Page 34 of A Constant Blaze

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Halla’s impromptu rescueparty camped for the night close to the Moray border. Muiredach was happy enough to sleep under the stars, especially when he had the felicity of joining the soldiers in guarding the entrance to the lady’s tent. She seemed so little bothered about being seen leaving Ross that Muiredach suspected she knew exactly where Adam’s sentries watched. In any case, they were looking for threats coming inward, not for small, respectable parties going in the other direction.

One of the house guards sat by the fire on watch. His fellow lay down and slept loudly at Muiredach’s side. Muiredach, still wakeful, gazed up at the stars and the wispy clouds drifting over them. He wondered how Adam had known his mother would leave. Either he knew her very well, or he had the foresight attributed to him. In which case, did he not know about the Lady Mairead, too?

Reaching down to the purse on his belt, he took out the ring which John had said was a gift to her from Adam, then turned over to let the light of the fire glint on it. If the ring had been meant for Adam’s eyes, then even if it was a trap, it probably really did belong to Mairead. The men claimed she did everything for the love of Adam. Which was sad for her when Adam’s love appeared to be with his wife. And yet still she’d risked her life and walked back into the lion’s den for one kind of love or another. Despite Muiredach’s fear for the lady, his heart warmed with admiration for her willing tool.

Chapter Nine

Gormflaith hadn’t gonevery far with Donald and the men before it struck her.

“This is the first time,” she told her brother, “that Mother has ever urged me to go anywhere with you or Adam. The only occasions I’ve gone with you before are when I begged.”

“Well, at least you were spared that indignity today.”

It was true, and part of her was joyfully looking forward to new people and different sights. But still… The forest closed in around her, quiet, isolating, as if those thick, immovable trees were preventing her from ever seeing her mother again. Foolish fancy.

“She was getting rid of us all,” Gormflaith said bluntly.

“Don’t take it personally. Everyone needs time to themselves, and she can’t have liked our father not coming home with us.”

“Yes, but what’s she going to do with that time, Donald?”

“None of our business,” he said simply.

Gormflaith looked at him. “She feels things much more deeply than you know. You don’t see what she’s like when you’re gone, when she’s afraid of the men coming home without you or Adam. And she won’t take comfort from anyone. She can’t. When you were taken—”

“I understand, Gormflaith,” he said impatiently, although she knew he didn’t really. He had, inevitably, a man’s blinkered view of his world. “But what do you imagine she’s going to do? Hurl herself from the hall roof? Even if she did, she’d only break a bone or two.”

Gormflaith scowled at him. “I don’t know, but I shouldn’t have left her. I have to go back.”

Donald groaned with frustration. “You can’t go riding about on your own! Mother would annihilate both of us, apart from anything else.”

“Give me one man, then. It’s hardly far, and he’ll easily catch up with you again.”

Donald threw up his hands in a mocking gesture of surrender.

*

She didn’t knowhow she felt about her mother having left Brecka, but since she’d taken Astrid and two of the men with her, Gormflaith decided she had less reason to worry than if she’d found her mother moping alone in the hall. The lady had told Sweyn she was visiting in a southerly direction, and the captain’s lack of concern helped influence her own.

She slept an untroubled sleep that night, and in the morning set about her own and her mother’s duties in the hall and to the people. She had all the straw swept out of the hall floor and changed for her mother’s return. And then, leaving the hall doors and windows wide to air the hall in the sunshine, she went to fetch her cloak in order to visit a young village woman who had just given birth.

Reemerging into the main hall, she found a stranger standing in the middle of the floor and stopped dead. Every instinct screamed danger. And none of the servants, none of the men were in sight.

The stranger was tall and dressed for riding in good but worn clothing. He turned at the sound of her footfall and stood very still, but the sun shone directly on her face, blinding her.

“Greetings,” she said as pleasantly as she could.

“To you also,” the man replied. He was undoubtedly a gentleman, although she didn’t recognize the voice. Strangers were both unusual and, as a rule, unwelcome, especially if he was not alone. Where were his followers?

She stepped forward, out of the direct beam of the sun, and saw that he was a handsome man, although there was a dangerous hardness in his face. Most definitely, she had never seen him before. Every nerve in her body tensed for flight, though if it came to a fight, she had a sheathed household knife at her belt, recently sharpened. Deliberately, she prevented her gaze from darting around the hall in search of support. “How might I help you?”

The stranger didn’t stir. “That rather depends on who you are.”

Who the devil did he thinkhewas? In her hall! She lifted her chin. “I’m Gormflaith, the lady’s daughter,” she said tartly. “Who are you?”

A smile flickered over his face, just touching his suddenly intense eyes, which never left her face.

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