Page 4 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)

D arlei glared into the polished bronze disk that served her as a mirror before tossing it aside.

She had no need to see her reflection. She knew the details of her appearance far too well and appreciated them little.

The mirror was not essential among her belongings and should not take up room in the bag she packed.

She would take her bow. Arrows, to be sure, and her knife. A change of clothing and the things a woman needed in her pack that a man did not. A flask of ale. A few herbs in case she injured herself while in flight.

Circumstances were not ideal for leaving. Well, naught had been ideal since midsummer, when Father had told her of the agreement. The one that would send her to be the bride of a western chief.

A western Gaelic chief.

“It is not as if you have chosen a husband for yourself already,” her father had said carelessly. “And it is past time you wed.”

Yes, it was past time. She was twenty and should have a brace of babes by now. She’d had suitors, to be sure. A young woman of her status could not help but have suitors.

None of them had been…well, suitable. She had told Father that none was worthy.

“I am a princess,” she’d declared. “Am I not?”

So she was. Her father was Caledonian royalty, one of a cluster of kings that had long ruled Alba’s interior. She deserved, at the very least, a Caledonian prince.

That, however, was not the true reason she had failed to wed. She was waiting for—Och, she did not even know for what she waited. The right man, she supposed. One who made her heart lift, sent her weak at the knees. One who might make her surrender that which she guarded so fiercely within.

Her heart.

He had not appeared. Not by miracle or any other happenstance. And now a snare closed about her life. She journeyed to meet a husband she did not want, and would not accept.

“Are you sure about this?” Orle asked. Orle, her handmaiden turned dearest friend. The two of them had been together half a score years.

And now must part. Just as Darlei must give up her entire way of life.

She turned to face her companion. The tent had been pitched hastily alongside the trail last night, and for their purposes the two women had seen fit to light but one rushlight. By its dim radiance, Darlei could see the uncertainty in Orle’s eyes.

“It is madness, this,” Orle declared.

So it was. Darlei would have done better to leave from home, rather than flee this convoy with its attendant warriors. But yes, she would still disappear into the surrounding hills, near enough home to be familiar so she could find her way.

“Where will you go?” Orle asked. “What will you do for a home?”

Home. For a moment, Darlei’s heart strained back to the high glen among the hills, the place where she’d grown. Never in her worst imaginings had she foreseen being forced to leave. By a heartless father and a feckless king.

Nay, but she could not say Father was heartless. He did what he believed best for the land he loved.

“If we show obedience to this new king,” he had explained when he told Darlei of this match, “he will look upon us with favor, and we may be able to keep more o’ our lands.”

It was Father’s reason for living, that. Holding on to their lands. Battling for them against the ages-old Gaelic invaders. Dying for them, if need be.

What was a mere marriage in the face of that?

She tossed her head. “What need have I of a home? I will live as I breathe, and range the land from hill to hill and loch to loch. I will be as the doe, who calls all the world hers.”

“And who is brought down by the arrow. Your father will come after you, you know he will. He must save face before this chief to whom you are promised.”

Yes. In her father’s sight, promises were promises, and sacred. She would be causing him great embarrassment by leaving.

She would be saving her own life.

“That is why I must go now in the dead of the night when no one sees.”

“The guards—”

“Will be talking together. I can move quietly enough to slip past them. A perfect night for it, with no moon.”

“I will miss you.” Tears brimmed in Orle’s eyes.

“And I, you.” A fierce hug. Only one, did Darlei allow herself. She could not imagine what lay ahead of her. Neither could she imagine a life wed to a western chief.

“You must be completely silent in this,” she told her friend. “Father will question you, and most determinedly. Tell him only that I slipped away without your knowledge and you cannot guess where or when.”

“Will he believe me?”

“Tell him you were sleeping when I left.”

Orle wailed, “I can scarce bear not knowing whence you are bound.” Agony filled her eyes.

“That is for the best, as I tell you. Father cannot get from you knowledge you do not hold.”

Orle clutched at Darlei with tense hands. “Are you certain it would not be better just to go ahead with this marriage?”

“I am certain. Now lie down. Cover your head so you will not see me go.”

The girl obeyed. Darlei shouldered her bow, picked up her pack, and slipped from the tent in utter silence.

Night met her, more deeply dark than even she expected. Cool air whispered against her cheek.

The air was rumbly, as if the gods quarreled at a distance. It might be well if the rain found her, making it hard for Father’s men to follow. As it was, she could hear voices, deep male voices. As she predicted, the guards talked with one another.

