Page 34 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

T he next day they found a patch of wild currants, precious gems of red fruit. It appeared along the side of the hill they crossed, like the answer to a prayer.

The fruit was not at peak ripeness, but they ate all they could and picked the last of the fruits to take with them.

It was a gray day with a lowering, restless sky, promising rain. Wet weather had been their enemy, as they had no shelter, and Adair hoped the clouds would blow on past as they sometimes did. Alba’s weather moods proved changeable as the tides.

Not long after they found the currants, Bradana spotted another plant growing and insisted on stopping again.

“’Tis yarrow,” she told Adair. “Aye, so, the healer back home uses this for wounds and sometimes for fever. I ha’ seen him coming back to the settlement wi’ armloads o’ it. ’Twill be good for your wound.”

Alba was providing, though Adair did not point that out. He let Bradana gather the herb, uneasy at being so long out in the open on the side of the hill. They needed to move on and get beneath the cover of the trees.

No sooner had the thought come to him than a great flock of birds rose up at the near distance, taking flight and flapping directly over their heads. Adair watched them through narrowed eyes, and the urgency prodding at him sharpened.

“’Tis enough. Come,” he told Bradana.

She questioned him with her eyes but did not argue it. Not until they entered the next patch of forest did his anxiety ease, and even then he felt sure they were being followed. He could not put his finger to a sighting or a sound of pursuers, but instinct told him so. Something had caused that flock of birds to rise behind them. A disturbance of the very air.

A warning from Alba?

When Bradana began casting about, locating a place to camp for the night, he protested. “I think we should keep moving.”

“But we are weary. The ponies are weary.”

So they were. Wen had walked a short distance on his own, as had Adair, offering Bradana his place, but they all needed rest.

She seemed to spy something in his expression, and took alarm from it. “Is someone after us?”

“I’ve seen or heard no one. ’Tis but a feeling.”

“Aye.” She drew herself up. “’Tis dangerous traveling at night. There are steep drops, ravines.”

Indeed, he was coming to learn the folds in the skin of this land they crossed. Softly he said, “It may be dangerous to stop.”

She drew herself up and nodded. “Let us pause just long enough for me to clean and pack your wound, and Wen’s. I want ye to have the benefit of the yarrow.”

“Aye, but do it quickly.”

She did, mashing the plants into paste and cleaning the wounds carefully. Adair pretended he could not see her hands shaking as she packed his wound as carefully as the hound’s.

They went on into the soft gloaming when it came. The rain started not long after and lent a darkness the gloaming withheld.

A miserable night, withal. By morning, when the rain decreased to a drizzle, they were all soaked and exhausted.

Bradana edged up to him and asked, “Can ye tell, did we lose them?”

Adair shook his head. The whole world dripped with rain. The raindrops hitting the soft ground sounded like footfalls.

Or maybe there had never been anyone on their tail. He might be mad or fevered. Yet instinct—that which alerted him—persisted.

He looked at the woman he loved. She stood drooping, her wet hair hanging down, her wedding finery past saving. The ponies too stood with their heads drooping, and poor Wen panted his distress. They could not go on this way.

“We canna go on this way,” Bradana said just as if she’d heard his thoughts.

“Nay.” He thought hard on it. “Bradana, love, ’tis me he wants. Mican wishes to spill his ire on me for the death o’ his son. If I turn back, they will likely not pursue ye any farther.”

Her eyes widened. “Turn yoursel’ over to them, ye mean? Nay, and nay! This is all my fault and my doing. If either o’ us should pay—”

“He fell by my sword. ’Tis all Mican knows.”

“Ye canna ask me to abandon ye. To let ye gi’ yoursel’ over to his hounds. I might as well put a dagger through my own heart.”

“Love, ye need rest. And food.”

“As do ye!”

“If they stop pursuing ye, ye and Wen can make your way home slowly. He is doing much better. Wi’ the pony—”

“I will no’ hear it!” Her eyes blazed. “I would far sooner starve here wi’ ye than leave ye behind.”

“ Alanna , ye are already starved.”

“I do no’ care. I do no’.”

She threw herself into his arms and clutched him as hard as she could. She did not weep now. Her distress went way beyond mere tears.

“I will no’ leave go o’ ye. Adair MacMurtray. If he takes the one o’ us, he takes the both. I did no’ wait the whole o’ my life for ye, just to part from ye again.”

“Bra—”

“We do no’ even know for certain we are being followed.”

Only he did, as if Alba whispered it into his ear.

“Please, Adair. Let us keep moving. We will go slowly to ease the ponies. We will all walk for a time. Here among the trees, we canna be seen.”

He nodded though he was not happy with it. The sun broke through the clouds as they went, showing them that they still traveled roughly north. The cover of the trees, though, did not last long. Even as the sun broke through, they stepped out into a stretch of open hillside where Bradana stopped dead.

She gazed about, letting her eyes absorb what lay before her.

Below them lay a small glen, a narrow river running along it like a thread of living silver through the green. Hills huddled close, including the one upon whose shoulder they stood. Beyond was…

The sea.

They had found it at last.

Adair drew a breath, flavored with salt. The narrow river ran to empty itself into the great, gray, heaving expanse of the ocean. Beyond he could see a scattering of islands looking like sleeping dragons, half submerged in the water. Beyond there—home?

Bradana too caught her breath. “I know this place.”

“What?” That made Adair stare.

She turned a wondering smile on him, one the likes of which he had not seen for days uncounted. “I believe this is my grandsire’s land.”

“Your grandsire?”

“Aye, so. My mother’s father, as I told ye. She was born here, and I knew this place as a wee girl. We used to climb up here when we went exploring. Adair, we are no longer on Mican’s lands.”

Robbed of all words, Adair said nothing.

“My grandsire—his name is Rohracht MacFee—holds lands north from Mican’s. I wondered—I did wonder if we might reach him, though I did not know the way. It seems Alba has led us.”

“Will we be welcome here?”

“My grandsire has not seen me in a long while, but aye, I will be welcome.”

For an instant, Adair went dizzy with relief. Food. Rest. A chance to heal.

And then mayhap a boat might be had to take him and Bradana home.

“The dun lies down there.” She pointed. “Ye canna see it for the shoulder o’ the brae, but it is no’ far. Och, Adair”—her eyes swam with tears—“ye were right. We needed only have faith in Alba after all.”