Chapter Nine #3
Around him, the rest of the men worked in morose silence. There was none of the usual banter and ribbing that went on down here, the jokes and the stories. Any humor that arose in them was quickly doused by one look out at the Sea Star and the remnants of Islay’s hopes.
Instead, the shed was filled with the sound of sawing, hammering, sanding, scraping. They worked with a kind of feverish intensity, as though if they worked hard enough, if they could somehow manage to refit the Sea Star, it would mean the attack had never happened.
Jamie understood the sentiment. If he could, he would wind back time to a year ago, before any of this had started, and the last time his island had felt safe.
But time could not be altered. Not even the gods and goddesses had the power to do that.
So he labored along with his men, using his adze to smooth and shape the rough planks until the repetitive motion pushed all other thoughts from his mind.
The work in the boatyard was being supervised by Sean, Jamie’s shipwright.
The man was ancient, small and wizened like an old tree root and as blind as a mole, but he’d been the master shipwright of Islay for the whole of Jamie’s life.
Right now, he stood by the door, leaning on a cane, looking over the workshop and scowling, as though he could see everything that was going on and it fell short of his high expectations.
But Jamie knew Sean didn’t need sight to know how to build a ship.
The man’s memory and sense of space for such things was astounding.
It was as if he could see in his mind the exact dimensions of the ship he was building and how it would fit together.
He could tell by touch and hearing if something had been fitted correctly and what piece needed to go in next.
He was a hard taskmaster and his army of apprentices worked diligently, eager for his approval and wary of his anger.
If the shipbuilders were in any way discomfited by having their chieftain laboring with them, they didn’t show it. And why would they? They were used to such things. If Jamie had not been the chieftain’s son and destined to inherit the chiefdom, he would have been a shipwright.
Ever since he was a boy and he’d managed to sneak away from his tutors and come down here, he’d enjoyed the simple, honest work of boatbuilding.
Whenever the burdens of the lairdship became too heavy, he came down here, lost himself in the simplicity of working and shaping the wood until his problems receded a little and he could think straight again.
The tip of a wooden cane suddenly clacked against the plank he was working on, right between his hands.
He looked up to see Sean standing over him, head cocked to one side.
The Donald plaid that he wore wrapped around his shoulders seemed too big for his skinny frame, making him look like he was draped in one of the sails of the many ships he’d built.
Jamie leaned back. “Come to inspect my handiwork, old man?”
Sean grinned, revealing a set of surprisingly good teeth for one so old. “Ye didnae expect special treatment because ye are my laird, did ye?”
Jamie snorted. “Of course not. I know better than that.”
Sean bent over and placed his hands—gnarled and strong from the long years of his craft—against the plank and ran his fingers over the wood. He grunted. “Not bad. Take some more off on this side. This is going to be the spar for the mainmast. Shorten it one end by eighteen inches.”
He straightened and walked off without another word. Jamie went back to work but only a few moments later he heard footsteps outside and several exclamations of surprise from the men around him.
He put down his adze and climbed to his feet, just as a familiar figure stepped into the doorway.
Elise. Jamie blinked at the sight of her.
What was she doing here? And how had she known how to find him?
Her cheeks were pink with cold and she was breathing heavily, as if she’d run all the way.
She was carrying a rolled document in one hand.
Her eyes searched the shed and then alighted on him. “Jamie!” she cried. Then she glanced around at all the men staring at her and she swallowed. “Um. Can I…er…have a word?”
Jamie didn’t know whether to be pleased or dismayed at her appearance. Pleased because as always, the sight of her had sent a little thrill of pleasure right through him. Dismayed because something was clearly bothering her. What had happened now?
“Of course,” he said gruffly.
Brushing sawdust from his plaid, he took her arm and escorted her outside, away from the prying eyes of Sean and his workers. After the relative gloom of the shed, the light outside was bright enough to make him squint even though clouds covered most of the sky.
“What is it, lass?” he asked. “What’s happened?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just that…look, can we go somewhere a little more private?”
Jamie looked around. Nobody was even pretending to do any work, and everyone was staring in their direction. Perhaps the folks up at the castle had gotten used to Elise but it seemed the rest of Islay was still in awe at the presence of a MacFinnan spellweaver.
“Aye. This way.”
He led her along the beach, away from the piles of timber, toolsheds, and remnants of old boats, until all the trappings of a shipyard were left behind and they found themselves alone with the crashing waves and the whisper of the wind.
She’d pinned her dark hair back into a plait that fell down her back, but the wind had pried strands loose and they hung around her face in wild, pink-tipped tangles.
His fingers itched to reach out and brush them aside, to feel the soft silkiness of them against his skin.
But he did not. Something was bothering his MacFinnan spellweaver, and he needed to know what it was.
She held up the document. “I need to show you something.”
She folded onto the damp sand and unrolled the document, pinning it down with pebbles.
A little perplexed, Jamie lowered himself onto the sand by her side and leaned forward.
The document was a map. A nautical map to be precise, which showed the whole of the Kingdom of the Isles.
Little crosses had been drawn in a circle around Islay.
Elise waited expectantly but Jamie only frowned, not sure what he was supposed to be looking at.
