Chapter Thirty-Three
The night before Katrin’s world came apart, she had a dream.
She had not been sleeping well, an empty stomach and an overly full mind not being conducive to it.
The army seethed, with men continually coming and going from it, restless and plundering.
King David continued to send his men raiding while he awaited a ransom from the monastery and the city beyond.
Before attempting sleep, Katrin had moved back through the ranks—not wanting to admit she searched for Finlay—and had found him in company with a piper and drummers from the neighboring MacDonald clan.
Musicians trading stories, it seemed. He had given her a smile that warmed her to her toes, and she’d sat alongside them a while before taking herself off again to make sure Da had all she could provide for the night.
But being in Finlay’s company even for so brief a time must have sparked something. For when she did fall asleep after, she dreamed of him. That was, she dreamed she was in one of the stories he had told in her father’s hall, with a man who felt very much like him.
She was back home at the settlement perched above the sea, the stretch of shore she knew so well. Only—the keep in which she’d grown was not there. Instead, above the stretch of coast that looked so much the same stood a roundhouse, the sight of which sounded depths in Katrin’s soul.
She knew this place. Yet she did not.
In the dream, she walked up from the shore, feeling the stones beneath her feet, to the timber-enforced doorway.
Slipped like a wraith inside. The interior opened out in front of her, smoke-filled, with soaring pillars that held up the wheel of the roof.
The scent, warmth, and familiarity of the place assailed her.
A man stood there, beside the fire, in the act of donning armor. Not armor such as that with which she was familiar, but rough leather—again, known to her even as it was not so.
At the sight of him, her heart leaped so painfully it shook her whole body, her whole being. Tall he was, with fair hair turned mostly to gray. A face lined by the years yet still handsome, and eyes that, when they turned to her, contained her entire world.
She knew that body of his, as she should well do. A warrior’s body now aged. It had collected many a scar over the years in defense of this place, though he tended to disregard the injuries he acquired.
She’d been so sure her fears might at last settle. He was past the age of going out to fight. Yet here he stood donning his leather armor. His sword.
She hurried to him. “Wha’ are ye doing?”
He turned his eyes on her, gray eyes speckled with green. All at once they were young again, fleeing together across the face of Alba. Her Irish lad, her exile, her love.
But nay, they were both aged. And he should go to fight no more.
“We are under attack,” he said, continuing to fasten the lacing of his heavy vest.
“We are.” She had herself, while down upon the shore, sighted the raiders on their way in, a howling, raving crowd of them. Men they’d believed defeated long since.
“Well, then.”
She laid hold of his forearms. How long had she loved this man?
“Adair,” she said. “Adair, ye need no’ go.
Ha’ we no’ two braw sons?” She had labored giving them to him, as well as a bonny daughter.
Her beloved children, birthed half of Alba and half of Erin, and wholly of their love.
“Do our sons nay stand ready to protect us?”
“’Tis my place, Bradana. I did no’ take the name of chief lightly from your grandsire. I am sworn—”
“Ye be a warrior nay more.”
He gave her a hard look. “If ye believe that, ye do no’ know me as well as I thought.”
“I know ye. Well. Well! But time does pass, my love. Stay back. For me.”
“Alanna.” For an instant he closed his eyes as if calling up an inner strength. Not the kind of strength needed to go and fight one more—one last?—battle but that needed to deny her. “I must go. Should I no’ be there and should we fall—”
“Stay back and defend the roundhouse. For me. With me. I will stand beside ye.”
“Bradana, I would do near anything for ye. All I can. I do no’ think I can be other than who I am.”
She leaned into him. “Try. Try.”
He thrust his sword into the loop at his belt and took both her hands in his. Raised them one after the other to drop kisses into the palms. Planted the tenderest of kisses at each corner of her mouth, upon each cheek, upon her brow.
“Know I do love ye. Always.”
Could a woman ask the man she loved to be what he was not? Tears filled her eyes, blurring his form into that of a young man as he stepped away from her on his way out.
