The Irish Warrior Part 15

His gaze flicked over, but he didn't ask the question begging to be asked: What do you mean, "after your mother left"? What do you mean, "after your mother left"? Senna hurried on before he could. "Sir Gerald regularly raided the coffers. He has incurred debts to rather...unsavory men." Senna hurried on before he could. "Sir Gerald regularly raided the coffers. He has incurred debts to rather...unsavory men."

"Your father has dealings with unsavory men?"

"My father has dealings with whomever will feed the beast. n.o.ble thugs or dock workers, what matters that?" She flicked him a glance. "You are not afflicted by it, so you would not understand."

"Unsavory, of what sort?"

"Of the manly sort, that comes to the house at night, sometimes in n.o.ble finery, sometimes plain as dirt." She was distracted by his undressing and was.h.i.+ng and his glistening, wet body and such, but beneath the glory of Finian, she realized she was speaking of things she hadn't for many years. "The sort who visits late at night, and you hear their angry voices, but all in whispers, as if they are sharing great, angry secrets. The sort that is gone the next morning, your father along with them. Unsavory, of that sort."

He crumpled his tunic into a ball. "Ye call yer father Sir Gerald."

"Oh," she said, fl.u.s.tered and irritated. Why did he need to be perceptive as well? Could he not be lacking in some some regard? "I'm used to referring to him thusly. Our contractors. Business, you know." regard? "I'm used to referring to him thusly. Our contractors. Business, you know."

"Well, I'm fair surprised to find such a spirited lady coming from his seed."

"Me?" she shouted in laughter. "You must mean some other."

"Och, ye're right, now. I'm talking about all the other fine ladies who stole me out of prison."

Straightening, he stepped back across the stream and turned to reach down for his armor. The movement drew her eye. What she saw drained all the blood from her face.

"Mother of G.o.d," she whispered, all of it an exhale.

His back was shredded. Long, deep lacerations whipped in a jagged orbit around his body, bisecting one another in a red fire and tortured map of brutality. Some were scarring, some spoke of more recent acquaintance with a leather strap. She rose slowly to her feet, her eyes fixed on the horror.

"Jesu, Finian."

Gladiator muscles slid beneath his satiny skin as he turned to her. She could almost feel the razor-sharp whip snapping through the air, ripping open his flesh, tearing into the awesome strength beneath, like a knife cutting through a pear. Her trembling fingers pa.s.sed a hairsbreadth above the ravaged flesh and she lifted her head to meet his steady gaze.

There are green flecks in his eyes.

"Ye suffered too," he murmured, his eyes lingering on the fading bruises of her cheekbones.

"Oh, Finian," she exhaled, feeling tears p.r.i.c.k. Dropping to her knees, she dragged her pack over. "I've unguent," she reported in a shaky voice, digging through the bag. In wild arcs everything came out, scattering on the ground around her: a brick of hard cheese, three small pouches, linen sc.r.a.ps, a rope, strips of leather.

She lifted her head, holding up a small container as high as she could, which reached to the middle of his chest. With an utterly unreadable look, he took it, and she scrambled to her feet. "Have they festered?"

He shook his head, resettling the damp hair across his shoulders. "They don't feel to have."

"Well, I'll see about that," she said in a clipped tone. The p.r.i.c.king of tears a moment ago was nothing, of course-simply understandable concern for the wounds of the man she needed healthy to ensure her survival. She put her hand on his arm to turn him around. "Stand fast."

He allowed her to turn him, and she allowed herself to ignore the feel of his warm, wide shoulder beneath her hand. Clamping her tongue between her teeth, she began applying the thick lotion in slow, gentle movements that sent his muscles shuddering in response.

"Am I hurting you?"

"Aye," he said gruffly.

She paused and peered over his shoulder at the profile of his square jaw. "Much?"

"Aye, that ye are."

"Well," she retorted, then said it again. "Well."

He stood quietly under the painful repair work. When finished, she stepped back and looked with a critical eye at her handiwork. "I think I've got them all," she muttered, angling her head to the side to see if the light had tricked her and she'd missed one. No, No, she decided, straightening, she decided, straightening, I've got them all. I've got them all.