The most difficult part of this endeavor would be getting her pony, Bradh, away with her, him being tied to a string line along with the others.

Silent as a shadow still, she moved to the rear of the camping place where the animals had been pegged. One good thing—the guards would not be on high alert for harm befalling them, so near yet to home.

The ponies seemed restless—no doubt due to that distant thunder—and several balked when she approached them. She shushed them between her teeth and stroked their manes and flanks.

“Quiet now.”

Bradh snorted at her even as she slid her knife from the loop at her belt. She cut his line and, leading him on foot, started away.

The dark would hamper as well as shield her. Ordinarily, no one could catch her once she was up on the pony’s back. But despite the way her heart pounded, this must be about stealth rather than speed.

If she could hear the guards’ voices, they would be able to hear her movements.

In the distance away to the west, the storm growled more loudly. Bradh danced unhappily and she soothed him again.

“Come on.”

She hoped Orle would not receive any punishment as a result of her actions. Father would be very angry. Would he believe Orle’s claims of ignorance?

Darlei had studied the terrain well before nightfall. The clearing among the trees where they had paused lay at the edge of thicker trees beyond. Her vision adjusted slowly to the deeper dark as she picked her way. Slowly, slowly, in defiance of her urgency.

The air grumbled around her as the storm moved in. It might be as well if the rain found her and offered them further cover.

Ears stretched for any outcry behind, she led the pony onward. If this endeavor were blessed, she would not be discovered missing till early morning, by when she would be far distant.

Would the gods bless her escape? Why would they wish to see her chained and confined in marriage to a man she could not love?

Rohr MacMurtray, he was called.

How did she know she could not love him, never having set eyes on him? He was a Gael, for one thing. She spoke his language only in the simplest form. Besides…

Besides, she did not know herself capable of that kind of love. Oh, she loved, to be sure. She loved Orle and her mother, back home, and Bradh, and even her father, in her way.

But to surrender her will and a large portion of her independence to a man, at cost to her heart? Nay, and nay.

For years now, she had watched her friends do just that. Turn so foolish with what Darlei could only term infatuation as to throw themselves away on some man who was no finer than he ought to be. Who sweated, and drank, and spat, and farted, and felt he could tell his woman what to do.

There was no man for Darlei, not like that, not in all the world—possibly not even the prince to whom she believed she was entitled. She would be cursed if she would lose her freedom to a Gael.

Thunder rolled again, much closer. The first drops of rain fell. At almost the same moment, she thought she heard a cry behind her.

Nay. Discovery could not come so soon.

On a rush of panic, she moved faster up the slope ahead of her, wending a way through the trees. She must cover some distance.

Before they came after her.

There was quite possibly not a finer tracker in all Caledonia than Father. Even in the dark. Even in the wet. Her heart strained within her chest. She must get away.

She must.

They came to a ridge of rock that dissected the trees, and she hesitated. The rocky spine stretched far in either direction. She could gain time by riding along it. Dangerous in the dark.

With very little hesitation, she mounted. Once upon her pony’s back, she became one with the animal, their muscles and spirits aligned.

“Away,” she told him softly, her ears reaching for sounds of pursuit.

The storm broke over them suddenly and with fury, a gift from the gods or something far less friendly. She felt Bradh’s hooves slip on the wetted stone and clicked her tongue at him.

They needed to move from this exposed ridge back under cover of the trees.

Lightning struck close behind them and the pony took fright at the hideous noise and blinding light. He took off into the forest.

Darlei should have known then that her escape was doomed. For some reason, the gods had turned their favor against her. She could not possibly hear any sounds of pursuit, with the storm crashing all around.

Neither did she or the pony see the stream bank ahead. It bisected the wood, the trees all leading down, and Bradh fell into it without warning.

The horse stumbled. Darlei fell off, something she almost never did, and landed hard in rushing water. Flailing, she struggled up, her thoughts all for her pony and not herself.

“Bradh. Bradh!”

Her reaching hands landed on his wet coat. He, like her, was down in the water, flailing.

With a groan, she fumbled for his lead, her hands moving over his mane. He came up and she led him out of the stream.

Or tried to. The bank was too steep, the water rushing. The dark between flashes of lightning was too intense. She could see nothing.

Not till they scrambled up the bank at last did she realize the truth.

Bradh could take barely a step. Her pony was lame.