Becca St.John Read online

  She couldn’t go back, Deian couldn’t go back, not now, not ever. And she already ached from their first good-byes. Now she would have to bear another.

  He shouldn’t have come.

  “I don’t know what you’re doin’ here, and at this time of night, but you best be goin’.”

  She turned away, leaving the mountain of a man to follow, her own traitor of a son riding on his shoulders. Just as she glimpsed peace, her wounded heart ripped open again.

  vvvvvv

  He knew she’d get into a tizzy. No easy woman, their Seonaid. He chucked Deian under the chin, as they sat on the hard ground waiting for her to return from the water. Despite his displeasure, she’d gone for a morning wash without waiting for the dawn.

  “I donna’ want you to go,” Deian told him.

  “Oh, aye, but your mama does,” he groused. The woman didn’t know what was good for her.

  He’d tried to stay in the background, to follow quietly, near enough to take care of any problems, out of sight if none arose. But the night had been so dark and there were quiet, stalking animals that could do her and her lad harm.

  She should be grateful he was there, with them, to watch over them.

  To convince her to return to Glen Toric.

  Foolishness, leaving her home, her people, all for something that was no fault of her own. They were victims, she and Deian. The whole of the clan knew it. She’d best return. He’d convince her of it.

  Perhaps not.

  He watched her carry bladders of water, her face hard and closed. He knew better than to offer his help. Too bloody independent. Let her tell him off for making the fire while she was gone.

  “I’m not likin’ the idea of a fire.”

  “Aye, well ’tis made now. There’s naught but a wee bit of smoke and we’ll have it out and move on before anyone sees.”

  “If you say so.” She dropped the water containers and rummaged in a saddlebag. “I’ve oats.” She held up a heavy bag.

  “That’s my lass.”

  She frowned, he sighed. No, she wasn’t his lass, but that wasn’t his fault.

  “Come on, lad,” he rousted Deian. “Best we freshen up before we eat.”

  “I donna’ need to,” Deian argued, but Padraig lifted him up.

  “Oh, aye, you need to.” He looked him in the eye and the boy stopped arguing.

  If only his mother were so easy.

  Down by the river, Padraig put the boy down, shucked his boots, pulled his tunic over his head and lowered his trews. “Come on, then.” He stepped into the frigid waters.

  “It’s cold,” the boy said, with naught but a toe immersed.

  “Aye, and here I thought you were growin’ up to be a big strong lad. Guess you’re still at the wee mite whinin’ age.” He dove in, came up with a roar, shaking his head like a wet dog. “Aye, a brisk dip will cure anything.” He laid full length in the shallows, river flowing over him. The current nudged him to the bank. He saw the boy stripping down, tiptoeing into the water.

  “Do you swim, lad?”

  “Aye.”

  “Can you float?”

  “Aye.”

  “I’ll not let you get too far then,” he promised. “We don’t want to miss any of that porridge.”

  Deian scrunched down on his haunches.

  “Thata’ boy. Refreshing.”

  Deian shot back up. “Itt’s-ss-s co-co-co-colllld!”

  “Aye, a mite.” It was freezing, always was. The boy had to learn how to clean up, cold water or no. That’s what made their people strong. “Easier to be in all the way now.”

  “I don’ w-w-w-want to g-g-g-o in m-m-more.”

  “Come on.” Padraig rose and crossed to the lad, lifted him. “Just long enough to let the water wash away the grime.”

  By the time they got back to Seonaid, they were wet and laughing and hungry. It didn’t faze him that the porridge had the consistency of a weak soup. That the lumps hid uncooked oats, made no mind. That she cooked enough for ten, well, that was a sad waste of oats. But no one ever thought of Seonaid for her cooking.

  He watched the shift and sway as she crouched down, trying to stuff cookware into a horse pack. There was something to be said about a woman who dressed in trews like a man. He tilted his head, entranced by her movements, took in the whole of her, frowned.

  Something wasn’t right.

