Page 18 of The Speed of Lightning
Murdoch grinned. “If only they’d held out one more year.”
Calum gave a faint nod, hardly registering the jest. The longhouse loomed before them with an air of ancient power, pressing on his chest like a hand. His heart drummed in time with the centuries-old bond to this place, the weight of his family’s legacy, the magnitude of the prayer he had prayed to return.
They climbed the earthen steps into the hill and halted at the towering double doors. His gaze snagged on the lantern still hanging crooked above the lintel, its glass cracked from the shinty ball he’d smashed against it in his fourteenth summer.
Murdoch rested a hand on his shoulder. “Are you ready?”
Calum filled his lungs until his cuirass groaned against the strain. “I’ve been ready for a long time.”
The vestibule was unchanged—low-ceilinged, wood-scented, a threshold into history—but the faces were not. Where once his father’s oldest retinue had stood, now two younger guards in Juran plaid leveled their eyes on him. “What business have you?”
Murdoch stepped forward, holding out the king’s missive and nodding toward Calum. “We come on orders of the King—and of Chief Hector.”
Gunnar’s eyes narrowed on Calum, his brows knitting as if dredging up a memory—perhaps the summer they’d stolen Douglas MacSorley’s cow. Yet, like the others, he showed no sign of recognition. He returned the documents with a curt nod. “Keep quiet, and stay in the back row. When Cù Ceartas opens the floor for clan matters, then you may step forward.”
Calum accepted the orders with his clean left hand and dipped his chin in acknowledgment. The inner doors swung wide, and he and Murdoch slipped through.
Though it was the hall of his childhood, awe still struck him like a blow. Every wall, every beam was laden with the weight of conquest. Gold-hilted swords, jeweled chalices, crosiers,reliquaries, medallions, candlesticks—the plunder of Somerled’s raids on Scotland glimmered in the torchlight. Vast hangings told of the failed campaign, their woven warriors forever locked in combat. Ermine, mink, and wolf pelts draped the walls in mute testament to the victory nearly won.
From the four corners rose incense to Odin, the thick smoke curling upward in blue threads. Juniper. Yarrow. The sharp, cool scent clawed at his lungs and carried him back—back to the last day he had walked Jura, when the air was heavy with the same perfume.
Beside him, Murdoch’s eyes widened as they drank in the carved beams, the woven hangings, the plunder that gleamed along every wall. Keeping to the southern edge, they crept into a shadowed corner, unnoticed amid the crush.
On the western wall rose the dais, the great high seat at its center, flanked by the smaller chairs of the eight village elders—four Norse MacSorleys and four Pictish MacLeans. And there, in the smallest chair beside his father, sat his mother. His chest tightened at the sight of her. Her hair had faded to a wintry white, but she was unchanged in every way that mattered. She was still the steady sameness he had longed for through ten years of exile.
Around the hall pressed the clan—dozens from Inverlussa and Lealt, with a few familiar faces from Tarbert and Knockrome. And there, as inevitable as sunrise, stood Ragnall MacSorley at his father’s left hand, fists flying as he railed at the crowd.
“For too long we’ve bowed to MacLean overlordship! Two hundred years of misrule have dragged us near to ruin!”
From the high seat, his father listened, wolfhounds carved into the armrests flanking him like sentinels. His chin rested on his hand, thumb and forefinger pressed to his cheek, the stillness of a man weighing not words, but the fate of the clan itself.
Calum smiled. For forty years Da had been listening to Ragnall MacSorley’s weekly tirades. If pressed, he was certain Da could complete the diatribe for him.
Ragnall continued bellowing, shaking his head until his jowls quivered. “Well no longer! I am here tonight to present myself to this clan as an alternative. I am the eldest living descendent of the mighty Somerled, King of Argyll and the Isles, of the great Crovan Dynasty. My blood is more noble than any MacLean, including the Chiefs of Lochbuie and Duart.”
A chill needled down Calum’s spine. This was not the normal drunken bluster. Ragnall was staking a claim. Around the hall, murmurs gathered like storm clouds on the horizon, pressure building with every whispered word. Treason. Open defiance of oath and fealty. In any other hall it would have meant the lash, the rack, perhaps death.
Calm but firm, Da leaned forward in the high seat. “Hold your tongue, Ragnall.”
Undaunted, Ragnall thundered on. “I am here to announce my daughter’s betrothal to the nephew of the king himself. With the support of this lad, and by the vote of our elders, the MacSorleys will at last be restored to their rightful place in the chieftainship. We all know Rory MacDonald.”
To Calum’s surprise, a ripple of approval moved through the hall like wind stirring tall grass. To his left, Murdoch rolled his eyes.
Ragnall pressed the advantage, his voice swelling with practiced conviction. “He has been here week after week, month after month, year after year—seeing to the duties of the tànaiste. Repairs, provisions, petitions to the king. While your son abandoned his responsibility, abandoned his father, abandoned this clan. You, Chief MacLean, have failed us. Failed to give us a true heir. The time is now to ordain a new chieftain. I presentmyself as the rightful chief of Jura, and the children of my daughter and the noble Rory MacDonald as my heirs.”
To Calum’s total amazement, a wave of disapproving sneers surged with greater force throughout the meeting. A little boy rose to his feet, black charcoal smudges painted over his right arm, shaking his fist. His father stood beside him, placing a hand on the lad’s head in approval, adding—“Awa’ wi’ ye, Thane MacSorley.”
Now well past the point of polite annoyance, Da pushed to his feet and raised a hand for silence. Still broad-chested, straight-spined, and fine of muscle, it was Da who had been insulted, and in the Norse-Pictish tradition, he alone must settle the affront. In three strides he was off the dais and nose-to-nose with swaggering Ragnall.
Da raised his voice, one hand on his sword, anger blazing in his eyes. “I warn you one last time, Thane MacSorley. Hold. Your. Tongue. You dare insult my authority, and my son, your tànaiste? He is a warrior true to his title, a fierce and mighty defender. Shall we name every battle he has fought in these past ten years?”
Shouts of agreement ignited so loudly through the meetinghouse that Calum’s ears rang. Confused, he observed the phenomenon with total inability to understand. Were these not the same men, the same families, who had run him from Jura for his oath to the Christian God? Had he not been banished by his own father? Why then were they shouting their support? Squinting into the dim light, he realized it was not only MacLeans lending their voices, but three of the most important MacSorley elders as well.
Ragnall raised his hands, calling for silence. When the roar ebbed, he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a slip of vellum. “Your son’s popularity is nothing but myth, not proof of true power. I offer here confirmation of the betrothal betweenmy daughter and the MacDonald noble. Signed in his own hand.”
He unfolded the parchment slowly, wringing every drop of tension from the moment. Calum’s eyes scoured the assembly, desperate for a glimpse of Freya’s slight figure. He needed to lay eyes on her—needed proof that she still lived, and to read for himself what her face betrayed about being bound to Ragnall’s scheme.
Ragnall cleared his throat and read aloud. “Behold my oath: that I will take Freya Anna MacSorley as my handfasted wife, in exchange for the bride-price of one thousand gold nobles. Signed and sealed by Rory MacDonald. Observe his mark. I therefore raise once again my rightful claim to the chieftainship, made stronger now than your own.”
