by Kris Kennedy
Finally Ré composed himself, but after a long examination of Aodh’s profile, all he said was, “Clever.”
Clever, surprising, beautiful, reckless, roiling. “Very.”
“Well, I venture she’s done with surprises now,” Ré said.
The corner of the barracks came into view as they circled the huge keep. Gray and dark except where its dullness was sprinkled with cold darts of white snow, it was as monochromatic and cheerless and cold as everything else in Ireland. Except Katarina.
Red cloak, thick reddish-brown hair that seemed to glow as strands floating beside the fire in her eyes, she was like a lick of flame in a bleak, barren landscape.
“She held Rardove with ten men,” Aodh said quietly.
Ré glanced over. “Your meaning?”
“She is not yet done with surprises.”
Ré pushed back his sweaty hair, then wiped his palm across his forehead. “Aodh?”
“Aye?”
“You are not…thinking anything, are you?”
“Thinking?”
“Planning.”
“Planning?”
“Anything reckless,” Ré said shortly, gaze still on the soldiers.
Aodh smiled faintly. Reckless as in marching up to Queen Elizabeth at fourteen years of age and offering his already-bloodied sword in exchange for his family’s ancestral lands? Reckless as in rising to the top of her councilors and captains, despite all odds being against a dirty Irishman? Reckless as in feeling fire for the first time in his life whilst pinning a mad, beautiful woman against a wall, with his blade in her hand.
Reckless as in planning to warm his hands over that fire?
“When am I ever reckless?” he asked quietly.
Ré stilled. “Ever and anon?”
Aodh snorted.
“But never foolhardy,” Ré added, and his gaze drifted to the keep. “One hopes this is not a first. Because if it were, I’d feel an overwhelming urge to caution you—”
“I’d tell you to resist it.”
“—that this is not the time to dally with ladies who steal blades.”
Aodh looked at him levelly as they finished circling the rounded tower of the keep. “‘Dally?’ When have I ever ‘dallied?’”
“When you are being reckless.”
“Ré,” Aodh said slowly, “I have countermanded orders, broken faith with the queen, sent false messages to misguide one of her men on a wild goose chase through northern England. I have sailed the Irish Sea and marched halfway across Ireland to take a castle explicitly forbidden to me. One would say recklessness has already been done on a rather grand scale.”
“Which is why a wise man might refrain from indulging in any additional bouts of the stuff just now.”
“A wise man might.”
Ré’s jaw tightened. “We are here to force the queen’s hand, Aodh. We are here because—”
“We are here because I am not the queen’s plaything.” Curt and hard, his words cut Ré’s short. “We are here because my cloth was cut to fit Rardove, and I will have it.”
Snow began to settle on the shoulders of Ré’s cloak, a faint winter landscape across the dark green wool. It slid off in a whispery avalanche as he gave a last exasperated shake of his head. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Ré muttered, then pointed. “There they are.
Ahead in the tilting yards, abutting the battlement wall, stood a group of young soldiers. Quite young. Were any above twenty?
They’d been disarmed and placed in the center of a ring of Aodh’s soldiers, who had their swords out. But despite the overwhelming odds and the fact that they’d been entirely disarmed, they appeared belligerent and unruly, not particularly willing to bend. But bend they would, if they cared for their lady.
“They are all yours,” said Ré.
“And I shall take them,” he said, striding forward. Soldiers required attention, but not a great deal. There were the swords and pikes and the occasional firearm, but all in all, soldiers were not a complicated lot.
Katarina, though…complicated.
In twenty-nine years of hard living, Aodh had seen much and done much. Little of it was pretty, much of it was brutal. As a child, his life had been a hedgerow of spears. His adult life had been much the same, except he was the one brandishing the weapons, and not all were wrought of steel; intrigue oft had the sharper bite. Queen Elizabeth expected nothing less from her most loyal men.
Little surprised or upended Aodh, and nothing, absolutely nothing, enchanted.
But Katarina had.
Granted, few men would find a woman laying a blade to their throat enchanting. But Aodh had always been the cross-grain, the thing that didn’t fit, and it had taken approximately two seconds in Katarina’s presence to know, without a doubt, she was just like him.
Katarina of the lonely castle. Katarina of the bright eyes and curving body, Katarina the flame, who knew very well she ought to have submitted but, in a moment of great passion, had not.
Lovely, reckless, hotheaded Katarina.
Aodh was hardly above a challenge.
Aodh craved a challenge. But the way to Katarina was not by breaking. It was by bending. Of her own free will.
Aodh’s specialty. Making people bend.
Chapter Seven
SHE HAD BENT. Dropped the only protection she had when the Irishman ran his tongue over her ear.
Katarina shivered again, even now, hours later.
Fool. Unbridled, hotheaded, reckless fool.
She stood in the exact center of the solar chamber where she’d been escorted hours earlier, her spine erect, chin up, gaze unmoving on the door, running through a list of self-recriminations, adding new and highly descriptive terms each time. It was a sort of paternoster.
It did not calm. Nor did it penetrate the true depths of her madness.
