Page 43 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)

A woman could live with a broken heart. Darlei discovered that the next day when they moved out and continued their journey through a sodden world.

The rain had stopped by then, but a gray mist clung to the trees and crawled down the hillsides.

Everything dripped, and the party traveled mostly in silence.

They made their way south and east. Darlei had no idea where MacNabh’s lands were located, where she would spend the rest of her life.

At Orle’s persuasion, she tried to eat a few bits of breakfast as they jounced along in the wagon and then gave it up as impossible, too sick of stomach, too sick of heart.

A dull numbness came over her as the day progressed.

It was better not to feel, not to think at all, than to think of what was gone.

But her heart, her broken heart ached. How did a woman silence her heart?

She supposed a sharp blade would do it, and she considered that, she truly did. Better perhaps than the marriage ahead.

And anyway, if Deathan were right, if they’d known each other before, loved each other before, then she need only wait—alive or dead—for the wheel to turn once more.

Alive or dead.

Orle worried for her, tried fussing over her, and at last left her alone. Weary to the bones, but unwilling to succumb to tears again, Darlei endured the day’s travel.

Far they went. Far over the stony shoulders of the mountains. Over broad streams when she and Orle had to get out and ford on foot while the men got the wagon across. The streams were swollen from the rain. All the trees dripped water and the mist refused to rise.

The world wept.

But she could not. One more night on the trail, so Father said, and they would arrive at MacNabh’s holding.

By the time that second morning arrived, Darlei had come to a conclusion. A woman strong enough to send away the man she loved, rather than see him die, must be strong enough to keep her chin high. To face what would come.

That morning, Orle fussed over Darlei’s appearance as best she might in the confines of the wagon. They were both cramped and sore with jolting by then. Everything was damp. But they would arrive by noontime and Orle had determined that Darlei, a Caledonian princess, should look her best.

Indeed, at the last, when Urfet called to them that they approached MacNabh’s lands, when guards met and halted them, then sent them on, Orle hung from the front of the wagon alongside the driver, trying to catch a glimpse.

Darlei took the opportunity to secrete a long knife beneath her overdress. It was stealing, for the men had left some of their extra weapons in the back of the wagon, but a woman, however strong, should not go unarmed to face her fate.

The sun struggled out as they rumbled along the stony track, and voices sounded ahead. Calling out to announce their arrival no doubt, and alert the chief. Darlei would see him soon. The man she was to wed.

“Darlei, come look,” Orle called.

“What is it like?”

“A…a rough sort of place.”

They had not been particularly welcome at Murtray. Even less so here, at Scotland’s interior, where more recent battles had been fought. All one country now, as Kenneth MacAlpin commanded by decree.

She supposed a king could not be a king without imposing his will.

The wagon stopped moving. Father appeared at the front beside the driver.

“Daughter, come.”

Her knees wobbled beneath her as she descended, but she managed to keep her chin high. A stone building stood before her, not as large or as well built as Murtray’s keep. It lacked the walkways high behind the parapets where she’d so often seen—

Nay, do not think of that. Do not think of him.

A man was descending the stairs that led down from the main gate. A big man, he was, made to look even larger by the thick cloak he wore. Of middle years with black hair heavily streaked with gray, he carried an impatient, disagreeable expression.

Was this to be her husband? Please, by all the powers, nay.

Father led her forward, his grip tight on her arm. They met the large man at the bottom of the steps.

“Chief MacNabh?” Father asked. “I am King Caerdoc, and this is my daughter, Princess Darlei.”

MacNabh’s gaze swept over Darlei. Pale-blue eyes, he had, set disconcertingly under heavy black brows.

He snorted. “King, is it? And princess? There is but one king to my understanding, and he is busy interfering wi’ our lives.”

Father, seeming taken aback, said nothing.

MacNabh made a rough gesture. “I suppose ye had better come in. A hard journey, was it?”

“A wet one,” Father replied, and gave a look to his men that said, Some of you with me, and look lively.

Three Caledonians came, including Urfet, their hands at their weapons.

MacNabh led them across an elevated entry to a second gate that opened to the keep proper. Curious faces stared from every hand. Only steps within, the hall opened up. A tall, chilly room full of wood smoke and containing still more people, who stared.

