“Och! Can ye move your fingers?”
“Aye.” Saerla did so, and caught her breath against the pain.
“’Tis a blessing, that.”
“I caught a slash from a MacLeod sword.”
The cut was filthy. “I will need to clean this. ’Twill sting more than a bit. Here, sit down.”
They sat facing one another, heads almost touching. Saerla laid her hand on Rhian’s knee with perfect trust.
No one, seeing them so, would ever doubt they were sisters. Both had red hair, wild with curls when it went unbraided, and blue eyes. The MacBeiths bred true. If Saerla’s mane shone a little brighter than her sister’s, it could not be told in the torchlight. Rhian’s profile might be a hint stronger—Moira’s was stronger still. In a curious way, Rhian resembled their mother even as Moira resembled their da. Saerla had always followed her own path.
“Have ye seen Moira?” Rhian asked. “Is she safe? Wounded?”
“I ha’ seen her, aye. Not hurt, so’s I could see. She was speaking wi’ Alasdair, who’s no’ hurt either.”
“That is good.”
Rhian thought again of the MacLeod warrior, out in the dark.
“And Farlan MacLeod?”
Saerla’s gaze came up and met Rhian’s. “Moira says ye can no longer call him that. He’s no’ a MacLeod anymore.”
“Then wha’ am I to call him?” Their enemy? Moira’s husband? But they were not yet wed. Her lover? Because aye, Farlan lodged with Moira and shared her bed. An interloper who would undoubtedly affect the leadership of the clan? Aye, he was that.
Rhian did not dislike the man. There was little enough to dislike in his self. He seemed a steady, patient sort, and he had sacrificed everything for Moira.
But he was—whatever Moira tried to claim—a MacLeod. He’d been Rory MacLeod’s closest friend. And he’d struck the blow that ended her da’s life.
Rhian still was not certain how Moira dealt with that.
“He was there. With Moira,” Saerla said.
“Och.” Rhian half grunted the word. “The MacLeods did no’ kill him, then.”
She had wondered about that. Since he’d been injured when he came to Moira, Farlan had not marched out to fight in the previous battles for their land—not until now.
“Curse MacLeod anyway,” she muttered as she cleaned Saerla’s wound. The old MacLeod chief, Camraith, had held his hand from destroying Clan MacBeith, considered the weaker of the two clans. But like her own da, Camraith was now in his grave, and his son, Rory, had sworn to claim all of Glen Bronach for the MacLeods.
By all accounts, Rory MacLeod was a most determined man. But he’d lost his closest friend, Farlan, to his enemies. Tolove.
“I am surprised yon Rory MacLeod did no’ take the opportunity to murder Farlan there on the field, out o’ revenge.”
“Mayhap they did no’ encounter one another. I ken Moira was worried about it.” Saerla met Rhian’s gaze again. “I ken fine folks are no’ yet certain about Farlan. Perhaps even ye ha’ doubts.”
Rhian bit her lip and chose her words carefully. “I sympathize wi’ Moira. And I can see she truly loves Farlan.” An unusual enough circumstance when it came to Rhian’s serious, focused sister. Moira rarely lost her head. And she lived to defend the clan.
Until now.
“And,” she went on, even less steadily as she tied the bandage on Saerla’s hand, “I ken fine that hate is a poison which will do none o’ us any good.” She raised her gaze to Saerla’s face. “Those I treat who keep a sunny, hopeful mien tend to heal faster and more surely. ’Tis no’ imagining, that, but something I ha’ witnessed.”
Saerla nodded.
“At the same time—” Rhian broke off.
“He is the man who killed Da,” Saerla finished for her. “Aye, I ken.”
