The room fell silent after the planning. Each man stared into the darkness, wondering if he would again see his family and friends, if he would be alive to watch summer come, or to reap the harvests in fall.
Finian sat with his head bent, the burden of the future weighing down his shoulders. The men began milling, heading for the door, talking as they went, slow and roundabout, like water eddying amid the rocks.
Senna. He would go to Senna, for just a moment.
Chapter 44
Sitting alone in the great hall, Senna listened to the unintelligible conversations swarming around her. The great hall was filled with people, the din of conversation almost deafening to her untrained ears. She was more accustomed to the wailing winds and pattering of rain against the windows, not the sounds of people talking. Laughing.
She leaned forward, chin in her hand. The content was lost on her, as it was in Irish, but she found herself enchanted by the strange, lyrical language. And she did not need to know the words themselves to know this was a gathering like those she used to witness when she left her empty manor and visited others on business. A night where kinsmen passed along tales of politics and gossip of family, accounts of happenings both great and small.
She’d always sat stock-still in her seat, trying to be as invisible as a bug. She never knew any of the people being spoken about, and none of the happenings were ever hers. No one spoke of her, ever. She’d been as alone in her homeland as she was here, where she didn’t speak the tongue.
That was a disquieting realization.
Remaining motionless, she shifted her attention whenever necessary, attending whoever was talking the loudest, laughing the hardest, or had the most people standing about, smiling. Perhaps if she listened well, tried to attend, learned how they did it…
A woman sat down beside her.
“Mistress de Valery?”
The accent was so thick it took Senna a moment to understand her own name.
“I am Mugain,” the beautiful woman said, tapping her chest lightly.
Senna smiled in reply. Her first lesson in being the sort of person who could hold a conversation that didn’t involve ledgers or sheep barns.
“You are in Finian O’Melaghlin’s company.”
She nodded.
The Irish woman’s eyes traveled over her appraisingly. “I know Finian.”
A creeping chill slunk across Senna’s chest like a nocturnal claw. “Indeed? I know little of him, and do welcome your words,” she lied with a faint smile.
Mugain smiled back. Senna’s heart dropped. Here was a prime specimen of an Irish butterfly. Dressed in a red-dyed gown, while Senna sat in dirt-caked leggings. Raven-haired and glossy, where Senna’s knotted brown hair dragged by her dirty ears. Curving where Senna was unerringly straight.
“You would do well to stay in his company,” the woman suggested. Her eyebrows lifted significantly.
Senna blushed. “’Tis not like that.”
“Och, but it should be,” she scolded, and leaned forward. “You trust me. I know: it should be.”
Senna almost groaned in misery.
The Irishwoman lifted the ladle from a vessel on the table and poured a portion of meaty stew over the day-old bread that served as a trencher, while peering at Senna. “We will talk? I would like to get to know you.”
“Indeed.” She smiled weakly, and ate with a rapidly diminishing appetite while Mugain fluttered at her side, each minute ticking by like an hour in the company of the suspiciously friendly Irish butterfly.
Half an hour later Lassar, the king’s wife, approached the table. A wave of relief washed through Senna, and she almost tipped the bench getting to her feet. Lassar extended a hand and touched Senna’s gently in greeting.
“A room has been prepared for you,” the king’s wife said softly. “And a bath.”
A bath.
“A warm bath?” she asked without thinking. Warm water. Soap.
Lassar exchanged an amused glance with Mugain and nodded. “’Tis quite warm.”