The Irish Warrior

by Kris Kennedy

  Senna backed up through the darkness, her hand at her chest. She waited until they were gone, then crept through the darkness, out of the hall, her heart and blood pounding. She staggered into the bailey and the autumn night.

  She didn’t belong here. They didn’t want her.

  The thought was so familiar it almost had taste. Metal, cold, rusty.

  Now what?

  She turned and slammed directly into Finian’s chest.

  Chapter 47

  “What are ye about, Senna?”

  She kicked herself backward, but he already had a hand on her arm, and stopped her completely.

  He was frowning. Burnished black hair hung unfettered over his shoulders, one small braid dangling near his eye. Beneath the layered maroon léine, his powerful legs, covered with dark hair, disappeared into high boots. His wrap was belted at the waist, and a blade dangled at his side.

  “I told ye to stay in the room. ’Tisn’t safe out here.”

  She gave a wild laugh. “No. Not by half.”

  She yanked on her arm. He held firm, in fact pulled her a few inches closer to his body. Frantic and suddenly on the edge of panic, she wrestled, her right hand going instinctively for the blade strapped to her waist. He knew her that well, though, and before her fingers could touch her skirts, he had gripped her and spun her around so her back was to him. He folded her wrists together in one of his hands, and put his other palm behind the back of her now thrashing head.

  “What the hell is going on, Senna?” He spoke directly into her ear.

  She stopped thrashing. “Ah, so we both have the same question,” she replied, keeping her voice low. Finian stood behind, warm and solid, listening. “You tell me nothing of what is afoot. You bring me here to this castle—for what purpose I know not—and your people are not glad to see me. I know a war is brewing, but can only guess at the whys, as you do little but bid me stay in the room. And take me on the bed.” He stiffened, but she kept on.

  “Then I hear men talking, about how I brought this war to their shores. I did this? You say it has naught to do with me, but of course it does. So I wonder, why would a wool deal matter so much?” She felt him breathing slowly by her ear. “It doesn’t, of course. It did not matter to Rardove, and it does not matter to the Irish. ’Twas always the Wishmés.” She didn’t bother to ask if she was correct.

  “So tell me, Finian: what is it about a mollusk that makes for a war?”

  His breathing stayed rhythmic by her ear. He didn’t reply, so she did.

  “I do not know the whys or the hows, but this war is over the Wishmés, and that means over me. You see how it all comes together, neat as a weave? I am nothing but trouble, so I shall leave.”

  “No.”

  “You may fight your war over something else.”

  “’Tis far past that, Senna.”

  She tugged on her arm. “Let. Me. Go.”

  He looked down, as if surprised to see he was still holding her, then opened his fingers. She pulled free and turned to him. He’d shaved again at some point while he was not with her, so only a dusting now darkened his jawline. His eyes were shadowed and narrowed.

  “They said they were coming to get me,” she said in a calm voice, “to teach me a lesson about women who start wars. I know what they meant to do. My husband taught me that much.” She lifted her chin a little farther. “So much alike, the men of Ireland and England. I had almost begun to suspect otherwise.”

  If the jab hit home, she did not know, because he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Who tried to hurt you?” he demanded in a voice devoid of anything but cold, honed fury.

  She stared at the menacing transformation, then shook her head, sending hair tumbling over her shoulders. “I do not know. I do not care. They do not matter.” She didn’t say only you matter, but surely these things were clear. “I will not stay here and wait for such things, Finian.”

  Did he suspect what she would not wait for? That never again would she wait to be rejected, every sunrise additional proof of the never-ending rejection?

  No more. Never again. Not her mother, not her father, and certainly not Finian. What she’d had with him was the only thing of real value in her life. If she let him abandon her, it would all be sullied, and nothing good could come out of those ashes. She would rather die.

  But she had no intention of doing that.

  She was going to build a business, if she had to swim back to England herself. She knew wool, and she knew how to survive. One could not ask for more than that.

