Page 58 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)

M acNabh dragged Darlei into his house by the hair, much as he might drag an errant hound by the scruff of the neck. Her knees hit each of the stone stairs, and when he threw her down in the hall, the flagstones come up to meet her with force.

She lay there face down for a moment, wondering if she had the strength to rise. To face what must come.

The women were both still there in the hall. MacNabh’s mother started screeching as soon as she saw them.

Roisin saved her words for when MacNabh dragged Darlei up again by one arm. She looked disheveled, and blood stained her hair.

“So ye caught the wee bitch! I want her beaten, beaten soundly. Battered for wha’ she did to me.”

“Nay fear,” MacNabh grunted. “She will get in full wha’ she deserves.”

The servants had gathered. They crowded the edges of the room, all staring. They would no doubt speak of this for years.

Roisin said, quite shockingly, “I want to watch. I want to see ye discipline her.”

“Get awa’ fro’ me, woman!” MacNabh elbowed her aside viciously before hoisting Darlei up in his arms.

She struggled. She fought as best she might, kicking and flailing, but she could feel his rage, a ferocious fire, could feel how her struggling served to fuel it.

A voice sounded in her head. Keep it up and he will kill you.

That must be the voice of sanity breaking through the terror. She’d been half mad since all this began. The only spot of beauty, of calm, since she’d left home had been Deathan.

Deathan. Had he truly been there in the forest?

I will find ye, always , she thought she heard him say.

But nay. She did not want him here, risking his life. She would save herself or perish.

How was she to save herself?

MacNabh bore her from the hall and on a determined slog up to her chamber. The very place from whence she’d escaped.

Thought she had escaped.

He tossed her not onto the bed but on the floor, and kicked the door shut.

“Get up, bitch.”

She still did not know if she could. She could feel all her hurts now, the blows and the scrapes. Worse was to come.

And was this to be her life? At this man’s mercy always? Beyond alone, here in this prison?

Somehow she gained her feet and faced MacNabh. “If you beat me, the king will see the bruises. When he comes, he will see what you have done to me. You cannot beat me.”

“When the king does come, he will see I ha’ applied the discipline that was required. I ha’ been too soft wi’ ye, by half.”

He took a step toward her.

She stepped back, which took her up against the bed.

Another step—he stalked her now—and he unfastened the belt he wore over his kilt. Tossed it, as before, onto the bed.

“I shall breed ye as was meant. I do no’ think ye are good enough to carry my sons, but since that is wha’ the king intends, so it shall be. Ye may expect me to ride ye every night till the deed be done.”

“Nay.” It was the only word Darlei could force through her lips.

“And if ye say nay”—he delivered a blow that knocked Darlei onto the bed—“this is wha’ ye will earn.”

Anger gathered inside Darlei. A desire fully born. With no one here to save her, she must save herself.

He came down toward her like a mountain falling. Panic rose inside her, swift and fierce. She could not let it hamper her, such terror. Not now.

His long knife sat thrust through a loop in his leather belt.

The belt that now lay beside her. She never later remembered seizing it with her left hand, gripping the pommel against her palm as tightly as she could.

But she would remember till her dying day how it felt when she thrust it into his chest even as he came down upon her.

Thrust and, with what strength remained to her, twisted.

A look of stark surprise came to his face even as he collapsed to one side. With speed born of loathing, Darlei slid out from under his weight, leaving the knife where it was. His blood warm on her hands, holding her breath, she eyed him there, half tumbled onto his side on the bed.

Waiting. Waiting for him to rise again.

She waited long. MacNabh did not stir. At length she found the strength to tiptoe close enough that she saw his eyes were open, staring sightlessly.

A breath huffed between her teeth.

She washed her hands in the basin, turning the water red, then gathered up her few belongings. Her cloak, some dry clothing which she made into a bundle. Her hands trembled so violently, she could scarcely accomplish the task.

Then she went back out, leaving her chamber door open behind her.

Half the clan, or so it seemed, had gathered in the hall. Many were MacNabh’s men, but there were also a number of women present, including Roisin, now back on her feet.

What might they do to her?

She raised her head high, lifted her chin. Met Roisin’s stare.

“MacNabh is dead,” she said loudly and clearly. “He fell on his own knife while attacking me. When the king comes, you will tell him I married MacNabh as he ordered. I am his widow now.”

Roisin gave a cry, and the old woman, MacNabh’s mother, moaned. The men stared. No one moved to block her way as, head still high, Darlei walked from the place.

A few of the guards and servants followed her. She could hear that much. Outside, the rain had slackened and night resided deep all around, the pure autumn night. Scotland spread her dark skirt, mayhap to hide Darlei, her daughter, as she went.

Behind her, she could hear Roisin wailing. Ahead of her—

There in the gloom, she saw a man.

He stepped out into the light of the torches that had been lit, no doubt at nightfall, to either side of the doorway. Soaked to the skin he was, his light brown hair slicked like the fur of an otter. His chest rose and fell violently, and he looked…

He looked like the best thing she’d ever seen.

“MacNabh is dead,” she said.

“Aye so.” The words strained past his lips.

Clan’s folk came out through the open doorway behind Darlei. Did they follow Roisin’s orders? Would they try to stop her?

Deathan looked at one of them. “Ye ken wha’ to do. MacNabh named his heir. In the stables, he did.”

“Aye,” the man agreed. “When the king comes, I will tell him.”

“I will need my pony.”

Someone already came around the side of the house, leading it. A tall young fellow it was, with black hair and MacNabh’s pale-blue eyes.

“The gods go wi’ ye,” the young man said to Deathan.

“And wi’ ye. Yer father is dead, lad.”

“I heard.”

“He named ye chief after him, and everyone heard it. Lead yer people well.”

Deathan boosted Darlei onto the back of his pony, his hands at her waist a caress.

“Are ye bad hurt?” he whispered.

“I am well, now.”

He swung up behind her, drew her to rest against his chest.

She turned her head and his lips traced her cheek. “I thought I saw you there in the forest.”

“Aye. Did I no’ tell ye I would find ye always?”

*

Silence envelops Murtray’s hall, save for a sweet scattering of notes, pure from Finlay’s harp strings. Caught fast in his tale, the assembled clansfolk barely breathe.

He smiles. Chases a flutter of notes up and down the strings in a minor key. Then a happier one.

“So the tale o’ our princess ends. Or does it?

” A bright shimmer of triumphant notes. “She and her Deathan returned here—to Murtray—having found her woman in the forest on the way, for lovely Orle had not got far on her own. Here at Murtray, Deathan wed Darlei, and she a widow in truth. But a small ceremony it was, witnessed by his mother, for did it not take place in her very bedchamber?” The words come accompanied by another bright, victorious burst of notes.

“In the years after, Deathan was content to be a second son, to tend the keep he loved, look after the land he loved, wi’ the woman he loved.

“But the princess…” He runs his fingers down the strings and his gaze focuses on one face there among his listeners. “She made hersel’ a promise, that the man she loved need never risk himsel’ for her sake again.

“She has kept that promise to this very day.”

The End