Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
FINN
Loch Léin was much as he remembered it, and yet nothing like.
Finn sat astride his mare, watching the dawn break across the smooth flat surface of the water.
The ducks were the same, he thought to himself, squat and fat and brown, as was the island there in the middle of the loch, graceful green slopes and covered in pine and hazel and hawthorn trees just beginning to blossom.
The great hall that loomed over it all was new, though.
Finn wasn’t sure what purpose it served, or who lived within its steep stone walls and arched turrets, but it hadn’t been there on the island the last time he had sat upon these banks.
It seemed to him that there were less trees adorning the edges of the riverbank, fewer willows leaning idly over the water to let their wispy branches brush against the gentle flowing current.
Had that small, sleepy village he’d passed by on his way to the loch existed the last time he’d made this journey? He didn’t think so.
The cairns had – dozens upon dozens of them, once built so high and proud with smooth, gray river rocks, now crumbling and weather-worn, their glory fading, even as the memory of those whose bones they housed.
Finn didn’t want to think too long about that, the might-have-beens that had haunted his every waking moment and much of his dreaming for so long now.
He remembered the first time that he’d spoken it aloud – the guilt he carried over the deaths of his father and his brothers-in-arms. Of course it had been to Rory, one late, late night long ago, sitting out underneath the stars and the fire, Dil and Gareth and Emrys and Beca stumbling to their tents, half-drunk on wine, half on the exhilaration of a performance well played and thus, well paid, by the earl of Penfro, Arnaud Montrose himself.
It had been a triumph for all of them, this ragtag band of players, all of them exiles from the lands of their births – some involuntary, some self-imposed, but homeless and searching for replacement roots, every last one.
It had been a challenge, making a name for themselves, but the earl of Penfro had heard the rumors about the raucous, rowdy nature of their performances, courtesy of Dil’s quill, of Emrys’ tumbling and Gareth’s story-telling, and of course, of him, the wandering minstrel of éire.
So he had extended an invitation, and they had played for his court, played with all their hearts and souls, and the resulting bag of silver gifted to them at the end of their performance would keep them well-fed and in drink for quite a long while.
They drank and caroused and celebrated, toasting one another, each salute growing more outlandish than the last, until at last quiet fell and the fire burned low, and only Rory and Finn remained, sitting together under the stars while the rest of their troupe tumbled into bed to sleep the well-earned sleep of those whose art has been found pleasing and good.
Perhaps it was the wine, or the soft smile playing along Rory’s lips, or perhaps he simply couldn’t bear the not knowing of it for any longer, but Finn found himself bringing it up, that lethal encounter in the dark alley.
“Why didn’t you kill them?” He’d asked. “Those men in Caerdydd, when we first met? Why not kill them? We both know that you could’ve done it far faster than I. ”
She sipped from her wine, thoughtful and deep. “I don’t know,” she had said presently. “I suppose if I’d thought that I had no choice, then I would have.” She shrugged. “But I was not afraid, for some reason. Outnumbered and alone, I had no fear that I would come to harm at their hands.”
“Och, they surely meant you harm,” said Finn, fists tightening at the memory of those drunken bastards leering at her. “If I had not come when I did –”
“But you did,” Rory said, toasting him with her cup of wine. “You did come, exactly when I needed you to.” She sipped again, silver eyes gleaming with amusement. “Strange thing, that – wouldn’t you say? Almost as though it was where you were meant to be – as though it were fate.”
He shook his head, a rueful smile playing across his lips.
“A bhréone,” he said. “You of all people should know that there’s no such thing as fate.
To believe that lie is a folly unrivaled.
” His smile faded, withering into that old familiar grief.
“We make our choices, and walk our own paths, and we must bear the burdens of what comes as a result.”
She made a wordless humming sound under her breath, pensive and a bit melancholy, as though her mood were shifting to match his own. “You speak from experience,” she said after a long moment, and it had not been a question.
He’d wondered, then, if she knew – if, whether through whatever mystical art she possessed or simply as a clever guess, she saw the truth of them, of who he really was, or at least had once been.
So he had told her, some of it at least – my father died, he’d said, cool and emotionless, my cousins, too, my heart-sworn brothers, all of them, and had I been there, they might not have died. Or at least, he had amended after a pause, they might not have died alone, without me.
“And that pains you?” She had asked, brow furrowed. “That you lived when they did not, even though you might have died even as they did, not having saved them at all?”
He had stared into the embers and the ash of the fire growing cold before them for a long while before answering.
“At least,” he’d said, “I would have died with honor, my conscience clear, and not as I now will, someday, burdened by blood-debts and broken vows which I shall never make right.” She frowned at that, mouth hardening into an unforgiving line, and he knew that it had struck a nerve, this pronouncement of his.
“A bhréone,” he’d said, leaning forward to place his hand on her forearm, firm and fierce, an admonishment to hear him, to listen, to learn from his sins and keep them from her own soul.
“You are young, and filled with resentment and anger – towards what or whom, I do not know – but I see the hurt there too, the secret mourning. Do not let my suffering be yours, Rory. Do not abandon whatever faith you have sworn to keep, in the land in which we born, which we both were always meant to serve.”
There had been stillness, tense and fraught with friction, and then she had stood up, jerking free of his touch, eyes flashing with anger in the dying firelight. “You do not know me, Finn. We are not at all the same.”
She’d walked away without a backward glance, and he had sat by the ashy remnants of the fire until dawn, wishing to be rid of the one thing most souls spent their whole lives praying to be given more of.
Time.
Finn closed his eyes against the memory, inhaling the sweet springtime scents of pine and juniper blossoms, the murky, slightly fishy smell of the loch, the faintest hint of a turf-fire burning across the river –
Behind him, a branch cracked, loud and deliberate, and he opened his eyes, steeling himself to face her once more – to endure the storm of her anger, to grovel and to beg for her forgiveness, whatever it took to secure what he needed, for Rory’s sake, for the good of éire.
He turned, and there she was, sitting astride her snow-white mare, beautiful and unfathomable as ever.
“Hello, my fawn,” she said. “I have long waited for you to return to these waters.”
It was not said in a welcoming manner.
Finn bowed low at the waist. “My apologies,” he said, “if I have disappointed you.” He drew a deep breath. “Wife.”