Page 68 of The Splendor of Fire
Moira stuck a finger in his face, motioning like fast moving rapids of water. Calum again gave voice to her gestures. “For weeks you’ve been rude and I’ve had enough. All you’ve done is insult me and think the worst of me. I’m not earning one plack for this. I’ve done it foryou. I’m filling in foryou. I am working against your brother and every member of your miserable family to helpyou. Because Icare for youand told you I was for you, in whatever you chose to be. Unlike how you act—you ask me for my heart and then you shatter it.”
“Right back at you,” he yelled, but his arrow sailed by her as she continued her tirade.
“But even in prison that’s how you were. Kissing me then telling me you thought I was your wife. Smelling me—smelling?” Calum’s voice broke with a chuckle and Léo felt his face blush in embarrassment. “Smelling me and telling me it was cos you liked… the smell of my soap.” Calum choked on laughter then continued. “I went all the way to bloody Lochbuie for you—and then you kissed meagainand regretted itagain. You’re hot and then you’re cold. Have you not thought about how I feel? I’ve been enduring yourdisgustingbrother and violent stepmother to get information to make you chief. I believed in you.”
She waved her hands at him. “I’m done with you. Do what you will,be with Ardis, go back to prison for all I care. This isnae for you anymore.” She pointed to a picture of Father Allen, his kind eyes smiling out beside a laughing woman. “It’s for people like Father and Maw who deserve justice. Out of my way. Oh.” Calum jumped to the side and she disappeared behind a screen.
It was the most thorough dressing down Léo had ever received in his life. A pair of leather trews flopped over the screen with force followed by her soaking tunic.
Calum turned and cleared his throat. “Well, that was a bit awkward for me.” He motioned for the door and Léo followed him back out into the night.
When the door shut, Léo burst with questions. “What on earth is going on, why is Moira flying through trees with you at night?”
“I’m no’ flying through any trees. The way she feels about water is the way I feel about heights.”
“You know what I’m asking.”
Calum gave a weary sigh. “We met her in Lochbuie while we were training for the Shield. She came to the gates at Moy, with some story about bringing herbs for Cara’s em…wooman time.” Both of them shifted uncomfortably.
Calum continued, the details of the day they’d met spilling out in a frenzied mess. “…So we go back out to seize her and she outran me. Me! Launching over hay carts, climbing the stables, jumping over stalls, jumping onto the barmkin wall—climbed it barehanded. I made the same jump and fell. She climbed the keep. The keep! There wasnae even a bare toe hold on it, but she did. Made it into the window and scared the living daylights out of Aoife before getting upstairs to Cara. Your mouth is hanging open.”
He shut his gaping mouth.
“Chief MacLean is following her, screaming and swearing the whole time, and she didnae even flinch. He finally tackled her in his solar, but even then she bit him in the hand and got herself free enough to get your missive out her leine.” Calum burst into a hysterical chuckle and waved an invisible note between two fingers. “Then she waves it in his face like he’s a kitten chasing a string.” Despite his shock, Léo laughed at the image it painted of her spirit.
“Laird takes it and sees you’re alive. We wanted to break you out then and there, but she drew the most detailed map I’ve ever seen. Exact numbers of caterans, the patrols, the bìrlinns, the detail of the prison…”
He thought of the detail she’d sketched into Gabriel’s face. “Aye, she’s a talented artist.”
“Astonishing. But that’s not all. The following day Chief MacLean brings her to Laggan Wood so she can teach us some basic signs she uses to communicate, thinking we might learn to say things like ‘go, stop, there’s four men in the clearing,’ that sort of thing… and she gives us each a sign-name.”
“A sign-name?”
Calum’s hands made the signs. “Aye. Hector is Beithir, I’m Lightning, Murdoch is Thunder, Iain is Sea, David is Rock, Angus is Shadow. You’re Lion. Her signs are dead useful in communications to disguise identities, and on missions when we need to communicate with each other but need to be silent.”
All sobriquets from reports sent to Mowbray, describing the members of the team Hector assembled and their actions in aiding him in prison and against the Wolf. Wonder began to wash over him. She had come up with that too? Calum kept talking, oblivious to his shock.
“…So we’re joking around and Iain says, ‘What do we call you?’ And she climbs this tree—fifty feet in the air she’s flipping, turning, cartwheeling, tumbling, hanging backwards, swinging from one branch to the other. Then she shows us how she can jump from tree to tree like a squirrel. Aye, Laird MacLean looked just like you. He’s screamin’ at her the whole time and she’s just as calm as ever, launching herself heels over head, no hands. Finally she drops back down in front of us. Then starts this repertoire of bird whistles, songs, calls.”
A mystery within the missives began to unravel in his mind. Calum made the motion of the same chicken beak she had made with Léo in prison, but instead of pecking at the ground it warbled. “Birdy.”
Léo’s heart sank. “The Bird? She’s the Bird? A member of the Shield? A woman.”
Calum nodded. “Aye. She wanted to take your place until you returned, she wanted to fight for what you believed in.”
“She saved Duart?”
“Aye.”
A memory of her darkened fingers drumming on the table lit in his mind. “She destroyed the Wolf’s trebuchet?”
“Aye.”
“And now she’s destroyed the supplies for the Wolf’s patrols?”
Calum nodded, a note of defense in his voice. “The ones that attacked Sanaigmore on Islay last month and murdered fifty of Angus’s clan—men, women, and children. Ye ken?”
Out of all the sobriquets mentioned in the reports, none had done more in the past year to support the Shield and protect the Isles than the Bird. Admiration and fear gripped his heart. “She’s the most wanted agent in the Isles.”
