Page 125 of The Speed of Lightning
Grufa MacSorley got to his feet from his elder’s seat, striding down the aisle and casting in his golden oath ring. “I cast my support to the raising of a guard, and to the funding of it with Somerled’s gold.”
Nechtan MacLean stood next. “My vote is aye.”
Ogilhinn nodded. “Aye.”
One by one, each of the elders cast their support for the war. His first measure had been carried. Awe swept through him, humbling, undeniable. He was the hound, sworn to guard and defend. She was the storyteller, the voice that turned fear into faith. Together, God would use them and lead their people toward deliverance.
Hours later,Calum crept up the narrow stair hidden behind the panel in the back of the chieftain’s quarters. Behind the heavyinterlace of knotwork and carved animals, the entrance to his father’s solar waited, quiet except for the flicker of his lantern. He paused at the door and ran a hand over the auld iron lock. He drew the key from his belt, fitted it carefully into the wards, and heard the familiar clicks as the bolt yielded. Heart pounding, he pushed the door open, stepping inside. The smell of yarrow and cedar wrapped around him, and for a moment, it felt as though his father’s presence had been waiting all this time.
He sank into the creaking chair behind the desk, aching for the sound of Da’s voice, the one thing he needed to face the coming storm. An account book lay open, a quill still abandoned across it, the pot of ink long dried up. He ran his finger along the scratches in his father’s ledger, wishing that the strokes and dashes would come to life and impart the wisdom he needed to hear.
“I lost her again, Da. I lost her.”
The tight hold he’d kept on his emotion the past few days disintegrated, his fear edging in as tears sprang to his eyes. He wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve and began opening drawers, searching for his father’s private writings. Anything to hear the voice of the man he needed most. But he found none. Every drawer was empty of meaning, every scrap no more than calculations and figures. Not a whisper of Da remained.
He leaned down, sliding his hand to the back of a drawer, his fingers brushing against the corner of a book. He stopped dead, already knowing the feel of the binding. His chest tightened, his breath catching. Then, slowly, he pulled it free.
Disbelief crashed over him as he held the small red psalter he had abandoned with his father ten years earlier. The very cause of his exile was here, worn soft at the edges, marked by years of use.
His hands trembled as he turned it over, afraid it might vanish.
He flipped it open and froze again, seeing his father’s name scribed in slanting, tight script at the top of the page. With his thumb, he ran his finger along the pages, feathering them open. On each one Da had underlined, written questions, written references for other psalms.
At the top of the ninetieth psalm his father had written—Over Calum.The words blurred before his eyes. He pressed the book against the desk, shaking his head, unable to believe his father had ever prayed for him.
He lowered his gaze and read the passage, lips moving with the words he had prayed himself for years:Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon. Because he hoped in me I will deliver him: I will protect him because he hath known my name. He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him. I will fill him with length of days; and I will shew him my salvation.
He ran his finger over the shaky underline, hardly daring to breathe. Divided in life, they had prayed the same psalm, unknowingly joined across years of silence.
At the bottom margin his father had scrawled—Dispatch Cù Cogaidh for the glory of your name. May he walk upon your enemies, and trample them upon the earth.
This was no private devotion only. His father had prayed him into his calling, had begged God to send him forth. The one who cast him out had, in secret, believed in him.
Calum sat unmoving, the psalter heavy in his hands. The world seemed hushed, as though his father’s heart and soul leaned close, speaking at last. And then he understood.
He stormed through the solar, tearing about until he found his father’s shears and razor. He fetched the water pail from the Chieftain’s quarters and balanced the oval mirror atop a stack of ledgers, staring long and hard at his reflection. The face that methim was unrecognizable—wild, unkempt, a tangle of hair and beard grown to hide the roots that ran deep, the roots that had made him strong.
Heart thrumming, he slid his father’s polished comb from its slot. He drew it backward through the middle of his hair until it gleamed, untangled. His fingers moved of their own accord, weaving the small sections of the thane’s fletter as he had learned in his boyhood, plaiting the hair in the way his father had shown him. Above his ear, he paused, sliding Freya’s bead carefully into place with the bodkin.?1 He continued until the fletter fell past his shoulders, then knotted it back, sliding Da’s hound bone hárnál?2 into it and securing it at his crown.
Shears in hand, he cut a thick lock of blond hair, letting it tumble to the floor. He cut again. And again. When the bulk was gone, he took the razor, angling it at his temples and dragging it backward around his ears, shaving the sides and back beneath the thane’s fletter.
Finally, he positioned the blade at his cheeks, raking across to remove beard and mustache. He splashed freezing water over his face and neck then tore off his kyrtill, blotting the wetness from his skin. A bit of his father’s yarrow balm soothed the planes of his face, the familiar herbal sting grounding him.
He glanced at his reflection again. Lantern light caught the sharp lines of his face: the defiant jaw, strong cheekbones, the cleft of his chin. He fingered the short scar running from his right nostril to the top of his upper lip—the one earned at three when he’d broken Maw’s favorite bowl. He recognized the boy who had sprinted barefoot across the heathland, the lad who had learned the ways of the clan, the man God had fashioned for this place and time. A man not created in part, but in whole.
God had created every bit of him, given him this family, this tribe, this upbringing. Nothing in him had been an accident. Every scar, every fletter, every lesson of the clan built himalongside the faith he cherished. And now, he would carry it all—his past, his people, and his purpose—into what must come.
Stronger, ready, he returned to the Chieftain’s quarters and tossed his damp kyrtill onto the chair. The door creaked open.
“Cù Cogaidh?”
“I’m right here, Balder.”
Bog erupted into a flurry of crazed barks. Calum snorted, the sight of their daft hound freeing a weight from him. “It’s me, ye glaikit dog!” He held out a hand, letting the dog catch his scent. Recognition sparked in Bog’s eyes, and he leapt up, dancing with delight. Calum ruffled the scruff of his fur, and for the first time in days, a smile spread across his face.
He glanced at Balder, who was frozen, mouth agape, eyes wide. “What’ve ye done?”
The question pricked him. “Cleaned up. Does this no’ meet your appraising standards?”
