“Wha’ color the plaid? Wha’ pattern, lad?”
He gazed at her, arrested.
Molly leaned forward and laid her hand on his arm. “Find the plaid, and ye may find her.”
So he would. If yet she survived.
Chapter Forty-Five
Katrin leaned farout over the ramparts so she could see what was happening in the bailey below. Winter had nearly gone, and the land lay raked by the storms they had endured. Near-endless storms there had been, as if they had not enough to bear without.
The ground below was a sea of muck, that being one of the woes that beset them. Another was a winter ague that had spread through the guards and many of their families. Katrin had fought it off early, surprised she had the strength. These days she seemed to have strength for naught more than facing one day after the other, doggedly.
The ancient songs had fled her life, and with them all joy. All meaning.
Aye, well, that was not strictly true. There was meaning still in shepherding her clan, in leading them through the hard winter and keeping their heads up in what seemed to be the new Scotland. News had filtered to them only rarely during the cold, dark months. None of it had been good. The king remained in English hands, and the barons had been knocked back on their heels.
God alone knew what would become of Scotland.
But that did not concern her now. The welfare of her own people and protecting her holding did. Da would want her to stand tall, to lead their folk, and so she would.
A curious thing, though—for most her life she’d half envied Geordie, wondering why she had not been born maleso she might follow Da and better serve the clan, march to war, and defend. And now she was doing just that. Fate had presented her with her heart’s desire, and the pity was—
The pity was, her heart was dead within her.
Everyone around her knew it, or at least suspected. When first she’d come back from England, they had tiptoed around her, giving her time to heal. The weight of the battle—for Rabbie and Davey had spoken of it, as had the others who succeeded in making their way home—added to Da’s passing made it understandable that she should be changed.
But as time passed, they grew disappointed and perhaps a little impatient with her continued malaise. Da’s advisors, who so tangibly longed to help her, lost their enthusiasm, if not their kindness. Rabbie and Davey, with whom she remained close. Even her maid.
None could help her, though. Her heart had become a barren place. A desert.
“D’ye want to fall to yer death?” a voice beside her demanded, and a strong hand caught the back of her cloak. Davey. A lad no longer, he had grown into a man during their tortuous journey home and now regarded her with level blue eyes. “Lean out any farther, mistress, and ye will land on yer head below.”
“Aye, so.” She could not but agree. Mayhap a part of her would not mind falling to her death, if it would halt the pain. The longing. But nay, for Finlay had paid too high a price to buy her life, had he not? “I would no’ die, Davey, cushioned by all that mud.”
“Aye, so. What are ye thinkin’?”
“That ’twill be a hard year ahead.”
“Could scarce be worse than the winter.” Davey himself had been down with the ague for a fortnight. She’d thought she might lose him.
Sometimes it seemed there was naught but loss. First Ma. Then Geordie. Reagan. Finlay. Da.
“We will get through somehow.” Davey tried to sound braw. “Though we are gey short-handed.”
They had lost so many in the south, only a portion of those that had gone off managing to make their way home again, and some of them maimed.
“’Twill get easier,” he went on, clearly searching for something that could lift her spirits, “as the weather improves.”
Would it?
“So many widows,” she mused, “and bairns wi’out fathers. I canna forsake them. We maun provide.”
“Aye,” he said softly. “They do trust ye, mistress, to mak’ the best decisions for them.”
“Do they? I am no’ so sure about my father’s advisors.” Aye, they had left her alone for a time after she’d arrived home. Let her grieve. But then they’d begun to badger her, if as gently and persistently as possible.
To Davey, with her eyes on the sea that crashed against the shore below, she said, “They want for me to marry. Someone suitable.”
