“Ye be right, ye be right. But I canna help but think, had I been there—”
“The life o’ a warrior is a tempestuous thing, Chief MacMurtray, like a storm at sea. Ye may no’ ha’ been able to prevent what happened to him, even had ye been there.”
That made Anders give him a rueful look. “Ye speak as if ye know the life ye describe.”
Finlay remembered. “I do,” he said, “if ye count my stories.”
“Aye, to be sure. Did ye never consider becoming a warrior? Ye ha’ the build for it.”
“I did, and began the training in my youth.” The memories and, indeed, the realizations that had come to him, faster and faster as he grew, had stopped him from completing that training. “Then music called.”
“’Twould be a sin, aye, to waste those hands o’ yours on a sword. A pure waste o’ a God-given talent.” Anders scowled. “And there has been waste enough.”
He hesitated, then said, “D’ye ken my daughter wanted to go off to fight? After Geordie’s death—well, to be truthful even before—she came to me. And after he perished, she said, ‘Da, let me tak’ up his place.’ Ha’ ye ever heard anything more foolish?”
“She possesses a true heart.”
“Aye, so. Is it any more foolish to suppose I should be the one to go, when the king demands, in Geordie’s stead?”
A silence fell. Finlay did not know what to say.
Eventually, Anders answered himself. “I ha’ no heir. My son is dead and gone fro’ me. The closest o’ my cousins also. My daughter—my daughter has no’ yet given me a grandson, and time flies.”
“Would ye be happy to hand over to a grandson?”
“’Tis an old tradition here. As ye did tell in the second o’ yer tales.”
“Aye.” In that instance, the story did attest to the truth.
“Ah, well, time will gi’ us the whole o’ it, as always. If I go off to die, this place will fall into confusion, and how will that serve the king, or Scotland? ’Twould leave my daughter in a terrible fix.”
“So it would.”
“Aye, well, master harper, I did no’ mean to strain yer ear. Only, after those stories, it feels ye ken our history as well as I do. Better, mayhap.”
“I am always happy to listen to ye, Chief MacMurtray.”
“Aye, lad, and I am that glad ye be here. As I say, I would be pleased if ye will stay on till we see what is what.”
“I would be pleased for that also.”
Chapter Eleven
After Anders wentoff about his business, Finlay walked out into the morning light to watch the Gallowglass at practice.
He told himself he but wanted to get a feel of them, perhaps garner some inspiration to enhance the march already in his head. In truth, part of him felt attracted to the sounds of practice, to the immediacy of it, the ordered crash and clang.
He was still part warrior, so it seemed, deep inside.
How was it that he remembered? He remembered everything, and yet Katrin did not? He’d been sure—or at least he’d hoped—that once she heard his stories, the memories would come flooding to her.
To his dismay, that had not happened. He could tell by the way she looked at him, polite and courteously interested, that she did not recall what they were to each other.
All, and everything.
Watching the Gallowglass at practice, it felt as if his own past lay before his eyes. The future?
Unknowable.
