“Oh?” Ana helped
herself to bread and cold roast mutton. She wished to convey an appearance of relaxation and well-being, though her heart was thumping with nerves. She had a question to ask her betrothed, and she was not sure if he would care for it.
“Yes, that druid’s likely to be here within the next couple of days. He was sighted coming down the hill path from Storm Glen yesterday, and one of my people sent
a runner in to tell me. Not long to wait now.”
The look in his eyes made her shudder. “Oh. Good,” was the best she could manage. Two days. So soon. The fact was, however many days it was until this wedding, it would always be too soon for her. She could hear Drustan’s soft voice in her head:
“I don’t want you to marry my brother.”
“Smile,” Alpin said, regarding her closely. “Convince me you’re
pleased.”
Ana was startled; was her mood so transparent? “I am pleased,” she said, but could not find a smile. “I suppose I am a little nervous. I apologize if that shows in my manner, my lord.”
“You’ve been here long enough to have settled in by now, surely.” Alpin sat with legs apart, arms folded on the tabletop, leaning toward her. “And you’ve had a chance to get used to me, and to the idea
of marriage. You need to relax a bit; there’s no need to be so prim and proper when you’re alone with me. Come here; sit by me, that’s it. Closer.” One great arm came around her shoulders and the other hand, suddenly, had pushed up her skirt and was insinuating itself with some boldness along the inside of her thigh. Ana gasped.
“Hush, hush,” Alpin said as if reassuring a nervous animal. “Bit
of practice, no harm in that … It’ll make it all that much easier on the night, I promise you …” The hand had rapidly reached a point where she was going to have to make it stop. The other hand had moved up onto her breast, squeezing most uncomfortably, and his lips were on her neck, nuzzling, sucking. His breathing had quickened. Ana felt rigid distaste throughout her body. She was to marry him
in two days,
two days
, and if he did not stop this she would scream or be sick, she couldn’t help herself. Duty held her still and silent as disgust washed through her in chill waves. She tried to think what Ferada would do in such a situation, but nothing came to her. It was clear Ferada would never have allowed matters to progress to this point. If Ferada ever let a man touch her thus, it would
be some fellow she had selected herself after rigorous testing.
Alpin’s fingers were stroking, pressing, probing; he was easing aside the fabric of her smallclothes … Ana wriggled a little, trying not to wince as his fingers brushed across the naked flesh of her intimate parts. She edged away, making herself kiss him on the lips, a quick but not too maidenly effort, for she must not let him know
just how this distressed her. Then she slid away from him on the bench, tugging her skirt back down.
“If you would have me at my best, my dear”—now she managed a smile—“you must allow me to finish my breakfast.”
Alpin laughed. Now it was his face that was flushed. “By the Flamekeeper’s manhood, lass, who’d have thought two days more would be so long to wait, after all this time. I hope you know
how hard this is for a man. I hope you know how much I want you. There’s some fine nights in store for you, I promise. Here, have a handful of this.” He grasped her hand and, before she realized what he was doing, placed it firmly between his legs, pressing down so the alarmingly forthright shape of his manhood stood up hard against her palm. “They say I’m built like a bull,” Alpin commented smugly,
releasing her and applying himself once more to the porridge. “I’ll give you sons aplenty. And pleasure such as you never dreamed of. There’ll be a few bruises here and there two nights hence, but they’ll be good ones. Eat up. You’re right, we need our strength.”
If he thought to reassure her, he had done a pretty bad job of it. For a little they ate in silence, then Ana took a deep breath and
began. “I hope you won’t be annoyed with me, my dear, but I have a request to make of you.”
“Oh, yes? And what’s that?”
“I am still somewhat … distressed about the family situation here. About your brother, and the way he’s locked up but still here in the house. It seems to me that casts a kind of sadness on Briar Wood, a shadow from the past that falls over all of us. I worry about that, Alpin.
You speak of sons. I worry about my children growing up in a place with such a terrible secret.”
Alpin continued to eat; she took that as a good sign. “What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Send him away?”
