Page 7 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

H e ate as if he were half starved, did Adair MacMurtray, and listened to their breakfast conversation as if they were all mad. And Bradana supposed they were. At the very least, they had their moments of madness.

He had beautiful manners, despite how eager he was for their food. And she liked his voice, somehow softer than these others in her ears, as if it carried a hint of Erin’s mist.

She liked everything about him, which terrified her a little. All too often, she tended to focus on the flaws inherent in the men she met. Not that she met many, other than Earrach and his crew from their holding farther north.

The man she was set to wed, even though she did not want to.

She dismissed that from her mind as an unwelcome future event—akin to death—and returned to watching Adair without being obvious about it. Her mam, who was quite observant, might notice.

But she watched his hands, broad-palmed, long-fingered hands, as he ate, as he stroked the fur of Wen, who had once more deserted her for his side. She watched the light come and go in his face as he spoke. In his eyes. The way the smile hovered there from time to time.

She said little, not wanting to draw attention to herself—even though, in some curious and unprecedented way, she wanted all this man’s attention upon her. He did glance at her frequently, and when he did, an intent look came to those gray-green eyes.

He was nothing like his two brothers, no. The first, Baen, had been all Erin dignity and behaved, as Toren so rightly put it, as if he had a stick up his arse. The other, Daerg, had been a sad sort of specimen who could barely put two words together.

Adair spoke readily but not effusively. He listened to what was said with apparent interest. He fairly oozed charm.

Clearly, he was quite dangerous. Apparently, Kendrick’s former wife’s brother, in Erin, had saved his best weapon for last.

Not that Kendrick would ever surrender the merest shred of the lands he’d won here in Alba. Aye, Bradana knew how the story went. After listening to Baen and Daerg, she should.

Long ago, Gawen of Erin had funded the bid of his wife’s brother, Kendrick, to establish a settlement here in Alba, the agreement being he should have a share of what was claimed.

Gawen called in the debt now for the sake of the second son, Daerg, who would not inherit the settlement back in Erin.

And what of this son? What would he do with himself?

She stared down at her breakfast in order to keep from gazing at Adair. She was no green girl to fall victim to a giddy attraction. She knew very well it took far more than a smile or the turn of a head to make a good union.

Had she not watched her mother and Kendrick all these years? Wildly attracted to each other, they were. It did not keep them from battling constantly.

She selected a tidbit from her bowl and held it out to Wen, luring him back to her, then listened as Adair slowly won the room.

His brothers had failed to do that, and Baen had stayed with them a long time. But now, telling amusing stories, Adair had Kendrick listening to him, and even Toren gave a surprised laugh a time or two, though Kerr just continued to glower darkly.

At the end of the meal, Adair looked Kendrick in the eye and said with great sincerity, “Uncle, I would like the chance to speak with ye at length.”

“To plead your case, eh?” Kendrick returned, but without rancor.

“Not my case,” Adair replied, “for I have naught to gain.”

Kendrick gazed at him thoughtfully. “Mayhap anon. Today, Kerr and Toren are going hunting. Ye would by chance like to go wi’ them and see more o’ Dalriada?”

Did a shiver touch Adair’s frame? If so, it was swiftly gone as he smiled. “I would like that full well.”

Like it he would not. Bradana knew her stepbrothers, and Adair would have a rough time, if they had aught to say about it.

*

Kendrick’s two young bucks, Toren and Kerr, took Adair in hand directly after they finished breakfast. As alike as two pups from the same litter, they were, so much so they might have been twins. Indeed, casual conversation, engaged when they started off on the backs of three stout ponies, indicated they were not, though they’d been born less than a year apart.

Both had broad foreheads like their father and rather sharp chins. Heavy eyelids over eyes that could stare dangerously.

Indeed, Adair, who had something of a knack for sensing what lay inside those he met, could feel their hostility lurking behind the occasional smile they offered him. They did not necessarily mean him well, and he wondered if he erred in going off alone with them into the heart of Alba.

The wild, dark heart.

He thought about asking one of his own men to accompany him. But they had been given berths down near the shore and he sensed a kind of challenge in the invitation Kendrick’s sons issued him. One to which he needed to rise.

They wished to see of what their Erin cousin was made, did they? He would show them.

The pony he’d been provided was a sturdy one and the day fine. Toren, who seemed to be the brother who did most of the talking for the pair, asked him if he was good with a bow.

