Page 15 of Rebellion's Fire

“Is that significant?”

“It’s what Rhuadri named his daughter.”

Donald gazed at him, half-annoyed, half-impressed, a mixed emotion he’d got used to, growing up with Adam. “How do you even know that?”

“It was talked about,” Adam said vaguely, “when Rhuadri died.”

Donald blinked. “You were six years old.”

Adam didn’t respond. The wind blew his black hair out behind him. Unkempt as he was, his whole person covered in mud and blood, he looked more like a low-born bandit than royalty.

Donald, remembering all the frustrations of living with his brother, said, “Legality is a luxury we can’t afford. We don’t want Lanson at Tirebeck.”

Adam nodded, in perfect agreement. “In the short term, we’ll move the galleys. In the long term, we’ll set up watch on Tirebeck, and I’ll kill Lanson.”

Donald let out a shout of laughter. “Is that a vision or just desire?”

“Both,” Adam said.

“For what it’s worth, he’s not an easy man to kill. I suspect he doesn’t fight unless the odds are in his favor. Even so, I’ll insist on elder-brother privileges and kill him myself.”

Adam appeared to consider this. “Maybe. Look.” He veered left off the track, heading for a shepherd’s hut. “We’ll stop here and let your wounds be tended. I’ll get the men to sail what galleys they can to the inlet south of Rosemarkie. We’ll take the rest overland with us.”

Donald stared at him, slowing his horse in front of the hut as the shepherd emerged. “You don’t have enough men for that.”

“You do. They’ll be along any time. Besides, the men of Tirebeck will do the sailing.”

“Under the Norman’s nose?” Donald slid out of the saddle, staggering slightly.

“If they do it tonight.” To Donald’s surprise, Adam threw one arm around his shoulder, a gesture of camaraderie that covered the fact it was his arm that held Donald upright as they walked into the hut, past the bent shepherd and his straight, tall son, and greeted the shepherd’s wife. For a man so isolated from the world, Adam could be astonishingly perceptive. Not to say discreet.

Away from the men, Adam laid him on the bed made up on clean straw and unerringly found the most troublesome sword cut in his side. Without the need to pretend, Donald’s hold on consciousness began to fade. He heard the shepherd’s wife cluck with disapproval, felt her gentle hands on his flesh, and stupidly missed the firmer, rougher touch of his brother.

He flung open his eyes again, peering wildly into the darkness for him, but it seemed he’d already vanished into the night.

*

Sigurd, the shepherd’sson, had only ever seen the earl’s sons from a distance as they rode past on their way to upset some other people in some other land. He tried to be grateful for the peace and relative prosperity of his parents and his community, but Sigurd had been brought up to think for himself. As his father’s only son, he’d never been intended for war, and unlike most of his contemporaries, he had no desire to follow the young lords to whatever glory—or, more likely, death—that God had in store for them. He had even less desire to have them barge their way into his home, especially when, so rumor said, they’d just installed some Norman warrior at the hall. Which seemed bizarre behavior, even for a MacHeth.

So, while his mother tended the wounded one, Sigurd scowled at them both. Some ancient and idiotic tradition meant they would pretend to their men that Donald was uninjured, as if the weapons of mere ordinary mortals could not touch the great lords of Ross.

The wounded one, Donald, kept his gaze firmly on his brother, who at first looked back with such intensity that Sigurd actually began to wonder if the ridiculous rumors were true, and Adam really could see a man’s soul and his future just from looking in his eyes.

Noblemen’s sons, he’d imagined from old stories, always hated each other and wanted what the other had because each wanted to be heir to their father. But staring at them without sympathy, Sigurd could see no hatred in the heirs of Malcolm MacHeth’s turbulence. Donald flailed until Adam touched his hand and then was still. And Sigurd, who enjoyed the character of men as well as of his flock, could see that Adam wanted his brother to live.

He’d only just made the discovery when Adam lifted his head and caught Sigurd staring. In spite of himself, Sigurd flushed, but he lifted his chin to show that he was no servile nonentity just waiting for his lord’s instruction. If Adam noticed the gesture of defiance, he gave no sign of it.

“What is your name?” he asked abruptly.

“Sigurd. My father is—”

“I know your father. And your mother tended my broken arm when I was six. I’m Adam, son of Malcolm.”

Sigurd blinked. “I know that.”

“I need to go down to the shore. The foreigners shouldn’t bother you today, and we’ll be gone by nightfall. Will you look after my brother until then, and send to me if he needs me? Or if the soldiers move from the hall enclosure.”

Perhaps it was the fact that Adam didn’t order. Or perhaps it was the genuine anxiety for the wounded man that Sigurd read in Adam’s eyes. Whatever, Sigurd found himself nodding. And when his mother looked up from her gory work, a smile flickered across Adam’s face, and he actually touched her shoulder in a gesture of gratitude.

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