Page 7 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)

D eathan would still have preferred to go up on the walls, a place where his duties so often took him, to watch events unfold. Like a pageant, more or less, from which he was removed.

As, in truth, he was.

None of this was happening to him—the strangeness and immediacy of it all. The heavy weight of duty. The sacrifice and acceptance. For one of the first times in his life, he felt grateful he was not the firstborn.

Rohr hurried, dodging people still dashing around the keep, all of them staring, and headed for the front steps where Da waited. Some color had crept back to his face, but Deathan thought he still looked awfully grim, for a bridegroom.

Da stood with his advisors and the holy man, obviously relieved to see them. He stepped aside to offer Rohr a place, and Deathan fell in behind.

“They come,” Da told Rohr uneasily.

Deathan wondered about the approaching party. How would they look? Deport themselves?

Rohr must have been wondering the same, for he leaned back toward Deathan and said, “Prepare for a throng o’ savages.”

Only, they were not. The party, when it appeared along a track now lined with clansfolk, looked rich and beautiful, like something described in an ancient tale of Erin, from whence Deathan’s ancestors had come.

On horseback they were, the messenger now having rejoined them, with what could only be the king at their head and a decorated wagon rumbling behind.

Well clad and colorful, they flew banners and streamers that fluttered in the breeze.

The crowd began to murmur. Da stood like stone.

Deathan narrowed his eyes. Which was the princess? There—that must be she, surrounded by guards at every point. The only woman he could see.

She sat at the front of the wagon, wreathed in dignity.

Head high, hands folded on her lap, and eyes gazing straight ahead at nothing.

She wore a bronze-colored gown, and her hair hung down like a second cloak over her shoulders, brown and wavy and, aye, wild—though it appeared to be the only thing about her that was wild.

She wore a thin bronze circlet upon her head.

A crown?

Aye, so it must be, for the man riding in front of the messenger wore one also. Indeed, Murtray received royalty.

If the Caledonian party had wished to make an impression, they succeeded. The crowd of many onlookers went silent in a wave at their approach. Rohr swore under his breath.

When the party reached the open gate and flowed through, when they crossed the bailey and paused at the bottom of the stone stairs, the silence became so complete that Deathan could hear the tinkle of tiny bells tied to their ponies’ manes.

“Welcome!” Da stepped down the stairs and held out his hands. “Welcome to Murtray.”

The messenger had already dismounted, alighting with that same lithe grace. He caught the king’s bridle and bowed as he called out, “Caerdoc, King of the Caledonii.”

Deathan tore his gaze from the princess to look at the king, even as the man swung down with an assessing glance for the keep. What did he think of the place? Impressive, with its strong walls? Rough and humble? Unworthy of his daughter?

He was middling tall and every bit as well dressed as the princess, with a similar mane of brown beneath his bronze circlet, and gray in his beard. A thin face, far haughtier than Deathan had expected. He turned to Da but did not smile.

Da bowed again. “Herve MacMurtray,” he introduced himself. “We are”—a brief pause as Da sought a word—“honored by your presence.”

Caerdoc bowed his head slightly. Not truly a bow.

Da turned to Rohr. “And this is my son, Rohr MacMurtray.”

Rohr went down the steps. He had dressed in ordinary clothing, not knowing or not caring that the arrival would be today, and his hair hung unplaited and undressed. The color still came and went in his face.

Kind Caerdoc did not look impressed. He had a long, rather thin nose, and he employed it to gaze down at Rohr.

“My daughter, Princess Darlei.”

Darlei.

The four Caledonian guards who had flanked the wagon dismounted and stood close as if—what, they expected someone here to do her harm?

A thought came into Deathan’s head. As if they expected her to flee.

She disembarked from the wagon without any assistance from anyone, ignoring the hand the driver offered.

On her feet she was tall, slim, and graceful.

Her hair—och, but it was magnificent and shone in the sunlight.

Her face—not so. If anyone could look less happy with the situation than Rohr, it was she.

Not a bonny face at first glance. Not soft enough to be called bonny. Like her father’s, it was thin and carried an enormous amount of strength.

By all that was holy, though, Rohr should not dare complain.

Deathan switched his gaze to his brother, who now bowed to the woman he would wed.

“Welcome, welcome!” Da bowed again, not seeming to know what else to say. “All is in readiness for your stay.”

The party filed into the keep. Deathan, who remained on the steps, moved back to afford the visitors room to pass.

She would pass right by him. On Rohr’s arm.

He acknowledged, as she came up the stairs, that she did not appear a wild woman. Aye so, that hair was wild, barely disciplined, but the rest of her spewed dignity.

That was until she reached the step on which Deathan stood, turned her head, and looked directly at him.

Her eyes were silver. Not gray, as might be considered ordinary, but bright as two shards of armor. And they were wild, entirely wild, like those of a hawk confined, defying her comportment.

A feeling started at the root of Deathan’s spine and crawled its way upward. Through his groin, through his belly and stomach, growing claws as it came, claws that eventually sank into his heart.

She hated them, did this princess. She hated them all.

*

The first difficulty came when Da again tried assigning someone to care for the Caledonians’ ponies. They had reached the hall by then, just inside the arched doorway, and there came a flurry of displeasure.

The king spoke the Gaelic tongue, just like the messenger, Urfet—Deathan had almost failed to notice that.

He had yet to hear the princess speak. But they now gabbed together in their own language, and it was the haughty messenger who stepped forward and said, “It is as I told you before, Chief MacMurtray. We will care for our own animals.”

“But,” Da protested, “I have lads standing by for but that purpose.”

Urfet’s eyes flashed. “No one touches our stock. None but our own hands.”

It felt like a slap in the face. Whether it was meant so, Deathan could not tell. Another flurry occurred as the lads from the stables, who, indeed, stood by, mumbled among themselves.

Da said, “Verra well. Our lads will tell yours where to house yer beasts and lend what assistance they may.”

Did Da appear nettled? Difficult to tell. Rohr did, though he stood unmoving with the princess’s hand on his arm.

“The rest o’ ye,” Da continued, “please come in. Ye will wish to refresh yourselves after yer long journey.”

The refreshments stood ready, a high table having been set across the top of the hall. The principals were led to it while the rest of the party thronged one of the side tables, all together.

King Caerdoc strode beside Da to a place at the center of the high table. Deathan, following, heard Da explain, “Forgive my wife being absent and unable to greet ye as she wished, King Caerdoc. She lies ill and much regrets missing this—er—joyous event.”

“Ah.” King Caerdoc directed a look at Da. “I am most sorry to hear this. My own queen stayed back at home.”

Da nodded. “My wife, Aene, looks forward to meeting Princess Darlei, who will be her new daughter. Please, sit.”

Caerdoc did, with the flair of a man taking a throne. His daughter sat beside him, and Deathan noticed his hand came out to circle her wrist for a moment.

A warning? Restraint?

Aye so, she looked like she could rip into them all, an affinity for Gaelic or no, and tell them what she thought of being here. She no more favored this match than did Rohr.

Deathan could not say how he knew that so well or why he should suppose he understood what lodged in the woman’s heart. But he did.

Indeed, though he should sit on Da’s other side at the high table, he took a place at one of the lower tables instead, among members of the household guard, where he could look on.

Where he could see her.

And his brother. For Rohr once more sat like a man stricken, never looking at nor speaking to his bride.

A woeful beginning.