Elizabeth McBride (14 page)

They ascended the bank that led to the break in the wall
where the gate had once been. Mhoire glanced at Grainne,
who was trudging beside her, head down, in her awkward,
stumbling gait. "You'll stay with me?"

Grainne looked at her, her eyes dark and agonized. "Of
course I will. I'll stay right by you."

Mhoire ran her perspiring hands over her skirt and
stepped through the gaping hole in the wall. Her father
faced her across the courtyard.

"You look like a whore," he said.

In three steps he was before her, and she stared into his
pale, hazel eyes. She hated his eyes. They were always
changing color. Today they were a watery green, the hue
of a wrathful sea.

She clutched at the open neck of her gown and pulled
the cloth together. "God be with you, Father."

He struck her hand, batting it from her chest. "You have
no shame," he hissed. "Do not pretend you do."

She began to tremble. Colman was full of drink and
coiled taut like a serpent. This was the worst he could be.
The very worst.

His eyes raked her from head to toe. Sweat pooled in
her armpits and trickled down her sides. Why hadn't she
put her hair back up? Why hadn't she fixed her gown?

"You are too much like your mother."

His gaze shifted to the string of game that she held in
her hand and the bow that was slung over her shoulder.
"Drop those things."

She let the string of rabbits fall to the ground. It took all
her will to uncurl her fingers from her bow and place it
beside them.

"Why are you not married?"

"I have made an agreement with the Picts... "

"You made an agreement with the Picts? I made an
agreement! You have no authority to deal with them!"

Mhoire wiped her wet hands on her gown. "The Picts
have agreed to let me try to make my way alone here, and
if I succeed, they will release me from the marriage contract."

"Release you? Never! You disobedient, willful child! I
make the contracts! I decide whom you will marry and
when you will marry! You will marry one of these Pictish
heathens and that is that!"

He took a step closer to her. She stepped backward.

"I could not believe it when I got the message from Gormach mac Nechtan! The marriage was delayed, he said. You
had returned the brooch, he said. You thieving child! Look at
me!"

Slowly, she raised her eyes. Colman's face had gone
white as a demon's. He was out of his mind with fury now.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that some of
Drosten's men were clustered near the gathering hall. A
few of the women had crept into the courtyard as well.
Mhoire knew none of them would intervene. It was a father's right to do as he pleased with his children.

"How did you get the brooch?"

"You ... I ... It was in your room. You were drunk."

"I'm never drunk!" Wildness glazed his eyes.

She loathed him. His weak spirit. His cruel impulses. His
hollow soul. "You were drunk, as you are drunk every
night."

There. She had said it.

Colman's eyes bulged. "I have plans here! You will not
alter them! Do you hear me? It is your duty to do as I wish!
It is your duty to obey me!"

"And what about your duty, Father? Did you do your
duty to these suffering, starving women?"

His arm whipped up, and he struck her hard across the
cheek.

She staggered and tasted the metallic flavor of blood on
her lips. Grainne hurled herself at Colman and grabbed his
arm. With one furious movement, he flung her off and she
crashed onto the ground.

Mhoire fell to her knees beside her friend. Everything
before her faded, as if snow were falling, and a roaring
sound filled her ears.

Then she heard a yell. She looked up and saw Drosten
grab Colman by the shoulders and pin him against the rubble wall.

"Stop! Please, stop!" Mhoire's words came out in a sob.
Drosten turned. She sent a silent plea with her pain-filled
eyes.

"Hold onto him," Drosten grumbled to Alfred. Then he
strode over to Mhoire and dropped to his knees before her.

She was shaking from head to foot, like a leaf in the
wind.

"Please ... don't fight. I can't ... bear it." Colman
frightened her to the bone. But to subdue him with violence
would terrify her even more.

"Can you make him go away?" she said.

Drosten was silent.

Mhoire knew he was struggling. His sense of justice had
been honed on countless battlefields and was far simpler
than hers.

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing him to do as she
asked.

Finally, he let out a low, deep groan. "Aye. I can make
him go away. Far away."

Mhoire slumped in relief, and Grainne's strong arm fell
across her shoulders.

The sun was sinking heavily, like a dull blade into a
carcass, when Drosten laid his forearms atop the sagging
courtyard wall and leaned into the cold stone. A sickly
orange glow lit the rim of the western sky. The sea-a
muddy gray-heaved and fell, heaved and fell.

He had sent four men with Colman to see that he got
back in his boat and returned to Ireland. It had taken every
shred of Drosten's self-control not to throw the man into
the sea. But he had made a promise to Mhoire, and he
would keep it, at least for now. He had made sure, though,
that Colman would not forget the feel of his fist. And he
assured him that if he ever raised a hand against Mhoire
again, retaliation would be swift and fatal, no matter how
hard his daughter begged for his worthless life.

Then he had assembled the rest of his men and gave
them their orders. Never was Mhoire to be alone. It would
be the job of two men, each day, to keep her in sight. Their
job was to protect her, and if any of them failed in that
task, Drosten himself would dole out the consequences.

So this was why she wanted Dun Darach. This was why
she resisted marriage. Why she had dared confront his father. Why she had clutched at his offer to let her try a life
on her own. Why she was so damned desperate. Her ambitions had seemed foolish to him. And now-now they
were undeniable. A man like Colman could turn his rage
on her at any time, with tragic consequences.

No wonder she had recoiled at his touch that morning. If
this was her experience of men, how could she not be terrified?