  But of course Finian understood all the implications of her words. She could see it mirrored in the pain in his eyes. He started to slide his hands from her shoulders to her face.

  “Tell me what is happening, Finian. Or I will leave.”

  He paused. “I will not let ye.”

  She gave a bitter smile. “You would not be here to stop me, would you?”

  “I’d put a guard on ye.”

  “I’d throw a knife in him.”

  He blew out an irritated breath and dropped his hands. “I told ye, Senna, the whole affair is a dirty river. Do not dip in.”

  She leaned close and said fiercely, “I was dipped on the day I was born, Finian. Do not think you can rescue me. But I can help you. In truth, I may be the only one who can. So tell me, what is it? Rardove wants the dyes, and the Irish want the dyes? Do they matter so much? So be it. I will make them.”

  She said it swiftly, plunging into the decision the way one plunges off a cliff; you’d seen it coming from a mile off, but in the end, you simply tipped over.

  This time he did make it all the way to her face, cupped it between his palms and dragged her up onto her toes. “Ye would do that?”

  “I would. I will. I will try, at the least.”

  “Why?”

  She gave a sad smile. “You do not know?”

  Their faces were inches apart, his eyes filled with fury. “Och, lass, why did you have to need me so much?” he muttered in a low growl, then forced her mouth open with a blistering, hot, hungry, angry kiss. Just as swiftly, he broke it off and dropped her back to her feet.

  “I told ye men were fools, Senna.”

  The masculine rasp came by her ear. “I did not think you meant you,” she whispered brokenly.

  “Och, I am the worst sort of all, a rúin. I look good.”

  He disentangled his fingers and everything was cold where he’d been touching her, even the strands of her hair. The back of her head felt as if a door had swung open, and everything dark and nighttime swooped in.

  “’Tis time, Senna.”

  “Time for what?” she said dully.

  Above his shoulder, the moon had risen above the squat round tower in the background, cut black against the sapphire sky. “To answer yer questions. And see the king.”

  “The king? Why?”

  “The Wishmés.” Whatever was going on inside him was unreadable through his eyes. They were as magnificent and remote as a mountaintop.

  “You told him. You did not wait for my consent.”

  “It was that or have him send ye back to Rardove.”

  She looked at him for a long minute. Her fingertips were cold. “You knew I would, didn’t you?” she said flatly. “You knew, in the end, I would make the Wishmés for you.”

  He turned away. “I knew nothing.”

  “No? Well, you know now.”

  Chapter 48

  Finian escorted her to the king, not looking back to see if she followed. He could hear her well enough, and he couldn’t show her his eyes just now or else the thin screen of control he’d erected by dint of controlled fury would be kicked to the ground, and he’d be naked before her, his every yearning and shame exposed.

  He showed her to the king’s bedchamber, which, like most bedchambers, doubled as an office. The antechamber held a fireplace, a cistern, a small table, and a few low benches. Finian invited her to sit, which she declined, invited her to eat, which she declined, and offer
ed drink, which she vehemently declined.

  “Whisky?” Finian suggested, trying to offer something that would alleviate a bit of the furious hurt in her eyes. Or perhaps lessen the blows to come.

  She aimed him a withering look. “I think not.”

  “’Twill go easier…” He didn’t finish. Senna did not take lesser blows. She stood straight, with that tilt of her chin, and got punched back by the waves of the world. And every time, she stood up again. Senna would not appreciate a ‘lessening.’ He could not change that. He did not want to.

  The king was sitting back, watching their charged interchange. Abruptly, he leaned forward. “Why do you not sit with me, lass?”

  She angled her chin up, lifted her skirts and sat. Finian shook his head.

  “How much do you know about the Wishmés, Mistress Senna?”

  “Nothing a’tall. As I told Lord Finian. And Rardove.” She folded her hands primly on the table in front of her. She looked as prim as an iridescent dragonfly. “No one seems to believe me.”

