Da had found out about those training sessions—and Ma, for she’d still been alive then—and put a stop to them. Which merely meant she and Geordie had been forced to move their sessions anywhere they could. Up the shore. Into the forest.
They had learned together. As his training progressed, so did hers. Only her brother had known how good shewas. Or how determined she’d been to stand up in her own defense.
When the time came for him to leave this beloved place and go to serve their laird, he’d gone without her. No one would ever know how she regretted that.
Master O’Hanlon was waiting for her, even though when she slipped into the hut he greeted her with, “Och, I did wonder if ye would come.”
He was not clad in his mail or leathers and wore his saffron kilt with a tunic open at the throat. Did he not think he would need armor against her?
When she shrugged off her cloak and he saw she wore leggings and had her hair tightly braided, his eyebrows flew up. “I see ye came prepared.”
“I ha’ done this before.”
“Let me see that sword.”
She passed it to his hands, and he examined it with close attention, taking his time.
“Not a bad weapon,” he said at last, handing it back.
“’Tis no’ a great claymore like yer own,” she replied. “But no’ too heavy for me either.” It took a man and a half to wield a sword the length of his.
He did not wear it now, and turned to the corner, where a number of weapons were stacked. “For our purpose, I will use a sword similar to your own.” He eyed her and tossed the long tail of his hair so it slapped his back. “Show me what ye have learned.”
The following moments were interesting. Katrin had forgotten none of Geordie’s lessons, but it had been many weeks since she’d put in an earnest effort, and she felt it. Her feet remembered the old patterns, but muscles used to lifting no more than a table or crock of milk protested.
O’Hanlon stood and received her blows on his sword, not for the moment striking back. Striking against him felt like trying to move aboulder. He might have been rooted in the stone floor.
She’d begun to sweat before he held up his hand. Not precisely maidenly, she supposed, to be perspiring at every joint, but he would see worse than that of her.
“Not bad,” he pronounced. Was that approval in the tawny eyes? “Your brother—”
“Geordie.”
“He must have been a fine warrior.”
“He was. That is why I canna understand”—to her horror, tears threatened—“how he came to fall. In practice, no less. ’Twas no’ even a proper battle.”
O’Hanlon told her gravely, “It takes but an instant for even the very best o’ fighters to fall. I might. Ye might, if ye persist in this.”
Katrin’s chin jerked up. “Then mak’ me better than the very best. ’Tis why I am here.”
“I shall not have to show ye the basics.” He glanced around the hut. “I regret now we have not more room. I thought we would have to begin at the beginning.”
“I told ye—”
“Please, mistress. I believed ye. But ’tis not every day a woman comes to me and declares she can fight with a sword. We will do the best we may.”
They were the last words either of them spoke for some time. Instead, they worked. Katrin’s muscles screamed at her, but O’Hanlon was relentless, and she was not about to beg mercy from him after requesting exactly what he dished out.
A strong man and practiced with it, the blows he delivered to her sword had both power and precision behind them. Geordie, as she remembered, had been quicker, with a certain litheness in his movements. O’Hanlon, so she imagined, would go at the enemy like a man reaping grain.
With that great sword of his.
She had lost track of time before he put his weapon up, crossed to his pack, and took out a flask, which he unstopped and passed to her.
“Enough for now.”
She examined the flask, which was made of silver with an embossed pattern of twining knots on the side, since she was not sure she wanted to drink. “This is a bonny thing.”
