“Daughter,” Anders said again, sounding edgy, “ye are no’ going to begin all that again, are ye? No’ before a guest.”
“If ye mean Master Finlay, he knows more o’ our affairs than we do, I think.”
Anders gave a reluctant laugh. “’Tis so. Ah, here is O’Hanlon. Master O’Hanlon”—he half rose—“pray come sit wi’ us.”
O’Hanlon brought a definite presence to the table. “Ah,” he said, eyeing them, “is this not a choice gathering?”
He took the place beside Katrin. Much more casual were things this night—except for that air of discord. He shot a look at her. “Mistress.”
“Master O’Hanlon.”
Finlay had excellent instincts. They may not be a warrior’s instincts—not anymore—but as an itinerant wanderer seeking his living from those he encountered, he must read those he encounteredquickly and well. Besides, he was alive to everything about Katrin.
Much as he might want to, he could not deny that something did lie between these two. Something…
Nay,his heart cried again.
The food began its rounds. They made idle conversation, none of them touching upon the subject that no doubt occupied their minds. The state of the country. When those here would be called up to fight.
Finlay kept mostly silent and indulged in the sheer pleasure of having Katrin so near at hand. Watching the color come and go in her face, the light in her eyes.
No matter, he told himself sternly, that it flashed when she looked or spoke to O’Hanlon.
When the meal finished, he rose and took his place at his harp. He gave them an old tale—not a family one this time—of Tristan and Isolde, a love that refused to waver or die. Then he played some of his oldest songs, the ones his fingers knew so well.
When he looked at Katrin, he had the satisfaction of seeing that she sat with her eyes closed, absorbing his music, no longer seeming aware of O’Hanlon, whose scarred hand rested near hers on the table.
Surely, surely, Finlay promised himself, it would come about as it was meant to be. O’Hanlon was but an obstacle, a stumbling block in their path as, in the past, there had been so very many.
Not until he stopped playing did Katrin rise and begin circling the hall again, seeing to their guests. Anders, O’Hanlon, and all the company applauded Finlay heartily.
He took up his harp and left.
Once in his chamber—Geordie’s chamber—a sudden longing seized him. He wanted to go out into the darkness, stand above the sea and hear its hiss and thump, like the heartbeat of the world.
He wanted her there beside him. Where was she now?
If she failed to remember, if she did not come to him, how was he to tell her what they had been to each other? What they might be.
He slept but poorly there in his haunted bed. Not until the night moved toward morning did he fall into a deep sleep, and likewise into a dream.
No ordinary dream was it, for he found himself transported to another place, that of his previous dreaming. Into a different time. A differenthim.
He saw again the green swath of turf spread out before him, the sweet sweep of the hill, the settlement below with the lazy smoke from fires rising into the soft air. He came climbing down the hill from the wilder places, his body obedient yet hurting in joint and limb. Aged, he was, and no longer the lithe warrior. Every wound he had ever taken now told in sinew and bone.
But none of that mattered. He’d found more of the leaves to brew for her fever—the ones the healer had failed to search out. She would become well, once she had a draught of this inside her.
The dream flickered and altered in the way they did. He found himself inside a dim hut with night gathered all around. The fretful dance of a low fire at his back, and a cup of the brewed herbs in his hand.
He knelt beside a sleeping bench, having hunkered down there on his reluctant knees. Upon the bench lay a woman.
An aged woman she was, her once-golden hair turned to white, flowing loose over the skins that made her bolster. Her face bore a fine network of wrinkles, and her hands, folded upon the cover, looked frail. Naught but skin over bone.
The most beautiful woman in all the world, to him.
“Liadan,” he said to her. “Alanna. My love.”
She stirred and opened her eyes to him. Opened her spirit to him. For each time she looked at him, she did precisely that. Faded blue her eyes were, that saw him, as ever, to his very soul.
