Page 83 of A Constant Blaze
Adam still sat with the harp against his shoulders, but his fingers were falling away. His eyes were unfocused and yet rapt. Without fuss, Gormflaith arose and went to him.
“My turn,” she said calmly.
Adam’s head snapped up to look at her. There was another pause. “So it is,” he said, and stood to make way for her.
It was a tiny incident, troubling no one, but reminiscent of a few Malcolm had already noticed. Adam’s brother and sister covered his social lapses so seamlessly, they’d clearly been doing so all their lives. And yet they obviously felt no shame in Adam. It was merely done from habit, for the sake of those who might not understand or who might even fear Adam’s oddity. Adam’s wife, too, accepted, as did the men. Malcolm felt ridiculously proud of all of them.
Gormflaith, his lively, beautiful daughter, played the harp much as she did everything else, with great vitality.
“She will ensnare him,” Malcolm foretold.
“Who?” Halla asked.
“Harald Maddadson.”
“You wrote to Orkney?” Halla said quickly.
“And heard back. He’ll sail to Ross with the first spring tides.”
Halla sat back, regarding him. “And if you don’t like him? Will you still give her to him?”
Malcolm raised his cup and smiled into it. “No.”
He sensed her relief at once. She’d kept Gormflaith with her too long to part with her to an unworthy man. She would always remember her own churning emotions when she’d first arrived in Ross and shot her betrothed with an arrow. A woman’s lot in this world was rarely by her own choice. And yet somewhere, surely, they both trusted Gormflaith’s own unshakeable opinion of Orkney’s earl.
Malcolm leaned forward to catch Adam’s attention farther along the table. “What did you see?”
It was surprisingly easy to ask now.
“Some good things,” Adam said vaguely. A smile flickered across his face. “Congratulations.”
“On what?” Malcolm asked, surprised.
A sound that was not quite laughter escaped Halla’s lips. Beneath the table, she took his free hand and placed it on her belly.
Malcolm’s breath caught. “Truly?”
“It’s too soon for me to be certain, but Adam is rarely wrong.”
A shiver ran through Malcolm, bringing with it a rush of as much memory as hope. They were all part of him: his father and mother, his brother, his wonderful children and grandchildren, and beyond. And the strong, beautiful woman who sat by his side now in reality, as she had always done in his heart.
He raised his cup to the hall. “The MacHeths!”
The echo was rousing, deafening, and Malcolm, who’d turned a kingdom upside down for a throne, couldn’t have been happier with his lot.
Epilogue
Ross, winter 1205
Again, the oldman smiled into the flames, because he liked to remember, and thathadbeen the beginning of the long peace. A time for living, prosperity, and…fun. On a selfish note, he would not have survived many more battles, would not have had his long, happy life with Cairistiona, or fathered so many children.
Likewise, his parents would not have lived their final years together, with another son, his brother, to seal their enduring union. Malcolm had become Earl of Ross in law as well as in fact, and so had Donald, and Donald’s sons in effect. But not young Adam…
Before the grief, just one of many, could take him again, an echo of harp music and the flash of a man’s ascetic face in the fire, reminded him that Muiredach the harpist had come home at last, too. After two years of wandering, he had returned with Mairead, and they had raised their family of poets and warriors in Ross. Wisely, Mairead had never returned to the king’s court, though Muiredach had accompanied the earl and played for the man who had once been the enemy.
Those struggles that had been so important in his youth, loomed so much smaller now. And yet, they had brought his father home, and if Malcolm had worn no crown, he had made a peace where life could thrive.
Of course, the visions reminded him, it had notallbeen peace. The MacHeths were still the MacHeths, and the growing clan was unruly. But they had been good years, and there was still time to prepare for what would inevitably come. If he did not lose himself in the dreams.
