Page 51 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)

“S o ye ha’ aspirations, d’ye, to be a fine warrior?” Deathan asked Tighe.

The two of them sat together on a portion of half-built wall in the sunshine. Deathan had progressed from mucking out the stable and providing care to the ponies to helping with the building. And, he thought ruefully, his hands showed it.

To his surprise, Tighe had sought him out when they all paused to take what passed for a rest. The lad apparently felt no resentment over yesterday’s defeat.

“Wha’ are…aspirations?” he asked with a frown. “The same as wishes?”

“Wishes. Hopes, aye.”

“I do. I was born here and—and though I ha’ no claim, I can think o’ little better than to tak’ Ardroch’s place as head o’ the guard. After he steps down, that is.”

“Aye so.” The lad knew he was MacNabh’s by-blow. The chief doubtless knew it also. Yet Tighe lived in ignominy.

Tighe stole a look at Deathan. “D’ye think I ha’ the makings o’ a great warrior? I respect wha’ ye say. I ha’ never seen anyone fight the way ye do.”

“I think ye can mak’ a fine warrior and a good head o’ the guard here, if ye work to hone your skills. It takes work, ye ken.”

“Is that how ye got so good?”

Deathan supposed it was. He, like Rohr, had worked with a sword since he was twelve or thirteen. And yet that did not account for the skill he felt rise within him. That which came unbidden and felt very much like something learned on a turn of the wheel.

He suspected, so he did, from whence that came.

“Aye, and there are generations o’ warriors behind me.”

“Me, also.” Tighe looked half proud and half ashamed. His heritage must go unacknowledged. Shyly he asked, “Would ye work wi’ me? In our spare time, that is.”

Deathan snorted. They had no such thing as spare time.

“I ken fine,” Tighe said, “ye may no’ be staying long. So Ardroch says.”

“That is wha’ Ardroch says, is it?”

“Aye. He figures ye are lying low. Hiding out, mayhap. He says ye ha’ been a mercenary and may be again.”

That was the story and could come true, Deathan supposed, if he and Darlei had to go on the run—after he killed her husband. A favorite of the king.

“Let us just say I am here catching my breath.” And working himself to the bone.

Could this young man, though, be his way inside the house?

“I will work wi’ ye,” he told Tighe. “As Master Ardroch allows.”

“I will talk him into it.” A big grin spread across Tighe’s face before he went pelting off, presumably to do so.

Ardroch came to Deathan not long after. “Did ye agree to train young Tighe? So he says.”

“No’ to train him but to work wi’ him, show him a few tricks.” Deathan smiled. “If ye can find him a decent sword.”

“I might do.” Ardroch frowned. “Once this business o’ the king’s visit is o’er, I can tak’ on training him myself. He is a good lad.”

“I can see that, aye.”

“I believe”—Ardroch hesitated—“he seeks to bring himself to his father’s attention.”

“Ah.” That weighted Deathan’s heart. Tighe wanted MacNabh to notice him. Deathan wanted MacNabh dead. It scarcely seemed fair.

“I do no’ think,” Ardroch added morosely, “he will be successful. Now that himself has a new wife upon which to get a son—”

“I will work wi’ the lad. We shall see what we shall see.”

Work with Tighe he did, Ardroch having sought him a sword.

The lad came looking for Deathan whenever they had even a suggestion of a breather or after work was done for the day, which meant they often worked in the dark, lit by flaring torches.

Despite Deathan’s weariness and his fear over what was befalling Darlei, he enjoyed the sessions.

He liked using his muscles for a finer purpose than moving a barrow or hefting stone.

It felt familiar and right.

At night, he should have been weary enough to sleep as if dead.

Instead, he had strange dreams, flickers of light and darkness that, when he woke, hinted of memory.

He fought in battles. He defended a settlement alive with flame.

He trained a squad of women. He engaged in perilous combat and took a man’s head.

Memory, or imagining?

MacNabh’s men, guards and farmers and grooms pulled from their regular duties to prepare for the king’s visit, began to gather round while Tighe trained, curious to watch.

Ardroch tried to discourage it, presumably not wanting MacNabh to find out what they were doing, but it proved impossible.

As easy to discourage wasps from a pot of honey.

Deathan went easy on the lad, because he wanted to encourage him. Some sword masters slapped their students down at every opportunity, but he went lightly, only tapping the lad with his blade when he made a mistake and telling him, “I could have had ye then.”

