“Ye maun come and speak for her,” Saerla urged. “Else the place o’ chief will slip through her fingers.”
Rhian sighed. “Mayhap it should.”
Saerla looked shocked. “How can ye say so? Wha’ would Da say if that happened? This has been the chief’s house for generations.”
“Sister, I am tired o’ fighting. Let the council bestow the place o’ chief where they may. Let them gi’ it to Alasdair. Wha’ever will unite us.”
“I, too, am tired o’ fighting. God knows. But I canna quit. Rhian, when I look ahead, I See visions o’ a resolution. O’ peace, aye, here in the glen. But there are many battles still before us e’er we reach that place. Many dangers.”
“Saerla, I canna.”
“Ye be weary to the heart, aye. We are all so. But we canna surrender this fight.”
“Tell that to Moira,” Rhian snapped, waspishly for her. “She insists on lying down wi’ a MacLeod though she surely knows the harm it maun do.”
Saerla lifted her chin. “Da does no’ blame her for it. He has told me so.”
“Och! Da is no’ here, is he, to wade through this morass o’ trouble.”
“He is. They all are, our ancestors. Ye merely canna see them.”
Sudden love for her young, fey sister wrang Rhian’s heart. Her anger died away, leaving her twice as tired. “Wha’ can I say, Saerla, that will change the council’s minds?”
“Just speak for her. Say what is in your heart.”
Rhian no longerknewwhat was in her heart. “Let me change into some clean clothing, and I will come.”
“Hurry. They are in the great hall. They beset Moira and Farlan like a pack o’ hounds.”
Moira and Farlan? Was he with her? Could their elder sister not see that there lay the trouble?
Rhian hurried off to her chamber with a knot of bitterness in her gut. She loved Moira, indeed she did. And she believed in what Saerla tended to calltrue love. More or less. Her ma and her da had loved each other that way. But they’d never had to weigh it against their loyalty to the clan.
She had sympathy for Moira, aye. She also had sympathy for the members of the council and for Alasdair, who she knew full well had long harbored feelings for Moira.
Why could Moira not have wanted to wed Alasdair? It would have made things so simple. They could have led the clan together, and not one voice raised against it.
Instead, Moira had to choose a man with MacLeod blood in his veins. Even if Farlan’s chief, Rory MacLeod, had cast him off, that blood remained.
And would besmirch any children they had together.
Her thoughts flicked again to the man lying in the cowshed. Och, aye, she understood the temptation. Only a fool of a woman, though, would give in to it.
She scrubbed the last of the blood from her hands and from beneath her fingernails, donned fresh clothing, and went out. She heard those gathered in the great hall before she reached the door. Shouting. Tempers were high.
She could not imagine where they got the energy.
The first person she saw when she passed through the door was Moira, front and center. And aye, the others did gather around her like a pack of hounds. Snapping.
She had to hand it to Moira for courage. Moira had fought in the battle just past and must be every bit as tired as Rhian. Yet she stood strong, head up, still clad in her battle leathers.
Da would be so proud of her. That thought pierced the last of Rhian’s anger, and softened her when she went in.
She took in the others who made up the party. Alasdair, of course, standing nearly a head above everyone else save Farlan, who was a tall man. Alasdair too still wore his battle armor, and a goodly measure of blood. He should have come to her for tending, she thought, though was unsurprised he had not.
The council was made up of a mix of men who had been on the field and those too aged for that duty. All had been close to Da, and he’d heard advice from them. But then, Da had been willing to listen kindly and patiently to everyone who came to him.
Saerla stood to one side, trouble in her face. Poor Saerla picked up the emotions of others quite easily. This turmoil must cause her great anxiety.
