The Irish Warrior Part 18

She stared in shock at her left foot, now ankle deep in the river. Water began burbling up through the hole. She turned and looked despairingly at Finian.

He had risen, paddle in hand, staring if possible with even more shock than she at the damage done. The small craft was starting to take on a significant amount of water.

"Finian," she said helplessly.

He sighed and, dropping the paddle, gently extracted her foot from between the shards of wood. The water was filling up the craft as high as their ankles. Finian bent and lifted her into his arms, which sent a whoosh whoosh through her belly. Then he swung her over the side. through her belly. Then he swung her over the side.

"No!" she cried out, grabbing for his shoulders.

"It's not so high as yer knees," he said gently enough. "And the sh.o.r.e is not ten feet away."

She let go, and that's how she came to be standing in two feet of water, a pack on her back and a sack of otter hides clutched in her hands, when the English soldiers appeared at the edge of the forest.

Chapter 23.

She froze.

"Finian," she muttered, barely moving her lips. His back was to her as he heaved their packs and the last sack of hides over the side of the boat, onto the gra.s.s. Then he turned and froze, too.

"s.h.i.+te," she heard him mutter. He came to sh.o.r.e, shaking water off himself.

"They have quite a range, don't they?" she said, trying to keep her voice light, panic at bay. Truly, this was not what she'd been about when she agreed to come to Ireland. How had it gone so wrong? Seasickness or terror, she was going to vomit from one thing or the other before the day was through.

Seeing as they were now off the boat, that left just the one option.

Finian's eyes never left the soldiers' helmed, featureless figures. He moved about, tossing Senna her pack, picking up one of the sacks and resting it on his shoulder. He squeezed the slack neck of the other sack in a wide palm and, bending slightly, sailed it up onto his other shoulder.

"I wouldn't suggest trying yer previous trick here," he said. "They might insist on seeing the whole show."

She s.h.i.+vered. The sun was hot and she was freezing. "What do we do?"

"Act like a poacher." He started walking.

She hurried behind, lugging the heavy sack. They crossed the meadow at an angle. The soldiers made their way to intercept, getting closer. She could see their eyes beneath their helms, their unsmiling faces and sharp swords. Hear the creak of leather and the hard thud of wooden bootheels on the earth.

Finian finally stopped and dumped his bag to the ground, waiting for them. "How are ye feeling, la.s.s?"

She jerked her gaze over. He looked like he was waiting for ma.s.s to begin.

"How are ye feeling?" he said again.

Terrified. "Fine." "Fine."

"That's my girl."

Four grim-faced soldiers stopped in front of them and fanned around to form a perimeter circle. Silence descended, then one of them, obviously the leader, spoke.

"What are you about, on this fine day?"

"Walking."

He poked at the packs with the tip of his sword. "What's in the sacks?"

"Otter hides," Finian said.

She wasn't surprised that Finian didn't break gaze with the leader. She wasn't surprised he could act so calm in the face of such danger. But she was stunned stunned to hear a West Country accent come out of his very Irish mouth. to hear a West Country accent come out of his very Irish mouth.

The soldier looked up sharply, too. Finian was dressed like an Englishman, as that's what she'd grabbed for him from Rardove. But nothing about him bespoke the civilizing influence of the most predatory English. Long dark hair, sloping Celtic bones, those ever-blue eyes, his tall, muscular body, less accustomed to wearing mailed armor than to wielding a huge blade, or running for hours on end, or cutting peat out of the earth for winter fires.

Finian was as wild an Irishry as they could ever want to destroy. Even the young soldiers up the riverbank had known that.

But, just now, he sounded like an Englishman from Shrops.h.i.+re.

"You're English," said the soldier. Suspicion hung from his words like moss.

Finian nodded.

"You don't look like it."

Finian shrugged. "Would you? Out there with them, trapping?"

This was a convincing argument, apparently. The soldier grunted in what she supposed was approval. Men grunted a lot. His eyes slid to Senna.

"And her?"

"She's mine."

"She's pretty."

"She's pregnant."

The leader's brow took on a suspicious winkling above the eyes. "And she was out there, trapping with you?"

Finian's jaw set. "I just got back."

The soldier stared, then lifted his gaze over Finian's shoulder, to his men.

Finian s.h.i.+fted slightly, a small, unprovoking action, but Senna realized he widened his stance as he did so. He was getting ready to fight. And if she noticed it, they surely would, too. She felt the potency of the masculine posturing vibrate through the air, like she was in a room with a wave.

"Richard?" she said softy, touching Finian's arm. "Why don't we just let the good king's men lighten our load, and be on our way?"

He ripped his arm away and looked at her derisively. "And give the lot of 'em an entire winter's worth of work?" He glared at the soldier, who was eyeing the sacks.

"They look familiar, Jacks," muttered one of the soldiers. "That green stamp on the sack."

"Aye," agreed the leader. "They do at that."

"O'Mallery's," replied Finian in a tight voice.

Cold chills ripped up and down Senna's chest, like invisible, saw-edged stripes. This was going to end badly.

