Her Savage Scot: 1 (Highland Warriors) (15 page)

Were the old gods telling her, through her grandmother, that
her penance was paid, her guilt absolved and freedom beckoned?

She dug her fingers into the stone, scraping her flesh. She
no longer believed in the old gods.

But would she believe once again, if this was the pathway
for a lifetime with Connor?

Slowly she turned, heart hammering. Her grandmother stared
back at her, concern clouding her normally clear green eyes.

“What should I do?’ She didn’t know of whom she asked the
question. God? Her grandmother?

Or the deities of her ancestors?

“Never lose faith in him.” Her grandmother’s voice held a
strange, otherworldly note. “Do what you know in your heart is right.”

Her father received her in his inner sanctum, but Aila knew
even before she entered the chamber something was amiss. Why else would he
choose this chamber? And why had her mother and grandmother been summoned but
not Finella?

“Aila.” He embraced her, a huge hulk of a man, his long red
hair tied back into a thick braid. “We have a grave situation to discuss,
daughter.”

She inclined her head and attempted to push Connor from her
mind. It didn’t feel right, to be dreaming of her wild Scot lover while in the
presence of her father. But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t stop thinking
of her grandmother’s last intriguing words.

Never lose faith in him
.

She had to mean Connor. Who else could
he
possibly
be?

But she still couldn’t imagine what the cryptic comment was
meant to convey.

“Bredei.” Her mother sounded scandalized. “You told me this
morning you had little intention of pursuing that matter further.”

Instantly her attention snapped back to the present. Her
mother had taken her place beside the king, where he now sat on his carved
throne. Her younger brother Talargan stood with his back to the window, arms
folded, a dark scowl distorting his features.

“Circumstances have changed since we last spoke, my queen.”

The formality of his address sent skitters of alarm along
Aila’s spine. She glanced at her grandmother, seated on the queen’s left, and
the dowager gave a barely discernible shrug. It was clear she did not know to
what the king referred.

“Circumstances,” her mother said and Aila could almost see
the icicles forming in the air around her, “most certainly have not changed, my
lord.”

“Devorgilla,” the king said. “The Scots’ proposals change
everything.”

“Then perhaps you could enlighten us.” The queen’s tone
suggested there was nothing on this earth the Scots could propose that would
change her mind on the matter.

Whatever
the
matter
was.

Her father beckoned her forward and she gave him her hand.
She loved both parents dearly and it hurt to know they had never shared the
kind of love she and Onuist had.

The love she bore for Connor.

“The High King Wrad’s death has left potential disarray in
the kingdoms,” he said. “But you know this, of course.”

“Yes.” It was the reason her father and brother and many of
their warriors had traveled to Fortriu, supreme kingdom of Pictland. “Who was
chosen to succeed?”

“The lineage is fractured.” Her father tightened his grip on
her hand before releasing her and casting a swift glance at Talargan’s stony
countenance. “There is only one living princess of Fortriu and she remains
childless. Until such time as she produces an heir—an uncontested direct descendant
of the crown—there are eight nobles besides me who claim matrilineal rights.”

“Not including that bastard upstart, MacAlpin,” Talargan
said, the fury clear in his voice.

Aila stared at her brother. “The Scot? How can a Scot claim
such a blood tie?”

“His mother,” Talargan said, “was Wrad’s first queen’s
younger sister.”

She had never heard of such sister. This, then, was the news
Connor had delivered from Dal Riada.

“Ah, Clodrah.” Aila’s grandmother sounded oddly sentimental.
“Your sister, Devorgilla, is named after my dear childhood friend, Clodrah.”

“I know nothing of this other Clodrah, Mamma.” An irritated
frown creased the queen’s forehead. “So it’s true? The Scot’s claim is valid?”

“Oh, it’s true. Clodrah was always headstrong and when she
decided she wanted to wed the barbaric Scot Alpin, there was no talking sense
into her.”

Talargan finally joined them. Rage emanated from him in an
almost palpable fog. “If Mairi had wed a warrior who could have filled her womb
instead of that feeble old man she was forced to accept, the lineage would be
secure.”

