Chapter Forty
When Finlay woke in the soaking grass, he did not know where he was. Indeed, at first he did not know who he was. He lay blinking at the lowering gray sky and tried to determine it.
His brain refused to work properly. Filled with a swirl of dirty gray mist, it failed to fasten upon any of the familiar touchstones that usually came to a man at waking. A room, a bed, a day of the week, or the tasks of that day. He merely was, without who or when.
Some facts did filter through to him. It was raining, big drops that spat down from the sky. He felt cold, and he hurt all over. The left side of his face stung badly. And some great weight pressed him to the turf, pinning him from the knees down.
In the distance—or mayhap not so distant—was a great roar of sound. It seemed to come at him in waves like a heartbeat, louder and softer. Some ancient knowledge within him stirred and told him that was the sound of a battle.
One in which he had fought? Aye, that made sense.
Whom had he been battling? Dacha’s men? But nay, surely they had defeated Dacha long ago. Mican’s crew, then. Aye, they had been defeated also, but the young bucks of that clan had risen up much later, when he was aged, and came to attack…
He had gone out to fight them despite his age. It was what a chief did. He had not returned home from that fight, home to the woman he loved.
He blinked at the sky again, doubtful it was that battle either. Despite the pain throughout his body, he did not feel aged. He did not—
With a great effort of will, he sat up. It was not easy, and he had to battle for it because once in a sitting position he could see he was surrounded by dead men.
One lay across his legs, but others—five in all, for his mind succeeded in counting them—lay heaped around him, one or two staring with sightless eyes at that same sky.
By God. By God.
He drew great, gulping breaths of air, staring around himself.
Away back the way he was facing, the ground sloped downward, littered with other dead men.
At least, he assumed they were dead, or if not, they should be on the move.
For aye, that was fighting he could hear away in the distance.
And at a length, he could just glimpse a stone monument that seemed to float above the ground.
Other men ran past him, all going away from the conflict, none of them so much as glancing at him.
A thought came to him, clear and bright. He must get home. Home to Liadan. She would be worried for him.
That knowledge, above any other, got him to his feet, an act that took all his strength. Once there he surveyed the dead men who surrounded him.
Not dressed as he was, in a kilt and leggings, but in leather and metal armor, and rough tunics. A word filtered into his mind. English.
He had a sword in his hand, the hilt clutched so tight he had not released it even when he fell, knocked flat, no doubt, by the man who’d landed across his legs.
Despite the rain the blade bore flecks of blood, and the men around him bore terrible wounds.
Had he been the one to slay them?
He staggered a bit and raised a hand to the side of his face, which felt flayed. Upon inspection, he found he bore other wounds also. A slash to the chest, not too deep. A narrow cut to one arm. His knuckles, bashed and laid open.
By God, he hurt.
But it seemed he was alive in this place where so many others were not. And he had a purpose, a guiding purpose that at the moment he could not quite recall.
A man ran past him up the slope. Near enough that Finlay might almost have reached out and snagged his arm. He wore a kilt liberally splashed with blood, and his breath labored so hard in his lungs, the sound of it preceded him.
Finlay called out, “Where are we, man? Wha’ is this place?”
The man’s feet faltered and he stared. A trail of blood ran into his eye and he blinked it away. “Eh?”
“Where are we?” Finlay repeated.
“England! The battle is lost, man, and the king taken!”
The king. The Ard Ri? A great shame that they had not been able to defend him.
“Get yoursel’ awa’ out o’ here,” the man advised, “if ye want to live.” And he pelted off.
Finlay wanted to live, aye, for he must get home. To Liadan. She would be waiting. Standing outside in the sunlight.
Again he assessed his situation. He wore a pack, though its contents rattled every time he moved, a fact that caused him a measure of grief he did not comprehend.
The dead men surrounding him all bore weapons.
He put his sword into its scabbard and without real intention searched the dead men.
One had a pack with a few coins, which he took.
Another a small store of food, which he also took, along with a good knife.
Two knives—one for his belt and one for his boot.
Not very honorable, stealing from dead men, but he needed the means to get home. Had he not promised to return to her? In the confusion of his mind, only that promise remained.
When he bent to search the dead men, he grew so dizzy he thought he’d fall. His searching fingers found a great, bloody lump at the back of his head—surely he’d struck it on a rock when the big brute knocked him down.
That was why he could not remember. It would come back to him.
He had to take great gulps of air in order to stay on his feet. Men still streamed past him. He supposed he should take the same route, since it was away.
He set out for home, though he did not at once know where that lay.
*
He slept beneath a tangle of gorse that night, if sleeping it could be called.
He seemed rather to slip in and out of consciousness, shivering in the cold, for he was soaking wet.
When morning came, he ate some of the slain man’s food—not a lot, for his stomach rebelled over it—and drank from a stream.
Moved off with the rising sun at his back.
Why west? He did not know and merely followed instinct.
When he heard hoofbeats coming from behind, he ducked into the dying heather and lay flat like a hare before the hawk, though he did not know quite why he did that either. Knights came pounding through, cutting men down. He saw two fall at some distance from him. Three. Four.
He lay in the turf until the earth stopped shaking, and wondered how he was ever going to get home.
After that, he walked. And walked. He walked.
He hid when the pursuers thundered by, but that became less and less necessary as he gained some distance from the battle. He rested when he had to and consumed the dead Englishman’s food. He slept. He dreamed.
The dreams, deep and sometimes wonderful, sometimes terrible, added to his confusion when he woke from them.
He dreamed of his wife, Liadan—aye, he knew it was she—but most distressingly, she wore a number of differing faces.
That of a lass standing beside him in the sunshine, a proud woman with a deerhound at her side.
A princess with silver eyes. A Norse warrior sailing out in a boat with a prow like a dragon, determined to battle for his sake.
For his sake.
He woke shaking, not always with cold but with a welter of emotions. Fear on her behalf. Longing. Love.
How could she be all those women, and yet one? How was he to return to her if he did not know where she was?
He discovered that the pack on his back held the pieces of a harp, now shattered, its spine snapped in two. For a long time he held those pieces in his hands and pondered as to why he possessed such a thing, and why, if it was ruined, he had not discarded it. Why he did not discard it now.
For he wore a sword also, and he was a warrior. Was he not? He had slain five men back there at the place where he’d awakened.
How could he be a harper as well?