Drosten scanned the horizon, which was fast disappearing under the blanket of night. What in God's own world
was he going to do? She wanted Dun Darach for herself,
but he could not give it up. This was his people's last
hope-a fortress on the coast, an alliance with the Scots, a
united force against the Danes. The Danes were gutting his
country the way a hunter eviscerates a deer. They had to
be stopped. And the Britons as well. Drosten knew, as
surely as he knew his own name, that between the merciless
onslaught of the Danes and the relentless, sneaking attacks
of the Britons, the entire Pictish society could be wiped
out.

Nay, he must have Dun Darach. He must marry Mhoire.
They must continue on the course they had set themselves
upon. He would let her keep trying in this pitiful way to
coax a crop out of Dun Darach's hard land. And when she
failed, they would marry. She would be desolate but resigned. He would be victorious and miserable. How could
he not be, living side by side with a woman who undoubtedly believed all men were villains?

Drosten covered his face with his hands, and in his
mind's eye he saw Mhoire as she had been that morning.
Laughing. Smiling. And she was so good with that bow.
So true. It was astonishing, what she had taught herself.
What she had held onto, in secret. And the way she had
touched him. So hesitant, so innocent, so gentle. It had been
such sweet torture to have her fingers push against his, to feel the tickle of her breath against his neck, to know that
with a turn of his head he could reach her soft mouth.

And then he had ruined it, with his flip comment and his
impetuous clench that had frightened her out of her wits.
Drosten raked his hand through his hair. Nay, it was not
him. It was that damned father of hers! Colman had ruined
Mhoire the way the Danes had ruined Dun Darach. The
pity was, he knew how to rebuild a fort. He had no idea
how to heal a woman's soul.

His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he had not
eaten since he had broken fast that morning. He wasn't
hungry. Far from it. But he pushed himself away from the
wall. His years as a wandering warrior had taught him to
eat whether he wanted to or not.

Piles of wreckage loomed gray and spectral as he made
his way across the courtyard to the gathering hall. Wearily,
he stepped across the threshold. The hall was quiet and dim,
except for a pool of light cast by a low fire in the center
of the room.

He had thought the day could not batter him with any
more emotion, but then he saw Mhoire, huddled on a log
before the fire, her head hanging low and her hair falling
across her face in long, chaotic tendrils.

She looked like a rag doll: forlorn, broken, and abandoned. But it was the way she clutched her bow that shattered him.

She raised her head, and her hands tensed on the weapon.
Then she recognized him and lowered her eyes to the
hearth.

He approached her silently. Outside the perimeter of
light, he could see that a number of his men-most likely
those who would be standing watch later that night-were
stretched out on their blankets. On the other side of the
hall, some of the women were asleep as well. A few sat
with their backs against the wall, but none were talking
now.

He squatted beside Mhoire and looked up into her face.
A purple bruise stained her left cheek. She held herself rigidly, a sign, Drosten knew, of pain. And she was trembling ever so slightly. He recognized that sign as well, for
he had seen it often in his younger soldiers. Battle shock.

"You should get some sleep, Mhoire."

Her eyes glistened in the firelight.

"He won't be back, I promise you."

"How do you know?" Her voice was barely audible.

He wished he could tell her the truth-that he had
thrashed the man to unconsciousness before throwing him
over a horse. But he didn't want to speak to her of violence.
Not tonight. "I sent him off with four of my best men. And
I have sentries posted all around the fort."

She swallowed hard. The golden light of the fire flared
on her delicate throat. "He's ruthless."

"So am I." He leaned toward her, longing to pull her into
his arms and gather her safe against him. But he could only
console her with his words. "I won't let him hurt you."

"I was wrong to defy him."

Drosten's jaw clenched. "Mayhap. But he was wrong to
hit you."

"Was he?"

"Hitting a woman is the act of a coward."

Her lips turned up in a mockery of a smile. "He is the
king of cowards then."

Drosten scanned her strained face. "Your mother?"

"I believe so," she whispered.

The fire snapped and spit. A burning log split in two
with a whispered thud, and a small burst of sparks floated
upwards.

"Sometimes he would go ... wild. After my mother
died, I knew it could just be a matter of time before he
raised his hand to me. Some imagined slight-a dish not
cooked to his liking, or the fire not high enough. And then
one evening he told me that he was going to send me here.
To Dun Darach." She turned and looked at Drosten, wonderment in her voice. "I thought to myself, this is a gift
from God."

Her words ended on a quaver, like a sparrow's lament.

Drosten hung his head. Dun Darach was her gift from
God. And he must snatch it away. He listened to the fire
for a moment, and the sound of Mhoire's careful, trembling
breaths.

"You can protect yourself from him now, Mhoire. If you
try.

She looked at her bow and flexed her fingers against its
smooth curves. "Aye. I think I could now. If I prepare for
it. Now that I know what he might do."

"You've no need to worry tonight. Lay down here by
the fire. I'll stay awake."

"I'm not tired."

He knew that was a lie. But he didn't argue.

Drosten stood, walked over to where his pack was tucked
against the wall, and pulled out his blanket, a length of
plain brown wool. He walked back to Mhoire and held it
out to her. "Take this. In case you get cold."

She looked at it, and then glanced at the ground beside
her. "I have my own," she said. He saw it then, a green
cloth folded into a neat square.

He left her gazing vacantly into the embers, and instead
of taking his usual solitary place outside, he sank against
the stone wall near his men. Upright all night, he dozed
and he woke, and he dozed and he woke. At some point,
in the deepest part of the night, he saw that she had laid
down on her side and fallen asleep, her bow still clutched
in her hands. And he realized that the ache in his belly was
too profound to be caused by lack of food.