Her sons brought him back to her following the battle that proved hard-fought but victorious. They bore him on his shield with tears running down their faces.
*
Katrin wakened before dawn with the remnants of that terrible dream in her head, a sense of loss so deep it felt like a mortal wound. A daunting harbinger that, for this day, would prove true.
The weather had turned cool, with lashes of rain moving through one after the other, adding to the general misery. Da rose groaning and cursing under his breath, though he tried as best he might to hide his discomfort from Katrin.
She eyed him with a new understanding in her heart.
Was he so different from his ancestor, Adair, whom she’d just seen in her dream?
Finlay, so she reflected, had not told them that part of the tale, how the valiant Adair had died and the devastation he had left for his wife.
Nay, why should he so spoil a beautiful tale?
Mayhap he did not know that part of it.
She made sure Da ate some breakfast, though she could take nothing for herself.
Soon after, King David—likely reading the mood of his troops correctly—unleashed them once more to pillage.
He awaited payment on the morrow from the good people of Durham.
Meanwhile, he released his restless Scots, some of them under the direction of his man, William Douglas, to continue raiding.
In truth, Katrin could find no other word for it, save unleashing. Well into the English countryside and as yet unopposed, they had done little more than raid, pillage, and burn.
When Da heard of it, his face went white. Not the man to disobey his king, he nevertheless called his captains to him, Reagan and Robran.
“Tell our men no’ to stir a foot nor a muscle. We will no’ take part in this shameful thing. The people o’ this land—they are folk just like us.”
“They are English,” ventured Robran.
“And they ha’ no’ yet raised a blade against us.”
“They will,” said one of the clansmen standing by. “Best mayhap to kill all we can beforehand.”
“Nay.” Da drew himself up like a chief of old. “I do forbid it.”
Despite her sympathy for her restless and hungry clansmen, Katrin could only agree. Defending one’s own seemed just and right to her, as did standing strong for one’s country. Dealing death for the sake of it was something else again.
But she was a woman—soft, many would say—and men were men. They muttered over the decision, being after all this time not loath to exercise their weapons. But they continued to obey their chief and, when others of the vast army moved out, merely watched with envious eyes.
Reagan rejoined his men, none of whom moved out. Katrin turned to find Finlay at her side.
Their eyes met and she saw he wore a guarded expression. He touched her arm and she felt it throughout her body.
“Mistress, wha’ is it?”
She shook her head. “This is no’ just, is it?” she asked him. “Sacking towns and killing everyone found. Stealing and ruining and burning. Is this wha’ we are?”
His gaze, grave and level, met hers. “The king has come wi’ the intention o’ doing damage. If there is no English army to fight, he will do it otherwise.”
“It is cowardly. No’ worthy o’ us.”
“Yer father agrees. ’Tis why he held his men back.”
“Yet we are part o’ this force, and thus part of all they do.” Even now she could hear others in the vast field of men laughing and boasting as if drunk with the deeds they had done. “Finlay, will ye make a tale o’ this?”
He shook his head. “If I do, ’twill be o’ the valiant Highland chief who held his men back from dishonor.”
In the end, it did not matter. Only a short time later, Laird Douglas’s party came back with great haste, bloodied and shedding alarm. They went immediately to the vanguard where King David had camped, awaiting his ransom, and consulted with him.
From the right flank where the Murtray party was situated, Katrin could just barely see the king’s tent. Some confusion reigned when the party encountered him. The monster that was the army stirred like a great spider.
She took advantage by going to join her da, who had risen from his seat on the ground. Many among the ranks had done the same, all looking in one direction. Katrin had noticed this before—fighting men had a kind of instinct for events that would prove dangerous.
Like this one. A cold trickle crept up her spine, perhaps an instinct of her own. Were they come to a fight after all?
If it did come to battle now, would this Scots army be too exhausted to fight? They had, aye, the sheer weight of numbers. But would that be enough?
They fought for Scotland, and to many of those here, that was sacred. But they were a long way from home.
