The Irish Warrior (10 page)

Out came, as she had said, dried berries and meat, bread and cheese. There was flint, some toiletry items, rope, and several clean linen squares. Then his hand alighted on a cool, hard surface. Realization dawned before he even saw it. He threw his head back and laughed as he lifted the flask of whisky into the air.

“Praise God, 'tis
uisce beatha!
Senna girl, I promise to never judge yer decision-making again.”

He laughed, and she laughed, too, so for a moment she was scared by neither the people hunting her nor the people who would never hunt for her. He could see it in her bright energy, the simple happiness pouring out of her.

She dropped to her knees next to him. Digging eagerly through her own pack, she pulled out a twin flask of the drink, which she held in her bandaged hand. His eyes dropped to the sight. He dragged them back up when she spoke.

“I saw these flasks, and the whisky. Rardove mentioned it was his best. Some I gave to the guards, laced with valerian root. These, I brought for us.” She grinned and tapped her flask to his.

Hearing her tale of small defiance, watching her face dissolve into laughter, Finian was gripped by a sense of affection and something else.

“Ye're a brave woman, Senna,” he said gruffly.

“Not a bit. Although, with enough of this,” she indicated the flask with a tip of her head, “I suppose I could become brave.” She lifted it higher and looked at him, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth. “Shall we?”

He grinned. “Indeed. A little bravery might go a long ways, Senna.” Holding up his flask, he uncorked it. “To my savior.” He tipped it in her direction, then downed a huge swallow.

“Warrior,” she said, lifting the flask toward him, returning the toast. Raising the bottle to her lips, she threw back a draught. Her shoulder tipped back as she arched her throat to swallow. Long reddish hair fell to the top of her rounded buttocks, which were pressed into her heels as she knelt beside him. He gritted his teeth. Strong, long legs. Bright, dauntless eyes. Passionate spirit.

This woman had not been crafted by God to run ledger rows.

He threw back another portion, then smacked his lips. “Aye, 'tis a good drink, but my brewers do a better job,” he claimed. “'Tis smoother than this.”

Her eyes were spilling over, her reply a wet sputter. “I hope that is so, Irishman, for this is harsh to my tongue.”

She smiled at him and the pace of his world dropped to a slower beat. Her hand was on her waist, thumb behind her back, slim fingers curled over her ribs. Where he suddenly wanted his fingers to be with strong, surprising force.

He shoved to his feet. “Time to go, lass.”

They walked through most of the night. The moon was high and lit their way. Mostly they skirted the edges of fields and farms, staying just inside treeline, small, shadowed figures no one would notice. They hardly spoke, until they finally stepped out onto a path rutted from the passage of generations of people and sheep and cattle.

“No choice now, Senna,” he murmured. “We've got to follow the road awhile. Stay to the edge, and help me find something.” He was already bending low, looking into the ditches.

“You lost something out here?”

“I didn't lose anything. I know right what they are. Yarrow and comfrey root. And a bit of your valerian dust should do us well, if ye've any left.”

“For my hand,” she determined glumly.

“Just yer fingers,” he said, scanning the ground. “We'll leave yer hand be.”

“You could leave me be. My fingers, my hand, the whole lot of me.”

“Do not be afraid,
a rúin.
I've healed wounds before—”

“I am not. Afraid.”

He looked over his shoulder. She was staring at him coldly. “Ah. Ye sounded it.”

“You misheard.” He returned to his searching. “Yarrow needs to be made into a tea,” she pointed out a moment later. “Comfrey wants hot water, too. We'd have to build a fire, and that would be unsafe.”

He crouched beside the ditch and gently pushed under the delicate ferns, brushing them aside. He'd found what he was looking for. “I can make a fire ye wouldn't see till ye stepped in it, Senna.”

“Oh.”

They followed the narrow rutted path for maybe half a mile, before they skirted back into the forest. They walked until the moon was dipping below the tops of the trees before he stopped them for good. Senna bent her knees and dropped to the ground, unconsciously cupping her injured hand in her good one.

Finian knelt beside her, bending over her hand, pulling it gently from her grasp with soothing, wordless sounds. After a moment, he looked up. “'Tis poorly set.”

She bit her lower lip and scowled. “What does that mean?”

“It means ye can leave it as 'tis and it will heal crooked, if at all. Or I can reset it.” He sat back on his heels and regarded her levelly.

“That doesn't sound pleasant. What do you know of such things?”

“Nay, 'tisn't pleasant.”

“What do you know of setting bones?” she prompted sharply.

He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “Ye learn many things, living as I have.”

“That is your answer?” She scowled. “Pah, you probably know nothing of it.”

“I know more than ye.”

She sniffed.

He sat back. “I suggest ye leave it, then. What does it matter if yer fingers cannot move as ye want them to, and are misshapen without need? Or mayhap oozing pus.”