“Tolerably so,” Adair returned. “What are ye after this day?”

“Meat for the table. Whatever we find.”

The land rose in a steep slope up and away from the sea. Adair turned his head to look back several times, thinking how small and perilous the settlement appeared, perched there at the very edge of the water. When they entered the trees, he could no longer look back.

A dark and heavy sort of wood it was, one in which Adair could not see an end ahead. No trail or path ran here. Toren, who rode first, seemed to choose his way at random. Kerr followed Adair in silence. Adair could feel the man’s glare between his shoulder blades.

What if they take me out here and kill me? Send word after back to Erin saying I suffered some accident. Father would never know different.

To break the silence and chase off such dark thoughts, he asked, “How much territory does my uncle hold here?”

“He has managed— we ha’ managed—to carve out a fair swath. Shall we take ye to the farthest reaches so ye can see all?” Toren asked over his shoulder.

And leave me there, no doubt , Adair thought.

He knew the woods and the hills back home, had run them all his life and hunted there often. Just thinking on that, he felt a tug of longing for the land he loved so well. Nothing like this place where the wood made night of the broad day, shutting out the sun.

Father could scarce have done anything crueler than sending him here.

“Ye ha’ other neighbors who came from Erin?”

“Aye. MacDonough to the south o’ us and MacGillean to the north. Bradana is set to wed wi’ Mican MacGillean’s son.”

“Is she?” A new spear of feeling pierced Adair’s chest.

“Aye, to make firm our alliance wi’ them. That will keep us stronger, see. We have had to fight for this place against the tribes that were here—Alban tribes—when Da arrived. Mayhap your father back in Erin does no’ understand that.”

Perhaps he did not. Adair could not be certain what Father imagined when he pictured Alba. Not this.

He began to think Toren led them in deliberate circles. Not much time had passed before he knew himself hopelessly lost. The land climbed gradually and then it did not. He could no longer hear or see the ocean, only the birds that sang.

Abruptly, they emerged into an open space where sunlight slanted down so brightly that it made Adair blink.

“There,” Toren said.

A small herd of deer grazed on the far side of the clearing. They raised their heads at the appearance of the men and ponies but did not flee.

“Would ye like the honor?” Toren asked, and passed Adair his bow. A single arrow.

Another test, was it? And not a difficult one. Accepting the weapon, Adair dismounted from his pony and blinked again to clear his vision. Nocked the arrow and raised the bow.

A sudden flurry. A flicker of light and darkness as if a cloud had passed over the glade. The deer scattered without seeming intent, as if they dispersed by magic. Suddenly gone.

As were Adair’s two companions.

Gone.

He breathed out a puff of air. He should have known. Kendrick’s two sons had not brought him out here to hunt but to be rid of him. Whether with Kendrick’s knowledge or not, he could not say.

He stood still and listened.

He should be able to hear them. Passage through so thick a wood would not be silent. Only, he could hear nothing.

Even the birds had stopped singing.

Another shiver, brother to the one he’d felt when this jaunt was suggested at breakfast, quivered through him. He could not hear the deer moving away or the men and ponies.

It did indeed reek of magic.

“Where are your fellows?” he asked the pony. It should know how to find them. It would most likely know the way home.

Its ears twitched, but it gave no other sign of being willing to help him. A fine joke, this, on the part of Kendrick’s sons. Fine at least here in daylight. But once the dark came down, he would be stranded here in country he did not know. With only the knife he always wore, a bow, and a single arrow for defense.

He could wander for days without finding his way.

He swore long and bitterly, and the pony’s ears twitched again.

The trees did not allow him to search for a horizon. If he might get a glimpse of the sea, he would have his direction. Or if he might follow the slope of the land down.

But they had climbed and descended several times.

Aye, he should have known what they were about.

He stepped away from the pony and slowly, methodically, searched for signs. Plenty of deer scat here. It must be a favorite place for the beasts to graze. Not so much as a single hoofprint from his companions’ ponies.

He’d need to climb a tree for a glimpse of the sea. Tall pines surrounded him, dark and silent. In fact, it felt as if they watched him.

Something watched him.

Did Kerr and Toren lurk nearby, hidden, to see what he would do? Was that why he hadn’t heard them moving off?

Would they call an end to the prank, or did they indeed intend to lose him out here, and leave him to die?

An ill fate for one who had never wanted to come here in the first place.

He selected a tree and began to climb.