Page 56 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

A dair still lived and breathed when Bradana returned to him, a fact of which she swiftly assured herself by touching his face and placing her hand over his heart. She took up her vigil again with no intention of moving.

For the balance of that day, so it went. The healer made appearances, as did Grandfather. Had Bradana any notice to spare, she would have marked how ill her grandsire looked.

No one tried to call her away again. A pot was brought for her use and food offered. Their belongings arrived.

At the healer’s suggestion, they tried tipping ale into Adair’s mouth, but it just ran off his lips. He did not swallow.

That night, Bradana again slept with her lover, unmoving, in her arms. She lay so she could feel his breath come against her cheek, and she prayed to the very ground beneath them.

Sustain him.

How much time passed so, she could not rightly say. Nothing existed beyond the small chamber with its smoke-tainted air and its quiet occupants.

Just as she did not measure the time, she never later knew what made her take up her harp. That terrible quiet, perhaps, or the memory of how Adair had loved to lie—much as he did now—listening to her music.

She played for him, only for him. The tunes he loved best. Those he so often requested. Most of all, over and over again, she played the tune she’d made for him, her fingers fumbling over the stings before taking flight.

It was love that loosed the notes into the room. They wove a balm that served, at least, to soothe her own heart.

For days uncounted she played, never ceasing.

*

Adair floated in perfect ease, wanting for nothing, when the first notes reached him. He seemed to be sprawled on his back in the bottom of a tiny boat upon the sea. A blue sky above him. Naught but water all around.

He wondered if he dreamed. If he had somehow come to be floating here halfway between Erin and Alba. Banished, mayhap. Or perhaps he was caught between the past and the future. Between worlds.

Curious, though, that he should be alone. Someone was meant to be with him.

And then the music came stealing, separate, delicate notes that quivered through the quiet air and set it alight. Strangely, he could see the notes. Silver they were, and so beautiful that he had no words for them. They shivered and gleamed with their own sounds, captured and beguiled him.

They formed themselves into tunes.

One particular song surrounded him over and over again. A bright and complicated series of notes, it wrapped about him, flowed through his veins, and strengthened his heartbeat.

It called to him.

Why did he let himself drift so, between Erin and Alba? There was but one place he needed to be.

He sat up in the boat, which rocked perilously. He found oars near his feet, which he was quite sure had not been there before.

He took them up and began to row.

A hard pull it proved to be, for now the sea became wild. But he followed the music, followed the trail of silver notes until he saw the dark land up ahead of him.

Land of magic. Land of promises. Land of his heart.

Not till his boat grounded on the shore of the shingle did he stop rowing. He had reached the place where he was meant to be. An exile no more.

He opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was Bradana in profile, with her harp on her knee. Beautiful, she looked, with her hair hanging down all amber-golden and her hands moving on the strings with unearthly grace.

He did not want to interrupt her, to make her cease the glorious song, so he lay quietly until the great hound, lying beside her, raised his head and whined.

Bradana ceased playing, the notes continuing to quiver through the air of the room like living, sacred things. She looked at him.

“Bradana?”

He did not see her move or lay aside the harp. She was just there of a sudden, kneeling beside him, touching his face, his chest, his hands and weeping. Weeping.

Mayhap this was a dream. But nay, for then she kissed him, and he could feel the life in her and taste her tears.

“Why d’ye weep?” he asked when her mouth left his.

“Because ye were far, far from me.”

“Did I no’ tell ye I would find ye? I will always find ye again.”

*

In MacMurtray’s hall, the tale pauses upon a bright shimmer of harp notes. Finlay the bard smiles, knowing that he holds his audience spellbound. His eyes sparkle just like the notes he gives them, with knowing, and memory.

His dancing, skillful fingers leap and accompany the rest of his words, releasing cascades of sound, his voice like singing.

“Adair MacMurtray recovered steadily after that day, and ’twas as well that he did, for though the settlement also recovered, Rohracht MacFee did not, and soon enough lost his far more personal battle wi’ the sickness that possessed him.

“On his deathbed”—a further shower of notes—“he again told his granddaughter’s husband, who had once been only a third son, that he wanted him to have all his lands. And”—Finlay’s green eyes gleam—“is that no’ how our good host, Chief Anders MacMurtray, comes to hold these lands even today?”

The chief smiles with pride and pleasure. Finlay’s gaze seeks out but one of his listeners. Is it to her he speaks?

“We come and go from one another. Time after time, and life after life. The dreams that fall between the lifetimes may beguile our eyes and keep us from knowing one another. But”—a still brighter cascade of notes—“a vow is a vow. A promise remains a promise, like that the blessed land of Alba gave to a one-time exile when she took him to her heart.

“He is here still.”

The End