  He studied her, searched for a reason to think that she looked different, when she was the same Seonaid as always. Her feet were covered in boots to her knees, with leather cords crisscrossed up to the top. They fit close to her legs, while her braes fit loose, billowed where they came out of the boot. How far her legs went, he couldn’t see, but the lass was well-proportioned and tall.

  He shook his head to disrupt the direction of his thoughts.

  Her legs were folded beneath her, like a resting colt’s, as she sat on the ground filling the saddlebags. Her tunic covered her backside, her belt barely hinting of her narrow waist, but he could just see the soft outline of her breasts, as their weight pressed against the soft wool of her tunic. Again, his thoughts, his gaze, pinioned right where they were.

  “What?” she snapped, shattering his dreaming.

  He snapped, too, met her hard stare. “You look different.”

  She blushed as she turned away. Ah, so something was different. He shifted his focus from the silhouette of her breasts to her shoulders, wide but without the bulk of a man’s. On up to the sweet curve of her neck, the strength in her jaw. Stubborn in looks as well as manner. He snorted. She looked over her shoulder, he turned away until he guessed he’d be free to look some more.

  He knew her eyes, clear blue as the sky on a summer’s day, were ringed by the darkest of lashes. He hadn’t realized those lashes were so long.

  Determined not to be caught again, he forced himself to continue his assessment, to find what was different. He’d reached her hair, dark and silky, hidden inside her collar.

  Except it wasn’t in her collar. It was gone, hacked off, leaving coarse chunks sticking out.

  “What the hell happened to your head?” He hadn’t meant to shout. Tried to correct it, but even then, his mourning came through. “Oh, lass, you’ve gone and cut your hair.”

  How had he missed it before? But he knew how. You either looked Seonaid in the eye or you didn’t look. She had a wicked tongue on her, could slay a dragon. He’d gotten off lightly earlier, when she caught him looking at her breasts, but that’s because he’d caught her off guard. Told her he knew something was different.

  He’d spent whole nights thinking about that hair. Anticipating the slide of it along his fingers. The tickle of it on his skin.

  She ducked her head, turned away from him. “Aye, I’ve cut my hair, and Deian calls me brother around any others.”

  “Brother?” Padraig shook his head. “And you think people will believe you?” He gestured toward Deian. “He’s just a boy. How’s he to remember?”

  She turned on him them, fierce, challenging. “He’s smart enough.”

  He was but a child. “Aye. Let’s hope he doesn’t need to be.” She’d cut her hair to look like a man. Padraig didn’t think anyone would be fooled, even with her garb, her hair. Whatever she did to hide her breasts, despite the lankiness of her figure, there was just something womanly about her.

  “Dona’ you need to be helping the Laird?”

  Their Laird, The Bold, knew where he was and who he should be helping, but he’d give her space if that’s what she wanted.

  “Aye, I’ve work to do.” He patted Deian on the head. “I’ll be seeing you two,” he promised.

  “Do you have to go?” Deian shuffled in place, head down, tears blooming.

  “Oh, you wee bairn.” He grabbed him, held him close. “You’ll be fine now, lad, just fine.” He wanted to let him know he’d never truly desert them, but it wasn’t fair to give a wee lad secrets. Too hard to hold. Seonaid should know that.

  He nodded to h
er, not pleased but he’d appease. He set off, mourning her cut hair, hurting for the wee lad. It was not right, that she should leave her own, but he didn’t know how to break through her stubbornness.

  CHAPTER 2 ~ ADVENTURES

  “Why isn’ Padraig with us?”

  “He had other things to do.”

  “Canna’ he come with us?”

  “No!”

  “I want him to come with us.”

  I do, too.

  She thought Padraig meant to join them, was ready with a right bollocking if he dared to. He’d whittle away at her strength, have her leaning on him. She couldn’t do that.

  Then he didn’t stay with them and she wished he had.

  She tugged at Peregrine’s reins. Deian squirmed in the saddle.

  “I want to walk.”

  “No.” He’d be off exploring if she let him down and they had a long way to go.

  “You walk.”

  Seonaid refused to scream, even though they’d just had this argument. Had been having this argument for a quarter of the day.

  Ever since Padraig left them.

  “My legs are longer,” she answered, once she’d gotten her sharp tongue under control.

