As they walked, he added, “I doubt that I will be giving away any great secret if I tell you that your grandfather seems unlikely to support Comyn’s suit.”
She glanced back at him. “God-a-mercy, I know he has little use for Comyns in general, and he will not allow any Comyn—even one married to me—to live at Castle Raitt, which is what they really want. Also, Rory’s behavior today will irk him. But Granddad does favor peace, so how can you be sure of what you say?”
“Because yestereve, when he and I talked, I recalled that you had mentioned troubles here and asked him about them. In describing the Comyns, he called Rory a lackwit. I’d wager that the notion of uniting you with any lackwit displeases him.”
“I hope you are right, for whatever you may have thought earlier, I loathe Rory Comyn. Granddad will not shove his oar into what is more properly my father’s business, but my father is bound to ask for his opinion.”
“Lass,” he said, “I never thought you were in those woods to meet Comyn.”
“That’s good, too. Here is the outflow. Shall we follow it for a time?”
He agreed, and they started downhill beside the rushing burn in silence. The pebble-strewn path was steep and narrow, requiring close attention.
Fin saw that the swift, roaring water had carved a deep cleft between two of the steep hills that formed the loch basin. Although the spewing outflow did not produce the sort of waterfall he admired most, the burn leaped noisily over boulders and was soothing and beautiful to watch. “Do you get salmon up here?” he asked.
“Nay, we are too far from the sea. They swim up the Spey only to Aviemore. But brown sea trout do sometimes reach Loch an Eilein. The osprey catch them before the men can, though—or so Ivor tells me. Are you ready to go back?”
“I want a drink first, and an apple, don’t you?”
“Aye, sure,” she said, kilting up her skirt and making her way to the water’s edge. Kneeling with a hand on a boulder to balance herself, she bent low and used her other hand as a cup to scoop water to her mouth and drink it.
When she stood and wiped her wet hand on a skirt already damp from the splashing water, drops beaded on her lips and cheeks. Brushing a hand across one cheek, she grinned, looking like a merry child although she was not childlike in any other way. She was utterly unchildlike, a woman grown, a woman who could stir…
Fin looked away, strode to the water, and knelt to get his drink. He splashed icy water on his face, although it was not the part of him that most needed cooling.
She handed him his apple when he rejoined her. But, as they headed back up the hill, munching their apples, he saw her pause to hitch her skirt higher under her linked girdle to leave both hands free as she trod the rocky, uneven path. He marveled at her ability to walk barefoot on such a path but remembered when he could do so, too.
Into that amiable silence, a less amiable memory intruded of the day he had flung himself into the Tay. His dilemma remained unresolved, and at any such quiet moment it could step into his mind as if it had a mind of its own. He had discussed it only with a priest, who had told him to pray for guidance and assured him that God would answer him or that he would, in time, find the answer in his own thoughts.
God had not answered him yet, and as for his thoughts—
“If you came here from the Borders,” she said, “what were you doing there?”
“Fighting much of the time,” he said, tossing his apple core up the hill where birds would make quick work of it. “King Henry of England invaded again and tried to take Edinburgh, as you must ken fine.”
“Aye, sure I do. ’Tis why our men are still in the lowlands, because although the English left when their supplies failed, they may return. You are gey quick and deft with a sword, as I saw for myself. Do you enjoy fighting?”
“I do enjoy the challenge, I expect, but no one likes…” Remembering what she had said about the imaginary chap she had thought she might marry, he said, “Do you really think that any man who hates war is a coward?”