“If there is aught ye require, ye will come to me.”
“I surely will.”
“Then I hope ye enjoy a good rest.”
“I do no’ doubt it, mistress. Thank ye.”
Carefully, he set down the harp. Began to remove his cloak.
Past time for Katrin to leave. And yet—inexplicably she hung back, watching as with neat movements he shook out the wet garment and hung it from a peg set in the wall.
“Tell me, Master Finlay—”
“Aye?” He turned to face her. Rain glittered like jewels in the red of his hair.
“How is it ye know so much of my family’s history? Or—was the better part o’ all that made up? Grand tales to flatter my father, perhaps.”
“Nay, and nay.” He straightened. “’Twas all the truth I told.”
Katrin felt a thrill. Those stories! Those grand, brave, and wonderful people!
“But how? How could ye know all that?”
His deep-green eyes met hers and the smile touched them like light through a forest.
“’Tis my job to know, mistress. A bard is no’ just a singer. He is a carrier o’ history. A keeper o’ old truths and ancient songs.”
To be sure, he had a magical tongue, did this man. And clever with it. What he claimed might, or might not, be true. He wanted their patronage.
But ah, a part of her, practical or not, wanted to believe. Believe in such a love as that of which he’d told, one that stretched across the ages.
“Ye do no’ remember me, do ye?” Finlay asked suddenly.
That had Katrin swinging back to face him. “Should I?”
A wry smile curled his lips. “Perhaps no’.”
“Ye ha’ never visited here at Murtray before, have ye?”
“I have, long ago. Once when I was but a lad and apprenticed to the bard Caradoc of Snowdon, who taught me how to play. He did bring me here. I ne’er forgot the place.”
“Aye? I regret to say, I do no’ recall. I must ha’ been very young.”
“We both were.” Was there some message in his eyes? But ah, her mind was still half caught in the dreams he’d woven.
“I will let ye sleep.” She turned for the door.
“Thank ye, mistress,” he said again.
Katrin went back out into the rain, still feeling curiously unsettled. He had given her only half an explanation as to how he knew so many details about her family’s history, things even she had never heard before. That her ancestors had come from Ireland—well, aye, she had heard hints of that long ago. That among them had been a great warrior and a prodigal son. That she carried the blood of a Pictish princess, and aye, well, some Norse blood also.
That showed in the color of her hair. In her height. In her propensity, or so Geordie had claimed, to pick up a sword.
Aye, sometimes her fingers fairly itched for one.
How could Finlay know that?
She was tired, her mind stuffed with stories, and she must give it up for this night, at least, as impossible to know.
