“’Tis yer loyalty holds ye here,” he sneered, unable and unwilling to display the depth of his hurt. “If ye have no’ the honor to uphold that—”
“Ye are no’ an easy man to serve, Rory. Especially since ye sent wee Saerla awa’.”
Do not speak her name. But Rory did not say that. He could not.
“Speak wi’ yer woman,” he growled instead. “Get her permission to fulfill yer vow. We will march out tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Leith looked stricken.
“Aye, why wait? Every day we tarry gives that war chief o’ theirs time to grow stronger.”
“Can ye muster the men so quickly?”
“Aye, so. They ha’ been ready for days. If they are no’ prepared to fight after these last days spent drilling, they will never be.”
And he, Rory thought, marched to battle and possible death—for that was always and always a possibility—without an heir. Only the lad that Rhian supposedly carried. Or did he? Could it be, after all, that Saerla did carry his bairn?
He had not meant to give her a child. But there had been times—she had claimed him, milked him so he had given his all.
He might be waging war on his own son. For an instant, terror gripped him, so bright it seared his senses. He wanted to protect Saerla, and any child—lad or lass—she might carry.
Och, he was sworn to ruin, and there was no way out.
*
“My dear one,I was hoping for a word wi’ ye.”
Saerla turned her head when the kind words sounded behind her. She and Farlan had come down from the rise earlier, she trailing a measure of magic. Being there had partially restored her. And now she sat out front of the stronghold in the quiet, watching the gloaming come down. Wondering…
What if this were the last peaceful gloaming she would ever know?
Why she should feel that, she could not say. She had received several messages while up among the stones. None said she would die.
In truth, most had concerned life. Aye, Moira and Alasdair’s lives still hung in the balance. But it seemed love could save them.
She smiled at Fiona, who approached her across the green turf. Fiona had been Da’s lover at the time of his death, a big, rawboned woman so different from Ma, it was almost ludicrous.
Perhaps Da, knowing he could not have Ma again, had merely accepted love where he found it.
As had she.
“I feel much better, Fiona.”
“Good, that. Yer sister was gey worried about ye. As was I.” Fiona perched beside Saerla on the rock where she sat. “Poor Moira was half frantic when that beast held ye in his hands.”
Saerla’s body twitched.
“She wanted to march out and wage battle to win ye back. Alasdair was all behind it, though he was no’ fit to fight. Far from it. Farlan tried to discourage Moira, and the council came down on him for a traitor.”
“Farlan is no traitor.”
“Is he no’?”
Saerla shook her head. “I ha’ scarcely known a truer heart.”
“Aye, well, then yer letter came. Fair forbidding Moira to attack. Lass, why did ye send that? We feared ye were being bullied into it. Were ye?”
Saerla hesitated. Fiona was the last person in whom she should confide. The woman, God love her, was constitutionally incapable of keeping a secret.
