The wheezing in his chest rose to a terrible storm and she had to wait with him through it, till he found breath to speak again.
“Anything, Da—”
“Promise me ye will marry. A good man. Someone who will stand beside ye and help ye lead.”
Och, but she did not want to give that promise. Anythingbutthat. She did not want to wed where there could not be love, and for her, all love had fled the world.
But—
There was love, and there was duty.
Even though she knew that very well, she did not speak.
“Katrin, lass?”
“I will do my very best to defend this clan in any way I can.”
His fingers, still gripping hers, tightened spasmodically. “Lass, ye canna stand alone. Other chiefs will see it as—weakness.”
He was slipping from her, sliding through her hands. She saw the mist come to his eyes.
She gave him what promise she could. “I will wed, aye Da, if I can find the man worthy o’ the place.”
“Wise lass.” He closed his eyes before he whispered, “Och, yer ma is here, come for me. And Geordie!”
As simply as that, the breaths for which he’d been battling ceased. The chamber became horrifyingly quiet until Katrin, her head loweredto her father’s shoulder, whispered.
“Go to them, Da. Go on!”
The wheel of life turned. Of all the things she had learned, both joyful and terrible, she knew that. Finlay had told her they traveled on its torturous turning from life to life, meeting and parting, and meeting again.
Let Da meet those he loved. Let him find joy in it. But for her—
By God, she felt so alone.
She knelt there beside her father’s bed a long while until she found the strength to rise, shake off the paralyzing grief, and assume the mantle that had fallen upon her. She now led the clan, and for her da’s sake, if not for that of all the folk who relied upon her, she must do well by them.
Keep her promise? Och, well, that was another matter. For with Finlay gone, where was the man worthy of the place in her heart?
Chapter Forty-Three
For Finlay, thedead Englishman’s food did not last nearly long enough, and the weather deteriorated around him. He knew not where he was, and he avoided cottages with instinctive wariness just as he avoided towns. His condition grew steadily worse as he moved north and westward, putting one foot in front of the other as he had for so many years on the road.
He chose his direction by the same instinct that impelled his feet, that kept him battling. As if there was something inside him that knew where he should be bound, even if he could not name that place.
Often, upon waking under some hedge or beside a wall, he had no idea who or where he was. When he was walking though, pieces of memories tended to come floating in.
They were akin, these memories, to the things he saw in his dreams, so much so he wondered if it was merely those dreams he recalled, and not actual memories at all. He saw most often the bonny, golden-haired girl standing outside the roundhouse in the sun, smiling. Smiling at him.
But there was, too, the tall girl with the deerhound at her side. And the wild-eyed lass riding a brown pony, laughing and looking back over her shoulder at him. And an older woman, aged, standing in the firelight, who stared into his eyes and said, “When you return to me, 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.”
All these memories—if so they were—warmed even as they baffled him, brought a measure of comfort upon his dogged and terrible journey. When they faded, he was lost again, left with a single conviction:Four women. All the same woman.
His wounds healed, the cuts on his hands first, even though he had to use them most. The lump to the back of his head. The slash to his cheek healed badly, but covered by beard, it did not seem to matter.
From time to time, he glimpsed others who might be refugees from the battle, fleeing like himself. A few called to him but he did could not be sure of them, friend from foe. Was he still in England? The place of that terrible conflict. He had no way to tell. He grew steadily weaker, the great vitality housed within beginning to flicker and wane.
A cold day it was when he followed a mere track of a road, barely a rut between the dying heather, through an area mostly empty of habitation. To his right, a stream flowed. To his left were the heights of five mountains, those of which it seemed he should know the names.
