Page 16 of The Speed of Lightning
When at last he disappeared into the forest, she bolted—skirting the longhouse, dashing for the stone fence. With trembling fingers she found the loose rock and pinned the stocking in place. Back inside, she filled a basin with rosewater and washed her face, hands, neck, and shoulders. Anything less than her most presentable would be read as defiance.
She unpinned her fletters?2 and let the long lengths fall past her hips, then brushed until the strands gleamed, catching fire with gold in the lamplight. With deft fingers, she plaited a crown, looping the thick ropes half up from the rest and fixing them with pins.
The faint grey bruise on her cheek drew a scowl. No repair could erase it, but perhaps disguise was possible. She dabbedrose-tallow to her lips and cheekbones, studying the blemish again. Still visible—but softened.
Heart fluttering, she shed her tunic and trews for her finest chemise, its lace-embroidered neck just visible above the gown’s cut. Tugging the chemise into place, she braced herself, then drew the crimson dress over her head. The buttons fought her, each one stealing precious minutes, but at last the gown clung to her shoulders, her chest, her hips, showing off every feminine curve.
The bell would toll soon. Struggling to obey Papa’s command to take care with her appearance and somehow hurry, she hopped on one foot toward the door, tugging one shoe on, then the other, bracing herself against the wall to tighten the laces. A quick glance at the mirror became a pause—her breath caught, one hand still pressed to the timber.
Her fingers drifted to the lace peeking above the gown’s low neckline. Begowned, hair crowned, face prettied and brightened…she looked—for an instant—like the lady she was meant to be. Her heart sank, and she fought the urge to muss her hair, to undo the illusion that she was a willing participant in this folly.
The copper bell of the meetinghouse tolled, its loud, metallic strike reverberating through the night. The spell of the mirror broke. Papa and Rory were waiting. And she was late. Fear snaked down her spine, and she bolted from the door, skirts bunched in her fists. Heart hammering, she scrambled over the fence, sprinting past the marker stone and into the woodland path. She was nearly clear of the trees when her toe snagged on a root, the hem tangling her other foot, and she pitched forward.
A cry tore from her lips. She caught herself against the rough bark of a tree, palm burning, as the gown hovered only a hair’s breadth above a muddy puddle. Her breath hitched at thenarrow escape. One misstep, and Papa’s precious gift—and her fragile safety—would be ruined.
She stepped carefully over the muck and pressed on, dread mounting with each stride. The meetinghouse loomed ahead, its shadow hanging over her like an axe. From the ridge above Somerled’s auld longhouse, she glimpsed MacLeans and MacSorleys streaming through the doors.
Straightening the precious crimson gown, she smoothed her hands down its length, swallowing back the bile creeping up her throat. She had made it. Just barely.
The last man slipped through the massive doors of the meetinghouse. This was it—the moment she had dreaded for months was upon her. Tonight Rory MacDonald would be named her husband: a man as cruel as Papa, with a temper twice as quick.
For a breath she stood still, collecting herself. Tilting her gaze to the heavy clouds above, she imagined Calum’s man-god upon his throne, watching this night unravel as disastrously as Calum’s tànaiste ceremony had a decade ago. She knew little of this god, save that his people did not need to bow before runestones in order to be heard.
What harm could there be in trying? At worst, she would meet the same silence Calum had borne these past ten years.
Her whisper drifted upward, half a prayer, half a jest. “I dinnae know how to mend what’s about to unfold, man-god. But if you’re listening…do something. I—I need you. You gave Calum a way out. If it’s no’ too much trouble, perhaps you could spare a skiff for me, too?”
A grim chuckle escaped her. Of course there would be no skiff. She had been dragged from the only one she ever had.
Chapter 4
INVERLUSSA, JURA - OCTOBER 3, 1386
The peal of the meetinghouse bell rolled across Ardlussa Bay, each strike reverberating through Calum’s chest. The sound dragged him back through time. The last time he had heard its measured ringing was the day of his flight—the day the clan gathered to receive their tànaiste, and he’d taken his stand instead. Ten years since that moment. Ten years since he’d stepped onto the slip and shoved his skiff into the tide. Over three thousand days since he had last stood on this shore, and yet here he was again—home, though it felt as strange and foreign as it did familiar.
Nils MacLean emerged from his father’s boathouse, his wobbling gait slow but steady. To Calum’s surprise, the greeting that left the auld wherryman’s lips was not in their Norse-Pictish tongue, but in Scottish. Calum answered in kind, masking his hesitation. He knew he’d changed in a decade—marked by war, a tamer style of dress, and exile—but he had not expected Nils to fail to know him.
The ancient wherryman squinted, his weather beaten stare lingering on the sea-colored tartan draped over Calum’s arm,the folds pleated to conceal the wolfhound beneath. “Come from Lochbuie?”
Murdoch leaned down, producing their orders, his head tilting toward Calum. “We’re here on orders of the king.”
Nils studied the seals, his bushy gray brows shooting up. “Ah. Important business then. Suppose you’ll be looking for the chieftain.”
Calum only nodded, faintly amused that the man failed to recognize him despite the seven summers he had once worked in that very boathouse.
With a wink, Nils tied off their skiff and pocketed Murdoch’s silver groat. “Aye, it’s the meetinghouse you’ll be wanting, then. It’s Friday’s eve, day of the gathering. Hear them bells?”
Murdoch slung his pack onto his shoulder. “I reckon Somerled himself can hear them from his grave.”
Nils barked a laugh. “Aye, that he can. Now, take the path in the grass up the hill past the chieftain’s cottage—that’s the one on the rise yonder. Keep on through the bowed firs and across the wee burn that runs south. You’ll come to Thane MacSorley’s house at the top. Stone cutter, he is. Low fence marks his land—follow it to the end and you’ll see the clearing. Meetinghouse sits there.”
Murdoch’s brow furrowed as he tried to follow. “Wait—follow the fence through the trees?”
“Aye,” Nils said with a wag of his finger, “but dinnae cross over the fence. Thane MacSorley’s got an awful temper about his land. Just follow it.”
Calum’s thoughts drifted as auld Nils rambled on, his words whistling through the gaps in his teeth. His eyes lingered over the auld bay—the thick forested hills, the scatter of cottages and longhouses, the sweep of the familiar shore. It was the place where he’d once felt most himself…and the place he no longer belonged.
“And when ye come to the third boulder, the one shaped like a puffin, turn left. You cannae miss the meetinghouse. Largest building on the eastern shore. Somerled’s auld place.”
