Page 2 of The Speed of Lightning
Maw’s sharp gaze caught him askance, her keen eye sensing at once that something was wrong. Da extended the oath ring?5 in his stigmaed?6 right hand, and the meetinghouse thundered with the stamping of feet.
“Your oath.”
The words threw him off balance, thrusting him back into the ceremony that every fiber of his being rebelled against. He staggered, steadying himself against the pine table.
Do it Calum. Just say the words. It will please everyone.Reason urged him forward and he reached for the ring.
Wrong.
The word clanged around his brain next, reverberating off his conscience in a mighty echo, and he stood there stupidly, staring at the cuff.
His father’s brow arched. “Your oath to the Allfather.”
Hadn’t this been his inescapable wyrd—the firm grip of destiny that had bound him since birth? Calum licked his lips. Evil used reason, that he knew. If logic and sense outweighed God’s instruction, a man could reason himself from his own faith.
The thunderous stamping of feet began to fade, and Da raised the oath-ring. “Cù Cogaidh, your oath.”
His tone brooked no argument and Calum felt his body obey before his mind could resist, his freshly stigmaed hand clasping the ring alongside his father’s.
Da began the vow. “I pledge myself and swear, before our holy gods, true loyalty and fidelity to Odin Allfather, to the Æsir and the Vanir, and to the faith and traditions of Somerled’s forefathers, and to none other, for as long as I shall live, so help me, Odin and all the gods of Asgard.”
Panting, sweat trickled down Calum’s brow as the urge to flee surged again. His tongue became clumsy, unable to move, unable to repeat the oath, unable to do as his clan expected. Dizziness washed over him, the knowledge that he was shaming his father. And yet, he could not make himself say the words.
Da repeated the beginning of the oath, each word measured and deliberate, as if Calum needed help to recall their order. “I pledge myself and swear, before our holy gods…”
Ragnall MacSorley surged to his feet. “Traitor! You deny the faith of Somerled. You deny the Allfather! You are no’ fit to rule this clan. If you will no’ swear the oath, none of the MacLeans are fit to rule!”
Da thrust the oath ring forward once more, his eyes insistent, his voice unyielding. “He will swear the oath.”
Maw rose beside Ragnall, tears brimming in her eyes as she shook her head in silent protest. For months she had begged him to go through with the oath despite the secret he kept from his father, pleading with him not to reveal his betrayal. He’d been warned against attending the little chapel in Tarbert, warned against reading thecoigreach?7 holy book. Yet he had gone. He had read. Because—because he knew truth when he saw it.
A wave of steadiness washed over him—an assurance beyond his own strength. He straightened. It was truth that had given him the courage to keep attending the chapel at Tarbert. Truth that had spoken from the pages of the holy book. He knew truth. He knew its voice, its shape in his life, the ways it had changed his heart and taught him to trust and follow. Yes, he knew the truth, but now, he would live it.
He forced himself to stand firm, gripping the oath ring with resolve. Meeting his father’s gaze, he drew a steady breath.
“I pledge myself and swear before the one true God who gives life to all things, before Christ Jesus who bore witness under Pontius Pilate—hear now my good confession. I shall obey His commands and keep this clan without wavering, until the coming of my Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Only God, the I AM, has immortality and dwells in light unapproachable. To Him be honour and dominion everlasting, and to me this chieftainship, served beneath His sovereignty in my finite years. Amen.”
Several things happened at once. Maw cried out. Da tore the oath ring from his grasp. The words of St. Timothy crackedthrough the hall like a blazing whip of fire, driving every MacSorley to their feet—and then, to his shame, the MacLeans as well.
“The coigreach man-god! He has dishonored the Allfather! You are no’ fit to rule! You have broken the charter!”
Across from him, forgotten by her irate and screaming father, an awestruck Freya inched forward, a look of admiration, not condemnation, in her expression.
Da rose to his full height, but Calum was no longer a lad. They stood eye to eye, nose to nose, man to man. “Where are they?”
For once, he felt no urge to hide the truth. “In my belt.”
Da stepped forward, his left hand twisting into Calum’s braid, his right-hand groping and finding the tiny psalter and prayer book hidden in his belt. “You shame me with your obscenities. You have dishonored this clan.”
Calum wrenched out of his father’s grip. “I have been charged to protect the clan as the first Cù Cogaidh did. And I seek our protection from the only protector—the God of all men.”
Da hurled the prayer book at his feet. “You’ve forgotten who you are, Cù Cogaidh.”
Calum crouched to retrieve the prayer book, anger burning away what good sense remained. “I know exactly who I am. It is you who’ve forgotten. You choose the charter before Jura. Before your son. Before the truth.”
Da’s expression pricked with heartbreak then hardened with scorching condemnation. He seized Calum by his tender, scarred flesh and dragged him toward the door.
“The truth? I am the chieftain. It is my duty to uphold the charter— that is the only truth I know. You think yourself high and mighty, filled with your man-god’s beliefs. You’ve no inkling what it means to put your clan before yourself— beforeyour desires, your wife, and yes, even your only child. Have you forgotten that I have sworn my own oath? The chieftain’s promise that binds me to act first for this clan. Do you understand what you are asking me to break?”