  “I believe you,” Finian gruffed. The king lifted an eyebrow and he subsided. He propped his shoulder on the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. Senna glared at him.

  The king handed the dye manual to Finian. Senna was glowering directly into his eyes though, boring into them with silent fury, so she didn’t witness the transfer.

  “You wouldn’t be able to decipher this, then, would you, lass?” the king prompted.

  It took her a while to drag her enmity from Finian’s eyes. The king pointed to the manual. She saw the pages and visibly started. She got to her feet in shock.

  “Why, that is my mother’s.” Finian let the pages go when she reached for them. “Where did you get this? ’Tis Mama’s.”

  “I know,” he said thickly.

  She looked up at him, her face pale amid her dark flaming hair. “You know? Where did you get it?”

  “From my conduit. Red.”

  If possible, she looked even more stunned. Her free hand swung out slowly, as if it were moving through water, until it made contact with the table behind her.

  “Red?” she whispered. “But…that’s my father.”

  “He was a spy,” Finian explained.

  They were standing, he by the wall, Senna by the table, where she’d been when the realizations hit her. The king had left them alone. The room was small, but warm. That is all Senna was certain she knew in the whole world, except that Finian was holding her gaze and not letting go.

  “Your father was an Englishman,” he said in that solid, earthy voice, slowing her down, pulling her back when her body was ready to float away, “but also a spy against King Edward and his ambitions. And,” he added, “I suspect your mother was, too.”

  “Spies,” she whispered, unable to acclimate to this knowledge in a normal tone of voice. This required whispers, like all secrets do. “I don’t understand.”

  But she did. Some small, young part of herself understood exactly what he meant. Too many nights trying not to listen to arguments that didn’t sound like debtors’ arguments. Too many explanations that never came. Too many Scotsmen.

  “My mother was Scottish,” she said, as if that would explain…what? “Her mother—my grandmother—was sent to marry an Englishman. The family had just enough noble blood to be commanded about suchly. But my mother always called on Scottish saints to reprimand me, and claimed Scotland as her own. And my father—” Her voice broke. “My father always said, ‘As falls Elisabeth, so fall I.’”

  Her eyes filled with tears. Finian’s face shimmered through them. “Why did they not tell me?”

  He watched her for a long minute before speaking, and while she waited, her heart slowed. She felt calmer. “Perhaps they didn’t want you to get caught up in it,” he finally suggested. “Get hurt by it.”

  “Oh,” she said sadly, “I do think that has already occurred.”

  “Yer mam is dead, Senna.”

  “I assumed as much,” she said with as much cold dignity as she could wrap around her. No tears. Not for being left, never again. “Twenty years have passed. ’Tis quite reasonable to assume she might have—”

  “She died trying to escape.”

  She looked away. Angled her eyes so they regarded the one part of the floor uncovered by rushes, underneath the king’s chair, where he’d kicked them away. The stone looked cold.

  “Escape from where?”

  “From Rardove.”

  She wobbled. Her knees went weak. A dull thrumming started in her head. She started sliding down the wall. Her spine bumped over the uneven rocks. “No. Not Rardove.”

  “Aye. Rardove.” He pulled her to her feet, brushed her bottom off for her, and sat her on a bench. “And now, mayhap because of what your mother and father did, the king of England is marching for Ireland.”

  She looked up, startled. “King Edward? Marching here?”

  “Aye.”

  “That’s madness,” she spat, for some reason furious. “Cannot one war be enough for him?”

  “Not when those are at stake.” Finian indicated the manual. “The secret of the Wishmés. Look.”

  She shook her head.

  “Senna, this ye can’t avoid simply because ye do not wish it to be.”

  She shook her head again, but Finian touched her chin and stopped the movement. He held out the book.

  “Look.”

  Chapter 49

  She took the book.

  It looked just like the drawings on the sheaves she’d received from an unknown Scottish uncle on her fifteenth birthday, on the occasion of her betrothal.