If one was going to be so precipitate and idiotic and reckless as to steal a man’s blade, one must then use it. Not be upended by his shiver-blue eyes and his…his tongue.
She stood motionless, gaze on the door. Motionless was the way to approach this thing. Akin to stone or steel. Untouched and untouchable.
It shouldn’t be difficult. She’d had a great deal of practice.
A single candle burned in the leaded glass window. Cold air moved in intermittent drafts, running through the castle like children, particularly here in the solar, which had been damaged in the fire. She hardly felt it. All her attention was pinned on detecting sounds from below.
Unfortunately, there were no sounds from below. At least nothing clear. Or human. Animals occasionally bleated or barked or whinnied, but the Irishman’s soldiers had clearly conquered, then gone indoors. The castle grounds were eerily quiet. The only sounds now were faint ones, creeping through the castle like winding vines, a steady low hum punctuated by occasional whoops and crashes.
Aodh’s men might be playing music, conducting races, or beheading people. There was no way to know. Until someone chose to tell her.
How…infuriating.
She shifted her gaze to the young soldier standing guard duty. He leaned against the wall, furs draped over his shoulders, arms crossed, hands shoved up into his armpits, watching her watch the door.
“You are an admirable guard,” she told him. “You have not once looked away from me.”
“Aye, well, my lord would have my head if anything happened to you, my lady.”
That sounded forbidding and utterly believable.
He watched her warily. He was only just coming into his youthful strength, and a rough spray of facial hair dusted his jawline. His gaze swept down her briefly, taking in her somewhat threadbare cloak and exceedingly hard, good boots.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked, sounding doubtful.
“Oh, very,” she assured him.
The tip of his nose was red-tinged. She supposed hers was as well. They examined each other’s noses.
“You should take my furs, my lady,” he urged with a sort
of quiet desperation.
“So you have suggested.” Repeatedly. But Katarina’s old wrap was sufficient, and the thought of being indebted to Aodh Mac Con, or his men, for anything at all—even a wrap—was, well…infuriating.
“I think not,” was all she said.
“A fire, then.”
“There is no need.” Fuel must be kept for even greater need, which was always coming; he’d learn that soon enough.
He regarded her morosely. “My lord will not be happy.”
“That I will not take your wrap?”
“That you’ve been made cold.”
“Why ever should he care about such a thing?”
He shrugged. “You’re under his protection now, my lady.”
A terrifying thought, that. “And how would he know of our failed treaty over the furs?”
He looked at her red-tipped nose.
She touched it lightly. “Of course. And for this, he will have your head?”
“He might,” he replied grimly.
The terrifying thoughts continued to pile up, did they not? “So, he does this often, this collecting of heads?”
Surprise crossed his face, then was swept away, shuttered beneath a soldier’s mask. He rolled his shoulder slightly and definitely away from her, perhaps to distance himself from any more of her heresy. A gust of cold wind bore through the gaps in the stone around the window.
After a moment, he said quietly, “I’m sure he’ll call for you soon, my lady.”
She nodded in agreement. “But how will that help?”
To that, he had no reply.
Steps sounded outside the room, and a muffled voice came in through the door. “Bran, my lad, open up. He wants her.”
Pure, cold fear shot through Katarina. He wants me.
Her young guard swung the door open. One of Aodh’s older captains stood on the landing, clad in his disguising English armor, but the shaggy hair spilling down over his shoulders was entirely Irish. He looked foreign and terrifying, standing on her landing.
His gaze flicked to her briefly. “Bring her down, Bran. To the lord’s chambers.”
A disconcerting buzz started in Katarina’s head, the sort that accompanied faints and watery knees, or so she’d been told. It was ridiculous and unnecessary. Katarina’s knees were made of steel. One did what one did, and then dealt with the consequences. She’d taken her captor’s blade and used it against him, in front of his men, and in the end, he’d prevailed.
It was like tossing a rock into the air. Eventually, it was going to land.
They circled the curving staircase, down into the shadows and glow of torches, her young guard in the lead, the stern-eyed captain behind, creaking with leather and clinking with steel.
She kept her fingertips on the curving wall. Composure and control were all in the moment to come, and Katarina was a master of such arts. She’d spent years honing them against the whetstone of the Irish wilderness, restraining and controlling anything reckless and fast-moving inside her, anything that might make her misstep and lose everything.
One did not maintain an English castle beyond the Pale by being reckless. Impolitic. Emotional. Tempestuous.
All things of Katarina.
She knew very well she was not fitted to rule. How many times had she been reminded of this fact? No, she’d learned the way through, and it was not her way. So, she’d hammered herself anew. She was akin to steel now. Tempered, capable of great harm.
To this dismal end.
It made one wonder why one hammered oneself at all. It made one reconsider…everything.
Even now, anger pushed at her. Anger was dangerous. It made her do intemperate things, like steal blades from warriors.
She pressed the anger down where it belonged, deep inside, with all the other dangerous things, like passion and hope.
And the madness downstairs? Naught but a misstep, a regrettable error in judgment, harkening back to the old ways. It must not be repeated.
It would not be. She was calmer now, prepared, reasoned. Leashed.
It was for the best.
