So he frowned. “That isn’t the part I mean — as well you know!”
“Ahhh . . .” Torcaill’s long white beard stirred in the wind. “Have you so soon forgotten what I told you about the significance of that touching?”
Ronan did his best not to give the druid a withering look.
He’d forgotten naught.
Would that he had!
“I see you do remember.” Torcaill looked at him down his overlong nose.
Ronan returned the stare.
The other’s certainty was grating on his nerves.
Even so, hehadto know.
“The maid spoke true. And her ability to show you what her gift lets her see says much about her power,” the druid continued, clearly intending to needle him. “Only those most blessed can lay hands on anontaibhsearand grant them such glimpses.”
“The image could have come from my own youth.” Ronan squared his shoulders, warming to the idea. “Maldred’s crest was not always as worn and indistinguishable as it is now. When I was a lad, it was —”
“Anything but ‘shimmering with a brilliance that hurt the eyes,’ ” Torcaill quoted him, looking superior. “Even then the stone’s carvings were showing their age. Nae, nae, laddie, ’twas a look into a more distant time she was giving you, for whate’er reason.”
“And you do not know that reason?”
The druid shifted in his saddle, his gaze — his suddenly wary gaze — sliding to a tangle of whin and broom a bit farther down the pine-clad knoll.
“Well?” Ronan didn’t hide his impatience.
Turning back around, Torcaill peered at him from beneath down-drawn brows. “Like as not, the maid has no idea her power is so great.”
“That is no’ what I asked you.”
“Mayhap not, but I have told you all I may.”
It was all Ronan could do not to grind his teeth. He did stiffen, and not in a way that was pleasurable.
Torcaill eyed him placidly, his hair and beard lifting in the wind. “It is not for me to question why the Old Ones let her show you what she did. I can only tell you that they will have had their reasons.”
“Think you I do not know that?” Ronan glowered.
The druid only arched a brow.
Ronan felt his restraint waning.
“If the Wise Ones had reason to send me ataibhsearas a bride, perhaps it would serve their purpose better if I were made aware —”
“You will know what you must when the time arises for you to know it.”
As I have told you before.
Ronan was sure he heard the unspoken accusation.
He choked back a snort.
His head was beginning to ache, so he did what he could, turning his darkest look on the heavens, the gray, lowering clouds scurrying past so swiftly. Pinning his stare on a particularly dark and thundery-looking cloud, he enjoyed his scowl.
There were satisfactions to be had in such small victories.
