Page 45 of The Splendor of Fire
Chapter 13
CRÀDH PRISON - FEBRUARY 25, 1385
“Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; and defend me from them that rise up against me. Deliver me from them that work iniquity and save me from bloody men. For behold they have caught my soul...”
The words of Léo’s favorite psalm spilled from his lips as he ran the perimeter of the parapet, his mind focusing on training his body for the fight to come. Sweat trickled down his temple and neck, falling down his chest where his heart now beat strong. Rounding the parapet again, he cast his eyes over the night-cloaked sea and watched the mist of his breath disappear upon the cold of the night.
“But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them: thou shalt bring all the nations to nothing.” No, none of it existed, the prison or the open sea, the good or the evil, outside the will of God.
He finished his final lap and fell to his knees, looking up into the great expanse of the heavens. Stars covered the open skies spread out upon a blanket of milky dust. His chest heaved in and out. He’d done it. Ten stair runs and fifty laps.
Sucking in the fresh, cold air, he bowed his head. “Unto thee, O my helper, will I sing, for thou art God my defence:my God my mercy.”
“Talking to yourself again,Francach?” Eoghan extended a hand and pulled him to his feet.
“To Jesus. As I’ve told you,Irlandais.”
Eoghan snorted. “You really think he’s listening to someone here in this place? The armpit of Scotland? He’s forgotten us.”
Léo wiped his forehead against his tunic. “He hasn’t. I know he’s listening. I know he’s here.”
Eoghan laughed. “Watching you grapple? Lifting and throwing stones? Doing press-ups with you? Running the parapets with you? He’s got nothin’ better to do than watch you get your muscles back? Rather arrogant.”
Every few days Léo’s new roommate protested against hismutterins, and so far he’d held his tongue. But today, he met Eoghan’s skeptical eye.
“Do you really think Jesus is so small that he only sits far off on a throne in heaven? Do you think the savior of the world has not the ability to multiply into the heart of every man? That he is not with you in the ordinary?”
Eoghan crossed his arms over his chest and flapped them against the cold. “Crazy Francach. All I’ve ever known is hills with Jesus. First I’m up on the peak of the mountain, feeling him near, and then I’m in the pit of hell,” he gestured around them, “and I don’t feel him at all. He’s abandoned us here.”
Something in the honest words resonated with Léo, but his views on God had changed over the past fourteen months. He didn’t need mountaintops to see God and attain a higher perspective; he needed the valley to see the greater existence of Jesus in every moment.
A psalm that supported his beliefs came to mind. “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art present.”
Eoghan held up his hands. “All right, all right. If I agree to read your Psalter, can we go in? I’m freezin’ my donkeys off out here.”
Léo let the subject drop and headed back inside.
Ducking into the prison, they followed the bright torches of the corridors, providing more light to the prisoners. Gillie clambered up to the bars of his cell and dropped his voice. “Léo. Any word of Joanna?”
Regret filled him. “Aye, Gillie.”
Gillie registered his tone. “It’s not good news then? She’s dead?”
Léo put his hands through the bars and gripped the old man’s gnarled fingers. “Not dead. She’s fighting. Gave birth to a healthy grandson two weeks ago, but it weakened her.”
Gillie MacKinnon was the patriarch of a large family of ten daughters and dozens of granddaughters. Joanna was his youngest. He was imprisoned by Fingon for failing to pay a higher tithe?1 than he could afford, a tithe that Fingon had imposed on Gillie’s large holding of land at a three-hundred-percent increase with two weeks’ notice, long after harvest had ended.
When Gillie had been jailed, Fingon had wasted no time seizing the land from him in the name of the church and evicting his wife. She’d been living feral in the woods when Angus found her, not wanting to burden one of her daughters with another mouth to feed.
“Chief MacLean knows a talented healer, Ursula MacFadyen. The last word from Mowbray’s reports is that he is sailing her from Lochbuie.”
Tears filled Gillie’s eyes, worried thoughts spilling across his expression. “I cannae stand it. I want to see her.”
Eoghan reached through the bars and brought a hand to Gillie’s shoulder. “I will come to you as soon as I have word on her condition. I promise it. Chief MacLean is doing everything he can to help her.”
The old man ran a hand over his bald head. “Thank God she’s alive. So small, not like her Maw.”
Eoghan patted him. “I know she’s special to you.” He swallowed. “God’s with her.”
