Chapter Twenty-Two
Having left Katrin’s chamber—with the promise to later return—Finlay went first to search out Reagan O’Hanlon.
Not an easy task in itself, as the entire keep had been thrown into confusion by the order to muster.
Aye, it had been expected. One might even say greatly anticipated. Still and all, chaos reigned.
He ran O’Hanlon to ground not in the bailey with his troop but at the armory, helping Robran, the head of Chief MacMurtray’s guard, sort through the supply of weapons. Panic filled Master Robran’s eyes. O’Hanlon looked steady and resigned and just a mite impatient.
The latter emotion filled his eyes when he glanced at Finlay. “Harper? What be ye doin’ here?”
“I need to speak wi’ ye.”
“Now is not a good time.”
Aye, he was naught to the warrior, was he? Not in this life, nay. But he remembered. Remembered the hum that ran over a man’s skin when he picked up his weapons. The way resolve made a knot inside him, and the narrowing of vision.
He knew what would fill O’Hanlon now—the deliberate setting aside of ordinary life to take up sword and shield.
And, in the Gallowglass’s case, axe.
“’Twill no’ tak’ long,” he told O’Hanlon. “And ’tis important.”
O’Hanlon looked at him, seemed about to brush him off, but reconsidered. “Very well. Talk.”
“No’ here.”
That made the Gallowglass’s eyebrows lift. With a gesture, he stepped away to the open area behind the armory. Finlay followed.
“What is it? I’ve a hundred things to do. We move out in a matter o’ days. My men are ready, but despite the time they’ve been given, Chief MacMurtray’s troops are woefully unprepared.”
Everyone had things to do, running headlong to destruction.
“Mistress Katrin,” Finlay said.
The Gallowglass’s gaze quickened. A frown flitted across his face. “Wha’ of her?”
“She intends to accompany her father, and ye, on this campaign.”
New thoughts appeared in O’Hanlon’s eyes. “How do ye know this?”
“She told me.”
“Och—” O’Hanlon looked like he wanted to spit or throw something.
“She says, Master O’Hanlon, that ye ha’ been working wi’ her. Training her at arms.”
“At her request.”
“She seems to think”—Finlay’s heart pounded—“she is fit to go off and fight. Ye and I ken full well she is not.”
O’Hanlon eyed him slowly, up and down. “What d’ye ken o’ war?”
“Enough.”
“To be honest about it, harper, she is likely better prepared than most o’ the men who will march awa’ out o’ here under her father’s banner.
Not like to my troops, of course. But these men are farmers.
Fishers. Builders.” He hesitated. “Fodder for English swords. I hate to think how many will die. Mistress Katrin trained wi’ her brother before he died, and ’twas she who came to me asking to continue that training. She is no’ bad wi’ a sword.”
“Be that as it may, she is no’ prepared for wha’ is to come, the sights she will see. The sounds and the stench o’ battle. Ye maun talk to her, O’Hanlon. Convince her she is no’ fit to go. She will listen to ye.”
“Will she? This is as stubborn a young woman as I have met. Stubborn and strong-willed.” O’Hanlon narrowed his eyes at Finlay. “What is her safety to ye, by any road?”
“Everything.”
That seemed to knock O’Hanlon back on his heels. He blinked before he said, “You talk to her, then.”
“I have. She will no’ listen.”
“Then I suggest ye let her go.”
It felt like a blow. “I canna.”
“Look. From all I have heard, this invasion—if such it may be called—will be an easy enough task and any battles should fall in our favor. The English are engaged in war, in France. How many men can they spare to beat back a horde o’ wild Scots?
The way I understand it, King David—who’s been hard pressed by the French king to act—will put on a show and come back home again.
It may no’ be a bad way for the lass to cut her teeth, be she so insistent upon it.
Let her watch some o’ her clansmen die in the skirmishes.
Learn what battle truly is and whether she be the warrior she thinks, before she returns home. ”
“And if she does no’ return home?”
O’Hanlon did not answer.
Finlay tossed his head, a rare anger rising inside him. “Ye do no’ care, d’ye? War is naught to ye, or loss—”
“War is my way o’ life, harper, and my living. I have long since found a way to deal with it. I admire Mistress Katrin a great deal. She is a grand woman, one in a thousand. But her choices are hers to make. I would not try to tell her what to do. Will ye?”
Finlay thought of Bradana making her way through the wild Alban forest. Of Hulda facing down their enemies at sea. In an ordinary way, he would not. This was not ordinary.
“I am no’ asking ye to tell her what to do. Merely tak’ her aside and advise her, as someone for whom she has respect.”
