Page 10 of The Speed of Lightning
For more than an hour they’d been left idle, with nothing to do but admire their surroundings. Even the silence carried weight, pressing in on Calum until it stole his breath and set his nerves on edge. Restless, he paced between Léo and Iain, feeling like an intruder in this polished place. Ardtornish was, in a word, oppressive.
He was still in battle dress: mud-stained cuirass and chausses, high boots caked with bog sludge, a tattered plaid slung across his shoulders. A maid passed, her eyes catching on the stigma inked into his hand and arm, winding beneath his tunic and reappearing at his throat. Calum met her gaze with a wink, but she flushed and scurried off with a visible swallow. He fluffed his beard to cover his throat and put his gauntlets back on.
Unable to quiet his restlessness, he continued to pace. There was a mission to execute, yet the forced confinement of the palace made him feel as though he were suffocating. He couldn’t bear waiting for the axe to fall. He wanted to sprint—needed to sprint—if only to put his frantic energy to use. He craved purpose, the command of guardsmen, momentum toward ending this war. Not blasted stillness.
The opulence around him only deepened his unease. He was not dazzled but disgusted by the waste—gold leaf glimmering on cornices, oak panels polished to excess, tapestries towering twenty feet high. He longed for open air, for mountains rising in rugged strength, for sweeping seas and ancient trees. His heartbelonged to the longhouse: plain, purposeful, enduring. Not to palaces dressed in finery that smothered rather than inspired.
He clasped his damp hands behind his back, wandering closer to the finely woven hangings that lined the hall—scenes fromApocalypsis Ioannis?1 rendered in lifelike detail. St. John sat on a baldachin, an open book before him, his visions unfurling across the walls in a chilling panorama.
Calum followed the story as he walked. The bowman on the white horse brought conquest. The sword-bearer on the red horse, war. The black horse with its rider and scales, famine.
He stopped at the fourth horseman. A corpse-like figure, grinning with skeletal cruelty, rode a livid horse. Death. Behind him sprawled ruin—falling stars, collapsing cities, rivers of blood, the fires of hell. Calum’s gaze fixed on one detail: men and women trapped in a tower, burning alive. The tapestry was meant to stir repentance. Instead, it filled him with dread.
A shiver passed through him. Which of the horsemen would dare ride next through the Isles? Extending his finger, he brushed the green-tinged flank of the steed.
“Ye shouldnae touch.”
Calum stiffened, drawing his hand away, and turned to his commander. “Cannae help it. It seems…”
Hector’s eyes followed the horse. He gave a curt nod. “Prescient.”
“Aye.”
Sweat trickled down Calum’s spine despite the hall’s cool gloom. He could not tear his eyes from the death rider’s distorted grin. The figures in the tower burned alive, struck unawares—the victims of a thief in the night. They had believed themselves safe. Just as the people of the Isles believed themselves safe, not knowing their king, their greatest protector, now lay dying in his solar.
From the stair, Lady Mhairi appeared, lifting a hand in greeting, though her voice failed her. Her delicate face was blotched and swollen, blue eyes reddened, nose rubbed raw from grief. Hector took one look at his sister-in-law and strode across the chamber, gathering her into his arms. The others followed, filing toward her to offer what comfort they could.
Birdy weaved her way around Iain and Angus, wiped Mhairi’s tears, then signed,How long?
Hector interpreted. “She is asking if the physician knows how much longer.”
Mhairi took a deep breath and blew it out, wiping her cheeks. “He seems to believe it could be a few days, to short weeks, to perhaps a month or two, he isnae certain.”
Angus held out his handkerchief to her and she took it. “We shall keep you in our prayers, and your mother and brothers.”
Mhairi dabbed beneath her eyes with the cloth, rolling them skyward. “Dómhnall and John Mór are driving me mad. Dómhnall keeps asking about his inheritance, and Father isnae even gone yet. He wants to know which lands will be his, which mine, which John Mór’s.”
She blew her nose, eyes flashing. “And John Mór cares more for the courts in Scotland than for what’s happening here. He cannae speak of anything else—he’s always thought Father should wield more influence there than he ever wished to.”
Her shoulders sagged as she drew a breath. “Mother is beside herself, worn thin by worry, refusing to leave Father’s side for fear they’ll agitate him beyond his strength. Perhaps this is their way of coping, but I’m going mad trapped in the solar with them day after day. If only Mother and I could send them both away.”
Hector laid a broad hand on her slight shoulder. Composed now, Mhairi wiped the last of her tears and gestured to the team. “Come. He’s waiting.”
The higher Calum climbed within the palace, the heavier the air seemed to grow. This was more than grandeur—it was a proclamation of sovereignty, every gilded detail shouting power and birthright. The royal solar was vast, nearly as large as the great hall itself, with hearths at either end wide enough to swallow his parents’ cottage whole.
Iain nudged him with an elbow. “Yer mouth’s hanging open, mate.”
Calum whispered back, “Where does a man get the coin to keep all this splendor?”
David smirked from the corner of his mouth. “Inheritance.”
At the far end, beside a splendid glass window, the king lay propped in a deep bed, cushioned by dozens of pillows. At the sound of their boots across the planked floor, he drew himself up, shoulders squared, chin lifted.
“Come in, come in.”
The sight of the proud king, bent like a man twice his age, rattled Calum. They had all relied on John of the Isles for counsel, for encouragement, for steady leadership. Without him, what would become of the Hebrides?
The flicker in Hector’s icy blue eyes betrayed his own unease, though he masked it swiftly as he strode forward, bowing low to the king then inclining his head to Queen Marjorie, Dómhnall, and John Mór.
