Chapter Forty-Six
Burning the letter from Oran MacGill did little good. It had already been read and debated by Katrin’s advisors. MacGill’s messenger still lingered, awaiting a reply. The damned matter would not go away.
If Katrin had felt besieged before, she now felt ravaged to pieces. She awoke with a knot of dread in the pit of her stomach and thought of little but her predicament all day long.
Had she not earned the place of chief in her own right? Had she not marched to war at her da’s side? Got him home again against terrible odds? Could she not be trusted to lead the people with whose welfare she had been entrusted?
If she wed Oran MacGill, Murtray would cease to exist in its own name. Aye—she might bear sons, though the very prospect of them being Oran’s sons made her skin crawl. But they would live beneath MacGill’s banner evermore.
Her father’s advisors might argue that MacGill offered them protection, for that they continued to do in the days that followed. She viewed it as a great loss of independence.
She remembered Oran MacGill. Aye, indeed, she did. And as she pondered his unwelcome offer, other pieces of memory began falling into place within her mind.
The stories Finlay had told there in her father’s hall before all this began. Had he told them by chance, or by intention?
It seemed now she recalled Finlay’s every word, burned into her mind as he was burned into her heart.
She took to walking great distances out from the settlement to escape her advisors as much as the eyes of her clan’s folk.
She walked northward up the coast to the place where Adair and his Bradana had come ashore so long ago, that he might fight the battle that won this very holding for him.
She walked south, where Deathan and his Caledonian princess, Darlei, had once met together.
She even walked up into the forest to the place she imagined a half-ruined cottage had once stood—the place where a Scotsman and a Norsewoman had taken refuge together in an effort to ease their all-consuming need for each other.
And the truth, in all its surety, took hold inside her, deeply rooted, unshakable. Whether Finlay had intended to tell her so or nay…
She was the young woman back in Ireland who had stood in the sun with him. She the denizen of old Dalriada, who walked with a deerhound at her side. She the Caledonian princess, unwilling to surrender control over her life, and she the Norse maiden who had battled for that self-rule.
Again and again, life after life, the two of them had met and loved, reclaiming one another in a deep devotion that refused to perish. She was her own ancestresses reborn, who had loved—and lost—him, only to find him over again.
He had tried to tell her, Finlay, who must have known the truth and needed to make her see it. He had told it to her in beautiful words. Sung it to her.
Now that she had found that truth, he was gone from her again.
And it was her fault.
She came to that last conclusion while tramping her lands to the point of exhaustion. Reliving the ancient tales Finlay had told, word for word. And reliving the dreams that had since beset her.
Twice had she forbidden him, her love, from returning to her as a warrior. Once—as he’d told—when she’d returned as Hulda from the Norse lands to stay here with him. And again when they were both aged and he went forth to defend this place they both loved. What was it she had said then?
“Quarrie, if we are to be parted now, if we do manage against the tide of time and fate to meet together in another life—will you promise me one thing?”
“What more to promise than that I will return to ye? I will find ye, Hulda.”
“And when you do, in the next life, let it not be as a warrior. Because I cannot endure this fear upon fear of losing you in battle. Even after all this time, I cannot.”
“And wha’ else should I be, than wha’ I ha’ been?”
“I do not care. A smith, a trainer of horses, a builder of boats, a carver of stone—any man who does not march out to die.”
“A harper?” He said it lightly as if in jest, but his eyes were serious, holding her gaze, holding her soul.
“Aye, that. A harper to play sweet songs for me and tell all the old tales. Give me those ancient songs and I promise to fall right back into your arms.”
When Katrin put those pieces of memory fast together in her mind, it nearly took her to her knees.
For he was a warrior, this man she loved. As Ardahl back in old Erin, he had been. And that—like his love for her—had traveled with him from life to life.
Until she had forbidden it to him. And for love of her—for love of her he had taken up the harp instead of the sword.
That had not kept him from following her into battle. It could not keep him, because the man was who he was.
The man she loved was who he was. And had he not vowed to follow her?
The thing was—the thing was, he’d abandoned his training as a warrior early on, in this life. Had he not—had she not forbidden it to him—might he have possessed the skills necessary to survive that terrible battle in the south? To fight his way free. To follow her yet again.
So deep did that question cut, Katrin could scarce endure the wound. So fierce the pain, she could only flagellate herself and flay her soul raw, until she could scarce feel at all.
