“Father seems to think where ye and Baen failed in your duties, I might charm Kendrick out o’ his lands with my talk and my merriment.”
Daerg swore with deep feeling. “When d’ye leave?”
“In the morning. On the same boat, no doubt, that brought ye home.”
“Well and I must say, Kendrick will no’ be pleased to see ye. Nor his sons.”
“Tell me everything, Daerg. All I need to know.”
Daerg looked him in the eye. “I suppose ’tis best to be forewarned.”
*
When Adair lefthis brother’s quarters some time later, his head buzzed. Daerg had given him what might be too much information, much of it disjointed and out of order. None of it good. He seemed to feel Adair’s mission was doomed before his feet left the soil of Erin. Which would not be so bad, if Adair did not agree.
And that was the other thing. His feet did not want to leave the soil of Erin, to go to some dark and terrible land such as Daerg had described. His heart did not. Nor his spirit.
He did not sleep that night, instead spending it packing his belongings, the things he thought he would need in order to court a man—an uncle—who would not welcome him.
He wanted to make the rounds of his friends, to bid them all farewell, but by then it was the middle of the night. So he roused only his good friend, Oisin, and bade him make explanations to the others on his behalf.
Including Forba.
“Why di’ye no’ go and see her yourself?” Oisin suggested.
“’Tis the middle of the night.”
“She will no’ mind.” Oisin looked Adair in the face. “Especially if ’tis farewell for a time. I know fine she fancies ye.” He grinned reluctantly. “Of course, most o’ the clan’s young women do. Makes it hard on the rest o’ us. Mayhap ’tis no’ a bad thing ye will be awa’ for a time. Might make it easier on me.”
“I trust I will no’ be gone long.” Adair’s hope was that Kendrick would take one look at him and send him straight back home.
“So I trust,” Oisin said more seriously. “Ye will be sorely missed.”
“Ye say my farewell to Forba for me.” A mischievous and beautiful young woman. He had no real idea why she or indeed any of the young clanswomen might favor him. Being a younger son, he had not much to recommend him.
His own father had as much as told him so.
At dawn, he climbed high up the side of the hill and looked out, as the sun rose, upon the land he loved. The land for which his ancestors—including the legendary warrior Ardahl MacCormac—had fought and suffered. The land for which his very heart beat.
On a clear day from up here, one could see the ocean and sometimes glimpse the coast of Alba lying like a sleeping blue dragon to the northeast, their own shore not afar. This, though, did not promise to be a clear day. Clouds gathered over the top of the hill like a white blanket and dulled all the distances.
They would have rain on their journey. No matter, this land still looked bonny to him, and every part of him rued being torn away.
Surely, he promised himself, surely not for long. Below he could see his party readying to leave. They would journey upon the short trail to the coast where lay Father’s boat. Passage to Alba would not take long. As for the journey after they landed there—
Adair did not know. He had never bothered to inquire. He traveled into the unknown.
For some reason, he shivered. He must go down and take up his duty, as never before. But he whispered to the gods and to the land itself before he did, “Please. I was not born to be an exile. Please let me come home soon.”
Chapter Three
Bradana MacCaigh lefther stepfather’s roundhouse and went out into the rainy afternoon. Behind her, Kendrick—said stepfather—still argued with her mam, their words becoming so wild and ferocious that Bradana could no longer stay to listen.
What they argued over this time, she could not say. Their relationship was a tempestuous one, and they quarreled over matters as small as what Mam served for dinner, to as big as whom Kendrick had arranged for Bradana to marry.
Not that she intended ever to go through with any marriage. She would be quite willing to die first.
She blundered out with such force that she nearly bumped into her stepbrother, Toren, on his way into the roundhouse.