Darlei shivered with foreboding. She would not be happy here. How could she be happy here?

All happiness lay behind her.

But she’d experienced it once, she reminded herself. She’d had him more than once. At least she’d not be sent here first to…

Suffer and perish. If her body did not, her spirit would.

“Come,” MacNabh said. “This is my mother. And my mistress.”

That put a check in Father’s step. He parted his lips but did not speak.

The old woman, MacNabh’s mother, was a crone. Clad in layers of rusty, dark clothing, she had a mouth devoid of teeth and scarcely any hair. Hardly the woman’s fault, Darlei reminded herself. She could not help the changes brought by age.

But what of the disdain in her eyes? Might she help that? She was a far cry from gentle Mistress MacMurtray.

And the mistress—did that mean what Darlei thought?

As if to answer the question, MacNabh squeezed the woman’s thigh as he passed her. “Roisin warms my bed.”

The woman, surely two score years of age, directed at Darlei a look of sheer hate.

“These are Caledonians?” the old woman screeched. “Let us see. Are they blue?”

MacNabh waved a hand at her. “That died out long since, Mother.”

To be sure, Caledonian men still carried tattoos. Designs that denoted their tribe, acquired when they pledged their fealty.

Darlei felt the men at her back stiffen, at least those who understood the Gaelic tongue.

“Ye are to marry that…lass?” Roisin sounded as if she’d wanted to select a different word for Darlei but had not quite dared.

“Aye, so I ha’ told ye and told ye again. The king’s orders.”

“I did no’ expect her to be so young.”

“I can hear you, and understand your words,” Darlei said in Gaelic.

MacNabh stepped up to her. His heavy features did not lighten and his pale eyes glared into hers. “Ye will speak when spoken to, miss.”

Father’s arm stiffened beneath Darlei’s. She experienced her own surge of anger. Good. Mayhap anger would come to her rescue, make it possible to go on breathing.

Anger was easier to bear than grief.

Father said, “Chief MacNabh, I apprehend you are not in favor of this union.”

“I am no’. I tell ye fairly, King Caerdoc, I had matters here arranged to my satisfaction already. My scold of a wife died last year—”

“Scold o’ a wife!” the old woman echoed.

“—and I was set to handfast wi’ Roisin when we had notice fro’ the king.” He scowled from beneath his brows. “His letter was quite specific and left little room for argument.”

“Yes,” Father said. “Still and all, if you are otherwise pledged, perhaps we should apply to the king.” He sighed. “Though I have just come away from Forteviot.”

“Nay, it will no’ do a bit o’ good. Naught to be done, but I’ll tak’ the lass off your hands.”

Darlei nearly fell down where she stood, her despair worse for the glint of hope that had preceded it.

Father, bless him, seemed to ponder it and said, “I am not so certain.”

Darlei turned to him and spoke low in their own tongue. “Father, please. Do not leave me here. I do not want—”

“Daughter, I can no longer tell what you want. You did not want to travel to Murtray. You did not want to wed with Rohr. You did not want to wed with that young man, his brother, who came after us seeking you. Now you do not want to be here either. Can I take such a complaint back to King Kenneth?”

“Yes,” she beseeched him. “Please.”

Slowly, even as her gaze clung to his, he shook his head. “Nay, daughter, let it be done. You chose your path back there along the trail.”

Darlei nearly fell down. She had chosen her path, yes, merely to spare Deathan.

She was lost.

Father turned back to MacNabh. “Forgive us,” he said, again in Gaelic. “I wanted to be certain of our intentions. When is the wedding to take place?”

MacNabh eyed Darlei unhappily before turning back to Father. “Will ye stay for it, King Caerdoc?”

“I will. But I must get home and back to my own affairs. This has all stretched out hideously long.”

“I shall fetch the priest and the weddin’ can take place in the morning. Ye can leave directly after, if it suits ye.”

For one more moment, Father hesitated before he nodded briskly. “Yes. Let it be done.”

He would leave her here in this dark and terrible place. Alone, save for Orle.

Less a wife than a captive, by order of the king.