“Oh, no, I don’t mean anything like that,” Ana said hastily. “I just want to understand the situation better, and perhaps mend a few broken ties. I’m told you dismissed most of the folk who
worked here at the time … at the time the terrible thing happened.”
“You were told. Who told you?” There was a new note in his voice, one she didn’t like.
“I spend every afternoon sewing with the other women, Alpin. Women do gossip.”
“Hmph. They’d be better to keep their chatter for more appropriate topics. It’s none of anyone’s concern who I keep here and who I dispense with.”
“I heard there
was an old woman who looked after you and your brother and sister when you were children. That she lives somewhere out in the forest, all alone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It seems rather sad that you do not keep such a faithful old retainer under your roof. Isn’t it dangerous for her out there on her own?”
Alpin gave her a searching look. “What is it you want?” he asked.
“I’d like to go and visit her,”
Ana said, palms clammy with nervous sweat. “Talk to her; try to get some understanding of this family I’m marrying into. If your sister were here, or if your mother were still alive, I would ask them. If Orna were prepared to talk to me, I would ask her. But she won’t talk about it.”
“You can’t visit Bela.” Alpin’s hands were restless; he picked up his knife and set it down, took a drink of mead,
refilled his cup. “Nobody’s seen her for years. She could be dead, or gone away.”
“Doesn’t she have a cottage? A hut? How does she survive all by herself?” Ana pressed doggedly on, unwilling to accept that this last hope of proof might come to nothing.
“I’ve no idea.” Alpin gave her a sharp look. “Why this sudden interest in old Bela?”
“I …” Ana thought quickly. “I was thinking of our own children,
the ones we will have. We’ll need a nurse, and since this is a trusted family servant …”
“She’s a crazy old crone,” Alpin said dismissively. “We’ll get a new nurse for our own boys. Someone young and energetic. Can’t have you wearing yourself out, my dear. I want you fresh and eager. Gods, it feels as if I’ve waited a lifetime for this. If you please me well, you’ll find me a good husband, I
swear it. There’s nothing I won’t give you.”
Ana could not meet his eyes; she stared down at her platter. “I hope I will please you, my lord,” she said through gritted teeth. “As you know, I am entirely inexperienced in matters of the bedchamber.”
“Just what a husband expects of a new wife,” Alpin said easily. “You’ll learn. I’ll show you what to do and I’ll teach you to enjoy it. It’s like
anything new: riding a horse, flying a hawk, using a bow. Nothing to be afraid of. But you are afraid, aren’t you? Now why is that?”
She could hardly tell him his touch still unnerved and disgusted her. “I’m a little upset today,” she said. “Sad that none of my own people will be here for the wedding.”
“You’ve got your bard.”
“A servant is no substitute for one’s family,” Ana said, glad that
Faolan could not hear her.
“I’ll make it up to you,” said Alpin. “In time we’ll travel and visit them. And invite them here. There’d be advantage in that, great advantage.”
“I think we should try to find Bela,” Ana said, “so that she can be properly provided for. Could someone be sent out to look, perhaps? I would like to speak to her, Alpin. There’s almost nobody left here who can tell me about
the old days.”
His eyes narrowed. “And why would you want to know about them?”
“I just … I suppose it is to do with Drustan.” She hoped her voice did not reveal the sudden rush of warmth she felt as she spoke his name. “About his malady. I thought his old nurse might be able to tell me about Drustan as a boy. If I am to bear your children I must know how this illness manifests itself.”
“So
you can do what? Put them down like weakling pups?”
Ana flinched. “No, of course not. But, at the very least, seek the early advice of a physician.”
“The best hunter at Briar Wood won’t find the old woman, Ana. She went to ground. There’s no cottage. There’s no hearth fire to send up a revealing plume of smoke. Nobody knows where she is, and these woods are a tangle of trickery.”
“Oh.”
“As
for Drustan, his story is quickly told. He was different even as a small child. Willful. Odd. Difficult. We couldn’t have him here. He went to our grandfather’s when he was seven. He grew up there in seclusion, where he could not endanger my sister or me. Our grandfather died when Drustan was twenty. He left him the entire holding at Dreaming Glen, including the waters of a deep sheltered inlet.
