The Irish Warrior

She knew the wistfulness in her voice revealed as much of her as the words themselves. She looked over, loathe to find what she expected: scorn. Or worse, disinterest.

Instead, she found dark eyes considering her. The filtered sunlight made shadows of his serious regard. And when he nodded, slowly, gravely, she felt as though she’d been accepted.

And, with that, a breath of a new wanting brushed past her consciousness.

Finian’s eyes stayed on her, directly, a level, listening gaze, as if the things she spoke of were not shameful a’tall. Which they were. Highly shameful. The things her father had allowed to be done, the way he went through the world, a river of potential, a tepid pool of yield, after the gambling began. After Mama left.

And the shame of Mama, that could not be calculated if she used every abacus in France. Even as a child, Senna had felt it seeping out of those around her like frost heaves, icy remnants. Slippery and treacherous. Never look down.

And of course, all that was in Senna as well.

She tilted her chin up, a move she’d perfected years ago whenever shame threatened a coup. “I took over the business after…when I was fifteen. My father was never to home. Will works for coin. I do not know exactly what he does. He will not speak of it; something for various lords, I think. He hasn’t married yet. That cannot be good. He doesn’t look as if ’tis good. He looks rather…hard.”

“And what did yer hard brother say about ye coming to Ireland?”

“He doesn’t know.”

A companionable silence stretched out between them. Finian glanced at the river. Not a villager in sight. He rose to his knees and fingertips, then unraveled to his feet.

“Let’s go, lass.”

The sun burned hot on the top of Senna’s head and upper back as they hurried forward, crouching at the waist. Everything seemed bright and close to hand. The world smelled fresh, like warm, clean dirt and pine, hot flowers and river-stirred air. Ireland’s beauty was beyond her words, vivid and brilliant, like a drop of ink quivering on a manuscript.

The tall grasses closed behind them, rustling like eager, buzzing conspirators. Small puffs of breeze coasted down the river, which was such a shattering, smashing shade of blue it almost hurt her eyes. The thought of getting in a boat hurt h

er stomach.

She plodded forward, looking neither left nor right, resigned to the fate of sickening all over the indescribably beautiful land of Ireland. Or its waters.

Closing her eyes resignedly, she put her hands on the edge of a worn wooden boat and threw her leg over.

“Senna, no!” Finian hissed behind her.

She turned, startled, half in the boat, half out.

“Not that one.” He gestured once, rising slightly out of his crouch. “Come. This one.” He pointed to a smaller teardrop-shaped craft, tucked amid the cattails, hard to see.

She sighed and lifted her foot back out again. She did not, though, remove any of her weight from her hands, which rested on the lip of the boat. In fact, she was quite used to leaning on things, things that didn’t bob. Being incautiously unaware that her previous experience with one’s leaning tendencies and the movability, or immovability, of things upon which one leaned, did not apply in the present situation, she pressed down on the boat, which was, by nature, a bobbing thing. Her foot was in the air.

The small craft sailed out into the river. The rope tugged it immediately and snapped it back to shore, but it had to bounce off Senna, who had fallen in the water with a hearty splash. One ankle still remained hooked over the lip of the boat.

She flailed as soundlessly as flailing in water can be done, trying to get her footing. Water lapped over her belly as she arched backward, her hands sinking into the soft, silky mud, one foot in the water, the other hooked over the edge of boat.

How she hated boats.

She tried to kick her leg high enough to free it. Her body having only so much bend, each kick up with her foot forced her head in the opposite direction which, in this case, was under the water. Her fingertips sunk deeper into mud. How long before the owner of this boat heard her racket and came to investigate?

“What do ye tink ye’re doin’ with me boat?”

Not long at all, apparently.

She tried to crane her neck around to see whom she’d perpetrated her highly embarrassing but not-yet-criminal behavior upon.

Finian’s legs walked into view. She tilted her face up to look at his, which appeared to be filled with disgust, if she was reading it properly. She was upside down, of course. Perhaps she was interpreting it wrongly.

He put an arm behind her back, which gave her the leverage to get her foot out. He helped her slosh to shore where she stood, dripping wet, a length of sea grass stuck to her neck. She peeled it off, looking at the sullen, yet-surprisingly-unsurprised, aged face regarding her.

“Me boat. Why’re ye climbing all over her?”