Finlay awoke to the cold dawn, his face wet with tears, his heart raw.
Love and devotion, joy and loss, all of it possessed him. All of it rode upon the turn of the wheel.
All of it carried in his blood.
Chapter Thirteen
With considerable persistence,Katrin persuaded Reagan O’Hanlon to move their private sessions out of his quarters and off behind the armory. As her training progressed and what Geordie had taught came back to her, there simply was not enough room in the hut. The area behind the armory—a kind of wasteland containing an ancient forge and cast-off weapons—was deserted after dark, the time when they met.
As a consequence of her dedication, she went through her days nursing a multitude of bruises and one or two sprains—all accidentally acquired—that she sought in various ways to hide. The household undoubtedly considered her inordinately clumsy.
She now thought of the Gallowglass asReagan, for that was what she called him when they sweated and flailed at one another, just as he called herKatrin. When they met in the ordinary way, to be sure, she still addressed him asMaster O’Hanlon.
She had learned much of the man during their time in shared company. Big and unyielding he might be, and fierce on the battlefield—though she’d never yet seen so—but he possessed a dry sense of humor compatible with her own. And more and more, he approved of her.
Just as more and more, she grew comfortable with him.
Yet—it was of the harper she dreamed.
Deep and disturbing dreams they were, brought on, so she first believed, by her exhaustion from the after-supper training sessions.The sort of dreams in which even her sleeping mind had rarely ever indulged. The two of them. Together. Naked and touching one another. Tasting one another.
So frequent grew these dreams that she awoke knowing the pattern of hair that grew on his chest. That he had a tattoo binding one arm, high on his bicep. She awoke still quivering, the flavor of him on her lips, and cursed herself.
It got so she could scarcely gaze into the man’s green eyes for fear he would see those dreams. For when he looked at her…
It seemed he could see everything. More of her than there was.
The days both dragged by and spun so swiftly that she could scarcely number them. The Gallowglass drilled eternally. A message from John Randolph did not arrive.
Father and the head of his guard, Robran, drilled their own men also, for when the call did come they would go with the Gallowglass in answer. Katrin watched those sessions with critical eyes, knowing she could match many of these men who ordinarily spent their days tilling the soil or farming the sea. Wondering how to approach her father on the subject.
One evening, behind the armory, she challenged Reagan over it. “How d’ye think I am doing, Master Gallowglass?”
He wiped the sweat from his brow with an equally damp forearm and she grinned to herself, pleased she had made this consummate warrior work so hard.
“Ye do well.” Even in the low light, aye, she once more caught the gleam of approval in his eyes. Or was that admiration?
“D’ye think me ready to accompany my father’s men?”
“Off to fight, d’ye mean?”
She took up an aggressive stance. “O’ course I mean off to fight.”
He turned away from her rather than answer and put up his sword. His muscles rippled when he moved, and Katrin experienced that now-familiar, purely feminine thrill. The man had scars. Theydetracted naught from him.
Yet it was of the harper she dreamed, and awoke with his tunes playing in her head.
When Reagan did not speak, she pressed, “I did hope ye might speak wi’ my father on my behalf. Persuade him I am fit and ready.”
“Katrin, I cannot do that.”
“What?” She’d been more than half counting on it. Da respected the Gallowglass’s opinion. He might at last listen. “Ye know full well I am as skilled as many o’ Da’s men—who will surely march off to die. Ye ha’ seen them training.” She’d noticed him watching, just like her. “They are clumsy and inept, and handle their swords like reaping hooks.”
“I do know it full well.”
“Then—”
“Katrin.” He turned and approached her, looming up out of the gloom. “Ye be a woman.”
