Following more slowly, True stood and watched as Barta threw herself into Wick’s arms. She and her brother both wept and laughed—True felt something inside Barta ease for the first time since Wick’s departure.
Tally, his eyes also full of tears, turned and smiled at True. “I told you. Now everything will come right.”
****
“We had no end of difficulty finding you,” Wick confessed. He buried his face in his mug of heather ale, included among the supplies he and his party had brought with them. “No way to tell where you would be. Then I said to Verica, ‘We will try the old place. A miracle may have occurred and they have retaken it.’ ”
Verica. Barta turned her gaze on the woman who sat, mostly silent, at Wick’s side. A high-ranking member of the tribe Caerena she was, whence Wick had gone when he left the Epidii. The widow of their war chief, she appeared to be half warrior herself—like Barta—but beautiful with it. Long black hair cloaked her shoulders, and fierce blue eyes regarded the world from a finely sculpted face.
Just what lay between her and Wick? Barta could not say, but she felt something significant linking them. She had come, so Wick said, with the intention of joining forces—Epidii and Caerena—to make a united stand against the westerners, come spring.
Barta sensed far more. Would they unite the two tribes through marriage?
Tally, sitting on Barta’s other hand, smiled. They’d all met round the fire to discuss plans, Barta and True, Tally and Rekka, even Brude, with an unaccountably silent Avinda at his side.
Brude spoke now. “Do you, Wick map Radoc, intend to take back the place of chief?”
“I do.” New steadiness inhabited Wick’s voice and certainty filled his eyes. He looked sure of himself—at peace. He glanced at Verica. “We do.”
Barta’s eyebrows lifted. Well, that clarified matters.
Wick, looking at Brude, went on, “Not to say but I owe you more than I can ever repay. Thank you for stepping in when I did not see my way, and helping my family keep the tribe together. I hope we are still friends.”
Brude hesitated. He too slanted a look at the woman who sat beside him before extending his hand to Wick. “Friends.”
The two men clasped arms. True saw Barta blink rapidly as tears flooded her eyes.
“Together,” Wick said, sounding very like his mother, “we are far stronger than ever we can be apart.”
“Together,” Tally chimed in, “we will build something that will endure.”
To Wick, Barta said, “How did you and Mistress Verica meet?”
A curious smile crossed Wick’s face. “How best to answer that? When I left our tribe, I thought I fled the unbearable pain that lay here. Cowardly, but yes—I do not try to hide what I am. I told myself I went to enlist the help of Father’s old allies in our fight.
“Instead I believe I was led. I went astray in a storm, nearly stumbled on yet another party of Gaels, and realized I was too far west. When I turned back, I came upon the Caerena lands.”
He glanced again at Verica, who took up the tale in a smoky voice. “We, like you, have been dug in, resisting the Gaels, far too long. The party Wick nearly encountered had just delivered a killing blow—over the last year our chief, war chief, and most of our warriors have been slain. It will tell much of how far we’d sunk that I—widow of the former war chief—held the reins in my hands. There was no one else.”
Softly Wick said, “After I arrived, Verica and I spoke long. Father never had close ties with the Caerena. I cannot imagine why.”
“We were originally located much farther west,” Verica remembered. “Many other tribes have been displaced.” She smiled at Wick. “It was chance that we met—or yes, you were led.”
“Led,” he concurred, a tender note in his voice that told Barta much.
“Be that as it may…” Verica lifted her head. “It seemed more than apparent we should join forces if it be to your liking. I and the men I’ve brought are but the vanguard. The rest of my folk follow. Together we shall stand or fall.”
“Stand,” Brude decided surprisingly. “Winter is the time for weddings. Avinda and I wanted to announce that we will wed.” His gaze met Wick’s. “What of the two of you?”
Verica smiled into Wick’s eyes before reaching out and taking his hand. “There is strength in union. And I would be honored to become this man’s wife.”
Wick raised her fingers to his lips. “The honor will be all mine.”
“So might it be,” Tally said gravely, speaking for Radoc and Essa, and all those who had come before. “Caledonian hearts, as we know full well, are loyal and true.”
****
The fire had died and night had come again. The settlement, bustling all day with activity, voices, and even laughter, had at last begun to quiet. Barta, daughter of Radoc, lay in her husband’s arms hazy with contentment, and gazed up at the moon.
A sharp wedge it was, heralding new beginnings. Strange how the moon came and went, constant in its inconstancy. But the love never wavered.
“It is remarkable,” she murmured to her husband. “If I keep my eyes on the moon and do not look at you, I can’t really tell who you are.”
“You know who I am,” he returned.
“Yes, but you understand what I mean. You might be True. You might be Loyal. A hound or a man.”
“Yes, but either way I am me.”
“This is so.” Joy bubbled up through her.
“I am he who loves you. Does it matter how I appear? What skin I wear? Barta, look at me.”
“Not just yet. I would enjoy the moment.”
“Look at me.”
The corners of her mouth turned up. “Giving me orders now, are you?”
“Yes.”
“My, how things have changed.”
“That is just my point. Nothing has changed. Nothing ever will.”
Barta turned her head and looked at him. She fell into the bottomless love in his eyes.
“Give me all the orders you like,” she told him breathlessly.
“There is but one: love me forever.”
“Yes,” she whispered against his lips. “Bound spirit to spirit, forever and always. Because, as my brother says, Caledonian hearts are loyal and true.”
A word about the author…
Award-winning author Laura Strickland delights in time-traveling to the past and searching out settings for her books, be they Historical Romance, Steampunk, or something in between. Author of numerous historical and contemporary romances, she is the creator of the Buffalo Steampunk Adventure Series set in her native city. Loyal and True is the first book in her new historical Hearts of Caledonia series.
Born and raised in Western New York, she’s pursued lifelong interests in lore, legend, magic, and music, all reflected in her writing. Although she enjoys travel, she’s usually happiest at home not far from Lake Ontario, with her husband and her “fur” child, a rescue dog.
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