  “I can run.”

  “Aye,” she sighed. “You can run.” She snapped, lifted him from the saddle, so he could wear out his short little five-year-old legs and be happy in the saddle.

  “There you go, run like the wind.”

  He walked at first, a bit wobbly with the hours in the saddle, but only for a wee bit. Soon enough, walk turned to hop, and hop turned to skip, as he made circles beside his mother.

  “I wish Eba and Ingrid were here.”

  Though she expected this, she still wasn’t prepared. “I do as well.” Ingrid had a way with both Deian and her niece, young Eba. But Seonaid had killed Ingrid’s sister, Eba’s mother. Not her best moment. Temper out of hand. She’d stolen the clan’s right to punish. Had taken that away from them, killing Deidre with one swift stab of the knife.

  Saved the woman from a cruel and drawn-out punishment.

  But wrong. So many wrongs.

  They’d been friends. Except the Deidre she had befriended was not the Deidre who deserved to die. How had Seonaid not known, not suspected, the evil in the woman?

  And now, Seonaid had no more friends. Except, perhaps, Padraig, only he did not feel like a friend. He felt like something entirely different, something she dared not go near.

  Deian skipped ahead, stopped to study some insect or hole or something on the ground, then popped up to run after a butterfly. She should have given him the chance to walk sooner. He needed to be moving. He could always ride when tired.

  Shielding her eyes from the sun, she watched Deian run ahead, wild with excitement, looking over his shoulder, waving at her. She looked to where he ran and blinked. An edge to nothingness. Short drop, long drop, she hadn’t a clue, but she knew it stopped.

  “Deian, lad!” she called, running now herself, but he thought it a merry chase and hurried on, giggling and pumping his legs. “Stop!”

  She raced as hard as she could, thought to mount Peregrine, but there was no time. Her heart rose to her throat and then, of a sudden, Deian stopped.

  Just stopped, on the edge of the precipice looking down. “Hey, Mama,” he called back to where she hung at the waist, trying to breathe, trying to ease her heart back into its place. “There are people down there. Men!” And he turned back, waving wildly to be seen, to say hello, and her heart jumped back into her throat and her breath caught tight, and she ran.

  “No, Deian! Put your hand down.” She tackled him, caught him around the waist and got them both down on the ground using the same maneuver Padraig had used the night before, rolling to cushion her son with her own body.

  “Why, Mama?”

  “Because we don’t know them,” Seonaid explained, as she set him aside. “We don’t know them and they might not like mamas with their sons. Now be a good little warrior and keep low.” She put a finger to her lips and left his side. “And call me brother.” She searched for a name. “Call me Sean.”

  Close enough to her real name, wasn’t it?

  He didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, but he kept quiet, as she squirmed to get closer to the edge, to look down, to see how far a drop it was and how far away the men were that he’d seen.

  The fall proved short, two feet maybe and not so steep that they wouldn’t survive if they went over. Further on, though, another drop went straight down and yes, below that other dip, on a pebbled beach of an inlet, men stood with horses.

  There were five of them, all looking her way, but too far off to be sure of what they saw.

  At least, that’s what she hoped. Prayed.

  Even as she watched, head and body pressed into the ground, the men separated, scrambled to find a way up the embankment. She would have to run, with Deian. Mount Peregrine and get out of there.

  But where to? She’d been aiming west because the Minch, the strait that bordered the highlands on the west, was that way. She wanted to board a boat, go by water down to Wales and then over to the Women of the Woods. She hadn’t a clue what was between them and the coast, she just knew if they followed the path of sunset, they would reach it.

  She should have taken a boat from Glen Toric, but she was no sailor and didn’t have the means or desire to hire either boat or crew. So she walked, would walk, as far as she had to go, to reach the western coast.

  She wriggled over to Deian. “We’re goin’ on a race. We’re goin’ to run for Peregrine and play hide and seek with the men below.”

  His head popped up.

