“I will no’ see ye die.” Her greatest fear, one that had now opened like a bottomless black chasm beneath her heart. It had appeared, thatterrible pit, right along with the feelings she seemed to have found for him.
She tightened her grip on his forearms. “I will beg if I ha’ to.” Tears flooded her eyes. “Stay here till I return.”
“Do no’ weep.” He drew her hard against him, her face to his shoulder. “I canna bear seeing ye weep.”
She was too angry to weep, too stunned by dismay. Near paralyzed at the prospect of him risking himself.
A great and visceral fear.
“Please, Finlay.” The same words she’d given to him during the night when she’d needed him inside her. Now she needed to push him away.
He took both her hands in his, lifted them one after the other and dropped kisses into the palms. Gifted either side of her mouth with a soft kiss, and both cheeks, before placing a final kiss on her brow. “Katrin, alanna, go see to your duties. I will gather my things.”
Feeling helpless, she said, “I do no’ ken wha’ my father will say about taking a harper off to war.”
“Nor do I. I am going, all the same.”
Katrin drew away out of his arms and bent to gather her clothing. She would not look at him. Could not look at him.
“Do as ye wish, since ye will no’ stay for any asking o’ mine.”
He donned his clothes swiftly and left the chamber.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Katrin did notapproach Finlay as the company prepared to leave. Angry with him, as he knew full well. It proved easy enough for her to avoid him, as great confusion filled the bailey. She hurried here and there, consulting with female servants and her father’s seneschal. With her father, and the head of the guard, Robran.
She had dressed herself, after he left her chamber, in men’s clothing. Her long legs clad in leggings, a tunic and leather jerkin, a kilt. Given her height and the fact that she had her hair tightly braided, she might almost pass for a young man.
Finlay knew better. He had touched every part of what lay beneath that clothing. Had his lips to it. The feel and fragrance of her fair haunted him.
He himself wore his plainest clothing, his robe packed away into his bundle and the sigils removed from his hair. He had wrapped Brada most carefully, as he did for his sojourns upon the roads, but she still made a bulky bundle upon his back.
They mustered in the bailey, and apart from the Gallowglass, who stood in strong formation, it was far from orderly. A brisk, cool autumn morning it was, with mist still gathered on the headland and far out to sea. Men called to one another; women and bairns wailed, bidding farewell to their men.
A madness, was war. On some level, he had always known that, even when he was a warrior.
Someone—a man Finlay had never seen before, possibly assistantto the armorer—came up to the group in which he stood, looking distracted. “Sword or bow?”
“Eh?”
“Ye be unarmed. D’ye fight wi’ a bow or a sword?”
The man did not recognize him, nay, any more than Finlay knew him. Finlay looked far different in rough clothing and with his hair tamed.
He’d been unsuccessful in finding a weapon at the almost-empty armory, so he took this as a good sign. He could shoot a bow, aye, and had trained at it in his youth, as with the sword. A long time ago.
A long time.
“Sword,” he chose instinctively, and the armorer turned to a lad, heavily laden, who followed him, then thrust a blade and belt into Finlay’s hands and moved on before Finlay could speak.
He buckled it on with suddenly clumsy fingers. Did this make him once more into what she had forbidden him to be?
The wheel of destiny spun, came round to the place it had started over and over again. He was where he had begun.
Someone shouted—a voice of command. The painful level of noise in the bailey fell. O’Hanlon, so it sounded. Had he been placed in charge of the mass of men? Not a bad choice.
“Form up! We march out. For now, keep together.”
