Chapter Nine
Though Katrin was not in the habit of creeping about her own holding for any reason, she did so after dark that evening, donning her cloak and secreting beneath it her sword.
Her sword.
The one Geordie had given her long ago.
She remembered that moment all too well. He’d been resting after training—and a braw, sunny afternoon it had been, with high white clouds chased by a fair wind.
The sun had shown full into Geordie’s gray eyes when he looked at her.
“Geordie, will ye train me to fight?”
She’d been perhaps thirteen and him not a year older. Indeed, he’d only begun his own training recently. Had he been older, would he have refused her request?
Instead he’d told her to meet him behind the armory, where he would find her a sword—this very sword. He’d presented it to her with the air of a man who knew everything in the settlement would one day be his. Theirs.
Da had found out about those training sessions—and Ma, for she’d still been alive then—and put a stop to them. Which merely meant she and Geordie had been forced to move their sessions anywhere they could. Up the shore. Into the forest.
They had learned together. As his training progressed, so did hers. Only her brother had known how good she was. Or how determined she’d been to stand up in her own defense.
When the time came for him to leave this beloved place and go to serve their laird, he’d gone without her. No one would ever know how she regretted that.
Master O’Hanlon was waiting for her, even though when she slipped into the hut he greeted her with, “Och, I did wonder if ye would come.”
He was not clad in his mail or leathers and wore his saffron kilt with a tunic open at the throat. Did he not think he would need armor against her?
When she shrugged off her cloak and he saw she wore leggings and had her hair tightly braided, his eyebrows flew up. “I see ye came prepared.”
“I ha’ done this before.”
“Let me see that sword.”
She passed it to his hands, and he examined it with close attention, taking his time.
“Not a bad weapon,” he said at last, handing it back.
“’Tis no’ a great claymore like yer own,” she replied. “But no’ too heavy for me either.” It took a man and a half to wield a sword the length of his.
He did not wear it now, and turned to the corner, where a number of weapons were stacked. “For our purpose, I will use a sword similar to your own.” He eyed her and tossed the long tail of his hair so it slapped his back. “Show me what ye have learned.”
The following moments were interesting. Katrin had forgotten none of Geordie’s lessons, but it had been many weeks since she’d put in an earnest effort, and she felt it. Her feet remembered the old patterns, but muscles used to lifting no more than a table or crock of milk protested.
O’Hanlon stood and received her blows on his sword, not for the moment striking back. Striking against him felt like trying to move a boulder. He might have been rooted in the stone floor.
She’d begun to sweat before he held up his hand. Not precisely maidenly, she supposed, to be perspiring at every joint, but he would see worse than that of her.
“Not bad,” he pronounced. Was that approval in the tawny eyes? “Your brother—”
“Geordie.”
“He must have been a fine warrior.”
“He was. That is why I canna understand”—to her horror, tears threatened—“how he came to fall. In practice, no less. ’Twas no’ even a proper battle.”
O’Hanlon told her gravely, “It takes but an instant for even the very best o’ fighters to fall. I might. Ye might, if ye persist in this.”
Katrin’s chin jerked up. “Then mak’ me better than the very best. ’Tis why I am here.”
“I shall not have to show ye the basics.” He glanced around the hut. “I regret now we have not more room. I thought we would have to begin at the beginning.”
“I told ye—”
“Please, mistress. I believed ye. But ’tis not every day a woman comes to me and declares she can fight with a sword. We will do the best we may.”
They were the last words either of them spoke for some time. Instead, they worked. Katrin’s muscles screamed at her, but O’Hanlon was relentless, and she was not about to beg mercy from him after requesting exactly what he dished out.
A strong man and practiced with it, the blows he delivered to her sword had both power and precision behind them. Geordie, as she remembered, had been quicker, with a certain litheness in his movements. O’Hanlon, so she imagined, would go at the enemy like a man reaping grain.
With that great sword of his.
She had lost track of time before he put his weapon up, crossed to his pack, and took out a flask, which he unstopped and passed to her.
“Enough for now.”
She examined the flask, which was made of silver with an embossed pattern of twining knots on the side, since she was not sure she wanted to drink. “This is a bonny thing.”
“’Twas a gift from a chief in Ireland.”
“Aye, so? He must ha’ been gey pleased wi’ ye.”
“He was. I hunted down and brought to him the man who was lover to his wife, then executed him before the chief’s eyes.”
Katrin swore softly, and O’Hanlon’s mustache twitched in a smile. “Drink.”
She drank. Not ale, this, nor mead. It burned as it went down. She passed the flask back to him.
He’d used the time to bring down the cot from the wall and now perched on it. He drank deeply before he said, “Now ye can tell me why ye wish so very badly to be a warrior, besides just a desire to fill your brother’s place. For after that session, I can see that ye do.”
Some of her discomfort with him forgotten, she sat on the other end of the cot. “Why should I no’ want to fight? To defend mysel’?”
“Most women do not even think on it. They are content to let their men go off to that duty and defend them, as some say God intended. To remain at home and see to the equally important duty of raising the next crop o’ warriors.”
Katrin made a sound that translated to pffft. “And if danger comes to her door?”
“Aye, then many a good Celtic woman will fight. Like a she-wolf, in fact.”
“Then she had best know how.”
“Mistress, forgive me for pointing out that in the current instance, the fight is not likely to come here. When your father’s laird calls, it will be an army that marches out.”
“And am I no’ permitted to desire a free Scotland? To love my country enough that I might also march out and fight for it? As ye may ha’ noticed, I ha’ nay husband and am no’ likely to ha’ any crop o’ children to raise.”
His gaze moved over her. “A wonder, that.”
“I am past the age for all o’ it.”
“Ye are not. How old may ye be? A score and five?”
“Closer to a score and seven.”
“Aye, well, me own mother was bearing me brothers and sisters past two score—”
“I am no’ interested in doing that.” She waved a hand.
“I might ask why, but I scarcely dare.” He drank once more from the flask.
“I ha’ never met a man worth having.” Or had she? There’d always been a part of her, a deeply rooted part, that yearned after a skilled warrior even as she derided the fact that such men risked themselves on a regular basis. That, wed to one, she might have to watch him march off and die.
Just as Geordie had.
O’Hanlon was the consummate warrior, the ultimate fighting man, so she might say. And that pulled at her. It pulled hard.
He eyed her in a much friendlier fashion. “I think I understand. But surely there is somewhat between wedding a man ye do not want, and marching off to war.”
She made a face. “My father wants for me to marry so he may ha’ a grandson for an heir.” She choked up again. “Now that Geordie is gone.”
“Aye, so. ’Tis a fine holding, this. I am that surprised there are not men lined up from Inverness and back to marry ye.”
“Ye expect me to accept a man who wants only the holding?”
“Nay, mistress, not in the least.” He offered her the flask again, but she shook her head and got to her feet.
“I must go. My duties begin early tomorrow morn.”
“As do mine.”
“Thank ye for this. May we do it again?”
He rose from the cot. “D’ye want to do it again?”
“Aye, so. If ye ha’ the patience for it.”
“’Twill require nay patience.”
She flung her cloak around her and again secreted the sword in its folds. At the door, she looked back. “As I say, I will repay ye—”
“Nay, mistress. I suspect ’tis a privilege, this, that is beyond price.”