The sound lifted up in a beautiful, wailing cry, like something rising up from the earth. It swelled through the hall, a haunting call to arms. Eerie, stirring, evocative, it washed over her like a wind, made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.
As it played, the hall was still, as if enchanted by the sound, then it faded away, and another huge roar rocked the room, calls and whoops and stamping feet. It fairly shook the place. The stringed instruments seemed to take this as their cue to begin playing again, and as music lifted over the heat and bodies, people crushed forward, servants moved through the hall with food lifted high in the air on trays, and the revelries seemed to actually speed up as Aodh moved into the gathering.
Katarina stood back, watching him clasp hands and clap backs, entirely at his ease. She felt stunned, confused…fascinated. The faces around her, the smiles, the rustling silks that her mother had dreamed of, became a blur. Katarina had never had such crowds here, had never been able to, with only ten men to hand and a questionable countryside to rule.
Katarina’s largesse, all her alliance work, had gone outward. Itinerated, so to speak. She’d traveled and visited and gifted large and small, but she did not entertain. She could not. She could not invite others inward, for it would be turned against her.
But Aodh had opened the gates and brought them all in, and they reveled in it. In him.
Such an irony: Katarina had opened the gates to him, and he’d opened the gates to all this…magnificence.
Aodh reached back for her then and pulled her to his side, into the light and the heat. Into the revelry.
Person after person was brought forward, grasping Aodh’s wrist or, more often, yanking him into a bear hug, then turning to her with a bow. Many were people she knew, Irish and English she’d known by visit or by letter. Irish tribe leaders who’d visited her or, as the case may be, shunned her, she thought as MacDaniels was brought forward and affected a clumsy bow.
There were a shocking number of Englishmen as well—or at least Aodh said they were English; one could hardly tell with some of
them. Many English had become more Irish than the Irish, and some days, one could hardly tell who was who.
She began taking hands, returning nods and greeting and smiles and curtsies.
“Katarina!” called a voice from amid the deepest part of the horde. The crowds parted to reveal the barreling approach of the florid-faced, burly chested, exceptionally English lord, Geoffrey Bellingbloke, Lord of Wingotten.
Katarina stared in amazement. Wingotten was a loyal English marcher lord—or so she had thought—with three castles, one only a half day’s ride away. That fact had put her in close contact with him over the years. They’d shared troubles, contributed to the common defense financially. They’d worked together a great deal, albeit via money and messenger, not often seeing one another. But he’d always been steadfast in the queen’s cause, so Katarina felt shocked, now, as he took her hand and bent low over it, to note he had adopted the mannerisms and dress of the Irish.
Some things, though, had not changed. His cheeks were a rosy red under what had always been a rather scraggly beard, and his shoulders canted at a distinct angle to the right. And occasionally to the left. The odor of drink wafted off him like a fog.
Aodh had been drawn into conversation a few steps back so she had nothing to distract her from Wingotten’s quite surprising conversation.
“Lady Katarina,” he exclaimed, beaming at her. “How fine to see you! God grant you health.”
“And you, my lord. It is most good…” Her words faded. “I admit to being surprised to see you here, my lord.”
“Ahh.” He winked and waved his arm about. Wine splashed out of his cup. “As I am, to see you.”
“Well, after all, I do live here,” she began, but his next words cut her off.
“The Straight Lady of Rardove turns,” he announced cheerfully.
She was startled into silence. “I beg your pardon?”
He bowed slightly. “My lady, forgive my impertinence. It is this wine; quite fine, is it not?”
“No, please, my lord, tell me. This is all so…new and surprising.” She waved her hand at the gathering. “It is sometimes necessary to gain the insights of an outsider, one who sees things from a different perspective. You have found me…straight in the past?”
“Like an arrow, my lady, if you will. Surely a grand trait, but out here…” He made a sound. “You have always been so loyal to the queen. Unalterably. Unable to hear even a single complaint.”
“I did not know—” she said weakly, but he drank more wine and went on.
“Unable to even consider any differing views. Always following the straight and narrow,” he said, and stood his hand on its side in the air and pushed it forward, as if it were sliding along a track. “Whatever the queen says is right and proper.” He made a sound of disgust. “Which is why it is so surprising, and refreshing,” he added warmly, and drunkenly, “to see you’ve become a rebel.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “I, a rebel?” she repeated.
The baron waved his hand. “Well, of course, one hopes it will not come to that.”
“Indeed,” she agreed heartily.
“But then again, I’m all in favor of a good shaking up. Quite in the mood for it.”