She had no doubt that for the majority of those around her, home was where they wanted to be.
She glanced aside as Finlay took up a place beside her. He looked grim, less the harper now but steely-eyed like another of the warriors. He had no home, in truth, to which he might return. The world was his home, or mayhap the world he wove with his stories.
He was here only because of her. Because of the choices she had made. If the ill feeling clawing its way through her proved true and the worst happened, if ill befell him, it would be her fault.
Could she live with that?
Nay, and nay.
“Wha’ is it, Da? Can ye tell?”
It was Finlay who answered her. “Someone heard the men comin’ in shouting about an army. An army ahead.”
“An English army? But—” She said no more.
Reagan moved forward with his two commanders and joined the party that surrounded King David, listening to what had occurred. It took some time, and when he did return he came directly to Da, as grave a look on his face as Katrin had ever seen there.
“Chief MacMurtray,” Reagan began, and then paused. Katrin knew him for aught but a hesitant man. Sure of his ground and of his stance upon it, he tended to stride straight ahead. But now he clearly groped for words and, indeed, before he spoke, he sought Katrin’s face.
His tawny eyes had gone cold and grim.
“Wha’ is it?” Da asked.
“There is an army ahead.”
“Eh?”
“The raiding party King David sent out has returned wi’ the news. An English army. They were engaged—with heavy losses.”
All around them, similar words were being repeated. The huge animal that was the Scots army responded, but in that moment Katrin could not quite tell how. Dread? Gladness? Anticipation? Dismay?
Perhaps all of those.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. An army. An enemy force. Just when she’d begun hoping the king might grow weary of all this and turn for home.
“How large?” Da sked.
Reagan shook his head. “Not half our number, if the scouting party can be believed. Mayhap not a third as great.”
Da straightened a bit. “Tha’ is good, then. We can defeat them.” And go home.
“Aye, the balance is favorable,” Reagan agreed. “The king confers now wi’ his earls and captains and prepares to move forward into position.”
“When?” Da asked. “When will this battle take place?”
Reagan shrugged. “’Twill come when it comes. When it does, Chief MacMurtray”—again he flicked a glance at Katrin before focusing on her father—“I ask ye to stay well back. I will assign two o’ my men to protect ye, and your daughter.”
Da stiffened with indignation. “I am chief o’ this clan, and as such, I will fight.”
“Forgive me, Chief MacMurtray”—Reagan’s voice was steel—“but ye hired me to fight this battle for ye. And stand in as your son.”
“My daughter,” Da said, “has taken the place at my side.”
It was an incredible statement and one that rocked Katrin back on her heels. After all his protesting of her presence and all the persuading she’d had to do in order to accompany him, did he accept her at last?
He told Reagan, “I pay ye nay to protect me but to lend strength and skill to my company.”
“Aye, and that I will do. Yet there are considerations, chief, which surpass that o’ the silver in my pocket.”
Another incredible statement, in its way, just like the one that had come before it. The Gallowglass was saying Da now commanded his loyalty as well as his sword.
“I will hang back,” Da granted with dignity, “that ye may lay all yer might into the enemy when we encounter them.”
Word soon came down that would occur almost immediately. The news crept its way through the ranks of men. Now that they knew what awaited them, they were to separate into their divisions and march forth across the wet, broken moorland.
It might be as well, Katrin decided, that after all she would have little chance to dread the coming battle or contemplate what their fate would be.
Indeed, she had become separated from Finlay in the ensuing confusion—had he slipped away from her?
—and had not even time to seek him out once more, gaze into his eyes or touch his hand.
If either of them were to perish in what must come, and she had no chance to say goodbye…
The scene from her recent dream flashed into her head. The woman, Bradana, parting from the aged man she adored. Had they spoken a proper farewell?
Taken up completely with her father, with the rapid movement up front, and the sheer force of the impetus when the Scots army began marching in earnest, she had time for nothing more than to feel the wheel of fate jerk into motion beneath her feet.