Again, O’Hanlon hesitated. “Aye, so. If I have time.”
“Make time,” Finlay told him, warrior to warrior, if O’Hanlon but knew it.
O’Hanlon said nothing. Finlay turned away, only for the Gallowglass to catch him back.
“Harper—have ye ever held a sword?”
“Och, aye,” Finlay answered him softly. “Long, long ago.”
He remembered…
Mornings working hard in the cool mist, and long afternoons sweating in the sun. The all-too-familiar feel of a sword hilt in his hand. A body that near instinctively knew the back-and-forth steps of warfare’s dance.
All that lay deep inside Finlay still. Nay, he had not hefted more than a long knife since the age of fifteen or so, when he’d laid all that aside for the harp.
She had bidden him lay it aside. Begged for it.
Nay, not in this life. They had not known each other then, in this life. But she had asked.
And he would give up even what he was, for her sake. It stung a bit that she was not willing to do the same.
But—she did not know. She did not yet remember all they had been to each other. Och, aye, she had heard the stories. Like the others in her father’s hall, she had listened, rapt, to them.
She did not believe.
Mayhap once he made love to her. He still could not believe she had bidden him join her in her chamber this night. Had he heard her aright? Had he been mistaken in what she meant? To lie with her. To hold her in his arms after so very many long years. To make her his own.
The afternoon swiftly flew, all in a welter of activity and confusion. Night would soon be here. If she’d meant what she said, Katrin would become one with him, heart to heart and soul to soul, as it had always and ever been.
He would convince her then that she was too precious to him to risk her life. That she should stay here, and if she did, so would he.
*
Reagan came to Katrin just at nightfall following what should have been supper, had a formal supper existed. It had not, no one having time to sit down to eat and listen to entertainments. The women had set out food, and folk had taken it as they might, in passing, so to speak.
Had she eaten? Katrin could not remember. She felt hollow and frightened and—
Her emotions overflowed. Had she truly invited Finlay to lie with her this night?
What had come over her to do such a thing?
It had been an act of impulse that had come from beyond her, and also somehow from deep within.
All she had been able to think was, if she went away to battle and he left and returned to his life on the road, she might never have the chance.
Unbearable, that was. Untenable. Unacceptable. But…she must be going mad.
Yet—the way he had kissed her there in her chamber… There had been a wealth of unspoken words in that, an aching, and a demand. There had been music. A promise she could not refuse.
If she did this thing, marched off to war in Geordie’s place and did not come home again, she must have Finlay first. Experience what it meant to lie with him. Explore the deep well she sensed existed between the two of them.
For once in her life she would have what she wanted. Nay, needed.
Reagan found her there in the hall as she directed the women. He came striding swiftly, looking huge and not too clean, and glanced around, his tawny gaze setting on her.
“Katrin, a word.”
Her brows flew up. Usually, in front of others, he called her mistress. She stepped away with him, followed by the curious glances of the women.
He swept her with a hard glance before he said, “I hope ye do not suppose ye are coming with us when we leave to rendezvous with Earl Randolph.”
She drew a breath while protest and a measure of disappointment filled her. She had dared think she might count on Reagan for support. It seemed he, like all the other men, would betray her.
Instead of answering him directly, she asked, “When do we leave, do ye ken?”
“Four days, if we are to be ready. Yer father’s men seem woefully ill prepared, still.”
“Four days?” Her heart leaped. “Ye be certain ’twill be then?”
“Nay, I am not. But if we are to make the meeting place, it cannot be long after.”
Katrin considered that. “Ye will notice I asked when do we leave. To be sure, I will be coming.”
“I think ye should not.”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “Ye? Of all people, I thought ye would be the last to try to thwart me.”
He sighed. Rarely did this man of great energy appear tired. A hint of weariness showed in his face now. “I do not say ye are incapable—”
“Well, then.”
“But I do not wish to see ye come to harm.”
Well, that was stark! “Wha’ makes ye think ye will? Have ye so little faith in me?”
“I have great and splendid faith in ye. But the fact is, if we meet enemy forces or even fall into a skirmish, some o’ us will die. As your brother did at practice. Death on the field is heedless and random. Why not ye?”
“If I do no’ go, it may be my da who falls.”
“I will look after your da for ye. Trust me.”
Surprised, she said nothing.
“Stay back home this time.”
“Wait.” As he began to step away, she called to him. “Did he—my da—bid ye speak to me?”
“Nay, the harper,” Reagan said.
Finlay.
A thousand emotions tangled in Katrin’s heart. How could he? To go behind her back that way…
It made her angry enough to deny him after all. And, in so doing, deny herself.
Almost.