“Well?” she asked.
“Well what? It’s a map of the Isles.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know that! Look more closely—don’t those marks mean anything to you?”
Jamie studied the crosses. They were marked in various places, forming a loose circle close to Islay’s coastline. “Those are attack sites,” he said. “Ye’ve plotted all the places where the pirates have hit us.”
“Well, technically Andrea plotted them,” she replied. “You really are wasting her talent, did you know that? She’s amazing with numbers. You ought to make her your treasurer or something. I wouldn’t have had a clue how to do any of this without her.”
Jamie studied Elise’s face. She seemed a little out of sorts, as though something had put her on edge.
He reached out and placed a hand over hers.
“Lass, as much as I appreciate yer insights, I dinna think ye came out here to discuss the talents of my housekeeper. Why dinna ye tell me what’s on yer mind? ”
Elise met his gaze and swallowed thickly. She gestured at the map. “Isn’t it obvious?”
He glanced at the document again. While it was helpful to have a visual representation of where the attacks had happened, it didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.
He knew where each and every one of the attacks had taken place, each one carved with a bloody knife into his soul.
He shook his head, “I dinna understand—”
“Look at the pattern! See how close they are to the coast? These are lightning raids, hitting your ships hard and fast and then disappearing as fast as they’ve come, right?
But how can they do that? How can they disappear into the wide-open ocean so quickly?
Because that’s not what they’re doing! They’re returning to their base as soon as they’ve hit your ships.
And because those attacks are so close to the coast, then their base must be somewhere on this island! ”
Jamie sighed. “That’s what I thought too.
I reached the same conclusion as ye did, lass.
But it isnae the case. I have scoured every inch of this island.
Every cove, every islet, every estuary or secluded beach has been examined again and again.
We found nothing. The pirates aren’t here. Trust me, I’ve looked.”
Elise opened her mouth and closed it again. “But…but that makes no sense!”
Jamie threw up his hands. “Now ye can see why this whole business is so irksome. None of it makes sense. We dinna know what these pirates want or why they suddenly began their attacks on us. We dinna know where they’re based or how they manage to evade all pursuit.
We dinna know how they always seem to know the cargo routes no matter how much I change them.
” Frustration and anger leaked into his voice, despite his best efforts to remain calm.
Every time he thought about it, that horrible feeling of helplessness sprang up inside him.
And more than anything, Jamie hated feeling helpless.
“No,” Elise said, shaking her head. “I don’t buy it. They have to be here. They have to be. I would like to go and look.”
“No,” Jamie responded immediately. “Not a chance.”
She bristled at that and he realized he’d said the wrong thing.
If he’d learned anything about Elise MacFinnan, it was that she did not like being told what to do.
He held up his hands in a placating gesture.
“What I mean is, there would be no point. Ye’d be wasting yer time.
And besides, I canna spare the men to escort ye. ”
“Then I’ll go by myself.”
“Ye most certainly will not!” he snapped. “I willnae allow ye to put yerself at risk.”
“What risk?” she retorted, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “You just said the pirates aren’t here! So what exactly would I be at risk from?”
Jamie ground his teeth. “It doesnae matter. It’s my duty to protect ye.”
“Protect me? I don’t need any man’s protection!”
Her eyes blazed with fury, and he realized he’d said the wrong thing again. Damn it. Perhaps she was right: Perhaps she didn’t need his protection. The memory of yesterday was still raw in his mind. The power that had blazed out of Elise. The sheer, mind-numbing scale of it.
Yet it made no difference. She was still just a human woman and all it would take was one piece of bad luck, one instant of being in the wrong place at the wrong time to undo her.
The pirates would want revenge for her attack on them.
They would be looking out for her, biding their time, planning their response.
So it didn’t matter that she was a MacFinnan spellweaver. Keeping her safe was still his duty, and he would not, could not allow her to put herself in harm’s way. How could he make her understand that? How could he make her understand that if anything happened to her, it would rip his heart out?
He couldn’t. The words he wanted to say clogged his throat, refusing to come out. And this only made him angrier.
“I am chieftain of this island,” he growled at her. “And while ye are my guest, ye will do as I bid ye. Ye will not go out alone searching the island for something that isnae there. Do I make myself clear?”
Her nostrils flared and she lifted her chin, glaring pure fire at him.
He wanted to rage at her, make her understand his predicament.
He wanted to take her face in his hands and kiss her.
He wanted to spill out everything that filled his heart and have it all out in the open between them. But he could not.
“Fine!” she exploded. “I’ll do as you ask, my laird.
” She imbued his title with enough sarcasm to make him wince.
Before he could reply, she climbed to her feet, snatched up the map from the sand, and tucked it under her arm.
“Now if you will excuse me, I have some extremely interesting paperwork waiting for me.”
She marched off without a backward glance, anger rolling off her in waves.
Jamie watched her go, regretting all the words he wanted to say but couldn’t.
He suspected it was unwise to upset a MacFinnan spellweaver, a woman who could likely blast him into cinders if she chose, but he would risk any danger if it meant keeping her safe.
With a sigh, he heaved himself heavily to his feet and headed back to the boat shed, already thinking of ways he could make it up to her.