Page 3 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)

“D a, what is it? Wha’ has happened?” Deathan moved to the fire, still dripping water from his hair and clothing. The most surprising thing about the battle that had just taken place, other than its sheer unexpectedness, was the fact that the two men would break it off with no winner, and no loser.

And with their raised voices, did they not think they would disturb Mother where she lay in her bed, in the next room?

For Da and Rohr, rough men that they might be, and Deathan himself gave every due consideration to the woman they all adored.

Mam had been sick a long time and bedridden these many weeks, too frail to be up on her feet.

Deathan’s older sister, Kearana, already wed and gone off with bairns of her own, had paid a visit only last month and wept in Deathan’s arms before she departed again, afraid it would be the last time she would see Mam alive.

“I canna bear it. I canna,” she had sobbed on his shoulder.

None of them could. Aene MacMurtray was a gentle, sometimes otherworldly woman nevertheless able to tame the men in her life with a look or touch. None of them could face the prospect of life without her, nor would they choose to upset her in any way.

This must be grave business, indeed.

Deathan kicked a log into the open fire and turned to face his father. “Wha’ has happened?”

Herve MacMurtray dragged his fingers through his hair and made a visible attempt to discipline his emotions. He cast Deathan a look before turning away. “Yer brother is gey upset.”

“I could see that much. Why?”

“There is no choice in it. Why should he protest so much? ’Tis an honor, is it no’, to tak’ a bride o’ the king’s choosing.”

Bride?

Before Deathan could speak, Da went on, “After all, it means we ha’ the king’s notice. He considers us among the strongest clans here in the western Highlands. And he wants his new country joined in peace. This—this is how he thinks to achieve it.”

“What is?” A patient man, Deathan nevertheless grew weary with asking the same question.

Da turned to face him. His blue-green eyes, the same color as Deathan’s own, looked weary in the wake of the quarrel, and deep lines bracketed his mouth.

When had he aged so? A vigorous man with a strong hold on the leadership of his clan, it had seemed to Deathan that Da would carry on forever. They might lose Mam, aye. But—

“Ye ken fine that the king, MacAlpin, has taken a Caledonian wife. To unite the country, so it can be a country, it was. And put an end at last to the warring.”

“Aye.” Since time out of mind, when Deathan’s ancestors had first sailed from Ireland to stake their claims here in a kingdom they’d called Dalriada, they had fought the people already here. Those who called themselves Caledonian.

Now Kenneth MacAlpin thought to unite all into one country under the banner of Scotland.

Deathan had his doubts. He knew his countrymen. They might pay lip service to the king, but nay, that did not mean they would quit with fighting.

“Wha’ has this to do wi’ a bride , Da?”

Herve swung to face him. “The king has decreed that the strongest clans among us shall follow his example. That unions like his own should be formed throughout the land, uniting Gael and Caledonian. A young woman has been chosen and will travel here. To wed wi’ your brother.”

If someone had thumped Deathan hard on the chest, he could not be more surprised. He backed up and sat on a rug beside the fire.

A crowd of questions filled his mind. He chose one. “Why us?”

“As I say, ’tis an honor. The messenger who came last month—”

“Last month? And—ye did no’ tell Rohr then?” Clearly his brother had been taken unawares, the source of at least some of his anger.

“Aye, well”—Herve frowned prodigiously—“’twas the height o’ the training season and yer ma had only just taken to her bed. I thought there was no’ sense in putting it to yer brother then.”

“So ye announce it now?” Deathan’s mind reeled.

“I had another messenger this day. The woman in question will arrive soon. For the wedding.” Herve looked at Deathan implacably. “So I had to tell yer brother, did I no’?”

“Well—who is she, then? This bride.”

A dreadful parody of a smile stretched Da’s lips. “She is said to be a young woman and reputed to be bonny, so yer brother should no’ complain too much, should he? She is a princess.”

“Eh?”

“Among her own people. Royalty. And chosen to come to us. So ye can see—”

“Caledonian royalty?”

“Aye so”—Da frowned, thinking no doubt on Caledonians—“but of high standing all the same. Wha’ could the king do but send her to a clan o’ equally high standing?”

“Aye so,” Deathan echoed his father. But they were not royal and had no blood connection to the king.

There were a few figures of legend behind them—some great warrior near lost to the mists of time back in Ireland—and those who had founded their settlement here.

Mostly hardworking people too stubborn to give up their lands.

Worthy of admiration perhaps, but not necessarily worthy of…

A princess.

What would she be like, this young woman? Used to a high life of privilege and honor, to come to this oft-times rough place of rock and sea and sky. Would she consider it an honor?

“When will she arrive?”

Da shrugged. “Her party left home yesterday to mak’ the journey. The messenger rode ahead so we might—prepare.”

“I see,” said Deathan, not sure he did.

“I had to tell yer brother,” Da repeated. “’Tis a good thing for him, a direct connection wi’ the king. He canna see that now. He will, in the future, when the union favors our fortunes.”

