He was her best friend, was Garik. Surely she could say. Yet something held her back. “How could there be?”
“I do not know. Only—the way you let him go. And the farewell you gave him.”
“I did that because I knew without knowing that we would need to deal with him again. Do you not see? We need his goodwill now.”
“I am not sure how much goodwill there is. We are Norse and he is Scot.”
Ja, there was that. Did it matter? She would not allow it to.
“Convince your brother,” she said. “We will take it one step at a time.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The days sinceDa’s death had been difficult, each and every one of them. The weight Quarrie assumed the moment his father passed only grew heavier, increasing by increments. Everyone expected so much from him.
There had been no chance to recover and precious little time to grieve. The clansfolk assumed he would step into Da’s place immediately. In truth, he had been going through the motions of filling that place for a long while. But holding the responsibility for the settlement and everyone in it could not feel more different.
Ma had fallen apart in her grief and made no fit ally. Though he’d known all his life the affection his parents held for each other, he did not think he’d realized till now how much Ma had loved her husband. She wept for days. He could get no sense from her, and he began to worry for her health.
He could not lose her, also.
That particular worry might well pass, so he hoped, as she recovered. His responsibilities would not, never until he himself died.
Those around him made him aware of his responsibilities at every opportunity. At every moment of the day and half the night, people came at him sharing problems and wanting answers. He was not sleeping much, and when he did manage to sleep, he dreamed.
Those same dreams over and over again.
He was with a woman. Not always the same women. Only—she was the same.
It was as if in his brief moments of sleep he returned to a past he could not remember. A trio of pasts, for she was a woman of varying guises. She stood outside the washing place with him in the sunshine. She walked toward him with a great gray hound at her side. She lay with him in passion while sweet music played upon a harp, somewhere close at hand.
She did not appear to be the same woman, but aye, she was. The smile in her eyes that embraced him was the same. As were the feelings that engulfed him at her presence.
He craved those feelings just as he craved the music he heard in his head. Yet he slept so seldom and had only glimpses of her. Enough to make him ache.
He told himself it was all just fancy, a reaction to his grief and distraction. A means he’d found to escape what he carried.
But the dreams did not feel like dreams so much as—aye—memories. Unlike other dreams, the feelings they evoked did not fade at dawn. He recalled every detail and each one made him tingle, a sensation that, just like his grief, preoccupied him.
Neighboring chiefs both to the north and south heard of Da’s death and sent messages with their commiserations. Those messengers also brought terrible tales of Norse attacks all along the shore as far as Anglesea in Wales. A number of churches had been destroyed and smaller settlements burned to the ground. Every chief along the Scottish coast remained on alert.
Which was what took Quarrie up on the walls first thing every morning and last thing every night. Among his other duties, keeping his people—Da’s people—safe from attack seemed a most sacred one. But though they did sight sails against the wild blue of the sky from time to time, the boats always passed by.
Until, that was, one sunny morning.
Quarrie had just begun with drilling the men in the field alongside the keep. Indeed, so warm was it that he had stripped down to his kilt, as had many of the men with whom he worked.
They had a number of the younger lads out, those who so often clamored to be allowed to fight, and Quarrie meant to give them a taste of what that meant, now that his ribs had long healed and his bruises were things of the past.
So noisy was it in the field, he nearly missed the cry from the walls above. Men were hollering, lads chirping and exclaiming. Weapons clattering.
Not until someone repeatedly called his name—“Chief Quarrie. Chief Quarrie!” and then, “A sail!”—did he pause and look up.
Those words,a sail, captured everything within him.
“Hush!” He held up a hand, and by bits the training field fell silent. He looked up.
Borach it was, straining to catch his attention. “A sail.”
