The Irish Warrior

She took another scorching swallow and aimed a glare at the side of his head. He had a very attractive side of his head. “Why ought I know how to swim? What good is that?”

“’Tis helpful when you want to cross a river.”

She took another sip of the whisky. “I do other things.”

“Aye,” he agreed, not looking over. “Make money. Drink firewater. Talk a great deal.”

She gave a wan smile. “I can use a weapon, too, should that interest you. It ought, if you intend to go on in that manner.”

He turned then and studied her, those blue eyes trailing over her face. Then he smiled his dangerous smile and settled back amid the high, swaying reeds. The low drone of flying things going about their business—butterflies, gnats, flies—settled over the heated earth.

“Is that so?” he said. “A weapon? Who taught ye that?”

“My brother, Will. He taught me many things. How to climb trees. Use a short bow. And a knife.” One of his dark eyebrows quirked. She nodded. “Oh, we were wild, for a time.”

Finian snapped a reed stem in half and chewed at the tip. “Good Lord,” he said mildly. “Ye were rough stuff. I’m surprised that’s not a crime.”

“Teaching a woman to use weapons?”

“No. Teaching ye to.”

He watched her with a teasing half smile, the long, lean length of him stretched out, resting back on an elbow, waiting patiently for the villagers to move out of sight, for her to tell her tale in a low murmur.

“How can you be so calm? When all this”—she waved her hand generally at the world—“is happening. Has happened. Will happen. How can you be so…at ease?”

He tipped the grass stem away from his lips and smiled full on. It was as if the sun just came out. “There are worse things I could be doing just now, Senna, than sitting here with ye. For the moment, I am at ease.”

Just as if the sun came out, indeed. She grew warmer. Everywhere. Lowering her eyes, she toyed with one of the tall, waving reeds, then snapped one off like he had done. She popped the tip in her mouth. She immediately took it out, grimacing. “I see why we put these on the floor.”

He nibbled on his stalk again, smiling. “Yer brother, Senna, and his criminal acts, teaching ye to use a bow and knife.”

“There’s been no damage done yet. I’m not terribly good with a bow.”

“Och. I’m sure if ye set yer mind to a matter, it’ll come out a good-looking thing in the end.”

They were speaking only in murmurs, hidden in a pocket of reeds and heat and his smile. There was something about the quality of how Finian lay stretched out on the earth, something about his breathing that said all his attention was on her. Although why she should care about that was utterly inconceivable.

She pushed an intrusive cattail out of her face.

“I’m surprised yer Da let it happen, though,” he said. “The weapons.”

She gave a bitter little smile. Why did they seem to touch upon the topic of her father so very much? She hadn’t spoken of him in years, save brief conversations with Will, where one or the other would report they hadn’t seen Sir Gerald in weeks. Months. Years.

“My father was gone a lot. I rarely saw him.”

His regard of her grew a little closer. “And what did yer Mam think, ye learning to use weapons?”

“My mother left. I believe I was five. I do not know my mother.”

He chewed his reed-tip in silence for a moment. “Do ye remember nothing of her?”

She shook her head vehemently, in direct opposition to the strength of the lie. “Not even what she smells like.”

Roses and green. Fresh, new green. And the yellow roses from out back, the ones she’d let overgrow with vines.

“Ah.” A dragonfly hovered silently by Finian’s shoulder, a quivering, iridescent arrow. Then it shot off. “Just ye and yer brother then, raising each other?”

“Just us. Until it was time for him to leave.”