“Among her own people. Royalty. And chosen to come to us. So ye can see—”
“Caledonian royalty?”
“Aye so”—Da frowned, thinking no doubt on Caledonians—“but of high standing all the same. Wha’ could the king do but send her to a clan o’ equally high standing?”
“Aye so,” Deathan echoed his father. But they were not royal and had no blood connection to the king. There were a few figures of legend behind them—some great warrior near lost to the mists of time back in Ireland—and those who had founded their settlement here. Mostly hardworking people too stubborn to give up their lands. Worthy of admiration perhaps, but not necessarily worthy of…
A princess.
What would she be like, this young woman? Used to a high life of privilege and honor, to come to this oft-times rough place of rock and sea and sky. Would she consider it an honor?
“When will she arrive?”
Da shrugged. “Her party left home yesterday to mak’ the journey. The messenger rode ahead so we might—prepare.”
“I see,” said Deathan, not sure he did.
“I had to tell yer brother,” Da repeated. “’Tis a good thing for him, a direct connection wi’ the king. He canna see that now. He will, in the future, when the union favors our fortunes.”
Deathan said nothing. His father rushed on, “I can see the king’s point o’ view. There has been enough fighting, centuries o’ it. If we are in truth to be a country, we must be one united.”
Aye, mayhap, but Rohr must feel like his future, and all his choice in it, had just been stolen from him.
Deathan got to his feet.
“Where are ye goin’?” Da sked.
“To talk wi’ my brother.” Surely someone should.
*
They were notparticularly close, for brothers. Though only a year and a half apart in age, they differed vastly in spirit—Rohr quick to declare his opinions, issue a challenge or flare toanger; Deathan far more apt to think before he spoke, to choose patience, and fall back on his duty.
Therein, mayhap, lay the difference in being raised to lead the clan and raised to support the man who would. Even though Deathan cared for this land with bottomless and selfless devotion, he would never be chief.
Did he envy his brother that place? He tried not to. He knew envy for a fruitless and destructive emotion.
Now he went with measured steps to his brother’s chamber, tiptoeing past the door behind which his mother lay. A foolish effort, for if the raised voices had not disturbed her, nothing would.
The storm now rolled away eastward, the thunder fading to rumbles. Mayhap it had kept Mam from hearing the quarrel.
He found his brother in a wretched state, pacing his chamber like a caged wolf, tossing clothing and other items about, an expression that matched the trouble in his eyes.
“Wha’ d’ye want?” Rohr barked when Deathan cracked the door and peered in.
“To speak wi’ ye, just.” Deathan slipped into the room and shut the door behind him. “And keep your voice down lest Mam hear.”
Rohr ignored that. “He told ye? Da told ye?”
“Aye.”
Rohr tossed his hands in the air. “A fine thing, is it no’, for a man to have dropped upon him?”
Deathan did not know what to say. When his brother took this mood, he became deaf to reason. Still and all, reason must be employed.
“No’ such a surprise, surely,” he said.
“No’ a surprise?” Rohr widened his lightning-blue eyes in a glare.
