Page 10 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

“I thought ye would want to know,” Kendrick said heavily, “I ha’ spoken wi’ my twa sons. Last night, after ye went to your bed.”

Morning had arrived. Contrary to Kendrick’s prediction, the weather had not cleared. Instead, a heavy mist cloaked the settlement and the rocks of the shore.

When Adair had walked out from his quarters, it collected on his hair and clothing like so much light rain.

Not at all a good day for travel, if Kendrick dismissed him.

He had not slept well last night—too many things crowding his head, and scenes that replayed continually. His two accursed cousins. The encounter with the stag. That incredible moment when Bradana snagged his hand.

He was able to ponder out what two of these meant. His cousins wanted shed of him. He’d somehow encountered the magic of Alba, there in the clearing while facing the stag.

But Bradana? He could not imagine.

She meant nothing to him. A chance encounter here in a strange land. She was not even of his blood. Beautiful, aye. But she meant naught to him.

Still and all, he half hoped she might be at his uncle’s fireside when he arrived. Not that he needed her there. He wanted her there.

She wasn’t present, though. Rather, he found Kendrick alone, with breakfast laid out before him.

“Uncle.”

“Come. Eat.”

Adair did, his appetite ferocious. He listened as Kendrick once more made excuses for his sons. Heard of their chastisement. “And did my cousins admit why they tried to strand me in the forest?”

“Admit?” Kendrick did not like the word. “’Twas accidental, they say. One moment ye were there, the next gone. They thought ye stepped out after game. They called to ye—”

Adair looked Kendrick in the eye. “Uncle, they did no’.”

“Are ye calling my sons liars?”

“Are ye calling me one?”

Kendrick visibly considered making a fuss of it, and then backed down. “Aye, well, an unfortunate occurrence and no mistake. Ye will no’ go out alone wi’ them again.”

“I will not.”

“In fact… I think, ye being a reasonable young man, ye will agree that, as I said last night, the very best thing ye can do is go back to Erin.”

“I cannot, Uncle. No’ before presenting my father’s arguments for his claim.”

“Do so, then.”

Adair ordered his thoughts rapidly. “Ye will agree that when ye were both young men in Erin, when ye had just married my father’s sister, he did gi’ ye the means to come here and strake a holding in this new land.”

“He did so.” Kendrick spoke thoughtfully. “I was a second son, see, and would no’ inherit there in Erin. Your da and I were friends. ’Tis how he met your mother, my sister, through our friendship.

“Others were after talking about sailing to claim lands here in Alba. How the land just sat for the taking. They did no’ say,” he added weightily, “we would have to battle for every length we got or that it would be won from the tribes living here in blood.”

“Still and all, Father had a share in it. ’Twas your agreement.”

Kendrick’s eyes flashed. “He gifted me a few boats, aye, and supplied the venture. Funded some weapons. He shed none o’ the blood.”

“Yet the agreement—”

“Lad, listen to me. I ha’ explained all of this to your brothers before ye, and I do no’ understand why Gawen has sent ye in turn, that I maun explain it all again.

“What aid your father gave me was long ago, and I do consider he gave it in both kinship and friendship. ’Tis I who have clawed my way to a large holding here, which will grow still larger when my stepdaughter marries the son o’ the chief who holds the lands to our north. This is all my doing. And ’tis meant for my sons.

“I do no’ intend to leave all this to only the elder, which is Toren. My sons will each inherit a big swath of that for which I have fought so hard. They know this full well.”

He hesitated before he asked, “Is it so surprising they should want shed o’ ye?”

Strange emotions swirled through Adair. Indignation on his father’s part. Anger on his own.

“Ye admit it, then—your sons did no’ wish for me to return from yon forest.”

Kendrick shrugged. “The best thing ye can do, as I say, is leave. I wish ye no harm, lad. Ye seem a nice enough boy, which is why I gi’ ye this advice. Ye can sail today, if this accursed mist lifts. But by morning—”

“Nay.”

“Wha’ did ye say to me?”

“Ye ask me to understand your position. I ask ye to understand my father’s in turn. He wants only a measure of land for Daerg, a second son just like ye were. Could you no’ afford that, and your nephew could live here wi’ ye, side by side, an ally and a trusted neighbor.”

Kendrick raised a brow. “Ye argue well. But what about ye?”

“Me?”

“Ye be a third son. Ye say your father worries about his second. What will ye inherit?”