  And then, of course, she’d seen the book itself once, too, in her father’s hand, as he hurried down the stairs one night to join the arguing men.

  She turned the pages slowly, recognizing her mother’s familiar hand in both the letters and the sketchings. She turned the pages slowly, then faster and faster. A shiver skimmed over her. The pictures were highly erotic. The formulas, the measurements and alignments, were remarkable. The computations vaguely terrifying.

  She forced herself to look up. “What is this?” It was a flat query, like her heart felt right now. Stomped on and flattened.

  “That is the secret of the Wishmés. They are weapons. They explode.”

  “Oh, dear God.” Slowly realizations settled down on her, like rings on a tree, aging her. “No. My mother did not make weapons.”

  Finian was relentless though, pushing past her denial. “She did. She rediscovered the ancient formulas and then she wrote them down. And she did this, too.”

  He handed her a child’s tunic. Her fingers slid over it, touching what she could hardly see. It shimmered and almost flickered in his hand. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she had no idea why. “What is that?”

  “Perfect camouflage.”

  “God save us,” she whispered, touching it. “How?”

  “With a certain dye. In a certain weave. On a certain wool.”

  Her fingers started shaking. “On my wool.”

  “Aye. Yours. Yer mother started the strain, did she not?”

  She shook her head and found she couldn’t stop. She just kept shaking it, back and forth. “No. She would not do that. My mother would not make weapons—”

  “The explosions the Wishmés produce can bring down a castle, Senna. And that?” He gestured to the fabric. “With that, ye could get inside any castle. Anytime, anywhere. Anyone.”

  She stared at the tunic, then briefly touched the edge. “It looks like a child’s tunic,” she said dully.

  Finian crouched in front of her and rested his fingertips on the top of her knee, a light, steady touch. “I thought the same. ’Twas for a little girl.” He closed his fingers around her hand. “Would keep her safe as anything.”

  “Oh,” she whispered with a watery laugh. “I suspect her coming home might have done that better.” She swallowed and shifted on the small bench. “And Sir Gera—my father?”

  “I knew
him as Red.”

  She looked at him bleakly. “So did we.”

  The rushes under her feet were crunchy. The weight of Finian’s hand on her knee was warm and comforting. “Red is the name he used to call my mother. Mama’s red hair,” she said, and like that, she was swept up by a vivid memory of her parents, so that every sense was awakened.

  They’d been swimming in the pond at twilight, when Senna, four years old, was supposed to be abed. Father sitting on the bank, leaning back on his palms, murmuring something. Her mother smiling and lazily making her way over to him, one pale, graceful arm stretched out in the green water, her long red hair streaming out behind. The world had smelled like roses and moss that night as Senna tiptoed out the back gate, and the white moon rose through the willow tree.

  She took a deep breath and let the memory go. It floated away. She was back in a strange room, a hard bench beneath her, Finian’s watchful, guarding gaze on her.

  He prompted her gently. “Ye said he used to call yer mother Red.”

  She nodded. “It became a joke, to call Father that instead. All the Scottish uncles and Mama did so. Father, with his dark locks. What happened to him?” she asked abruptly.

  He sat back on his heels, still crouched before her. “Ah, lass. He died.”

  She nodded. Of course he’d died. He’d lived a dangerous life, not of dissolution or excess, as she’d thought, but of intrigue and valiant causes, and heartbreak. He was committed to stopping Edward from subsuming his wife’s homeland by simply opening his royal mouth and swallowing. Her father had been committed and in love, even after Mama was dead.

  “My parents loved each other,” she said dully. All this time, thinking her mother had abandoned them. Had not loved her father. What a shame.

  “He wasn’t alone, Senna,” Finian said, and his quietly spoken words broke through the ether of her memories. “I was with him at the end.”

  Of course Finian was with him. Of course he had stayed. “That is good to know,” she said, hearing the unfamiliar catch in her words.