He settled himself on a hummock beneath the branches of a nearby tree, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

She sat, stiff as a wagon spoke, glaring at a bush some ten paces off. Without her bright, engaging chatter, sleep layered quickly into his blood. Thick, heavy waves of it. He closed his eyes.

“Finian.” Her plaintive voice curled across the meadow.

“Aye?”

“I lost my comb.”

“Ah,” he replied slowly, unsure what response was called for.

“My hair is so tangled.”

There was quiet for a few moments. She played with the hem of her tunic.

“Finian,” her small voice called out again.

He raised his eyebrows, waiting.

“I need a bath.”

He rolled his eyes. “My apologies. I forgot to carry yer tub with us.”

“I do not like how you Irish folk place your rivers and streams. They are most inconveniently arranged. In England, there is one every few yards, at the least.”

Unlike the one they'd crossed yesternight, he supposed. “I'll be sure to take ye to one as soon as I can.”

She was quiet a moment. “Promise?”

“Aye,” he replied gruffly. He closed his eyes.

A few moments passed. “Finian?”

“Senna?”

He opened his eyes and looked up. The leaves of the giant oak tree were dark above, and all around, stars dotted the sky.

“Did you say we were going to a town?”

“Aye.”

“Oh.” A bit of silence. “Does that seem wise?”

“Not in the least. Is that how ye think I make decisions?”

“I stand corrected. But…a town?”

“I haven't a choice. I've to meet someone.”

“Oh.” She sniffed.
“Someone.”
Pause. “I hope she's pretty.”

He closed his eyes. “Hard to be prettier than ye.”

That brought another round of silence. ‘Someone' had been rather a massive understatement on his part. His contact, the spy Red, had taken a grave risk contacting The O'Fáil, letting them know he had located the precious, lost dye manual. Whoever had the manual, and a dye witch, could make the weapons. Could blow up buildings. Could win a war.

At this point, Finian would be five days late, but five days or five years, he would still follow through. And he knew Red would wait. The payoff was enormous. The risks, including death, were negligible in the face of it.

“Finian.” Her soft voice lifted again. “What were you doing in Rardove's prisons?”

He shifted his head against the gnarled bark, finding a more comfortable spot. “Walking through a muddy river.”

“Oh. I suppose you do not mean the dampness of the cellars.”

“Nay.”

Another few moments ticked by.

“Finian?”

He dragged his eyes open. He'd been seconds from sleep. “Aye?”

“I need food.”

He bestirred himself. Grabbing their bags, he knelt at her side and rummaged through them, then handed her a hunk of bread and cheese. He watched her chew without interest. She laid her hand on her lap. The food slipped to the ground.

“Finian?”

“Senna—” he interrupted, thinking to stop her scattered, hesitant talk. Talk, or sleep. Or passion, he thought languidly, but one or another fully. He was so weary he could almost hear sleep calling to him.

“My hand hurts. Help me with it, would you?”

“Aye.” He reached for a flask. “Here.” Tugging the cork free with a muted
pop,
he held the vessel in front of her face.

She wrinkled her nose, pushing it away. “It stinks.”

He furrowed his brow. “Ye drank well enough earlier.”

“That was then.”

He sat back on his heels and exhaled noisily. The hair over his forehead lifted and lowered with the breeze. Senna watched with some interest.

“Drink,” he insisted, holding the flask closer to her mouth.

She sighed as if enduring the torture due a martyr, then swallowed and sputtered.

“Another.” His hand touched hers, his wide fingers curling around hers as he made her hold the flask and lift it to her lips.

She drank.

He coaxed her to take another couple long draughts; then, while waiting for it to take effect, he dug a deep, small hole and built a small fire in it, then prepared the herbs. He pounded out the root with the hilt of a blade while he boiled the water that he'd procured, then made up a poultice and a tea; then, finally, he removed the stained linen bandage from her broken fingers. It was caked with dried blood, stiff and thick and dirty.

“Ye haven't been at washing it,” he scolded gently, his eyes not leaving her hand.

“
You
haven't taken me to water,” she accused unsteadily.

He glanced up briefly. “We crossed a river last night.”

She gave him an evil look. “On rocks. We crossed a river by leaping on large rocks. That hardly counts.” She hiccupped. “Hardly.”

“'Tis a grievous wrong I've done, mistress. I'll right it as soon as I'm able,” he murmured, not paying attention to his words, only her beautiful, wrecked fingers.

“I'll remember that,” she continued through gritted teeth as his sure fingers probed hers. “I stink to the high heavens. We both of us need a bath, and instead, we jump over rocks,” she lamented in a singsong voice, then reached for the flask again, hiccupping quietly.

A smile lifted his lips, but his worried eyes and confident fingers never left her hand, feeling with his hand and his mind, seeing the bone. Let her prattle on, and let her drink.

