“Yes, of course, a good shaking up.” Katarina felt entirely upended. Wingotten was in the mood for a shaking up? She’d never known.
What else did she not know?
“Aye,” confirmed Wingotten, the Englishman turned Irish. But he was also a good lord, one of the few permanent English landlords—most stayed absent, raped the land, and left their chaff behind for others to manage—so maybe this was the only way. You lived in a land long enough, and the next thing you knew, you were of that land.
Have I become Irish, she wondered suddenly.
“In any event,” Wingotten went on, “it would be difficult to do a worse job than the English Crown.”
“Would it?”
He lifted his cup as if to drink, then held it in the air and gazed across the room with an expression she could only describe as satisfied. “We’ve been wanting this for some long time.”
“Have we?” Her replies had taken on the note of echo.
“In any event, your Aodh will do a better job than ever Elizabeth did out here on the marchlands.”
Her Aodh.
“What have Elizabeth or her agents ever done for Ireland but reap what Ireland sows?” Wingotten drank some more, seemingly unconcerned that this speech alone was enough to lose him his head. As if reading her thoughts, he dropped his gaze to her. It was rather fierce. As were all the other gazes in the room. Pleased, celebratory, but…fierce. Prepared. These men were ready for whatever came next. Wanted it. And it was Aodh who had stirred their blood.
“The English crown takes our harvests to fill her belly, takes our money to pay her bills, takes our men to fight her wars. What does she return? Laws and strictures and religions we do not want.”
“Indeed,” she echoed weakly. That was an entirely novel way of looking at it.
“And who better to lead a rebellion than one of the queen’s own?”
“Indeed,” she said, quite taken aback.
“Your Hound.” He nodded his chin toward Aodh, who stood in conversation with a long pace off, “used to be the Queen’s man. Councilor, sea dog, all that. A second Dudley, they say, only better, for Aodh was ready to the fight.”
She opened her mouth—to say what, she did not know—when a small, darting figure, ducking under a tray being set on the table, smashed into Wingotten. It was a glancing blow, but the baron stumbled backward, as one does when one is drunk, and banged into a trestle table.
Katarina reached for him, as did a few others, and she had a chance to see the shooting star who’d caused the damage.
Dickon.
Excusing herself, she made her way after him, dodging people as she went. She caught up with him just as he was trotting up the stairs at the front of the hall.
“Dickon.”
He turned and, seeing her, his face expanded into a smile and he started toward her in a headlong run, arms out, then stopped short, quite suddenly, and straightened. Katarina felt the bite of disappointment—she’d been bending over and putting her arms out too—but yes, of course.
She straightened and said brightly, “You look well, Dickon.”
He gave a clumsy bow. “Milady.”
“Dickon, I wished to…thank you for all that you did for me.” His face flamed red. “And to tell you you shall never be asked such things again. I promise.”
Her solemn words made him look directly into her eyes. “Milady, you saved my life. You know I’d do anything for you.”
She smiled warmly. “I know, Dickon.”
“And so, I’m awful sorry I could not…”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“…deliver your message.”