Chapter Twelve
KATARINA WATCHED Dickon, her young page, leave. He’d braved the Hound’s wrath for her, and she’d been charmed, heartwarmed, and vaguely unsettled by how pleased he’d seemed after his encounter with Aodh Mac Con.
Outside the walls, the winds were picking up. A sudden gust moaned past the window and blew down the chimney, lifting the fire into hot roaring flames. Then it died away again to a lower burn.
She crouched in front of it and laid another of Aodh’s pieces of precious wood atop, then carefully arranged the grate in front. It was only then she realized her hands were shaking.
Voices sounded outside the door. She pushed to her feet as it swung open, and noise drifted in from the hall belowstairs, then Walter stepped into the room.
She exhaled a breath of…relief, of course. She was relieved. Who would not be relieved to see their advisor of many years?
“My lady,” he said, sweeping into the room. “Are you well?” Tall and angular, he stepped back and frowned as Bran, her guard, poked his head in behind and swept a wary eye over the room, then nodded to her and backed out again, shutting the door.
“Has the Hound hurt you?” Walter asked crisply, moving across the room. He glanced at the hot, roaring fire and lifted his bushy eyebrows, as if surprised to see such a thing in her chambers.
“Of course not.” She felt for the arms of the lord’s chair. The chair Aodh had occupied. She sat down in it.
“Threatened you in any way?”
“No.” The cushion was still warm from Aodh.
“Taken anything?”
“Aside from the castle, Walter?”
Her curt replies seemed to recommend him to a different course. He sat in the other chair and folded his hands together as if he were about to begin a prayer.
“This must be very trying for you, my lady.”
She sighed. He was about to instruct her on herself.
“Such events tend to muddle the brain.” He rolled his hand in the air to demonstrate muddling. “It can make one”—he pursed his lips thoughtfully—“less careful. Less discerning. Less capable of clear thought.”
“More likely to run away?”
She hadn’t meant to say it so sharply.
He stilled, then swallowed and nodded. Prodigious brows steepled, and his brow furrowed. “I swear to you, my lady, I was but trying to help. I thought if I could get away, perhaps rally a few of the servants…”
She admitted this was like as not true. Walter, if pompous, had also proven himself stouthearted, at least as much as her guards. Proof came in the form of his continued presence out here on the brutal Irish marches, when he could surely find employ anywhere as an experienced, eagle-eyed steward or clerk.
And that was Katarina’s best gift: the ability to earn far more loyalty than was her due. She ought to be appreciative. She was appreciative, deeply so. But Walter had a way of making even the deepest appreciation pale beside the depths of irritation he aroused.
“In this, my lady, my past is to your good fortune. I know well how to manage an excess of passions of the sort Aodh Mac Con is exhibiting, the sort your mother exhibited—”
She could endure much, but to endure another recitation on the torments suffered by her father on account of her mother was quite beyond her at the moment.
“Tell me, Walter,” she interrupted sharply. “How does it fare belowstairs?”
The angular steward laid his fingers on the table. “The Irish Hound has prevailed unequivocally. His men are ensconced in the hall with drink and meat”—he sent her a scathing look, as if she’d known they were to be conquered and had had the meat delivered specifically for their captors—“and are showing untoward interest in the women. The women do not…” He sniffed. The sniff was a word. “Seem properly distressed by the men’s attentions.”
The men’s attentions. “Do they not?” she asked softly.
“Indeed, they return the interest, I warrant, if smile and gl
ance tell the tale.”
I do not disapprove.