“And after lying in Rardove's ditch,” she went on after swallowing again, “I must smell worse than the leavings under the rushes. Why you tried to kiss me, I'll never know.”

“I didn't try.”

She shook her head sagely, as if lamenting the passing of chivalry. “'Tis a sad day, I tell you.”

“Sadder than ye know. And ye asked me to kiss ye.”

She glared from beneath lowered eyelids. “You're laughing at me.”

“Never,” he murmured, dusting his touch up the length of the ring finger of her left hand. This, and the little one beside it, they were the damaged ones. They'd not been set properly. Sinews were already threading themselves wrongly, roping themselves like snakes where they didn't belong. The bones would knit askew, and she'd never use these fingers again.

Rardove had known what he was doing. He hadn't shattered the bones—just a nice, clean break. And she could still function without these two fingers. Sick bastard.

“After scrambling around in the dirt with you,” she slurred derisively, then hiccupped. “And without bathing—”

“Back to the bathing, are we?”

“—and you think I asked you to kiss me?” She shook her head. “You, who know so much about women—”

“Who said I know anything about women?”

“—should know a woman does not
ask
a man to
kiss
her.” She looked at him triumphantly, her torso weaving slightly.

“Here.” He shoved a large stick between her teeth. “Bite.”

She took it but glared. “Moo, ambove all ufferz, fhould know a woman preffers—Ahhhhh!” she shrieked as he abruptly rebroke her fingers.

She flung herself backward, howling in pain. The stick tumbled to the ground. Rolling over onto her belly, she held her now-straight fingers in her good hand and rose to her knees, then staggered to her feet. Finian sat back and watched. She stumbled forward a few steps before falling to her knees again, clutching her hand and biting back screams of pain.

Finian was surprised it took as long as it did—perhaps a minute—before she found her voice. “Irishman,” she vowed hoarsely, “come a time, I will hurt you as much as you just hurt me.”

“I'll be counting the days,” he drawled, pleased she showed fire. He must keep her in this angry state, for he still had to set the bones, lash them to hold them straight.

She was kneeling but no longer rocking. In the distance, a chorus of frog songs bubbled out of the creek. She sniffled.

“Ye're wailing and complaining in a childly way,” he remarked coldly, to give her anger, and thereby strength.

She glared. “I neither wail nor com
plain
—”

“Come here,” he ordered roughly, reaching out his hand, done with placating. There was a bone to be set and sleep to be had. He yawned hungrily and turned his palm up.

She staggered over, weaving as she came. She lowered herself, swaying slightly as she sat, her knees bent, legs kicked out to the side. Her hair was free of its confinement, a tumbling chestnut wave that spilled over her shoulders and down her back. She looked like she belonged in some sultan's palace. Or right where she was, on the hills, with him.

She shook and cried out as he worked on her fingers—first whisky, then poultice, then cobwebs, then strips of linen torn from the spare tunic in her pack. She kept him informed of every bolt of fiery pain that shot through her body, but she did not move her hand until he was done, by which time she'd become utterly quiet. He lifted his head to encounter a small, shocked, tearstained face.

With a muffled curse, he held out his arms. She fell forward into them and he wrapped her up, stroking her hair and murmuring soft, soothing words for a long time.

“The yarrow should start to dull the pain soon,” he murmured eventually.

“'Tis a'ready.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You should be.”

He held her tighter. Her faint words rose up some time later. “I am left breathing, which was more than I hoped for a few moments ago. My thanks.”

“Aye, angel.”

Her fingers throbbed with pain, but she suspected this was because Finian had shifted something back to right, and now the messages were flowing between her body and mind as they ought:
Attend. This hurts.

In fact, many things hurt. Her fingers, her knees, due to the small jagged rock she was kneeling on, but she didn't move. Because more important than the pain was the feel of Finian's arms around her, the soft, gentling words he was murmuring in her ear, designed to comfort and calm. They did both.

After a while, with great reluctance, she disentangled herself from the solid warmth of him. One could not lie in a warm embrace indefinitely.

“I'm fine now,” she said stiffly. He released her silently.

Throwing herself down on the ground, she tried to sleep. She punched the sack serving as her pillow and turned on her side. Ouch. Muttering, she flipped to the other shoulder. No, that was not helpful. She flung herself on her back, feeling the earth bite into her bones, and hummed until her own off-key tune annoyed herself. She tried imagining the sounds of a waterfall, hoping that would lure her into sleep. It didn't.

She stared up at the sky, which was lightening into predawn. It was no good, nothing helped. Tears loomed.

She heard a small movement in the grasses, then his arms were around her, pulling her backward into his warmth. He lay on his side and tucked her into his chest. As if she'd been waiting for just this, she relaxed.