Page 28 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

O ne cool morning, as they rode single file, they smelled smoke from a fire. Bradana drew her pony up in a dead stop and raised her head. Adair, in his usual place behind her, lifted his head also and scented the wind.

He had now lost count of how many days they had spent wending their way up and down across Alba’s hills and glens. Utterly lost, he’d placed himself in Bradana’s hands. So far they’d met no one, and if they barely clung to life—for he was hungry all the time—at least they did so on their own and by the grace of Wen. And though he’d seen worry in Bradana’s eyes more than a few times as she’d strained to watch their back trail, he’d as yet caught no sounds of pursuit.

She had told him there were native settlements out here. People she called blue men, for the tattoos that covered their skin, and that the southerners called Picts. It seemed they had nearly ridden up onto one such settlement.

Wen went forward, stepping like a gray shadow through the trees and bracken.

With another wave for Adair, Bradana got down from her pony and followed the hound.

Adair had no doubt that they would not have managed so far without Wen. Like a protective spirit, he accompanied them, guarded them while they slept, and provided for them.

If something happened to the hound…

Quietly, he slipped his sword from its loop. His injury had improved enough that he could now grip the hilt of the weapon. How he would fare in a battle… Well, he hoped he would not need to find out.

Bradana soon came slipping back and moved directly to lay her hands on his knee.

“We maun turn back. A large settlement. Blue men, I do no’ doubt.”

Wen came back whining.

“Aye, so,” Bradana told the hound. “We are going.”

She stepped away from Adair’s pony and seemed to take stock of their surroundings. Choosing the best route could not be easy. He could see she did not know.

Help her, Alba , Adair thought. He did it only half out of fancy and half from the odd belief that had lately been creeping over him.

For several moments, nothing happened. Wen whined again. Then a bird came streaming up out of the bracken that clothed the steep drop to their right and flew in the opposite direction.

Bradana’s head turned. Their eyes met. She stepped back to him even as he lifted his brows.

“I do no’ want to go that way,” she breathed. “Father north.”

“We cannot go south.” He indicated the steep drop.

“And we canna continue east.” She bit her lip.

“Surely we are far past Mican’s lands.”

Clear worry showed in her eyes. “We should be. The last thing I want to do is lead ye into trouble.”

“Let us circle north a distance and ye can correct again.”

“Aye.”

She remounted and they rode on, choosing a stony route up and over the flank of the mountain. It eventually offered them a splendid view of what lay to the east in a pocket on the side of the hill—a large settlement with a round tower at its head, cook fires emitting lazy smoke into the clear air.

A narrow escape.

Bradana seemed more vigilant after that. She led him cautiously and sent Wen ahead to scout often.

Not till that night, when they lay together in their blanket, did she speak of it.

“I nearly blundered back there today.” They lay as close to one another as they could get, holding hands, and she spoke in his ear. It grew chilly out on the open land at night, though it did not become truly dark at this time of year. They dared not have a fire. “What if I’d led us right up onto that settlement? If one of their scouts had seen us?”

“What d’ye think they would do to us, these blue men?”

“I hate to think.” She moved uneasily and squeezed his fingers. “Kendrick and the other Dalriadan chiefs have been fighting them as long as I can remember. They would know us by our clothing, our ponies. Our weapons. They hate our kind. I fear…”

He did not press her on it. He could feel her apprehension as if it transferred from her body to his.

He said, “We must have passed beyond the bounds of Dalriada.”

“Dalriada has no proper bounds. The Erin chiefs, like Kendrick, push it ever eastward. The blue men push back. Once, all this land was theirs.”

“Ye cannot blame them.”

“Nay. I was born in the north—the granddaughter of another such chief. My mother’s sire. He held—holds—territory some distance beyond Mican’s.”

“Ye have people there still?”

“I do. My mother was already a widow when she met Kendrick at a gathering o’ the Dalriadan chiefs. They discussed means o’ uniting to fight the blue men through alliances and such. Even then, the wise men among them preached o’ marriage alliances.

“But that was no’ why Kendrick and Mother married. He was besotted from the moment he saw her.”

“Aye,” Adair said softly. At one time, he might have scoffed at such a notion. Now he understood what could draw two people together. “Ye must ha’ been very small.”

“I was. Even then, I did no’ want to leave home. I loved that land where the sea—the far sea, I used to call it—came up to woo the rocks, and the hills towered over. Giving dreams, I thought they did.”

“Giving dreams?”

She turned to him in the cocoon of the blanket, so close they might have kissed. “Ye will think me mad.”

“Never.”

“I used to dream o’ ye. Well, no’ o’ ye so much. I did no’ see your face.” She touched his cheek where the beard had now grown in, for he had no razor. “’Twas more the feel o’ ye I felt in the dreams. I imagined ye were there somewhere up in the dark hills. But ’twas fancy only and I did no’ truly believe in it. Nor that one day ye would come for me bringing… Well, I ha’ no words for it.”

“Nay.” There were no words for what they felt, the one for the other.

“’Twas as if,” she whispered, “I had a memory o’ ye, even though I did no’ know ye yet.”

Curious, he thought, for the both of them to feel that way.

“For all that,” she murmured, “I did not know ye when first I saw ye. At least”—she gazed into his eyes—“I did, even as I did not. Does that make sense?”

“It does, to me.”

“These dreams were a long way in the past when you arrived. And I’d long stopped believing in such a love. One that—that could make me feel whole inside.”

“Aye, so.” He closed his eyes for an instant, absorbing the rightness of having her in his arms.

“I saw Mother and Kendrick arguing endlessly despite how they were supposed to love each other, and I thought marriage wi’ a man I did no’ love could scarce be worse. Then ye came.”

“Just barely in time.”

“Just barely. Adair, tell me, how can this be so right, when ’tis so wrong? When I barely know ye. When it has torn both our lives apart.”

“Because it is.” He had no better answer.

She pressed her lips to his, crossing that smallest of distances, as she came closer and closer. The night breeze, like a breath, brushed over them as without conscious thought they shed their clothing, touched one another with reverent care. As there, on the breast of Alba, they made love.

“Beautiful girl, alanna ,” he murmured when she held him deep inside her. As it should be, the two of them made one. A thousand things he should say to her, not the least being that they needed to turn back for home. He needed to face the consequences of his actions.

But the enchantment was too strong. He was caught fast in it, in her. For them at this moment, nothing else existed.

He wanted naught else to exist.

“Never leave me, Adair.” Her face was wet with tears.

Never leave her? Never go home? Or else persuade her to go away with him, from this land that, in a curious way, held them both?

“As if I could ever leave ye,” he breathed, and even as she laughed for joy, he fell into her again.