The Irish Warrior

She yanked on her arm. He held firm, in fact pulled her a few inches closer to his body. Frantic and suddenly on the edge of panic, she wrestled, her right hand going instinctively for the blade strapped to her waist. He knew her that well, though, and before her fingers could touch her skirts, he had gripped her and spun her around so her back was to him. He folded her wrists together in one of his hands, and put his other palm behind the back of her now thrashing head.

“What the hell is going on, Senna?” He spoke directly into her ear.

She stopped thrashing. “Ah, so we both have the same question,” she replied, keeping her voice low. Finian stood behind, warm and solid, listening. “You tell me nothing of what is afoot. You bring me here to this castle—for what purpose I know not—and your people are not glad to see me. I know a war is brewing, but can only guess at the whys, as you do little but bid me stay in the room. And take me on the bed.” He stiffened, but she kept on.

“Then I hear men talking, about how I brought this war to their shores. I did this? You say it has naught to do with me, but of course it does. So I wonder, why would a wool deal matter so much?” She felt him breathing slowly by her ear. “It doesn’t, of course. It did not matter to Rardove, and it does not matter to the Irish. ’Twas always the Wishmés.” She didn’t bother to ask if she was correct.

“So tell me, Finian: what is it about a mollusk that makes for a war?”

His breathing stayed rhythmic by her ear. He didn’t reply, so she did.

“I do not know the whys or the hows, but this war is over the Wishmés, and that means over me. You see how it all comes together, neat as a weave? I am nothing but trouble, so I shall leave.”

“No.”

“You may fight your war over something else.”

“’Tis far past that, Senna.”

She tugged on her arm. “Let. Me. Go.”

He looked down, as if surprised to see he was still holding her, then opened his fingers. She pulled free and turned to him. He’d shaved again at some point while he was not with her, so only a dusting now darkened his jawline. His eyes were shadowed and narrowed.

“They said they were coming to get me,” she said in a calm voice, “to teach me a lesson about women who start wars. I know what they meant to do. My husband taught me that much.” She lifted her chin a little farther. “So much alike, the men of Ireland and England. I had almost begun to suspect otherwise.”

If the jab hit home, she did not know, because he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Who tried to hurt you?” he demanded in a voice devoid of anything but cold, honed fury.

She stared at the menacing transformation, then shook her head, sending hair tumbling over her shoulders. “I do not know. I do not care. They do not matter.” She didn’t say only you matter, but surely these things were clear. “I will not stay here and wait for such things, Finian.”

Did he suspect what she would not wait for? That never again would she wait to be rejected, every sunrise additional proof of the never-ending rejection?

No more. Never again. Not her mother, not her father, and certainly not Finian. What she’d had with him was the only thing of real value in her life. If she let him abandon her, it would all be sullied, and nothing good could come out of those ashes. She would rather die.

But she had no intention of doing that.

She was going to build a business, if she had to swim back to England herself. She knew wool, and she knew how to survive. One could not ask for more than that.

But of course Finian understood all the implications of her words. She could see it mirrored in the pain in his eyes. He started to slide his hands from her shoulders to her face.

“Tell me what is happening, Finian. Or I will leave.”

He paused. “I will not let ye.”

She gave a bitter smile. “You would not be here to stop me, would you?”

“I’d put a guard on ye.”

“I’d throw a knife in him.”

He blew out an irritated breath and dropped his hands. “I told ye, Senna, the whole affair is a dirty river. Do not dip in.”

She leaned close and said fiercely, “I was dipped on the day I was born, Finian. Do not think you can rescue me. But I can help you. In truth, I may be the only one who can. So tell me, what is it? Rardove wants the dyes, and the Irish want the dyes? Do they matter so much? So be it. I will make them.”

She said it swiftly, plunging into the decision the way one plunges off a cliff; you’d seen it coming from a mile off, but in the end, you simply tipped over.

This time he did make it all the way to her face, cupped it between his palms and dragged her up onto her toes. “Ye would do that?”

“I would. I will. I will try, at the least.”