Page 29 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

B radana crouched over the grassy bank and peered at herself in the pool of still water. A blur only, did she appear at first, with the sun behind her shoulder. A brightness of gold and blue, until she shifted and her reflection came into focus.

She did not recognize the woman in the water. Hair tangled, no matter how times she tried to plait it. Face gone thin. Clad in the blue gown meant to be her wedding finery, now ruined. Dirty and torn and mere rags.

Eyes wild, like those of some feral creature glimpsed in the dark.

Moreover, she did not recognize the woman she had become inside. Had she not been strong and sensible, as she grew? Put away from her sentimental things? Now one man ruled her heart and the need for him ruled her world.

Rarely was Adair MacMurtray out of her sight. Even now while she washed, she could hear him moving around behind her, loading their few possessions onto the ponies.

She knew what she would see if she rose and turned. Adair, tall and slim, for he too had dropped weight. With her fingers, she could count his ribs. His hair, also tangled, hung down in a rich brown mane.

She knew the look that would be in his eyes if he turned to her, gray eyes speckled with green, that held everything, everything she needed.

There was no more to be had than him. No greater joy than being in his company. No higher pleasure than being in his arms. She did not understand quite the nature of this love that united them, though, aye, she had her suspicions.

She rose and turned.

He stood beside his pony but watched her, his eyes drawn to her just as hers went always to him, and aye, everything else fell away from her, even though they were mired in trouble.

Should she tell him they were lost? That ever since they’d changed direction back at the native settlement, she’d been turned round in her head, following the sun and supposed signs? Everything from a rogue ray of sunlight making a path to the flight of a bird.

She had no notion of where she was, save with him.

“Look at me,” she said ruefully. “This gown was once quite grand. No fit attire in which to travel.”

“I am looking. I cannot imagine a bonnier sight.”

“Ye fool,” she chided, but the tears rose hard into her throat. So emotional was she these days, who had ever held her feelings in strict abeyance.

He grinned at her, that wide, beautiful smile that never failed to touch her heart. “A mad fool, ’tis what I am.”

She went to him, there where he stood, and looked into his face. Aye, she knew it so well now. Each separate freckle. The way the hairs—redder than those on his head or, indeed, on his body—curled upon his cheeks. “I ha’ a confession to make.”

“Aye, so. Go on.”

“I do no’ ken where we are. Where, in all of blessed Alba.”

“Ye think I did not know that?”

“Did ye?”

“For days I have known.”

“Aye so, but ye placed yoursel’ in my hands, and I ha’ misled ye.”

He put out his arms and tugged her up against him.

“I think,” she said, “we have come too far east. And maybe too far north, after. If we turn back now, I am afraid we will cross Mican’s land—the last place we want to be. Yet…”

He lifted a brow. “Yet?”

“Each time I try to turn south, our way is blocked by a loch or a glen. By the land itself. ’Tis as if—”

“Alba is directing us?”

“Aye,” she agreed, relieved that he too had felt it. “Yet we canna keep on this way. You are hungry. We all are. Wen is down to fur and bones.”

They both looked at the hound, who did not appear bothered by his condition.

“What’s to do?” she said. She might wish to go on so forever, just existing with him, but they would run out of strength, and soon.

Adair glanced around as if seeking to read the land. They had spent that night in the shelter of a pile of stones on a broad stretch of moor, where lay the pool. It appeared to go on into a limitless vista of green turf and blue hills, in all directions.

He said, “The sun is far north this time o’ year. If we wish to start doubling back southward, we must set our backs to it.”

“I am afraid, as I say, to head south. I think we must be northeast of Mican’s lands. What if we stumble upon him? Or upon a native settlement. The blue men are everywhere.” Indeed, they had seen what they took to be hunting parties in the distance.

“Bradana, my love”—he gazed into her eyes—“ye must believe. Alba has so far protected us.”

“Aye, so, but she is wild and capricious. What may she show us next?”

They found out later that afternoon. They had turned to the west—what Bradana took for west—reasoning that if they could reach the sea, or sight of it, they could get their bearings. Yet the land seemed to go on forever, rising and falling beneath the ponies’ hooves, and when clouds gathered, Bradana could no longer see the sun.

It was as if Alba now hid her face and her signs. As if she opposed the change they had made.

Late in the afternoon, it began to rain. They’d had rain before, to be sure. A land of rain was this, brief squalls quickly flown, before the sun flitted through the clouds. Now, trapped on the broad stretch of moorland, they had nowhere to hide as it came in sheets, driving down through hair and fur and clothing.

Somewhere amid the deluge, before nightfall, they got turned around. By the time they stopped in a copse of young hazel trees above a nameless loch, Bradana could not tell north from south, east from west.

Hungry and soaked to the skin, the three of them sat in a huddle beneath the trees, Adair with his arms around Bradana and Wen across her feet. Protecting her, the both of them were, as best they might.

She wanted to weep. There, with the wet coming down, Adair would not be able to tell that she gave way to her misery and despair, but she would not. She would not because she needed to be strong for him.

She’d been placed in the position of leading him from harm. Yet she was fumbling and failing. That terrified her more than anything.

The storm blew through sometime during the night, but it left a chasing wind behind. Soaking wet, they sat and shivered and got no sleep even after the rain ceased.

When they rose, the world lay cloaked in mist. So thick was it, they could see no more than a few steps in any direction. When Wen moved off, a gray shadow in a dim landscape, Bradana feared she would lose him. He returned to them, but without any game.

Despair touched Bradana’s heart. Indeed, Alba showed them her hard and merciless side. What were they to do?

“We cannot travel far in this,” Adair said, answering the question she had not asked. “Let us scout around to find a better place to lie over till it clears.”

They did, though it seemed like stumbling through the dark. Shapes of rocks and hillsides and stunted trees loomed before them. When a much larger shape appeared, Bradana stopped in consternation.

In the gray-misted world, it looked like a monster, hulking and twisted. Malevolent. Reason told her it must be some man-made structure, which she found still more terrifying.

People out here? They must be blue men. Had they stumbled on another settlement?

“Do not go near.” She seized Adair’s hand.

But Wen ran forward, his great tail a plume in motion. And Adair told her gently, “I think ’tis a tower. Half ruined.”

Aye, the blue men built such towers. They must indeed have strayed beyond the bounds of Dalriadan civilization.

“Stay here with the ponies.” And Adair followed Wen.

The moment, the terrible moment when he disappeared from her sight, she thought her world wound end. Terror made her disobedient, took her forward to follow him in turn.

The tower was indeed ruined, half fallen and no doubt long abandoned. The top stones had tumbled sideways into the turf, but the side with the doorway still stood.

Even as she came up leading both ponies, Adair emerged from inside.

“I think ’tis safe and will offer some shelter if the rain returns.”

“Is anyone there?”

He shook his head. “Abandoned.”

“Are ye certain?”

“Aye. Let us rest up here until the weather clears, and we can figure our direction.”

Bradana did not feel easy about it. She could not see the land in any direction, and the dark stones of the tower, glistening with wet, lent a feeling of dread.

To be sure, with the top fallen, those who had built it would likely not return. But the doorway looked like the entrance to doom.

Did Alba offer them sanctuary? Or a trap?

She could not tell.