Page 55 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

A section of the dun still smoldered, making it dark inside, and a terrible reek of burning filled the hall.

They did not carry Adair there but to the other side, where lay Grandfather’s quarters.

Someone took Bradana’s arm. She jerked in surprise.

“Morag?”

“My dear, wha’ are ye doing here? We thought ye safe awa’.”

“We came back.” She had no other words. Those said it all, did they not?

“He turned the battle, yer young man. Everyone saw.”

“Grandfather?”

“He saw, aye.”

“He is alive?”

“We had to drag him fro’ the battle.”

Suddenly, Grandfather was there, tottering on his own feet, ushering them in out of the gloom. It did not seem real. But none of this could be real, the flames, the presence of those she knew. Adair, bleeding so.

So much blood.

Maybe she was still back in Erin, dreaming it all.

They laid him down upon a pallet and suddenly the healer was there, the same who had treated them before.

Bradana looked into the man’s face, which appeared so terribly grave that she had to look away again.

At the man she loved.

Someone put his arm around her. Grandfather, it was.

“Lass, come awa’.”

“Nay.”

“Let the healer do his work.”

“I canna lose him. If I do—”

“Let her stay,” the healer said, and his eyes said still more. It will not be long.

With a sob, she fell down beside the pallet and took Adair’s hand, scraped raw and red with blood. She drew it to her lips.

“Please, my love. Please.”

Morag wept. Wen hunkered down beside Bradana as close as he could get and whined.

Bradana’s heart wept.

Adair lay like one already gone from her, that look of almost holy ease on his face. She could not wish him back to pain. She should not.

She did.

“Please,” she beseeched him again, and dropped a kiss into the palm of his hand, leaned forward and kissed both corners of his mouth, his blood-splashed cheeks.

His forehead.

He did not stir.

*

The healer treated Adair’s wound. Not the one on the side of his face or the others, nearly innumerable, that marked his arms, but that most terrible one in his gut that leaked away his life’s blood. He had to do it while Bradana still clutched Adair’s hand, for she would not leave go of him.

Morag tried to coax her away, as did her grandfather. Not far, they said. Just a few steps to give the healer room.

The healer said nothing, just worked around her and continued to let her stay, which terrified her more than anything else.

The blood on Adair’s hand had now transferred to her fingers. He felt very cold. She wanted to lie down next to him, once the bandages were in place, and keep him warm the way he had kept her warm so many times—on the trail out from Kendrick’s in Alba’s wilderness. In Erin.

People came and went from the room with hushed voices. Reporting to Grandfather about what went on outside. The aftermath of the battle. Prisoners and defenses and the pursuit of those who had fled.

The words floated around Bradana, but she didn’t truly hear them. Adair continued to lie without moving. Not so much as a flicker touched his face.

Had he already gone from her? But he still breathed, calm and quiet, and the blood seeping through the clean bandages had slowed.

His heart still beat. The heart that belonged to her.

Her grandfather, his face ashen, stooped and hugged her. “Lass, I maun go out. They are asking wha’ to do wi’ Mican’s body.”

“Burn it,” she said bitterly. “It should no’ occupy the same world as Adair.”

“Aye, so.” The old man went, moving, it seemed, by sheer willpower.

Time passed. Bradana could still hear the commotion from outside. The healer changed Adair’s bandages again and had a whispered conversation with Morag, one Bradana could hear.

“I canna believe he is still wi’ us. I did no’ think it would tak’ so long.”

“He is young and strong.” Morag’s voice throbbed with grief.

“Aye, and his heartbeat sound. Mayhap, mistress, ye should convince the lass to tak’ some rest away.”

“She will not go. Not until…”

It dropped into Bradana’s heart, into her mind, what Morag meant. That she would not stir until Adair was gone.

But she could not see a world for her and her child that did not contain him.

Stay wi’ me , she beseeched him silently.

No response showed in the calm face turned toward her.

She wanted to weep. She wanted to wail. She could do nothing but hold on.

“Lass,” Morag said a while later, “come awa’ and tak’ something to eat. The women are cooking. ’Tis near morning. Come get some rest.”

Bradana shook her head. She lay down beside Adair and wrapped an arm around him. She could feel his heart beating against her wrist. Low. Low and steady.

She slept.

She woke an unmeasured amount of time later and remembered it all in one jarring jolt that brought her upright. The man in her arms still felt cold, and at that terrible moment she was sure he had gone, slipped from her while she slept most treacherously, a victim of her own weakness and exhaustion.

But he breathed yet. So did the healer, slumped upright at some distance. And Morag, not far away.

“Adair?” she whispered, but he lay without moving. “My love.”

No response. But he had stayed with her. She tried to be grateful.

When Morag awoke and found Bradana still holding Adair’s hand, she tried once more to persuade her. “Come awa’. Ye will need to relieve yoursel’ at the very least. Tak’ something to eat and drink.”

“Aye.” Bradana turned her head and looked at the woman. “I suppose I must eat, for I am carrying his child.”

“Rohracht’s great-grandchild!” Morag gasped. “All the more reason ye maun tak’ some food. For the wee one’s sake.”

“I am afraid to leave go of him. If I do…”

“For but one moment, lass. Come.”

It took all the strength Bradana possessed to let go of Adair’s hand. To place it on his chest. To step away, her arm laced with Morag’s.

Outside, it was another day. Another time, another world. She relieved herself, which had indeed become urgent. She gazed on the damage to the settlement and wondered how it could ever be put right. She felt Alba beneath her feet.

“When did they come, the attackers?” she asked Morag.

“’Two days before ye returned. Mican had been before, ye ken, demanding Adair should be given over to him. Rohracht turned him away, saying the neither o’ ye were here, but Mican did no’ seem to believe him. Indeed, he must no’ have done. He went awa’ for many days before coming back and making the demand again. During that time, we had a messenger fro’ Kendrick, come by sea. Mican had been there also, mayhap thinking ye had taken refuge wi’ him. He told us your mam had her babe—a wee girl—and though ’twas a hard delivery, they both survived.”

“Och, I am glad,” Bradana breathed. Another daughter to perhaps provide Mam with comfort.

Morag turned her gaze away from Bradana’s face. “When next Mican came, only days ago, as I say, he again demanded the both o’ ye. Rohracht told him ye had sailed off to Erin, but he did not believe it and said he would search the settlement. That was enough to start the fight.

“We should ha’ known better than to think Mican had given up on the idea o’ revenge. Even if he had no’ found ye here, I believe he would still have taken out his ire on us instead.”

Bradana nodded, staring at the portion of food one of Morag’s women had placed in her hands. Not truly seeing it.

She needed to eat if only for the sake of Adair’s child. If she lost that part of him…

She tried to choke down a barley cake. Her stomach heaved.

Morag rubbed her back gently. “Yer man is a hero. Everyone says so. If ye had no’ arrived when ye did, all would be lost.”

And if he died, all would still be lost.

“Ye can be proud o’ that, lass.”

Proud? What good the best of warriors, if dead?

“I need to get back,” she said, and turned to the door. Only to see that Mican’s head had been nailed above it. She gasped. “I asked Grandfather to burn him, mak’ him disappear.”

“And aye, his body will be burned, lass, with the rest o’ the enemy dead.”

With a shudder, Bradana passed beneath the gory trophy.

“Your belongings ha’ been brought up from along the shingle where yer boat lies,” said Morag. “Some clothing and your clàrsach.”

Her harp.

That made her look into Morag’s eyes. “Have it brought, please. Here to me.”