She needed her bed.
She might even sleep, if she could chase those dreams away.
Chapter Two
Finlay turned slowlyand surveyed the room in which he found himself. A poor enough chamber built of stone, barely furnished with a narrow bed and not much more. But someone had laid a fire and he had only to put flint to it in order to be warm.
He had subsisted in worse places, much worse, both back when he had traveled with Caradoc and later, on his own.
But he had hoped for lodgings in the chief’s house, where he would be nearer the heart of things. He reminded himself he was but an itinerant musician who had turned up—felicitously, as Chief Anders claimed—for a few scant days or so. Rooms in the keep alongside the family were reserved for honored guests.
Which he was not.
He must be patient. On the whole, he was a patient man, one who took his time and thought through his decisions before he implemented them. Using that patience, he had wandered his known world picking up pieces and laying them together in his mind. Following a trail so ancient that at times he feared he would never reach its end.
Here, at the age of eight and twenty and no longer such a young man, he had found that end. As if the ever-turning wheel of life had paused, and at last he was where he meant to be.
He had only to await the rest of it. But och, when the heart was involved, patience was a difficult virtue to achieve.
He caught up the flint that hung from a cord beside the fire and hunkered down to strike the flame. The kindling had been well placed,and the flames rose swiftly, spreading almost magical warmth. Something to fight against the damp chill that threatened to invade him.
He rose and unwrapped the harp, wiping the last bit of moisture from her with a cloth he kept for the purpose, guarding her comfort ahead of his own. A prize she was, her price earned through a thousand performances, made to his order by the masters in Erin.
Brada.
Bradana.
An image of a woman’s face swam through the mists in his mind. Wide, bonny blue eyes. Features a tad too strong to represent beauty but so beautiful, aye, to him.
He had followed her.Followed.
Longingly, he stroked the strings of the harp, knowing his fingers traced the trail of hers, evoking ancient songs.
Briskly now, for he despised self-pity, he turned from the harp and shed his wet clothing, donning instead dry garments from his pack before he lay down upon the cot.
He wondered by whom the tiny hut—one of a number, as he’d seen when Mistress Katrin led him here—had been occupied in the past. Other chief’s servants or warriors, Mistress Katrin had said, which seemed a curious thing. Also perhaps messengers forced to take lodging overnight. Knights bearing military orders, who stopped on their way.
The stronghold, being old and reasonably prosperous, would accommodate such. He was provided a bed, as he would no doubt be offered silver come morning. Would he be expected then to leave? Go on his way up the road?
The kingdom of Scotland, caught in the midst of ongoing war, lay in chaos. Surely he might claim refuge here for a time.
He closed his eyes. Would he be allowed sleep this night? Some nights, he slept like a dead man. Others, the dreams and longingsracked him and brought him awake time after time, alive with memories, some wondrous and some so terrible he could scarce endure them.
This night, the old gods blessed him and he slept without dreaming.
He woke to find the rain had flown, chased by a blustery wind from off the sea. He left his quarters neat, as was his habit, and went out to look at the day. He required, with a deep need, to view the place.
A glorious holding was MacMurtray’s, situated at the very edge of the Scottish mainland and facing the Western Isles. The sea, dark blue today and edged with white combers, stretched wide, and contained a number of small, offshore islands lying like sleeping green dragons. A strip of shingle traced the shore like a stone necklace, and away to the south the path climbed to a headland. The settlement had spread northward to encompass what had once been a Norse encampment, some three hundred years before.
So much had changed.
So much had not.
“Master harper?” someone hailed him, and he spun where he stood. Chief Anders himself it was, with a couple other men at his side. Advisors, perhaps, beside whom Finlay had noticed him sitting last evening.
“Come and tak’ yer breakfast,” Anders invited him.
At the chief’s gesture, Finlay joined the men. “Thank ye, Chief MacMurtray. I am indebted for yer hospitality.”