  “Come on, now.” Grabbing his wrist, bent low, she charged toward Peregrine. “Here you go.” She lifted him up on to the horse, jumped up behind him. “I’ll get us going fast, you look for places to hide.” She kicked Peregrine into a run. Deian’s head went left and right, she knew the cold narrowing of his eyes. She’d seen it before, when he played at hunting or fighting.

  No more than a wee lad, her Deian, but already proving what a fine warrior he would make. If he survived their adventure. If living in a society of women healers didn’t destroy him.

  “There, Mama!” he cried, and she looked to see what he had found.

  But it wasn’t a place, it wasn’t a cave or a ravine or trees.

  It was Padraig.

  She looked behind her. The men had reached the top of the cliff without horses. They’d not catch her. Padraig might. She veered away, west again, for a stretch that didn’t drop down, but eased into the roll and sway of land she could traverse. She heard Padraig riding hard to reach her.

  Well away from the men Deian had seen below, with Padraig a lone rider on a war horse gaining, she pulled up, her breath in great huffs.

  “What the hell happened over there?” Padraig asked, but he knew, could not have missed the five men cresting the rise.

  “Deian saw some men below us, to the south.”

  “What were they wearing?”

  “Clothes,” she snapped.

  “Aye, well, that helps.”

  It felt good to have him alongside her, a barrier to worries. Not that they would go away, but he would buffer them. For now. She’d best not get used to it.

  “Did they have horses?”

  Rattled, she closed her eyes, to picture the beach once more. “Aye, there were horses. And boats, three long narrow ones.”

  “Can I walk again?” Deian asked.

  Seonaid sighed, dismounted, helped Deian down as well. They were well beyond the men on foot. “But don’ go racing off to any edges of land. Do you ken my meaning?” He waved his understanding, already off ahead of them, exploring everything, nothing.

  “He’s a good lad.”

  She couldn’t respond, for the truth of it welled up inside, clogging any words. Deian was a good lad, a fine lad, but the fear never went away that he would grow up cruel and mean and so smart he could weave his way around peop
le and destroy their lives. Like his father. Like her brother.

  She had to get away, get away from here, get her son to a place where no one would ever know the shame and guilt and horror of his birth.

  And she had to get away from Padraig, her one weakness.

  “Deian willna’ find it easy, being away from his own kin, living with women.”

  He reached for her, to comfort. There was no comfort, never had been. Her wicked cruel brother had seen to that. She couldn’t taint Padraig with it, couldn’t risk dependency. As it was, she’d told Padraig too much. He knew her plan, where she was going. That’s how he’d found her.

  She faced him, square on. It gave her strength, courage.

  “He’ll be with me. I’ll teach him the ways of a warrior.”

  Padraig nodded. Mild agreement, when she knew he didn’t agree at all.

  “He’ll learn to care for women, protect them.”

  His gaze flew to hers. “Are you saying there are no such men at Glen Toric?”

  Again, she’d revealed too much, but who was he to question her? Up on his horse, so high and mighty. “So you tell me how it would be for him back there? Let’s see, what would he face…?”

  “Now Seonaid, calm down, you donna’ need…” He got off his mount, moved closer to her, but she wouldn’t have it.

  “Oh no, you don’. Let’s get this clear. His father was my brother, a vicious, murdering, raping bastard. His girlfriend, my friend!” Seonaid slapped her chest, where her heart should be. “My good, my only friend, Deidre, helped him kidnap, rape, and murder precious young lasses…!”

  Padraig tried to pull her into his arms, but she twisted away, wiping at angry tears, spouting all the poisons eating at her soul. “I murdered my friend, right there in front of the clan. I pushed a dagger into her heart!” she sobbed. “I murdered her.” Seonaid crumpled onto the ground. “And the whole world learned how Deian came to be.”

  Padraig hunkered down next to her, his hands on her shoulders. “Aye, you murdered a condemned woman.”

  “Her daughter has no mother.”

  “Eba will be fine. Ingrid did more to mother her than Deidre ever did.”

  She lifted her eyes, finally meeting his. “Aye, she did. And she raised my Deian more than I ever did. But what did Deidre do that we don’t know of? And my brother? Her lover? Renegade that he was, gone to all of us. Did she let him near his son?”