It was the whispers all around him that told him the truth. Word spread, as it tended to do, from man to man. Even back in his earliest days as a warrior, in Erin, it had been so. Fighting men developed a sort of second sense and an ability to dispense information with very few words.
Now everyone, without exception, was exhausted. They had tramped a very great distance over rough ground to join the king’s forces near Perth, and that mostly on empty stomachs. They had been fed well enough at the start of the journey southward, but since then the rations had been poor and few, even though for the Murtray clansmen, Katrin did her best to gain them what food and drink she could.
Finlay longed to be with her, and many times he questioned the wisdom of this journey. Should he have tried to keep her back from it by force? Should he have told her the truth before they left? If the worst happened, he might never have a chance.
Still and all, from the very start of this, when he’d located her at Murtray, he’d known that truth was not his to share beyond the tellingof his stories. She had to realize it for herself. Else how could she ever believe?
Ye be the young woman in each of those tales. The lass Liadan, who stood in the sunshine watching the man she loved at his ablutions. Bradana, who tramped across Dalriada for the sake of love. Darlei, the princess with the stubborn heart. Hulda, she who fought so valiantly for her independence and her love.
She would not believe all that just because he told it to her, he who had made it into stories.
So he kept an eye on her when he could. He tramped along at Gregor’s side. And he wondered what this turn of the wheel would bring.
*
Finlay had notlied; the distance they had to cover was great and near impossible to fathom. Katrin did not try to fathom it. She had become one small piece of the moving pattern, all of which followed the call issued by those who rode fine horseflesh at their head. Their commanders. Their king.
Time blurred right along with reality. Even though young and strong, she struggled, though not so badly as some others around her, including her da.
Och, he still would not admit it. And their pace, though pressed, was not overly demanding, just inexorable like a boulder rolling downhill. Walking beside him as she was, she knew when he began to flag and did all she could to lighten his load, including carrying his weapons. It was the reason she was here, was it not? It was what Geordie would have done.
She told herself over and over that shewasGeordie, that she now existed only to fill his place. But Geordie would never have yearned so persistently for the company of a single man, back in their ranks,sought him out at every opportunity, nor stretched his ears as she did for the sound of his harp.
Finlay seemed to be holding up to the march better than most. He had not lied about being accustomed to tramping great distances. To her knowledge, he had not lied to her about anything. She worried for him, though, since rations—shared among so many—were short. She did her best to assure herself that Finlay had what he needed, along with all the Murtray men.
A drop in an ocean, they were. An ocean seething toward storm.
By the time they crossed into England east of a place called Carlisle—an event that in fact Katrin missed—the great army had grown restless, unhappy, and very, very hungry. Reagan estimated they were some ten thousand men or more, and though they had spread out through the countryside, procuring food where they could, it was never enough. Already, men had deserted, and those around Katrin grumbled for a host of reasons.
She was shocked to find that England looked very like Scotland, so much so that here at least, where they entered that foreign place, it proved impossible to tell one from the other. That made her wonder a little. The ground they trod seemed the same, as was the sky above. Was any of this worth the dying?
She stretched her ears and listened to those around her. This border area, so they said, had been disputed and hard-fought over for a long while. Indeed, a chain of castles stood here in defense, as did a very ancient wall, and feuding was a longstanding pastime. Now, though, they had reason to believe those castles, with their ruthless English knights away to France, should stand mostly empty before them.
The great body of the army turned and headed eastward, and Katrin’s sense of unreality deepened.
They paused and wallowed, the great sea of men moving the way a sluggish tide might against a shore. Reagan came back through theirranks to find her, his face near expressionless but with concern in his eyes.
“Wha’ is happening?” she asked him.
“There is a castle ahead, a place called the Peel of Liddell. There may be supplies, and word is we will lay siege.”
“Oh.” It would be her first taste of battle. “And after that, will it be done? Will we go home?”
He shook his head, regret in his eyes.
“How d’ye fare?” he asked her abruptly. His manner did not fool her. He cared, that much she could feel.
“Da is flagging.” She glanced to where her father had seated himself among a number of Murtray men. “He will no’ admit to it.”
“I can try to find him that mount, if ye think he will now accept it.”
Slowly and with regret, she shook her head.
“And for ye?” Reagan’s tawny gaze touched her face and flickered over her body. He seemed so unfazed by the hard distance they had covered, and the low rations, that she could not help but admire it. Could not help but respond to his strength also. A warrior this man was, to the heart.
“I am well enough,” she told him, and the wings of his mustache twitched around a smile.
“Ye be a woman in a thousand, Katrin MacMurtray. Let me see what I can do.”
