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He looked her over. “An Irish princess.”
Her cheeks flushed faintly. “Not precisely, but it will do. You would be wise to heed me in those things of which I know more of than you. And that is Ireland.”
His hand fell away and he walked to the window. Sunlight poured through and illuminated him in colors: the vibrantly colored leine hanging just below his knee, red and green and cobalt blue for Rardove; tall black boots. From his hips hung a belt strapped with sword and daggers. His face was lightly bearded and the inked lines swirled down his neck. The sun lit one side of his face, leaving the other in shadow.
He rested his forearm on the wall beside the window and looked back at her. “You may know more of Ireland, Katy, but you do not know more of war.”
“I know more of The O’Fail.”
He sighed. “You are not letting this go, are you?”
She sighed back. “I will try to be docile, but I fear it will fail.”
“I know the sentiment,” he admitted grimly.
She crossed to him and held his cheeks between her hands as he had so often done to her, and smiled into his worried eyes, as he had so oft done to hers. “You’re worrying too much,” she teased.
“You’re not going to The O’Fail,” he replied grimly.
“Oh, Aodh—”
The resumption of their argument was cut short by another messenger flying into the keep, shouting.
“My lord! My lord, they are coming! The English army is marching, burning as they come!”
Chapter Thirty-Four
THE MESSENGER stumbled to a halt and dropped to his knees in front of the dais, his chest heaving. Aodh took a step toward him, bent to eye level as the man dragged his sweating, red face up.
“The English, my lord. I was sent to tell you…they’ve dropped anchor, and they are marching… They are burning everything.”
Silence rent like a bolt through the fabric of low conversations filling the hall. Katarina got to her feet. “Burning?
The messenger nodded.
“Burning…Ireland? Oh no, they cannot do this.” She turned, dumbfounded, to Aodh. “They cannot do this. Those are my people, my lands. They must be stopped. I must…send a message.”
She hiked up her skirts, flew upstairs, calling for people as she went. “Ready a messenger,” she called, hurrying up to the walls, into the wind, her cape flying out behind her. “Send riders to survey the damage,” she said to one man as she rushed by. Their gazes trailed past her, over her shoulder. “And Rudy, bring me a pen and parchment. Bring me Walter! I must send word, at once. They cannot be allowed to burn my lands.”
She pushed the hair behind her ear and whirled back around, flinging out her hand. “A pen!” she shouted impatiently. “I require a—”
Her hand connected with Aodh’s chest. “Oh, Aodh,” she gasped in relief, as if she’d forgotten him. She gripped his arm. “We must send a message to the commander of that army, to stop them.”
“So you said. That would be unwise.”
“And then we must send food, to the villagers, and— Unwise?” she blinked. “No, it is necessary. Essential. They must be stopped.”
“You will not be the one to stop them.”
She was already peering down into the bailey, at a handful of soldiers hurrying by. “Saddle my mare,” she called to them.
Wicker looked up, lifted a hand that fell to his side when his gaze shifted to Aodh. She turned too, and for a few beats, she and Aodh stared at each other.
“Katarina,” he said carefully.
She knew that tone. It was the “no” tone, the one that said his will, not hers, would be done. Again.
“No,” she said, beating him to it, and backed up a few paces. “You cannot gainsay me on this. We must send help.”
