders’s face tightened. “Ye tak’ only my son’s chamber, and that we were no’ using.” His hand clenched on Finlay’s shoulder. “’Tis a joy having ye here. One must leave go of sorrow when one can, aye?”
“Aye.” Finlay wanted to ask, What was your son like? Was he like the friend I knew so long ago? But that would be tantamount to pouring salt into a wound.
Better perhaps to ask Mistress Katrin. If he could locate her. If he could get her alone.
What if he said to her, Tell me o’ yer brother. I think I shared his chamber wi’ him last night?
He and Anders stood long watching the Gallowglass at practice even after the other watchers recalled their duties and moved off, or went inside. Not until the first drops of rain fell in big, splashing plops that landed first on the sea, and then on the green grass, did Anders pull Finlay within.
“Come, breakfast will be laid by now.”
The Gallowglass worked on as if unaware of the rain.
Breakfast was, indeed, set in the hall, and Katrin was there.
That brought a lift to Finlay’s heart.
She never appeared wholly comfortable with her domestic duties, this woman. She seemed always as if she would rather be somewhere else, doing somewhat else. But she moved about them anyway, clad this morn in a plain dress with a smock tied over it like any other of the women.
A large job, overseeing so large a house, especially at a time like this. He wondered with sudden and piercing passion why she had never married. Past the age for it now, or so most folk would say. Mayhap she had not desired a domestic life.
Yet here she was.
Look at me, he beseeched her silently, and she did, just a glance that then switched to her father, still beside him.
“Come, Da,” she called. “I ha’ cleared the head table.”
“Sit wi’ me,” Anders bade Finlay.
They sat one on either side of the board and Katrin served them with her own hands. Better yet, she came and sat with them after, looking not again at Finlay or her father but gazing around the hall as if searching for tasks undone.
That gave Finlay the chance to study her, while striving to seem as if he did not. The clear skin, the ashen hair bundled in a simple knot with apparent haste. She was not a woman to fuss over herself. The strong yet delicate hands that showed the marks of hard work and scrubbing.
He longed to drop kisses upon those hands.
“’Tis raining,” Chief MacMurtray remarked to her.
“I can hear that, aye, Da.”
“And the Gallowglass are at practice.”
Indeed, they still were.
“I can hear that also.”
“A grand sight, it is.”
Katrin stared at her father, and Finlay wondered at the emotions astir in her eyes. Exasperation. Impatience.
“A fine thing it maun be, to be a man,” she commented, “and praised for having a sword in yer hand, though without enough sense to come in out o’ the rain.”
“Och, Katrin, do no’ start wi’ all that again.”
Anders had no time to finish. Katrin rose from the table and stalked off.
“My daughter,” Anders said then, “thinks she should be permitted to go to war like a man.”
Finlay said nothing, though wild feelings coursed through him.
“Her brother was foolish enough to begin wi’ training her. Before he died. Now she thinks she should step into his place.”
“Ye will nay let her?”
“Och, nay. Why d’ye think I went to the great expense o’ hiring the Gallowglass, but to remove her obligation? The thing is, master bard”—Anders leaned toward Finlay—“I am no’ entirely sure I can stop her, even though I try.”