Tighe always grinned good-naturedly.

One afternoon when it rained lightly and the men took it as an excuse to suspend work, Deathan noticed a woman had joined the onlookers. She stood solemn, her eyes wide, and her hands clasped tightly. Slight and diminutive, her sandy hair had turned mostly gray.

“My mam,” Tighe said when he saw Deathan glancing at her.

“Och, aye.”

The woman’s gaze was fierce. Protective.

After Ardroch called a halt to the training and they put up their swords, Deathan crossed the stable floor, where they worked, to the woman’s side.

“Mistress.”

“Mam,” said Tighe, who came at Deathan’s back, “this is Master Deathan, who’s training me.”

Master. He was no one’s master here.

The woman directed a look at Deathan, up and down. “Are ye a mercenary, then?”

“Mistress, I ha’ been many things.” Did she come as a spy for MacNabh?

“Why should ye bother to train my son?”

“Because he asked me, and he has talent. He wishes to be more than he is.”

“Ye think I do not know that?” Her gaze seared him. “He should ha’ a claim here, by right. Not some babe yet to be born.”

Deathan’s heart jerked in his chest violently. Did this woman who worked in the house know something he did not? Was Darlei, his Darlei, carrying MacNabh’s child?

The very idea made him begin to sweat. It did not matter, though. Any child she bore would be part of her, and so dear to him.

“Tighe will be a fine warrior some day,” he told the woman, “and worthy o’ any man’s notice.”

Tighe, still standing beside him, seemed to expand with pride.

“Aye so,” said the lad’s mother. “But life can be cruel.”

“Aye, mistress, so it can.”

“I would no’ like to see my son disappointed.”

She walked away, and Tighe followed with a regretful look or Deathan.

The next morning they were at work on the wall when an unnatural silence fell upon the yard. Deathan, moving stones from a cart, turned to find none other than MacNabh at his elbow.

It was the first close look he’d had of the man. Surely well past two score in years, he stood nearly of a height with Deathan and had black hair heavily streaked with gray. Pale-blue eyes glowered at Deathan from beneath heavy brows. The man did not look pleased.

“Who,” he demanded into the sudden silence, “by the devil’s beak, are ye?”

Deathan hesitated, not wanting to give his true name to this man whom he would likely kill.

“Just a worker, Chief MacNabh,” he said as respectfully as he could manage for the surge of loathing that filled him. This man had touched Darlei, perhaps forced her.

Deathan’s skin crawled.

Ardroch stepped forward. “This man stopped by, Chief MacNabh, looking for work when we needed the help. I took him on—for a few days.”

MacNabh switched the icy stare to Ardroch. “Wi’out asking me.”

“Well, chief, I thought as we were so hard pressed wi’ the king’s visit—”

“I mak’ the decisions here. He’ll ha’ to go.”

“But chief—”

“I do no’ ken him. He could be anyone.”

“He is a braw worker, chief, and a dab hand wi’ the horses. He’s workin’ for his keep.”

That made those shaggy brows rise. “Is he, now?” MacNabh’s gaze returned to Deathan. “And why should a young, strong fellow do such a thing, lest he’s hiding fro’ something? Nay, he canna be here when the king comes.”

Deathan’s heart fell. If he were sent away now without even setting eyes on Darlei…

“Pray, Chief MacNabh.” It was Tighe who stepped up from somewhere in the crowd of men. “If I may speak—”

Some unidentified emotion flickered in MacNabh’s eyes when he looked at Tighe. Aye, he knew right enough who the lad was.

“Wha’ is it?” he barked.

“I ask ye let him stay. He is training me at arms. He says I ha’ the makings o’ a fine warrior.”

MacNabh looked his bastard son up and down with a new expression. “Have ye, then?”

“He does, Chief MacNabh,” Deathan put in. “An inborn talent, I should say.”

“Chief MacNabh,” Tighe beseeched, “if ye would allow him to stay but a wee while yet—”

“Perhaps just till the king’s visit,” Ardroch added.

“And if the stranger be an assassin? If he aims to tak’ the life o’ the king?”

“I would ne’er do that.” Deathan stared the man in the eye. “No’ the life o’ the king.”

“Och, verra well. He can stay a few days. But nay more than that.”