Aye, for feeling nothing was better than knowing she had caused the loss of what she best loved.
It did no good to apply reason, to remind herself that Reagan—a warrior without equal—had not survived that devastating battle either, nor her da, ultimately, nor countless others. Grief and self-blame did not answer to reason.
*
“Mistress Katrin, I implore ye. Ye maun send a reply to Chief MacGill’s letter. His messenger has been kicking his heels here for days, and I cannot imagine what Chief MacGill will be thinking. ’Tis the height o’ discourtesy—”
It was old Duncan who beleaguered Katrin this time, but her father’s other advisors stood in a ring around her, having caught her as she came home wet and exhausted from yet another tramp. They abandoned their disapproval and now appeared desperate.
Desperate and concerned. Aye, everyone showed concern for her. “MacGill will think I am considering his offer, making up my mind, no doubt. Do women no’ tak’ an unconscionable amount of time making up their minds?”
They exchanged looks. They no longer knew how to handle her.
“Mistress, he holds a certain amount o’ power here along this coast. ’Twould no’ be wise to antagonize him.”
Katrin turned to look Duncan in the eye. “He holds a certain amount o’ power? As his ancestor did?”
“His ancestor, mistress?”
“Aye, Duncan. Surely ye ken that he is descended from Mican MacGillean.”
“Who?”
“Did ye no’ listen to the bard Finlay’s stories when he was here to tell them? He told o’ Mican MacGillean and his treachery.”
They exchanged yet another glance as if they thought she had indeed lost her senses.
“Aye, mistress, everyone listened to Finlay’s wonderful stories. But those were just that—stories. Tales meant to entertain.”
“Were they?” Or had they been direct appeals to her, to remember?
“Even if the bard’s tales were true,” Dougal objected, “the quarrels o’ which he told were ancient ones, almost fro’ the beginning o’ time, and have nay bearing on the present day.”
“So ye would ha’ me wed wi’ a man whose forebears had nay honor, would ye? Who might well ha’ treachery at his heart?”
“Mistress,” Dougal said, “I would at least ha’ ye answer his missive that we might ha’ nay quarrel wi’ him now.”
“Fine.” Katrin tossed her head. “I will answer him. Send his messenger back saying my answer is nay.”
Her advisors shifted around her uneasily. “Ye canna do that,” ventured one. “Ye maun send a letter right and proper—polite—in reply. Ye may no’ realize it, mistress, but wi’ the country in the present perilous state—”
“I understand precisely what state the country is in.” Near broken. Even its leaders, such as Robert Stewart, held in ignominy.
“Then ye will comprehend ’tis wise and politic to keep a neighbor like MacGill sweet, since we may one day ha’ need o’ him.”
Katrin lifted her chin and looked the old man in the eye. “Would ye ha’ me lie to him then? I will no’ wed wi’ him. Best to be honest about it.”
“But then—wha’ will become o’ us? Wi’out an heir—”
“I canna think on that now. Gi’ me some room to breathe, for heaven’s sake.”
She fair shouted it at them, and they backed off, Dougal lifting a hand to warn his fellows.
“To be sure, Mistress Katrin, ye be still grieving yer father and all the others lost in the south.”
Aye, she still grieved. No end to her grief.
“Shall I write to Chief MacGill,” Dougal suggested, “and advise ye require more time to consider his offer?”
“Nay. Ha’ I no’ said I refuse to lie to the man?
” Katrin thought of MacGill, whom she well remembered.
At least twice her age, aye. He was loud and bluff and opinionated, and as far the opposite of Finlay as a man could be.
Och, after so many generations, he might well have little in common with his treacherous ancestor.
Katrin was in no frame of mind to take the chance.
“I will write to him,” she decided. “And I will be courteous.”
She sweated over that letter. She did not read or write easily, and in the end kept her reply as simple as she could, thanking Oran MacGill for being a strong ally to her father in the past, saying that she hoped he would be the same to her in the future if the need arose, but stating with certainty she could not accept his offer of a marriage alliance—for she had no illusions it was anything else.
She gave no reason.
Then she walked up to her da’s grave, there, where so many of her blood lay sleeping, and told him what she had done. Asked his forgiveness. For in the welter of doubt and confusion that was her mind, she very much feared making another mistake.
Trust, he seemed to tell her in return. Trust in the turning of the wheel. In the ancient promise.
Or maybe what she heard was only her own heart.