Chapter One
Western Scotland, the eleventh century AD
As he did every morning, Quarrie MacMurtray climbed the foot-worn stone steps to the walls that defended the keep, and gazed out to sea.
Last night had been a rough one here on the western Scottish coast, a storm not external like they had so often, but within the keep itself.
Quarrie had managed to snatch very little sleep, and he felt now as if he emerged from some dark cave of suffering into the light.
For the sun rose behind him, the salt-laden air smelled sweet, and the world held a soft calm.
Deceptive, that calm. As he knew very well, danger lay everywhere.
That knowledge had brought him up here at first light, moving like an old man rather than one just past a score and five years, to search and search the horizon.
For whatever other troubles beset the clan he loved so well, his first duty must be defense.
Summer fast approached. They would be coming.
This keep where he lived was strong, wedded to the rock.
It had been here a long time perched above the stony shingle, enlarged by successive generations.
It overlooked both the sea and the passing of time, one coming and going like the other in an endless circle.
On a morning such as this, it all looked so peaceful.
But a man could not be careful enough, for out among the sleeping green islands, death might wait.
Death, so his ma always told him, just started another cycle.
She was a bit fey, was Ma, and believed in the old ways, the ones of which folk rarely spoke anymore.
She it was who had taught him that those who went from them were not truly gone.
They could expect to meet again—not in this life, perhaps, but in the next.
Preparing him for Da’s death, she might have been. Or remembering all the partings they’d had. Da had been dying a long time. Other partings had been far more sudden, like his best friend—
Someone stepped up next to him with a rattle of light armor. “How fares the chief?”
Borald, the head of the guard and also a good friend to Quarrie, took the place beside him at the wall. Borald had five or more years on Quarrie, a good, steady man and one for whom Quarrie was daily grateful.
Choosing not to answer the query—for it would be far too painful—Quarrie said instead, “Wha’ are ye doing here? I thought ye’d be longin’ for yer bed.”
“Aye.” Borald’s steady, dark eyes gazed out to sea just as Quarrie’s had, and he gave a funny shake to his broad shoulders. “I lingered for the light. I wanted to see—Och, I had this feeling.”
“As do I,” Quarrie agreed unhappily. It could not be good that the both of them felt it. “See anything?”
“Nay. Though in among the isles…”
Quarrie narrowed his weary, gritty eyes and looked again. The ocean shone silver, as might a sheet of beaten metal. Surely it would be easy to see a dark sail, often the first harbinger of danger.
“How is the chief?” Borald asked again. “I would no’ push, but—well, we could all hear him last night. Raving.”
To be sure, they would have. Even though Quarrie and Ma both had done all they could to quiet the man, from beseeching to physical restraint.
Attempted physical restraint. Da was still a strong man, and one driven by the impetus of pain both of the body and the spirit.
Quarrie sighed. “’Twas no’ an easy night.”
“I could hear that.”
“The chief is—” Quarrie possessed no words for it.
“Ill?” Borald suggested.
“Aye.” The word came out like a groan. Quarrie dropped his head, removing his gaze from the sea for just a moment. He could not give in to despair. If he did, his ma might, though she had more faith than anyone he’d ever known. If she lost faith, the clansfolk would also.
Then they’d all be lost.
Borald’s hand settled heavy on Quarrie’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort. He said nothing.
“I believe he will grow well,” Quarrie said doggedly, to Borald or himself. “I still believe so.”
“His wound—”
“’Tis no’ healed completely, nay.” After the better part of a year. Da had taken the slash, a deep cut to the thigh, while fighting late last summer. It had poisoned and refused to close over. Old Drachan, who looked after them all, had recommended removing the leg.
Da had refused. “Wha’ sort o’ chief would that mak’ o’ me, eh?” he had demanded. “How would I go about my duties then?”
For months, he had tried to go about his duties. The pain had been paralyzing and had gradually prevented it. Since last winter, he’d been off his feet.
The wound stubbornly refused to heal. In the back of his mind, Quarrie feared if it would not, his father would indeed perish slowly.
That was not the worst of it. Something had turned the man’s mind. All the losses, mayhap. The constant pain and uncertainty. The same things that had Quarrie climbing the stone steps up to the wall this morning.