Deathan said nothing. His father rushed on, “I can see the king’s point o’ view. There has been enough fighting, centuries o’ it. If we are in truth to be a country, we must be one united.”

Aye, mayhap, but Rohr must feel like his future, and all his choice in it, had just been stolen from him.

Deathan got to his feet.

“Where are ye goin’?” Da sked.

“To talk wi’ my brother.” Surely someone should.

*

They were not particularly close, for brothers. Though only a year and a half apart in age, they differed vastly in spirit—Rohr quick to declare his opinions, issue a challenge or flare to anger; Deathan far more apt to think before he spoke, to choose patience, and fall back on his duty.

Therein, mayhap, lay the difference in being raised to lead the clan and raised to support the man who would. Even though Deathan cared for this land with bottomless and selfless devotion, he would never be chief.

Did he envy his brother that place? He tried not to. He knew envy for a fruitless and destructive emotion.

Now he went with measured steps to his brother’s chamber, tiptoeing past the door behind which his mother lay. A foolish effort, for if the raised voices had not disturbed her, nothing would.

The storm now rolled away eastward, the thunder fading to rumbles. Mayhap it had kept Mam from hearing the quarrel.

He found his brother in a wretched state, pacing his chamber like a caged wolf, tossing clothing and other items about, an expression that matched the trouble in his eyes.

“Wha’ d’ye want?” Rohr barked when Deathan cracked the door and peered in.

“To speak wi’ ye, just.” Deathan slipped into the room and shut the door behind him. “And keep your voice down lest Mam hear.”

Rohr ignored that. “He told ye? Da told ye?”

“Aye.”

Rohr tossed his hands in the air. “A fine thing, is it no’, for a man to have dropped upon him?”

Deathan did not know what to say. When his brother took this mood, he became deaf to reason. Still and all, reason must be employed.

“No’ such a surprise, surely,” he said.

“No’ a surprise?” Rohr widened his lightning-blue eyes in a glare.

“Well, but ye knew ye must wed one day.” A wonder that Rohr had escaped this long. As a man of a score and four years, and the future head of the clan, he might have any young woman of their acquaintance—or of those clans surrounding them. “There is the succession.”

“Speaks a man whose future has no’ just been decided for him.” Rohr fairly spat the words. “Ye, the fortunate one.”

“Fortunate?” If being second in everything could be considered so. If being the dutiful one who could only ever step into a role of prominence if the unimaginable happened and some evil befell the brother Deathan loved.

Aye, he loved Rohr. But by the powers, the bugger did prove difficult sometimes.

“Ye”—Rohr took a turn around the floor—“will be able to choose the woman ye wish to wed.”

“Aye so, but Da might well ha’ arranged a match for ye anyway.”

“He would no’. I ha’ already chosen my bride.”

“What?” Deathan’s eyes narrowed. “Who?” He could not recall his brother looking with especial favor on anyone. Though the lasses of the clan did follow him.

In droves.

“Caragh MacDroit.” Rohr spoke the name like a curse, his vehemence the product of his anger.

“But—ye never showed favor to her. Or to anyone.”

“How could I? ’Twould ha’ set the tongues to wagging and brought all the fierce mothers out to argue for their bonny daughters. We kept it well secret. But I am in love wi’ Caragh and ha’ asked her to wed wi’ me.”

“Oh.” It was all Deathan could manage.

“I was set to tell Da and Mam”—Rohr’s face softened, speaking that name—“as soon as the season ended and the joining could be arranged.”

Deathan thought on Caragh, but one of the lasses who continually trailed his brother. She was bonny, aye, with red-gold hair and a face like one of the goddesses from an ancient tale. Bards might sing of such a woman.

“I am sorry,” he said. Indeed, this changed things, made the news Da had broken more difficult. “’Tis hard to bear. Perhaps if ye had told Da—”

“’Twould make no difference. This is a decree from the king that I maun marry some savage Caledonian tribeswoman from the interior—”

“I doubt she is a savage. Da says she is a princess.”

A terrible smile stretched Rohr’s lips, one akin to what Deathan had so recently seen on his father’s face. “They are all savages. They prick their skin wi’ blue woad and mak’ human sacrifices.”

“I doubt that is true.”

“Wha’ d’ye know about it? The Caledonian version o’ a princess will be some wild woman. Half tamed. Ye mark my words. Besides—”

Besides? Could this get any worse?

Rohr swung around and stared Deathan full in the eyes. “Caragh is carrying my child.”

“Eh?”

“We did no’ tell anyone—Caragh did not want to, before we were wed. But ye can see, the succession is already seen to, and I canna wed wi’ this wild woman who comes.”

For the second time that night, Deathan sank to a seat on the floor. “Ye maun tell Da. Ye maun tell him right away.”

“When he is coming all over the high chief and throwing my fealty in my face?”

“Even so. Because the Caledonian woman comes at order o’ the king, and will expect a bridegroom.”

“Aye so. Ye wed wi’ her, then!”