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“It’s not so high as yer knees,” he said gently enough. “And the shore 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 grass. Then he turned and froze, too.
“Shite,” she heard him mutter. He came to shore, 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 shivered. 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, lass?”
She jerked her gaze over. He looked like he was waiting for mass to begin.
“How are ye feeling?” he said again.
Terrified. “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 swor
d. “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 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 Shropshire.
“You’re English,” said the soldier. Suspicion hung from his words like moss.
Finian nodded.