“Aye, well,” Borald said without conviction, “I am sure it will. He will grow well. He is a strong man, and a strong chief. Ye ken, Quarrie, if ye ever need a hand wi’ him in the night…”
To hold him down, Borald meant. To hold him down when he raved. Did all the clan know Da was slowly going mad?
“Thank ye,” Quarrie said.
With deep sincerity, Borald told him, “There is none here who would no’ gi’ his life for Chief Airlee, and ye need no’ think ye maun keep it hidden.”
And could not, following a night like the one just past.
“He grieves,” Quarrie choked out. “For those lost, for his own inability to defend the place as once he did.”
“Aye, so he has stood between us and those northern bastards many a time. Kept us free.”
“Aye.” Quarrie lifted his gaze to the sea again.
“Now he has ye. That should comfort him.”
It should. It did not always, at least not when the fever beset Da and the pain grew sharp teeth.
“Would ye like to hear somewhat funny, Borald?”
Borald cocked an inquiring eyebrow at him.
“When I was young, I wanted to be a harper. A musician and no’ a warrior. Naught more than that. I would listen to the traveling bards who came to stay with us on their yearly rounds. And I thought, wha’ higher calling could there be in the world than to spread such beauty? Such laughter.
“Then I learned that as well as beauty, the world was filled wi’ treachery and danger. Wi’ duty. And I learned wha’ my role would be. Since my father put my first sword in my hand, I ha’ known it would hold naught else.”
“Ye will be chief one day. I suppose there is nay choice in it.”
“I will be chief some day.” If he survived.
“Ye will mak’ a fine one. And we will stand behind ye even as we ha’ stood behind—” Borald broke off when Quarrie stiffened. “Wha’ is it?”
“There. On the horizon. Is that…?”
“Where?” Borald leaned out dangerously far over the rampart and stared. “I see naught.”
It is a shadow, only, Quarrie told himself. The shadow cast by a cloud. Only there were no clouds. All right then, it was a dark ripple of current or—
“There,” he said despite himself. “Just alongside Oileán Iur. Ducking behind the island.”
Many of the islands just offshore, little more than small lumps of rock, were uninhabited. Attackers liked to use them for cover.
Like any canny hunter.
Please, God, nay, Quarrie beseeched silently. Heartfelt. Nay.
Borald caught his breath. “Could be a flock o’ sea birds.”
Or a sail. One barely glimpsed for the glare of sunrise on the water. A peaceful morning after a tortuous night. It should be peaceful. He had earned that, not more blood, more killing, more death.
He blinked and the sail was…gone. What he’d thought was a sail.
The sickness remained in his gut.
“They are bound to come raiding,” Borald said like a man trying to reason with himself.
“They always come raiding as soon as they can get their damned longboats out o’ the northern slips.
Why should they hit us, though? They hit the monasteries, mostly.
Or the isolated settlements. We ha’ always put up a strong defense. Just like last time.”
When Quarrie’s da took his injury.
“They will no’ want to throw themsel’s at us again.” When Quarrie said nothing, Borald added, “Why would they?”
Quarrie knew why. The Norse came, aye, in search of wealth. Valuables stolen from the churches. Gold and weapons from settlements. Slaves. They did not waste their time or resources killing for the sake of it.
But for revenge?
Last summer, in the act of taking his dire wound, Da had killed the leader of the Norse attackers. Quarrie had himself witnessed that battle—a vicious one, it had been. Fought right down there on the rocks of the shore.
Airlee MacMurtray had generations of good warriors behind him. He had taken the attacker’s head. It had seemed to affect the whole of the attacking force powerfully.
They had called off the raid, taken the body of their leader and their numerous other dead. They had not returned.
That did not mean they would not. They’d had a winter and a spring to lick their wounds. To nurse their grievances.
Who was to say those northern warriors with their strong blades and their cold eyes would not come seeking revenge against those who had killed their leader?
If so, they would come here.
“Tell the men to keep a close watch,” Quarrie told Borald. “No’ ye,” he added when the man looked at him. “Ye go to yer bed.”
“I think no’. I will stay a while yet.”
“As will I.” Quarrie narrowed his eyes on Oileán Iur again. He would stay to be sure, just until this feeling inside him consented to lie down.