His dark eyes were waiting for her.

"I've another debt to pay, mistress."

His gaze dropped to the unguent still coating her fingertips. A stride of his muscle-corded legs brought him close enough to catch her hand in his.

Her lips parted around a hot rush of breath. Almost thoughtfully, he placed the pad of his thumb on her lower lip, curling it down, his rough, clean skin on the fleshy inner side. Hot coils unwound through her body.

"How shall I repay it? What do ye want, Senna?"

"All I want," she whispered, "is to go home."

Home, where there were no wolves baying or soldiers hunting. Where the biggest river to be crossed was the murmuring brook between home and the stables, and the hardest bed she ever had to sleep in was the one she'd made herself by booking pa.s.sage with the more expensive s.h.i.+pping merchant for last autumn's Flanders drop.

Home, where the sun slipped away each evening through leaded gla.s.s windows, spilling dull green light across the ledgers at her copyist's desk.

Where months pa.s.sed with only the servants to talk to, until she had to let them all go too, when the debts grew too large.

Home, where silence reigned and even the 'lucrative sheep' were simply bright white specks on the sodden brown landscape of her heart.

His hand was warm curled around hers. "Is that truly all ye want, then? To go home?"

No, her heart cried. her heart cried. No, no, no. No, no, no.

"Aye," she said dully.

He dropped her hand, and she barely remembered how to lift it again. They shouldered their packs and silently slipped under the cover of trees as twilight spread, leaving neither sound nor trace of their pa.s.sing.

Chapter 20.

"Praise G.o.d. A boat."

Senna had the exact opposite reaction. "Oh, dear Lord. A boat."

It was the third noontide after their escape from Rardove, and they were crouched above a river. On a small isle in the center of the rus.h.i.+ng currents was a small village. Perhaps five little tear-shaped boats bobbed at the edge of their side of the river.

"A boat will make travel much faster. And easier."

"We're stealing a boat," she clarified flatly. As if thievery was the reason for her protest.

"Aye, Senna. We're stealing a boat."

He started down the hill, hunched low, until he was near the riverside, then ducked down into the tall reeds and rushes. No one was to be seen on this side of the water, but on the other, villagers went about their business. A few women were was.h.i.+ng clothes in the stream. A child in bare feet ran from one hut to another, calling someone.

Senna followed glumly in Finian's wake. They couched amid the gra.s.ses, something I find myself doing with great frequency of late, something I find myself doing with great frequency of late, she thought sourly. she thought sourly.

It was still risky to travel during daylight hours, but not nearly as risky as traveling by boat in the dark, and apparently, travel by boat they must.

They watched as the villagers on the small island moved through their daily paces, keeping Senna and Finian trapped in the rushes. She felt like a young child, playing hoop and hide with her brother Will. Just the two of them, running around like wild things, Mama gone, Father may as well have been.

What grand games they had played, not realizing how their voices echoed back to them across the empty meadows. For a while. But soon, Will was taken-sent, she corrected swiftly-to be fostered as a squire, trained as a knight, a privilege and expense she herself ensured once she took over the accounts at age fifteen. Will's education had lacked for nothing.

The boats bobbed as a gust of wind whipped down the river. She swallowed. Will had probably even been taught to swim, Will had probably even been taught to swim, she thought sourly. she thought sourly.

She rooted around in her pack and came out with the flask. Uncorking it, she threw back a swallow. It burned the whole way down. Finian flicked a glance over.

"I can't swim," she said.

"That should help." He looked back at the river and the bobbing, sickening boats.

She took another scorching swallow and aimed a glare at the side of his head. He had a very attractive side of his head. "Why ought I know how to swim? What good is that?"

"'Tis helpful when you want to cross a river."

She took another sip of the whisky. "I do other things."

"Aye," he agreed, not looking over. "Make money. Drink firewater. Talk a great deal."

She gave a wan smile. "I can use a weapon, too, should that interest you. It ought, if you intend to go on in that manner."

He turned then and studied her, those blue eyes trailing over her face. Then he smiled his dangerous smile and settled back amid the high, swaying reeds. The low drone of flying things going about their business-b.u.t.terflies, gnats, flies-settled over the heated earth.

