Be content, he told himself. Yet contentment refused to come.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Gawen summoned thethree of his sons, Baen, Daerg, and Adair, one bright summer morning.
Adair had been headed for training with his weapons already in hand. Bradana, with Wen at her side, meant to spend the day with Caomhán, the harper.
And a glorious day it promised to be, sparkling with early dew and soft with fragrant air from the hills. Adair and Bradana were in the midst of parting at their door when a lad brought the message and darted off again.
“I wonder what he wants.” Bradana shifted her harp in her hands, looking uneasy. “I ha’ a bad feeling, all at once.”
“Do not borrow trouble,” he bade her, but uneasiness stirred in his own heart. He leaned forward and kissed her. “I shall see ye anon.”
“Aye.” But worry still filled her eyes when they parted.
He met Daerg on the way to the hall. His brother, since returning from Alba, had taken to spending much time with the priests and had become, if possible, more retiring than before. They could scarcely be more different, Adair reflected as they walked side by side. Baen, so grave and full of duty. Daerg, tentative and restrained. And he—who was he now? Beyond Bradana’s lover, he scarcely knew.
He raised his eyebrows at Daerg. “Why d’ye think we ha’ been called hence?”
“I dread to think.”
Baen was there ahead of them standing with Father in the dusky early morning hall with only servants flitting about. Father, as Adair could see at once, was in one of his moods, brisk and impatient. He got that way at times, when he would act at any cost.
“Come away in,” he bade his two younger sons. “We have matters to discuss.”
Had they? And did Baen know what this was about? Adair looked at his older brother, but Baen’s expression remained cool and indifferent.
“Sit, sit,” Gawen invited them. “Will ye eat?”
Daerg shook his head.
“I ate at home,” Adair murmured.
Gawen directed a look at the three of them. Adair remembered his doing this all the while they grew, lining them up in a row of the tallest to the smallest and charging them with either some task or some misdeed.
His stomach tightened.
“We must contemplate the future. Last autumn I determined to do just that, and yet my plans have come to naught. Baen, I sent ye to Alba to make a claim upon our lands there. Ye came back empty-handed.”
Baen gave no reaction. He stood with his arms crossed upon his chest, the very picture of a stoic.
“And ye.” Gawen switched his gaze to Daerg. “I sent to secure your own lands—those that would not only expand our holdings but make o’ ye an Alban chief in your own right. Ye failed.”
Daerg flushed but said nothing in his own defense.
“And ye.” Gawen turned to Adair. “Ye, with the supposedly golden tongue, did worst o’ all, for not only did ye fail to make good on our claim, but ye destroyed relations there and came back with a stolen bride.”
Pure condemnation, and it stung. Adair had hoped he’d made up for that and earned a place for himself while working hard at training. Now he wondered if aught he could do might wipe out the disparagement he saw in his father’s eyes.
Miffed, he began “If I—we—are not welcome here—”
“What?” It was Baen who turned on him. “What will ye do? Leave? Where will ye go? The favorite son,” he half sneered, “disgraced.”
“Silence!” Gawen roared. “The fact remains, Adair, ye have destroyed our alliance in Alba and made it that much harder to stake our claim. That does not mean I will give up. Baen and I have discussed this long.”
Baen and he had? But of course. Baen would one day be chief.
“I will not die without seeing all my sons well provided for.”
