“Good.”Owen perused Roark and then Alina.“You do look more rested.”
“Thanks to your hospitality,” Roark said.“Again, we cannot thank you enough.”
“Actually, there is a way.”Owen looked tohis lady wife.
“Lady Alina,” Lady Siusan said.“The women ofyour lineage are known for their musical talents.Do you sing orplay an instrument?”
“I sing,” Alina told her.“Though nothinglike my great-grandmother was said to.”
“She's being modest, Lady Siusan,” Roarksaid.“She sings beautifully.”
“Would you honor us with a song or two aftersupper?”Lady Siusan asked.
Alina blushed prettily.“It would be mypleasure.”
The supper plates cleared and the wine andwhisky brought out, one of the laird’s men set a stool in a spacethat had been cleared at one side of the room.Another man, whomRoark recognized as one of the house servants, sat at the stoolwith a fiddle and played a few warm-up scales while Alina took agood draught of wine and then walked over and stood by the fiddleplayer.
“Do you know ‘The Sailor’s Tale’?”she askedhim.
“Aye, lady.What tempo would you like playedat?”
“Like this.”Alina tapped her toe andcounted.
The man started to play and Alina to sing.She sang of the sailor leaving his home, and of his wife’s andyoung son’s tearful farewells.Her clear, melodic voice instantlycapturing the complete attention of everyone in the hall.
The kitchen staff stood at the open door asshe sang of the sailor’s journey, of his joy in the salty tang of agood wind and the vastness of the sea, swaying her body to themotion of a ship, and the entire room swayed with her.She sang ofthe sailor’s many adventures, of the ports he sailed into, thekings and queens he met, the storms he braved, the monsters hefought and overcame, and every person there was sitting on theedges of their seats, though it was a song known by every GreenIsler by the time they could walk and talk.
She sang of the sailor finding the treasurehe’d sought, of turning his ship north, sailing for his home, andher voice rang out with determination.She sang joyfully of thesailor sighting his home shore twenty years to the day he’d left,of seeing his wife, grey-haired and ever faithful, waiting on thedocks with his two grown sons, and her voice caught as she metRoark’s gaze.
She sang of his happy homecoming at last, ofhim sitting in a rocker by the hearth fire, his wife beside him, atpeace and content at last, stringing the last, mellow note out intosilence.
A few satisfied oohs and aahs floated aboutthe hall, and then a loud clapping broke out, along with severalsharp whistles.
Her cheeks flushing pink, Alina smiled anddipped her head to the low tables and her knee to the high table.“Does anyone have a request?”
“‘Somebody,’” Roark said.“Will you sing‘Somebody’?”To me.
CHAPTER 14
Goodbyes
Alina stared into eyes the color of rain.Asoft, nourishing rain that had brought her to life as a woman.Deep, penetrating, and quenching.A rain whose lack of she wouldthirst for until she could drink of it freely, whose long absencewould leave the woman she’d become a dried-up, hollowed out,withered husk of herself.A rain she would dream of every night andday until she felt its wet pouring over her again.She laid a handover her belly, hoping Roark’s seed had taken root in her womb,praying that he would live to someday see and know their child.Achild, or children, born of earth and rain.
“Lady Alina?”
She pulled her gaze from Roark’s to thefiddle player.“Do you know ‘Somebody’?”she asked.
He nodded and played the first melancholystrains.Alina took a deep breath and blew it out.She sought andfound Roark’s piercing gaze and began to sing the sad, bittersweetwords to Roark as if she could will him to sail to her side again,raising her voice to the gods and the fates.
The fiddle’s last long note faded into thehall, the silence broken by a female sniffle or ten and the soundof men coughing and clearing their throats.Roark stood andclapped, his rain eyes glistening as the rest of the assembly stoodand clapped, and laughed and cried.Alina dipped her head to thefiddle player and resumed her seat beside Roark as the assemblagetook full use of their linen napkins and sleeves.
“Thank you, my lady owl,” Roark whisperedroughly.“That was…”
“The most beautiful, gut-wrenching song I’veever heard sung,” Laird Owen said.
“It truly was,” Lady Siusan said, swiping ather wet cheek.She sniffed and laughed lightly.“If there was everany doubt of you being Oona MacLeod’s great-granddaughter, thatsong put an end to it.”
“Thank you, Lady, Laird,” Alina said with atremulous smile.Roark covered her hand with his under the table.“I was inspired.”
