Adair ordered his thoughts rapidly. “Ye will agree that when ye were both young men in Erin, when ye had just married my father’s sister, he did gi’ ye the means to come here and strake a holding in this new land.”
“He did so.” Kendrick spoke thoughtfully. “I was a second son, see, and would no’ inherit there in Erin. Your da and I were friends. ’Tis how he met your mother, my sister, through our friendship.
“Others were after talking about sailing to claim lands here in Alba. How the land just sat for the taking. They did no’ say,” he added weightily, “we would have to battle for every length we got or that it would be won from the tribes living here in blood.”
“Still and all, Father had a share in it. ’Twas your agreement.”
Kendrick’s eyes flashed. “He gifted me a few boats, aye, and supplied the venture. Funded some weapons. He shed none o’ the blood.”
“Yet the agreement—”
“Lad, listen to me. I ha’ explained all of this to your brothers before ye, and I do no’ understand why Gawen has sent ye in turn, that I maun explain it all again.
“What aid your father gave me was long ago, and I do consider he gave it in both kinship and friendship. ’Tis I who have clawed my way to a large holding here, which will grow still larger when my stepdaughter marries the son o’ the chief who holds the lands to our north. This is all my doing. And ’tis meant for my sons.
“I do no’ intend to leave all this to only the elder, which is Toren. My sons will each inherit a big swath of that for which I have fought so hard. They know this full well.”
He hesitated before he asked, “Is it so surprising they should want shed o’ ye?”
Strange emotions swirled through Adair. Indignation on his father’s part. Anger on his own.
“Ye admit it, then—your sons did no’ wish for me to return from yon forest.”
Kendrick shrugged. “The best thing ye can do, as I say, is leave. I wish ye no harm, lad. Ye seem a nice enough boy, which is why I gi’ ye this advice. Ye can sail today, if this accursed mist lifts. But by morning—”
“Nay.”
“Wha’ did ye say to me?”
“Ye ask me to understand your position. I ask ye to understand my father’s in turn. He wants only a measure of land for Daerg, a second son just like ye were. Could you no’ afford that, and your nephew could live here wi’ ye, side by side, an ally and a trusted neighbor.”
Kendrick raised a brow. “Ye argue well. But what about ye?”
“Me?”
“Ye be a third son. Ye say your father worries about his second. What willyeinherit?”
Adair shrugged. “I have no ambitions for mysel’. As a warrior, I suppose I will stay and serve Baen. In truth, I want only to go home to Erin. That is the land I love.”
Yet that was no longer all the truth. He wanted to go home, aye—he was not, though, so certain he wanted to leave Bradana. Bradana, set to marry an Alban lord to the north.
Kendrick snorted. “Gawen must have been desperate, to send ye.”
“He thought I might succeed where my brothers had failed.”
“Ye will no’. Be sensible, lad. Consider leaving when the mist clears. Tak’ your answer from me, and go.”
*
“He thinks melacking in honor, does this nephew from Erin. He supposes I owe his father somewhat.” Kendrick spoke restlessly to the family at large, late that afternoon. They had met for a meal, Bradana stopping in merely because her mam had been feeling unwell earlier in the day, and spent much of it in her bed. The child she carried, no doubt. She was no longer a young woman to be bearing a bairn.
Now Tavia sat pale as milk beside the fire and listened to her husband rant while Bradana performed the duty of serving the meal.
Adair had not joined them. Indeed, Bradana had not seen him all day, though she must admit to herself that she had looked. She had even paced the settlement with Wen from the shore to the heights. Hoping? Nay, she would not go that far.
Not even her hound had sighted the man.
Kendrick seethed in a defensive sort of way, “He has angered me.”