All she had to do was see what punishment the Irishman thought fitting. The Irishman who had possession of her castle. The Irishman with eyes of blue ice, who had pressed his neck into a blade with terrifying intensity. Who had run his hot tongue across her ear and dared her to…to…
To what?
She stumbled on the stone steps.
They stepped out on the landing before the lord’s chambers. A crowd of soldiers milled there, as if they’d just left and were about to disperse to the various tasks attendant on conquerors.
Bran stepped forward into their midst. Loud conversations and a general sort of self-approving masculine din died down as she passed through, until there was absolute silence as she waded into the thicket of sword-bearing, hard-eyed, long-haired warriors.
Her fingertips were so cold, it felt as though they would break off if she were bumped too hard. Every man tilted his head down to peer at her as she passed by. She felt as though she was in a forest of men.
Her young guard stopped at the outer chamber door and rapped hard.
The men stared at her back, and Katarina knew, quite suddenly, what creatures on display must feel like. The giraffes and lions in the queen’s menagerie, the bears muzzled until their fight. They were fodder for food or fight. Entertainment. Not even prey anymore. Simply doomed.
To the good, doomed things did not need to wrestle with options or consider consequences. The future was laid out rather neatly, if uncomfortably. So she returned a regard as disdainful as the ones fixed on her. She slid her gaze across them all, man by man.
A few raised their eyebrows, one laughed, and then a low, male murmur rippled through their steely midst.
“You’re wasting your fight on the wrong mark, my lady,” someone observed drily, nodding toward the chamber behind her. A few rumbles of appreciative laughter followed.
She returned a cold smile. “I waste nothing. You are all my mark.”
A surprised hush swept the landing. Then, almost as one, they threw back their shaggy heads and burst into laughter.
It shook the room. Or mayhap that was inside her.
The young guard at her side spoke quietly. “He’s ready for you, my lady.”
She turned, skirts gripped in her fingertips. The door to the outer bedchamber had been pushed open. A pair of boots could be heard moving in the inner chamber.
“My lady?” Bran’s voice was quiet at her side. “You may go in.”
She peered into the antechamber. This was not an insurmountable distance. One simply took the next, natural step.
“My lady?”
She looked down at her feet. They were not moving.
Unable to determine a way free from this paralysis except to be dragged, she put her fingertips on Bran’s forearm and said quietly, “Please, escort me in.”
He stared.
“Physically,” she explained.
Understanding flooded his face in the form of a blush. He laid his hand over hers and took a swift, decisive step forward, pulling them into the room.
The boot steps in the inner chamber stopped.
Bran, who now seemed a great friend, gave her hand a faint squeeze.
“Just go easy, my lady,” he murmured, a quiet warning tossed to the passenger of a sinking ship: Do not fight it; in the end, you will sink. He lowered his arm and stepped back into the throng of men.
She felt their gazes like the points of a dozen invisible swords, poking at her back.
She glanced over her shoulder. They were watching her, grinning. No one said a word, but the energy was voice enough: menagerie girl. She met their gazes, fierce and silent, hands fisted at her sides.
“That’s enough, lads,” said a low, familiar voice behind her.
Like a rumble of thunder, chills skipped across her skin, hot and cold and absolutely everywhere.
A muscular arm appeared at her side and reached
past her to push the door shut. She stared down and her heart skipped a beat.
Why, his wrist and hand were painted. Almost engraved. Covered in thick, dark lines, curving and swirling as they roped up his skin, some resembling the shapes of mystical animals, some simply bursting into curves and flourishes.
God save her, he’d adorned his body with paint, like a barbarian. Like an illumination.
“Come in, Katarina.”
She swallowed and lifted her head.
He certainly looked the barbarian. Gloriously so. His dark hair was untethered now, hanging freely, so she could no longer see the shaved sides. Divested of most of his armor, he still wore his arming doublet, the fustian fabric of the vest dyed a smoky black, so the mail encasing his arms seemed to grow out of the darker bulk of him like tree limbs. The metal rings winked dully in the firelight.
Hose encased his powerful legs, what she could see of them. A black-and-red tunic hung to mid-thigh, and his calves were clad in high, muddy leather boots. But his body was rock-hard and pulsed with masculine vitality in the cold, almost bare antechamber. A painted body that seemed sculpted of stone, and eyes wrought of icy steel.
He was magnificent.
What a terrible, terrible thing.
Any moment now, he was going to do something wild and barbaric.
His eyes held hers, then slowly narrowed, his gaze piercing, pinned on her face.
“Why is your nose red?”
Chapter Eight
STARTLED, KATARINA’S HAND flew to her nose. She touched it, shielded it. It seemed suddenly important to protect her nose from observation. Aodh Mac Con stood motionless, awaiting her reply.
Because I refused your wood. And your man’s cloak.
She finally said, “Because I am stubborn,” for if you could not tell the awful truth to your enemy, then who?
His gaze trailed across the rest of her face, and she battled back the urge to cover the whole thing. “Stubborn people tend to end up dead before their time,” he said after a moment’s slow examination.
She blinked. Was he threatening her? It did not sound so; it sounded…conversational.