The night beforeKatrin’s world came apart, she had a dream.
She had not been sleeping well, an empty stomach and an overly full mind not being conducive to it. The army seethed, with men continually coming and going from it, restless and plundering. King David continued to send his men raiding while he awaited a ransom from the monastery and the city beyond.
Before attempting sleep, Katrin had moved back through the ranks—not wanting to admit she searched for Finlay—and had found him in company with a piper and drummers from the neighboring MacDonald clan. Musicians trading stories, it seemed. He had given her a smile that warmed her to her toes, and she’d sat alongside them a while before taking herself off again to make sure Da had all she could provide for the night.
But being in Finlay’s company even for so brief a time must have sparked something. For when she did fall asleep after, she dreamed of him. That was, she dreamed she was in one of the stories he had told in her father’s hall, with a man who felt very much like him.
She was back home at the settlement perched above the sea, the stretch of shore she knew so well. Only—the keep in which she’d grown was not there. Instead, above the stretch of coast that looked so much the same stood a roundhouse, the sight of which sounded depths in Katrin’s soul.
She knew this place. Yet she did not.
In the dream, she walked up from the shore, feeling the stones beneath her feet, to the timber-enforced doorway. Slipped like a wraith inside. The interior opened out in front of her, smoke-filled, with soaring pillars that held up thewheel of the roof. The scent, warmth, and familiarity of the place assailed her.
A man stood there, beside the fire, in the act of donning armor. Not armor such as that with which she was familiar, but rough leather—again, known to her even as it was not so.
At the sight of him, her heart leaped so painfully it shook her whole body, her whole being. Tall he was, with fair hair turned mostly to gray. A face lined by the years yet still handsome, and eyes that, when they turned to her, contained her entire world.
She knew that body of his, as she should well do. A warrior’s body now aged. It had collected many a scar over the years in defense of this place, though he tended to disregard the injuries he acquired.
She’d been so sure her fears might at last settle. He was past the age of going out to fight. Yet here he stood donning his leather armor. His sword.
She hurried to him. “Wha’ are ye doing?”
He turned his eyes on her, gray eyes speckled with green. All at once they were young again, fleeing together across the face of Alba. Her Irish lad, her exile, her love.
But nay, they were both aged. And he should go to fight no more.
“We are under attack,” he said, continuing to fasten the lacing of his heavy vest.
“We are.” She had herself, while down upon the shore, sighted the raiders on their way in, a howling, raving crowd of them. Men they’d believed defeated long since.
“Well, then.”
She laid hold of his forearms. How long had she loved this man? “Adair,” she said. “Adair, ye need no’ go. Ha’ we no’ two braw sons?” She had labored giving them to him, as well as a bonny daughter. Her beloved children, birthed half of Alba and half of Erin, and wholly of their love. “Do our sons nay stand ready to protect us?”
“’Tis my place, Bradana. I did no’ take the name of chief lightly from your grandsire. I am sworn—”
“Ye be a warrior nay more.”
He gave her a hard look. “If ye believe that, ye do no’ know me as well as I thought.”
“I know ye. Well. Well! But time does pass, my love. Stay back. For me.”
“Alanna.” For an instant he closed his eyes as if calling up an inner strength. Not the kind of strength needed to go and fight one more—one last?—battle but that needed to deny her. “I must go. Should I no’ be there and should we fall—”
“Stay back and defend the roundhouse. For me. With me. I will stand beside ye.”
“Bradana, I would do near anything for ye. All I can. I do no’ think I can be other than who I am.”
She leaned into him. “Try.Try.”
He thrust his sword into the loop at his belt and took both her hands in his. Raised them one after the other to drop kisses into the palms. Planted the tenderest of kisses at each corner of her mouth, upon each cheek, upon her brow.
“Know I do love ye. Always.”
Could a woman ask the man she loved to be what he was not? Tears filled her eyes, blurring his form into that of a young man as he stepped away from her on his way out.
Her sons brought him back to her following the battle that proved hard-fought but victorious. They bore him on his shield with tears running down their faces.
