“I ha’ kept it as clean as I could.”
“Ye will lose yer father to the fever, I do no’ doubt.”
“Can I get him home first?” It had become her one goal, with Finlay gone.
Do not think of that.
The physician, a Master Roderick Campbell, gazed at her long. She thought he would answer harshly, for he seemed that sort of man. But to her surprise, he softened.
“Ye travel farther north?”
“Aye, to Murtray.”
“I ha’ a client wi’ a horse and cart who might take ye part o’ the way. He is himsel’ going home fro’ a consultation wi’ me.”
“I ha’ a party—”
“At least your father may ride.”
When she went out from the physician’s house, though, she discovered she would soon not have a party. Rannie and his mates very apologetically told her they had found a ship they might take over the water to Skye.
“We ha’ just arranged for it,” he confessed with regret in his eyes. “I hate to abandon ye here—”
He held out his hand, but she went into his arms instead, giving him a fierce hug. “We would no’ have got this far wi’out ye. I will be forever grateful. Ye maun do as ye must.”
“Aye, but how will ye get home?”
She told him about the physician’s offer.
“Ye be a courageous lass,” he declared in parting, “and I am that glad I met ye.”
“And ye, all o’ ye”—she included the others in her glance—“are men o’ honor.”
She shed tears at that parting and blessed those who went from her. Then she, Rabbie, Davey, and Da awaited the physician’s client, hoping against desperate hope he would appear.
He did. It was snowing when they set out north and homeward. Truly homeward now, for was not the sea there beside them just the same as at Murtray? Snow covered the ground before they’d traveled half a day, and when their benefactor, called Andrews, reached his own home, he offered them a roof for the night. They accepted and slept warm by the fire.
Once again, Katrin dreamed.
A strange and terrible dream was this one, and no mistake. For she dreamed she awakened affrighted in a dim and dark place, one she did not immediately recognize. She rose from a bed as at some signal given, with haste. Trouble. There was trouble at hand.
Not alone. A man arose also from the bed beside her. She turned to look at him, and it was as if she saw him twice—once with the discerning gaze acquired over the course of a long life, and again with the eyes of love.
He had aged, this man, this husband she adored. Ach, when had that happened? While they tumbled through the years living and loving together, so comfortable that she had not heeded the passage of time? But ja, many the years had been. His mane of auburn hair had turned silver. His beard also, and the hair upon his chest with which she was so familiar.
The feel of him—the feeling remained the same.
From beyond this chamber they shared, she could hear voices calling, footsteps pounding past. Men crying the alarm. Hurrying for weapons.
Attack. Their holding here on the edge of the sea fell under attack. They would go forward to fight and possibly to die.
Standing there beside the bed they had shared so many years, she drew a breath.
“Norse,” she said. “Again.” It had been a number of seasons since they had fallen beneath the eye of the wolves from the sea. She was Norse,ja, but solong had she lived in this Scottish stronghold with him, she very nearly failed to remember it.
Ignoring her need to dress, clad only in her sleeping gown, she walked around the bed to him. Her hair hung over her shoulder in a braid, the fair strands now liberally mixed with white.
“Quarrie, husband, do not go out to battle.” Surely she had said these words before, in another time? “Let Airlee”—their son, their firstborn—“lead the fight.”