That was an act of supreme folly, as by then my brother’s madness was approaching its most florid. He was indulged there in his own place; it had been an error to let him go. Years passed. My sister married and went away. My father died and I became master here. I saw Drustan very seldom, and that suited me well. I had almost come to believe my life could follow a steady course; my marriage only strengthened
my growing conviction that it would be so. For a little I was happy; happier than I’d ever been. Then Drustan came here, ostensibly to discuss the use of his deepwater anchorage by my forces. And it happened.”
Ana willed herself calm. “He killed your wife,” she said. “For nothing. Just like that.”
“Just like that. He pursued Erisa through the forest to Drift Falls, where the stream plunges
down to the lower parts of the forest, into a place where the trees grow so thickly there are no paths in and none out. She slipped on the rocks at the cliff edge and fell. Within a heartbeat of her fall, Drustan was gone from sight.”
“He—” Ana bit back the words.
He says he can’t remember
. “I just can’t understand why he would do such a thing.”
“You’re seeking explanations where none exist.”
Alpin sheathed his knife with an abrupt movement.
“Just one more thing.” Ana saw Alpin’s thick brows angle into a scowl; she must bring this to a swift conclusion. “How was it Erisa managed to outrun Drustan on the way to this place—Drift Falls? She was heavily pregnant. He was … I presume … a fit man like you. He could have overtaken her, surely.”
“He didn’t want to overtake her.” Alpin’s tone
was leaden. “He wanted to drive her off the edge of the falls. And that was exactly what he did. Bela was there, and that was the tale she told me before she vanished into the forest. Drustan has never denied it.”
A cold hand fastened itself around Ana’s heart.
“I don’t enjoy telling the story,” Alpin said heavily. “But you’re right; since we’re to marry, you deserve to hear the whole of it.
You’re upset; I understand that. If you want me to send him away once we have bairns of our own, I will. It seemed more fitting to have him here; he is my brother, after all. I can keep a close watch on him this way.”
“You must do as you think best,” Ana said, hearing the tight, wounded sound of her own voice. It just did not make sense. How could Drustan be two people, the gentle man she knew
and this other, violent and unpredictable? But why would Alpin lie about such a thing?
He was saying something; she had not heard him.
“What was that?”
“I said, better have a quiet day; we don’t want you tired out for the wedding.”
“That’s a good idea, Alpin.”
“We might have a wee supper this evening, for just the two of us.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Ana lied. What to do now? Take the
easier, crueler option and simply never speak to Drustan again? Never go back to the little courtyard, the place of whispers and secrets? Or use the afternoon to speak to him, to tell him … what? That the only witness was not to be found, and that she was forced to believe him guilty for want of any proof to the contrary? One thing was certain. Once she was married, there could be no more of those
covert dialogues, the sweet, longed-for times of shared song and story, the tender interchanges. His birds must cease to come to her with their bright eyes and their little gifts. She would restrict her embroidery patterns to dogs. And yet … and yet she still loved him … There, it was said, foolish, ridiculous, dangerous, yet truer than any truth. It seemed he was a killer, subject to the gods only
knew what fits of frenzied rage, and still he was the only man in the world she would ever love; the only man she wanted to touch her as a husband does his wife …
Ana closed her eyes a moment and drew a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. She was being unfair to Alpin, terribly unfair. He had lost his wife and son. Maybe he was rather crude and a little too ready to raise his fist, but all
he wanted was another chance for a family. That was entirely reasonable. She’d been sent here for the sole purpose of marrying him and had put up no arguments about it. If she had fallen in love with another man, the most unsuitable man she could possibly find, that was her own folly. She should not ruin Alpin’s chance of happiness for something that was never going to be; for a love that had no
future. Most women wed without love; most marriages survived. A woman had her children, after all, and her household to run. Tolerance and friendship were adequate grounds for a lifelong partnership. Not everyone could be like Bridei and Tuala, who had those things and true love as well.