Sympathy streaked through Aila. Even after all these years
her brother still loved the princess Mairi of Fortriu. She reached out and took
his hand and, great warrior or not, he allowed her to. There were only eighteen
months between them and their bond of blood went deep.

“I’m surprised,” the queen said, after a soft glance in her
son’s direction, “her father didn’t marry her to a suitable Pictish prince.
Didn’t he know of her infatuation?”

“It was during the summer of ’95, Devorgilla.” The dowager
sighed, appeared lost in her memories. “The Vikings raided the west coast for
the first time. The balance was unsettled. Clodrah, scarcely fourteen years
old, took advantage and eloped with her handsome Scot.”

Aila imagined abandoning all responsibility and eloping with
her
handsome Scot. But of course, she never would. Not only was she not
a rebellious maid of fourteen, but Connor had never suggested he wanted
anything more than a fleeting liaison with her.

But how dearly that long-ago Clodrah must have loved her
foreign prince. To give up everything she had ever known in order to follow him
into his strange land. Without the blessing of her kin.

“When the high king, her father, discovered Clodrah’s
betrayal he cast her from his heart. Erased her name from the annals of
Fortriu. Forbade any to speak of her again.” Her grandmother sighed. “Yet her
impetuous nature comes back to haunt us forty-three years after her death.”

Poor, reckless Clodrah. She had enjoyed only five years with
her Scot. Yet long enough to bear the son who now claimed his mother’s heritage
as his own.

“If this knowledge hadn’t been suppressed so effectively,”
her father said, “the Scot’s claim could have been deflected years ago with
strategic alliances.”

“How?” the dowager said. “Clodrah’s elder sister inherited,
but produced only one frail daughter who, in turn, produced the equally fragile
princess Mairi. It grieves me to admit, but the female line of Fortriu is
fundamentally flawed.”

“Nevertheless,” the king said, an edge in his tone, “when
the Scots presented MacAlpin’s credentials we were disadvantaged in our own
kingdom by such ignorance.”

“Indeed you were not.” The queen briefly covered his hand
with hers. “I know you wouldn’t have given them the satisfaction of showing
your true feelings.”

The king was silent for a moment. Then he looked directly at
Aila. “During the council meetings at Fortriu, there was much discussion as to
the future of Pictland.”

Now they were coming to the matter her mother so vehemently
opposed. The matter that MacAlpin’s disclosure had somehow managed to change.

“Yes, my lord.” Dread coiled in the pit of her belly and she
knew her future hung in the balance. She tried to ignore it, brush it aside,
but still it lingered.

Because if it wasn’t her future at stake here, then why had
her father summoned her to his war chamber? Why did he have that look on his
face, as though he were about to betray her in the worst possible fashion?

“Bredei.” Her mother went unacknowledged. Her father
continued to stare at her, as if she were the only one in the chamber.

“The battle of ’39 decimated our ranks of strong, noble
warriors. Our young noblewomen are, from necessity, wedded to men who are one
if not more generations their senior.”

Why was he telling her this? She knew how difficult it was
for a young woman of noble birth to wed a man similar in age, who was not also
a blood relation. Many of her friends, like Elise, were shackled to aged
husbands simply because the choice was so limited.

“You know,” he said, “how intimately all seven royal
families of Pictland are related.”

“It has always been so.” How else could alliances be made
except by intermarriage? She had first and second cousins in all the royal
clans.

But with the steady advance of the Viking devils, with the
bloody massacres of ’34 and ’39, the available pool of strong, suitable
warriors had dried to a trickle.

What they needed was fresh blood. But until the next
generation matured, and assuming many males survived into adulthood, how could
they—

An unformed thought teased the edges of her mind.
Fresh
blood
.

“My daughter, I say this not to distress you but because I
know your strength of mind.” Her father drew in a deep breath and Aila held
hers as sudden panic gripped her. “If the Vikings attack us in such force as
they did before—and should the Scots decide to back them—Pictland will be
annihilated in rivers of blood.”

Talargan tightened his hold on her hand, silently offering
her the strength she had so recently offered him.

“And what did the council decide?” Her voice did not betray
the fear knotting her stomach at the vision of Vikings ravaging her beloved
homeland the way they had ravaged the northern border of Fidach.

