Reagan shifted his weight. “How about this? I will bid him go, if ye will go wi’ him.”
Katrin set her jaw.
“Ye be a stubborn woman, Katrin MacMurtray. D’ye want your way more than ye want his safety?”
“This is no’ about me having my way.”
“Is it not?”
“Nay. And if ye canna see that, though I ha’ tried and tried to explain—”
“I cannot see it, nay. Ye say ye are here for the sake o’ yer brother and your father, but neither o’ them would want ye here, and it would ease your da’s mind hugely for ye to go. And mine.”
Katrin said nothing.
“None o’ us, lass, needs the distraction o’ having to protect ye.”
“I need no one to protect me!” Did he not see that was the point?
War was loss, and loss was unbearable. Loss on her behalf, that she might prevent, worst of all.
She marched off, angry now with both men.
The next morning, she did not see Finlay at all. They were on themove early and she could not take the time to go back through the ranks. But she swore she could feel him back among the men, his presence a spark of light in her mind.
Or in her heart.
That day, they began to feel the forced pace. Not the Gallowglass troop at their head—they, so it seemed, might have marched on forever. But the rest of them began to struggle, the long miles being covered with weapons and packs upon their backs.
Katrin eyed her da with concern. He marched by her side, at the head of the men, having refused to take a pony if his clansmen could not ride, and she noticed when he began to flag.
There was a reason Geordie had offered to face battle in his place. She distinctly remembered her brother talking him into it.Let me, Da. I am ready and ’tis my place.
Did Da feel guilt as she herself did, for letting Geordie go away without him, only to fall? Did he too wonder if his presence might have kept his beloved son alive?
She didn’t know, and she could not ask. She watched helplessly as he began visibly to tire, and she thought of all the rough and lengthy miles ahead. To the meeting place with Earl Randolph and thence across most of Scotland and on to England. By God, after all that, would these men have the strength to fight? Would her da?
Her mind numbed beneath the weight of it, and she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, on easing Da’s journey in whatever way she might, making certain he had water during the stops, which Reagan called as he thought best.
Reagan O’Hanlon had unquestionably taken charge of their party. Katrin had no doubt his troop could have moved with much greater speed and ease. Strong men all, and she could see they made little of this journey that began to tell on the rest of them.
Frequently, he glanced back over his charges. Sometimes his eyes met hers with what might be a glint of reassurance.
Yet there was little true reassurance to be found. Rather than calming as they went, the fear in Katrin’s belly grew claws and raked at her. Not for herself so much, though mayhap she should fear for herself. But for those she loved.
Love.Did she love Finlay?
Nay, and nay. It was not love but something else that lay between them. Something powerful, aye, possibly more powerful even than love. After those nights they’d spent together, every detail of which her mind insisted upon reliving until her poor body throbbed, she could not deny that desire made up a component of what she felt for him. But nay, not all.
She loved her father. She had loved her brother and did still. What drew her to Finlay was of a different order. Fundamental, as if it had always been there and merely reawakened when she encountered him, spoke to him, learned of him.
Lay with him.Deep, and ancient.
It terrified her, did that feeling. Because it was tied to her soul and to the possibility of loss. And because they marched toward a perfect opportunity for just that.
For that reason, she avoided going back among the men to find him, even though she longed to. She ached to set eyes on him, touch his hand, hear his voice. Da did frequently circle back, and she asked him at every opportunity, “Did ye see the harper?” Trying to sound careless about it and, in reality, aching.Aching.
“Aye,” Da would say. “He seemed to be in good spirits.”
