Chapter One
Dalriada, Scotland, the fifth century AD
Adair MacMurtray partedreluctantly from his friends when his father’s message found him. A fine day it was at the very beginning of summer, and the group of them—some warriors newly released from the training field, a number of musicians, and a flock of lovely young women—had been enjoying far too fine a time. Young Forba, she with the red hair and the wide brown eyes, had been instructing Adair on the harp. That took him wondrously close to her and offered an apt opportunity to steal a kiss.
But Father had sent the most disagreeable of his advisors, Donnar, who bent such a look of stern disapproval on Adair that he could do naught but make his apologies and go.
They hurried at a fearful pace down the skirt of the hill where the scent of wild thyme danced in the air like the notes of Forba’s harp, where the larks circled as if to catch the laughter from below, and the water of the stream sparkled like a band of beaten silver. Adair began to wonder, not without trepidation, what his father wanted, and a hint of foreboding bit at the pleasure that filled him. He had not much time to contemplate it, though, for Donnar led him through the settlement to the big, dusky roundhouse where his father, as chief of the clan, resided with his wife—Adair’s stepmother—his three sons, and his two young daughters.
After the bright sunlight outside, the darkness of the interior made him blink. Carved pillars soared to a lofty roof and the stones underfoot were worn smooth by the passage of many feet. Adair’s people had held this land for countless generations. As his father never ceased with reminding him, they were descended from one of the greatest warriors Erin had ever known, and thus entitled to their place.
They were, so, meant to achieve great things. And they had a duty to the land that superseded anything so paltry as personal desires or intentions.
Adair had a love for the land deep and wide as the sky over the brae, rooted like the oaks from which these pillars had been stolen. A truth he often thought Father failed to see.
“Ah, Adair. There ye be.”
Gawen MacMurtray was a big man, broad in the chest and brimming with life. In his younger days he’d been a fine warrior, and still took the field from time to time if the need came about. Adair could remember his going out often when he and his brothers were still young, all dressed for battle and wearing the torc that denoted his status as a high chief.
Mother would plait his wild red hair ahead of time—because this had been before she died in childbed. And Adair’s two older brothers had looked on in sheer longing, because they too wanted to go out and fight.
Adair acknowledged now, approaching his father, who sat in his great chair with but two of his advisors in attendance, that something had changed after Mother died. A measure of Father’s laughter had deserted him, though he still led with strength. He’d taken a second wife, far too soon to Adair’s thinking, but he’d never regained the joy he’d once carried within him.
“Father,” Adair said, coming to a halt in front of his sire.
Gawen shot an exasperated glare at his man, Donnar. “It did take ye long enough to find him.”
“He was up the mountain, my chief. With his friends.”
The look Adair’s father turned upon him was unmistakably disapproving. “Again? Is it all ye do, son? Play in the heather?”
“Nay, Father.” Adair shifted on his feet. “I spent all morning on the training field, and part o’ the afternoon. ’Tis a grand day, though, and—”
Gawen snorted. “Most o’ your days are grand, or so it seems. No matter. I have not the time to chastise ye now. Come sit down. We have serious matters to discuss.”
Adair glanced at the two advisors—three now, with Donnar there—before taking a place on the rug at his father’s feet. Old Fergal, who had been alive so long he carried the very history of the clan in his head. And Anlon, who advised Father on matters of war.
Ah, Adair did not like the frowns on either of their faces. Serious business indeed.
Father said without further fanfare, “Your brother has returned.”
“Aye, so.” Adair had seen him, his brother Daerg, that was the middle of Gawen’s three sons. He had been away for some three months, having left home at the very end of winter just after the seas calmed enough for him to sail. Off on Father’s implacable mission. “I saw him arrive.” Though Daerg had not paused to speak with him, and Adair had not lingered either.
“Your brother,” Father announced very harshly indeed, “has failed in the task he was set.”
“Has he?” Adair raised a brow. Surprising indeed, for Daerg rarely failed at any assignment, especially one set by his father.
Gawen nodded. He looked like a man who had a bee stuck in his mouth, and Adair realized he struggled with his disappointment, or perhaps the desire to curse.
“That makes two o’ them.” Perhaps unwise for Adair to say so. Indeed, surprise made him speak. Both his older brothers had Father sent in turn to Dalriada, the land over the water in Alba, to try to claim the share of territory there he believed he was owed.
First his oldest son, Baen, last autumn. Baen had been gone so long that they had all believed he’d been successful and stayed to settle the portion of lands that had been promised to Gawen long ago.
But Baen had returned upon the icy blasts of early winter with tales to tell, and defeat in his eyes. Kendrick MacCaigh, the chief holding the lands in Dalriada and brother to Adair’s own dead mother, had refused to keep the agreement he’d made with Father long ago, and surrender the promised lands.
So Daerg had been sent. Daerg, with his hair as red as Father’s, his staid and sonorous sense of duty, and his somewhat dogged nature. Only to return also, so it seemed, in ignoble defeat.
“Ah, I am sorry,” Adair said. The claiming of the Dalriadan lands meant a great deal to Father. “This must be a sore disappointment.”
