Until Then

“A wife?”

Niall regarded the aging shepherd with a confounded eye. He hadn’t known what to expect when the man turned up all of a sudden to pay this visit, but a proposal certainly hadn’t crossed his mind.

The shepherd raised his eyebrows. “You thought to remain unfettered by marriage?” He laughed and stuffed a wad of snuff into the pipe he continued to carry about everywhere. “Had plans to share your time elsewheres, did you? You wouldn’t be the first.”

Niall frowned, no longer withholding his consternation with the man who had funded his rise to the King’s service. “I had no such aspirations. I simply don’t understand why you’ve taken it upon yourself to pay me a visit with this matter in mind.”

The shepherd puffed on his pipe. “You’re quite the commodity these days,” he said smoothly. “You don’t suppose I spent all those years housing and feeding you, and after your accident, just for the satisfaction of it, do you? I made certain you understood that was an investment.”

The shepherd had once treated Niall warmly. That had been long ago, its shadows buried deep in the fog of memories he had struggled to find. Since the incident, most days were a blur, but impressions remained of some things.

Niall had never forgotten the impression he’d had of the shepherd changed at some point. He became colder, more callous after the accident.

The shepherd threw his shrewd gaze around the black stonework arching over the ceiling. “Much of your earnings from here on out will remain with you,” he said, referencing the debts Niall had recently finished paying to his patron. “However, I’ve the feeling you have little use for a crop of wealth like that, boarding with your fellows as you do here. You’ve never been the sort to daydream about becoming a lord.”

“I suppose.”

“All that coin would be wasted in such a situation.” The shrewd eyes fixed on him. “Yet, should you take it in mind to marry, you’d be sharing that excess with your spouse’s family. Suppose you took a wife whose situation was less fortunate than yours. I figure her entire community would benefit from her patronage.”

There was the heart of the matter, then.

Niall could not deny the shepherd’s village where he once lodged had fallen on difficult times. It had been no lush getaway when he lived there; recently, the region had come under attack from increasingly bold sweeps by bandits Stryn had left to wander the borders.

“I had thought to bring Maura before you when you initially came of age,” the shepherd admitted, tapping the old pipe on the table, “but you were off earning your reputation at the time. I figured it better in any case to let you build your fame a while. There was no sense wedding my daughter to someone who’d turn her into a pauper’s widow within the year. Pardon my brevity.”

Niall cleared his throat. He understood a bit more now that he was looking at the arrangement like a matter of duty rather than a simple business venture.

If he offered to continue sending coin to the shepherd, even for the express purpose of supporting the village, there was no guarantee – in the shepherd’s eyes – that he would continue to do so, particularly not if he one day took it in mind to accept another proposal.

There was a surety in arranged marriages like this. If a mercenary of any marked renown took residence in a place, that place was far less likely to fall prey to attack by simple bandits. If Niall one day had an heir, that heir and their family would inherit any riches he had earned under contract.

Even without an heir, his spouse’s family would inherit that wealth. It was just somewhat less certain.

“I understand well what you’re getting at,” Niall said.

The shepherd puckered his chin. “Have you had other offers that might hold more sway?”

“A minor lord floated an idea like that to me last season. I didn’t pay it much mind.”

The shepherd looked a touch relieved. “Maura will consent to the union, if you were hesitating on her behalf. She’s a practical thing, and she knows how the world works. I’m sure she’ll be able to put any other attachment aside if you agree.”

He made it sound as though he hadn’t fully discussed the matter with her.

Niall frowned. “Are you certain she has no qualms about the idea?”

“She put it rather plainly, as she does. She said she’d march herself to the altar if you would. How else are we meant to take that?”

Niall shook his head, still unable to picture himself settling with Maura, who had never warmed to him the entire time he had lodged with her and her father.