Free Erinsong by Mia Marlowe Page A

her
shiver.
    Brenna was unable to meet
his steady gaze. She scarcely breathed.
The small hairs on his arm brushed against
hers, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. She was intensely aware of his scent, a hint of wood shavings and the tang of the sea over a
warm, unmistakably masculine smell. Brenna cleared her throat in
discomfort.
    “I have not yet thanked ye, Northman.”
    “I noticed.”
    “ ‘Tis not for lack of
sentiment, I assure ye,” she said quickly.
“ ‘Tis in your debt I am. ‘Twas a blessing of God ye were there for me sister.”
    He dragged a hand over his face. “I don’t
know if the gods had much to do with it. I think it was more likely
the handiwork of that devil you talk so much about.”
    “No, ‘twas God,” Brenna
said, taking comfort in repeating what she’d heard from nearly
everyone in Brian Ui Niall’s keep. “Sure, the Almighty
strength ened your arm to defend Moira.
Even Father Michael says so.”
    “And yet you sound doubtful.”
    How had he heard that in her voice? “No, not
at all,” she denied. “I was only wondering...”
    “What, princess?”
    If he divined her secrets
so readily from the tone of her voice,
what might he read in her face? She ducked
her head to shield herself from his gaze. “ ‘Tis blasphemous to think it.”
    “You can tell me.”
    His smile should be counted
as one of the seven deadly sins.
    “I’m a heathen, remember,”
Jorand said. “I’m not likely to be shocked
and I don’t go to confession like you do,
so who would I tell?”
    Brenna knotted her fingers
together. The tempta tion to talk to
someone about her doubts was more than she
could resist. Even if he didn’t share her faith, Jorand’s willingness to listen invited her
confidence.
    “ ‘Tis only that if the
Lord God was there making sure ye were
about to help Moira... I’m wondering where the Almighty was when
such things happened to ... to others.”
    “You mean like those crofters?”
    When she frowned at him, he
went on. “Remember? The burnt-out farmstead you showed me
that first day. Northmen were there, you
said.”
    “Aye, just so,” she said, her heart
hiccupping in her chest. “Why does misfortune come upon some and
not others? Are they somehow deserving of their fate?” She chewed
her bottom lip. “Are they unworthy?”
    Jorand stared into the
night sky where the starry Hunter strode
through a break in the clouds. He was silent for so long, Brenna
thought he must have mis understood her
dilemma or even forgotten she was there.
    “No,” he finally said. “It
isn’t a question of worthi ness or I doubt
I’d still draw breath. It’s just bad luck. As long as there are men
in the world, there will be those who are
determined to hurt others and there will be those who will be hurt.
It doesn’t mean they deserve it.”
    His words were like
soothing balm on a burn. If Jo rand was
right, part of what happened at Clonmacnoise wasn’t her fault,
after all.
    And it wasn’t God’s, either. Didn’t Father
Michael say He had no favorites, that He was no respecter of
persons? Just because there were evil men in the world, that didn’t
mean God was any less good. But that wasn’t the whole of her
dilemma.
    “Ye were quick to help me
sister. What if ye hadn’t? I mean, suppose
someone could have come to her aid and didn’t?” The small muscles
in her face strained as she fought to get the words out. “Suppose
it was another person’s fault she was even there in the first
place?”
    “You take too much on yourself,” he said.
“Your sister told me she’d seen you on the ridge before she came
down to the beach. You couldn’t have known Moira was going into
danger. And even if you’d been there, you couldn’t have helped her.
You’d only have shared her fate.”
    Brenna sighed. He meant well, but he
misunderstood her question and she wasn’t prepared to enlighten
him. She’d wrestled with these thoughts for months. Just when she’d
begin to