Adair shrugged. “I have no ambitions for mysel’. As a warrior, I suppose I will stay and serve Baen. In truth, I want only to go home to Erin. That is the land I love.”

Yet that was no longer all the truth. He wanted to go home, aye—he was not, though, so certain he wanted to leave Bradana. Bradana, set to marry an Alban lord to the north.

Kendrick snorted. “Gawen must have been desperate, to send ye.”

“He thought I might succeed where my brothers had failed.”

“Ye will no’. Be sensible, lad. Consider leaving when the mist clears. Tak’ your answer from me, and go.”

*

“He thinks me lacking in honor, does this nephew from Erin. He supposes I owe his father somewhat.” Kendrick spoke restlessly to the family at large, late that afternoon. They had met for a meal, Bradana stopping in merely because her mam had been feeling unwell earlier in the day, and spent much of it in her bed. The child she carried, no doubt. She was no longer a young woman to be bearing a bairn.

Now Tavia sat pale as milk beside the fire and listened to her husband rant while Bradana performed the duty of serving the meal.

Adair had not joined them. Indeed, Bradana had not seen him all day, though she must admit to herself that she had looked. She had even paced the settlement with Wen from the shore to the heights. Hoping? Nay, she would not go that far.

Not even her hound had sighted the man.

Kendrick seethed in a defensive sort of way, “He has angered me.”

Bradana knew her stepfather. She should, after no many years spent under his roof. Despite his many quarrels with Mam—small tiffs over equally small annoyances—he was not a man easy to anger. Waspish rather than violent in his disfavor. When he did express anger, it was often because in his heart he felt himself in the wrong.

Did he sit here now wanting someone to comfort him? To assure him that an old debt did not matter?

Mam said nothing, pushing her food around on the platter. Toren and Kerr exchanged glances. They had been well chastised for the hunting episode. Wisest, perhaps, to keep their mouths shut now. But neither of them had ever been particularly wise.

“The MacMurtray needs to be showed what’s what,” Kerr stated, “and sent on his way.”

Kendrick sent him a glare. “I want no more japes like the last, hear? Ye will keep awa’ from him. I will persuade him on his way in good time.”

The two brothers exchanged another look that Bradana felt did not bode well for Adair.

“Where is he,” she asked, “this cousin from Erin?”

Kendrick shrugged. “Somewhere about, I do no’ doubt.”

Kerr suggested, “I do no’ suppose he will venture far out o’ the settlement again.”

Toren offered, “I saw him this morning standing staring out over the ocean like he thought he could fly back to Erin.”

Bradana experienced a pang. Did Adair want that so badly? What of when he did go? Naught to her, surely. She was due to wed before long and move away to the north.

And yet—there was something between her and Adair, was there not? What had that been yesterday, when she touched his hand? When she’d received a glimpse of another man whose bright hazel eyes had anchored her soul.

She could not explain it. But she wanted quite badly to see Adair MacMurtray.

She asked, “Has no one thought to behave hospitably toward the man? Show the place off a wee bit. Prove we are civilized people.”

Kendrick took offense all over again. “I am a civilized man.”

Toren hurried to say, “The last thing we want to do is show the place off and make him want it more than he does already.”

“Nay, nay,” Kendrick said. “We do no’ want him going back to his father and saying what a prize we hold here. But he will be going.”

Bradana said nothing more. She fed the better part of her food to Wen and helped her mother tidy away before she went out, the hound at her side. From the doorway of the dun, she looked down to the sea.

The ugly weather was beginning to clear and a kind of calm spread out over the water, a slant of light from a passing goddess. Down off the rocky point of land a few boats rode, including the one in which Adair had sailed from Erin. The beauty of the late afternoon beckoned her like open arms.

Something else beckoned still more strongly.

“Wen, find him.” How many places in a settlement this size could a man hide?

The hound looked at her, then moved off steadily down the slope toward the shore.

They found Adair aboard the little boat with the two men who had sailed with him from Erin. At sight of them, Bradana’s heart leaped. Did they prepare to cast off? Perhaps he had taken Kendrick’s advice to heart after all.

“Master Adair?”

He looked up, saw her balancing on the rocks that fronted the pier. Light flooded his eyes, and he scrambled over to the side of the small craft.

“Mistress?”

“Are ye leaving?”

For answer, he splashed ashore, moving lightly, and joined her on the stones. He stood there with the soft light washing over him, and Bradana’s world suddenly came right.

Everything came right.