“Ja,” Hulda told him, “and today the cat will show her face.”
*
“Quarrie—a word, ifye ha’ a moment.”
Quarrie paused and faltered when the words met his ear, just as if he’d hit a stone wall.
Last night had been peaceful—doubling up on Da’s draught seemed to have worked—and he’d managed to catch some sleep. But it had made him late coming out to begin the day’s first rounds.
He’d had the most curious dream…
About a woman, it had been. He dreamed about women only seldom. When he did, it was usually the sort of dream that besetmost men from time to time. Of spending himself in passion, usually—disquietingly—with someone he knew.
This had been different, very different.
She’d stood before him, close, her hands lightly gripping his forearms. And a sight to behold with a wild mane of brown hair swirling around her, and eyes of bright silver. Her gaze fastened to his.
She spoke to him, and her voice wove in and out of him like an ancient song remembered. Lightly accented yet familiar, her voice was, and rooted in his soul.
“Always you say, my love, that you will find me—no matter where. No matter when. This time mayhap it is I who shall find you.”
“Quarrie?” The voice speaking his name here in the cool, quiet morning was also familiar. He spun to find Norah at his elbow.
Norah, holding her wee bairn in her arms.
Emotions speared through him at the sight of her. Only, surely, because he had not expected to find her here. He was over her, was he not? He no longer loved the woman. He could not say he’d ever loved her. He’d beenattached.
She was a lovely thing. Small and delicate, with large gray eyes and dark-brown hair. A rosebud mouth. Sweet buds at her breasts also, and he had tasted them. Och, aye, he had.
He’d once believed, aye, he would wed with her. That she would birth his bairns. Now she stood looking up at him with another man’s babe in her arms.
The child of his close friend.
He told himself all he felt now was an echoing sense of betrayal. Of anger.
Both of those emotions made him look at Norah coldly as he said, “Mistress.”
She made a face. She could be mischievous, could Norah. Or coy. Now she appeared chiding, or perhaps rueful. “How long are ye going to stay angry wi’ me?”
Forever, perhaps. Or just till he stopped caring. “I am no’ angry, mistress,” he lied, and accompanied it with a stiff bow.
“Then why d’ye no’ call me by my name?”
He had no answer for that, but her name still would not leave his lips. “Wha’ is it?”
“Corban says we are to prepare for a flight to the hills, we women and children.” She jiggled the babe in her arms. “Have sails been sighted? Already?”
Quarrie looked at the child. A wee lad—of course she would give Corban a son—he had dark hair like hers and big, solemn eyes.
Corban. Supposed to be loyal to him.
“’Tis best to be prepared at this season. Should attackers appear, I would ha’ an orderly flight rather than a panicked one.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
“If I can do naught else for ye, mistress, I am needed on the walls.”
He made to step past her when she reached out and touched his arm. “Quarrie, I want to explain—”