“It was propositioned that we approach the Scots and offer
an alliance against our common enemy.”

The dread seeped into her blood, chilling her from the
inside out. “Political marriages.”

It was no revelation. For centuries such strategy had been
used. But until now only between the seven royal clans of Pictland, to prevent
the otherwise incessant battles that raged between one kingdom and the next,
without such bonds of blood.

“The council was divided. To approach the Scots would give
them the bargaining advantage. Something I and my fellow supporters find
abhorrent.”

The fear compressing her lungs and suffocating her chest
eased. Perhaps, after all, her father wasn’t intimating her name had been
mentioned as the sacrificial bride. Even if her mother’s previous reaction
suggested otherwise.

“Were no other strategies put forward?”

“Aila.” Her father’s gaze bored into her and her fear
expanded, consuming the tenuous threads of relief. “Fidach has never recovered
from the raids of nine years ago. The Vikings press farther across the border
with every passing year. If they realized, even for one moment, the true extent
of our vulnerability, they would swarm into our lands without a second’s
hesitation.” His hand fisted on the carved armrest of his throne. “It sickens
me to confess, but we need the Scots if we want to defeat the Vikings.”

“Bredei, there are other princesses of Pictland.” There was
an undercurrent of pleading in her mother’s tone. Her mother, who never begged,
whose pride forbade such base emotion to ever blight her existence.

But even as the words lingered in the air, Aila knew her
mother realized their futility. There were, of course, many princesses of
Pictland. But most of them were married, except for those too young for the
marriage bed.

“Yes.” Her father’s voice was heavy and he spared his queen
a compassionate glance. “But we are no longer contemplating long betrothals,
Devorgilla. And would it be less cruel to offer Finella?”

“No.” The denial sprang from Aila, repugnance shredding her
heart at the thought of her little sister being sent from Pictland. “Not
Finella.”

“Nor Aila.” The queen rose, glared down at her king. “You
told me this morning you had informed the council you wouldn’t countenance our
daughter being offered to the Scots. What happened to the suggestion of holding
a lottery of all suitable noblewomen? It’s unfortunate for whomever loses but
at least there is a semblance of fairness to the matter.”

“Because,” the king said, “the Scots came to Ce with not
only the revelation MacAlpin intends to contest the kingship of Fortriu. He also
proposes a royal marriage to seal our two peoples into an allegiance against
our common foe. He offers the son of his first cousin for our eldest princess
Devorgilla.”

Her father’s words hammered into her brain, battered against
her heart. Her brother’s grip on her hand tightened, anchoring her to the
moment, to the nightmare scenario pounding through her numb mind.

Marriage to an unknown Scot. In return for an allegiance
against her bitterest of enemies.

“I forbid such marriage.” Her mother hissed the words at the
king before turning to look at Aila. “Tell the Scots the eldest princess
Devorgilla is an invalid, unable to travel and most assuredly unable to
consummate such a union. Tell them we will present them with alternatives in
due course.”

“Is that true, Aila?” her father said, never taking his
steady gaze from her. “Do you consider yourself unable to consummate such a
union?”

She wanted to scream
yes
. Yes, she was unable.
Because that would negate any form of marriage contract. A week ago, there would
have been no doubt in her mind that she could never take another man into her
body. But now—oh God. Now she knew better.

There was nothing physically preventing her from
consummating such a marriage.

The knowledge seared her soul. She had fallen in love with
Connor, enjoyed one night of exquisite pleasure in his bed. And for that, she
had proved beyond doubt she was ready to resume the duties required of a royal
wife.

Except she was barren.

No prince wanted a barren princess. It was a more than
adequate excuse to relinquish her place in this alliance. Another would be
found and because of the circumstances without causing insult to the Scots.

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Her brother glared as though her
pain was his own. The king’s expression remained grim, the queen outraged. And
her grandmother aged twenty years between one breath and the next.

Nine years ago, her world had shattered. When she had
recovered, when she realized Bride had ignored her desperate pleas to join
Onuist in the Otherworld, she had pledged vengeance. In reality she had always
known there was little she could do. But always, in her heart, the flame had
slumbered. The flame that promised she would do anything within her power to
prevent further bloodshed and devastation at the hands of the Viking invaders.