Awoman couldlive with a broken heart. Darlei discovered that the next day when they moved out and continued their journey through a sodden world. The rain had stopped by then, but a gray mist clung to the trees and crawled down the hillsides. Everything dripped, and the party traveled mostly in silence.
They made their way south and east. Darlei had no idea where MacNabh’s lands were located, where she would spend the rest of her life.
At Orle’s persuasion, she tried to eat a few bits of breakfast as they jounced along in the wagon and then gave it up as impossible, too sick of stomach, too sick of heart. A dull numbness came over her as the day progressed. It was better not to feel, not to think at all, than to think of what was gone.
But her heart, her broken heart ached. How did a woman silence her heart?
She supposed a sharp blade would do it, and she considered that, she truly did. Better perhaps than the marriage ahead.
And anyway, if Deathan were right, if they’d known each other before, loved each other before, then she need only wait—alive or dead—for the wheel to turn once more.
Alive or dead.
Orle worried for her, tried fussing over her, and at last left her alone. Weary to the bones, but unwilling to succumb to tears again, Darlei endured the day’s travel.
Far they went. Far over the stony shoulders of the mountains. Over broad streams when she and Orle had to get out and ford on foot while the men got the wagon across. The streams were swollen from the rain. All the trees dripped water and the mist refused to rise.
The world wept.
But she could not. One more night on the trail, so Father said, and they would arrive at MacNabh’s holding.
By the time that second morning arrived, Darlei had come to a conclusion. A woman strong enough to send away the man she loved, rather than see him die, must be strong enough to keep her chin high. To face what would come.
That morning, Orle fussed over Darlei’s appearance as best she might in the confines of the wagon. They were both cramped and sore with jolting by then. Everything was damp. But they would arrive by noontime and Orle had determined that Darlei, a Caledonian princess, should look her best.
Indeed, at the last, when Urfet called to them that they approached MacNabh’s lands, when guards met and halted them, then sent them on, Orle hung from the front of the wagon alongside the driver, trying to catch a glimpse.
Darlei took the opportunity to secrete a long knife beneath her overdress. It was stealing, for the men had left some of their extra weapons in the back of the wagon, but a woman, however strong, should not go unarmed to face her fate.
The sun struggled out as they rumbled along the stony track, and voices sounded ahead. Calling out to announce their arrival no doubt, and alert the chief. Darlei would see him soon. The man she was to wed.
“Darlei, come look,” Orle called.
“What is it like?”
“A…a rough sort of place.”
They had not been particularly welcome at Murtray. Even less so here, at Scotland’s interior, where more recent battles had been fought. All one country now, as Kenneth MacAlpin commanded by decree.
She supposed a king could not be a king without imposing his will.
The wagon stopped moving. Father appeared at the front beside the driver.
“Daughter, come.”
Her knees wobbled beneath her as she descended, but she managed to keep her chin high. A stone building stood before her, not as large or as well built as Murtray’s keep. It lacked the walkways high behind the parapets where she’d so often seen—
Nay, do not think of that. Do not think ofhim.
A man was descending the stairs that led down from the main gate. A big man, he was, made to look even larger by the thick cloak he wore. Of middle years with black hair heavily streaked with gray, he carried an impatient, disagreeable expression.
Was this to be her husband?Please, by all the powers, nay.
Father led her forward, his grip tight on her arm. They met the large man at the bottom of the steps.
“Chief MacNabh?” Father asked. “I am King Caerdoc, and this is my daughter, Princess Darlei.”
MacNabh’s gaze swept over Darlei. Pale-blue eyes, he had, set disconcertingly under heavy black brows.
