The rest.She frowned with the difficulties of thinking. How many children did she have? How many grandchildren? Already it faded away, and her not yet gone. How would she remember later, when she needed to? How would she rememberhim?
In sudden panic she demanded, “I want your da. I want him now.”
The woman—her daughter—gave a sad smile. “Now, there is the Caledonian princess.”
She rose and moved away. A man took her place.
He too was aged, with a mane of white hair that flowed over his shoulders and blue-green eyes like the sea on a windy day. A strong face, broad in the forehead, lined from the years. All the years.
“Deathan,” she said, and reached out to grip his hands. “Deathan, I must go ahead. I fear I must go ahead without you. I did so try to stay. Stay here with you.”
Tears flooded his eyes. Strong he was, and so seldom had she seen him weep. When they’d lost their wee babe that time so long ago. When his brother, the chief, had died, leaving the place open for him. when her deerhound had perished—
Many things he might say to her now. He could beg her to fight against the weakness that beset her, to try harder. To stay with him.
For he could no more live without her than she could without him.
Instead he told her, his voice a fog of grief and pain, “I understand.”
She reached for his face, stroked the grizzled beard that grew upon his cheek. “I am sorry.”
He bent his head over her hands and whispered, “I will follow ye, Darlei. As always, I will find ye.”
His tears fell upon her fingers, the last thing she felt in that world.
Katrin awoke in the heather, her heart hammering. For an instant part of her was still there in that dim room, part of her still with him. As always she would be.
She had no doubt of what she had seen. A past time, a past existence, it had been. Part of the third story Finlay had told, of Darlei and Deathan, yet beyond what he had shared. Was it merely a story? Or something more?A life the two of them had in truth shared.
If so, a terrible parting. Yet he said he would follow her. An aged man, had he died soon after? Or did he mean he would follow her from life to life? Would thus find her.
As, perhaps, he had.
Katrin lay there staring up at the sky while the wonder, the possibilities, and the belief washed over her. What if the stories Finlay had told were not just stories? What if the scenes she beheld in her dreams were real memories? She, Liadan, who had stood in the sun, she, Bradana, who had played on the harp, she, Darlei, who had learned to defend herself, and she, Hulda, who had fought her way back to him?
Had Finlay come to Murtray for a purpose far more vital than entertainment? Had he told her those beautiful tales for a reason—so she would remember him? Recall all they had been to one another…
No stories, no dreams. Memories.
And if she had remembered? If she now recalled and founded a belief in life after life after life after life…the memories, the love? Only too late.
For he was lost to her now, was he not? Dead somewhere back on the broken ground of a foreign land.
Life gave no assurances. Neither did love—none other than the repeated promise from the man she loved that he would find her—as Finlay had. They were not promised a life together. But och, how would she live on, having glimpsed and heard all of what they’d shared?
She rose feeling much like that old woman, in the chilly dawn. Her party made their way steadily, if slowly, north and westward, the country becoming more hospitable as they went. Here, householders sometimes gave them food and often a roof for the night, wanting in return only to hear news of the great battle fought in the south.
From one such householder who had heard from other soldiers passing through, they learned that King David had been taken prisoner, and it pierced all of them to the heart. Caught hiding beneath a bridge, it was said, his reflection in the water betraying him to the English knights. He had taken not one arrow to his face, but two. Despite that, he had fought his captors most valiantly before being taken.
He had been hauled away south to London.
A blow for Scotland, that. One from which Katrin did not know they might recover.
So many lost. So many—
But nay, she could not let herself think of that yet.
Her main worry remained her da, whose condition deteriorated steadily. At a place called Lanark, they found a physician who treated Da out of pity, since they had no silver to pay.