"Is that so?" he said. "A weapon? Who taught ye that?"

"My brother, Will. He taught me many things. How to climb trees. Use a short bow. And a knife." One of his dark eyebrows quirked. She nodded. "Oh, we were wild, for a time."

Finian snapped a reed stem in half and chewed at the tip. "Good Lord," he said mildly. "Ye were rough stuff. I'm surprised that's not a crime."

"Teaching a woman to use weapons?"

"No. Teaching ye to."

He watched her with a teasing half smile, the long, lean length of him stretched out, resting back on an elbow, waiting patiently for the villagers to move out of sight, for her to tell her tale in a low murmur.

"How can you be so calm? When all this"-she waved her hand generally at the world-"is happening. Has happened. Will happen. How can you be so...at ease?"

He tipped the gra.s.s stem away from his lips and smiled full on. It was as if the sun just came out. "There are worse things I could be doing just now, Senna, than sitting here with ye. For the moment, I am at ease."

Just as if the sun came out, indeed. She grew warmer. Everywhere. Lowering her eyes, she toyed with one of the tall, waving reeds, then snapped one off like he had done. She popped the tip in her mouth. She immediately took it out, grimacing. "I see why we put these on the floor."

He nibbled on his stalk again, smiling. "Yer brother, Senna, and his criminal acts, teaching ye to use a bow and knife."

"There's been no damage done yet. I'm not terribly good with a bow."

"Och. I'm sure if ye set yer mind to a matter, it'll come out a good-looking thing in the end."

They were speaking only in murmurs, hidden in a pocket of reeds and heat and his smile. There was something about the quality of how Finian lay stretched out on the earth, something about his breathing that said all his attention was on her. Although why she should care about that was utterly inconceivable.

She pushed an intrusive cattail out of her face.

"I'm surprised yer Da let it happen, though," he said. "The weapons."

She gave a bitter little smile. Why did they seem to touch upon the topic of her father so very much? She hadn't spoken of him in years, save brief conversations with Will, where one or the other would report they hadn't seen Sir Gerald in weeks. Months. Years.

"My father was gone a lot. I rarely saw him."

His regard of her grew a little closer. "And what did yer Mam think, ye learning to use weapons?"

"My mother left. I believe I was five. I do not know my mother."

He chewed his reed-tip in silence for a moment. "Do ye remember nothing of her?"

She shook her head vehemently, in direct opposition to the strength of the lie. "Not even what she smells like."

Roses and green. Fresh, new green. And the yellow roses from out back, the ones she'd let overgrow with vines.

"Ah." A dragonfly hovered silently by Finian's shoulder, a quivering, iridescent arrow. Then it shot off. "Just ye and yer brother then, raising each other?"

"Just us. Until it was time for him to leave."

She knew the wistfulness in her voice revealed as much of her as the words themselves. She looked over, loathe to find what she expected: scorn. Or worse, disinterest.

Instead, she found dark eyes considering her. The filtered sunlight made shadows of his serious regard. And when he nodded, slowly, gravely, she felt as though she'd been accepted.

And, with that, a breath of a new wanting brushed past her consciousness.

Finian's eyes stayed on her, directly, a level, listening gaze, as if the things she spoke of were not shameful a'tall. Which they were. Highly shameful. The things her father had allowed to be done, the way he went through the world, a river of potential, a tepid pool of yield, after the gambling began. After Mama left.

And the shame of Mama, that could not be calculated if she used every abacus in France. Even as a child, Senna had felt it seeping out of those around her like frost heaves, icy remnants. Slippery and treacherous. Never look down.

And of course, all that was in Senna as well.

She tilted her chin up, a move she'd perfected years ago whenever shame threatened a coup. "I took over the business after...when I was fifteen. My father was never to home. Will works for coin. I do not know exactly what he does. He will not speak of it; something for various lords, I think. He hasn't married yet. That cannot be good. He doesn't look as if 'tis good. He looks rather...hard."

"And what did yer hard brother say about ye coming to Ireland?"

"He doesn't know."