"Gaugin's," countered the soldier, looking at Finian slowly. A corner of his mouth curled up. "The fur trader in Coledove. Them's his sacks. And he don't lend 'em out."

"And that's just where we're headed," Finian retorted. The tension spiraled thicker.

"Take them," Senna said hurriedly. Panic jabbed at her belly with cold, stabbing pokes. She pushed her toe into the sack she'd dropped to the ground. "Take them to Gaugin for us, why don't you?"

The leader looked at her, then back at Finian ever more slowly. "I think we'll take you instead." A brief pause. "O'Melaghlin."

Finian knew a moment where his heart stopped beating, for the first time in a dozen years. He didn't pause to consider 'why now?' 'why now?'

He kicked out his boot and stepped in front of Senna, unslung his sword and, before the leader could even lift his own sword, Finian had sliced his through the soldier's belly. Below the jutting iron nasal of his helm, his face looked surprised, then he toppled over, dead.

Finian spun to deal with the others with deft, rapid sweeps of his blade. His mind closed down during the battle, as always; it was all silence inside, narrowing attention and the feel of the earth under his boots.

But, in complete opposition to 'always,' he was for the first time aware of a person who wasn't about to bring a blade down on his skull. Senna's lithe form bobbed just outside their ring of battle, in danger, handling...was that a knife?

G.o.d save them.

He snapped his attention back and, with grim focus, absolutely overpowered the wiry young Englishmen, taking them down with quick, merciful strokes. And when the four of them lay like downed scarecrows around him, he held his sword hanging by his side, breathing rapidly.

Blood surged through his limbs, wicked fast pounding, urging him on, go, go, get more, now. now. Climb the side of a cliff, swim to the Aran Islands. It was at these times he knew he was an animal first, whatever G.o.d intended for his soul. Climb the side of a cliff, swim to the Aran Islands. It was at these times he knew he was an animal first, whatever G.o.d intended for his soul.

Gradually his breathing slowed. When his hearing returned, too, he looked over at Senna.

She was standing, mouth open, as if to make a very important point. Her chest was heaving, her breath short and swift. In her right hand she held a blade by its carved hilt, still hovering at shoulder height, as if she were about to throw it.

"I-I. Y-you. But, th-they..."

She was babbling.

"Ye're all right," he murmured, keeping his speech low and calm, to bring her back from the fringes of panic. "We're well. 'Tis over."

Her gaze was locked on him, wide, staring. She still held the blade, s.h.i.+vering, near her ear. He reached out and slowly pushed it down.

"Ye didn't have to use it," he said quietly, calmly. "Ye're a'right."

"I would have," she whispered, vehement. Her voice shook. "I would have used it. I just didn't want to...strike you. By accident."

"My thanks." He looked down at the soldiers, scattered in a semicircle, bleeding in the sun. Rardove's men. Soon, someone would find the bodies. They had a day now, maybe half again, until the baron knew they were not headed north, but south.

Would he figure out they were going to Hutton's Leap? Had Turlough, his captured kinsman, finally broken and revealed their mission to retrieve the dye manual? No way to know. And it didn't matter. Nothing would stop him.

"Let's go," he said.

They left the sacks of skins. Someone would be along. And whomever it was, Finian had no desire to meet them.

Chapter 24.

"You saw them where?"

Rardove repeated the question slowly, as if the newly sworn-in soldier was stupid. Which, Pentony decided, he probably was. They usually were. Stupid enough to swear fealty to Rardove for a position or some land.

Some might say the same about him, of course. But then, Pentony was doing penance.

"By the river. He was Irish, for certain. But she was, too, my lord," the young soldier added weakly. He looked at his equally shamefaced companion, then tugged on the belt around his waist. The belt came with the hauberk, their lord's livery as their mark and first payment for service. It looked cracked around the edges, old. "She was Irish. I'd swear to it."

"Would you?" Rardove snapped. "Was she comely?"

"Oh, as anything."

"Red hair? Long?"

"Well, mores like yellowy-red, all curvy-"

"That's my G.o.dd.a.m.ned dye-witch!"

The soldier's pimply face was not glowing red just from the sun he and his companion had endured all afternoon on their lark by the river, derelict in their duties at the keep. But what a gift, this truancy. Pentony was as certain as Rardove: these two sluggards had encountered O'Melaghlin and Senna.

"What were they doing?" Rardove demanded.

"Stealing a boat."

Rardove stopped his furious circuit while behind the table. He leaned across its wooden width. "And you didn't stop them? You let them just"-he flicked his fingers-"sail away, to go downstream and kill four Englishmen?"

"We thought they were delivering goods for the old man," the other unhelpfully piped in. Rardove's eyes snapped to him. "We thought she was his flaming doxy."

The baron went still. A muscle ticked by his jaw. "What did you say?"

The soldier swallowed. "No offense, my lord. Now that we know...'Tis just she was, was..."

His voice trailed off.

"She was what?" The baron's voice was thin and low pitched. Pentony felt the urge to cover his eyes.

"Aw, b.o.l.l.o.c.ks," the soldier muttered. "She was sucking the Irishman's c.o.c.k, and they-"