Chapter 17
The question of the Storyteller had haunted the team for weeks.
Now Calum knew—and the answer was unthinkable.
His wife was the source of the tales compromising the safety of the Isles.
Worse, the riddle of Freya’s feelings for him was solved as well.
It was only an arrangement. A bargain of this for that.
Her devotion no more than obligation. And it stung like mad.
Now he crouched in the brush at Lealt Linn, waiting.
The stocking hung from the loose stone in Ragnall’s fence since the night before, set under cover of darkness.
All day he’d gone about his duties as if nothing were amiss, sharing the plan only with Murdoch.
When dusk came, instead of returning home, he kept away.
Wounded, he’d sent Doc to fetch a bag from Freya with a change of clothes—he would need them when he sailed for Lochbuie before dawn.
Facing her was impossible. He needed time to lick his wounds, to decide how best to protect her, how to explain the truth to the king without condemning his clan, his father, or his wife. Time to pray on the mission he thought God had set before him.
Nothing seemed clear. He had believed he was called home to serve as tànaiste.
Believed that he and Freya were bound by divine love.
Believed he would help turn the tide of faith on Jura.
But the more he pressed forward, the more he seemed to flounder, drifting further from the finish with each passing day.
After only a few hours of waiting, his father emerged from the trees, just as Freya had said, giving the low, eerie call of the owl. Calum answered with a soft, haunting hoot of his own, then stepped from the brush into his father’s sight.
If he had expected surprise, contrition, horror—none of it showed on his father’s stoic expression. They stared at one another, neither saying anything, neither speaking an explanation.
Da was the first to break the silence. “I was expecting Freya.”
Calum’s grip tightened on the arrows he’d gathered from the forest floor. “You mean the Storyteller?” He flung them down at his father’s feet. “An archer hunted her last night after she told her tales at Fraser’s house.”
In the dim moonlight, Calum saw the blood drain from his father’s face as he stooped to collect the arrows. “What archer?”
Arms crossed, fury swelling, Calum ground out, “I dinnae ken. I searched the woods ’til dawn and never found him.”
“Is she—”
“Aye, she’s hale. Her dress torn from hiding, but thank God that’s all. The chief must be told.”
Da nodded, his face resigned. “I’ll go with you to explain.”
“I think you had best explain to me first. How could you have done this? How could you have let her do this? Encourage her, when the cost could be so dire? Do you hate the MacSorleys so much you’d put her at risk for the sake of my reputation?”
For the first time, Da’s face twisted in anger. “Mind your words and handle them with care. I assure you, Calum, that I care more for that lass than any soul on this island—including you. Have done since she was three summers auld. Since the day this all began.”
Calum stepped closer, irritation rising at being left in the dark yet again. “What are you saying?”
His father’s voice cracked with a desperation Calum had never heard. “The day her mother died. The day Ragnall began to hate his daughter. The day that changed everything in this clan.”
A chill worked through Calum’s fury. The tremor in his father’s tone unsettled him more than the arrows at their feet. “Explain.”
“It began in the harvest of 1359. Ragnall met a woman on Iona while there for work. He took her for himself and brought her back to Jura, handfasted as his wife. You ken some of it from the betrothal.”
Calum nodded slowly. “A little. I know Freya was born on Iona while her mother was on pilgrimage. Was her mother a nun?”
“A scribe,” Da said. “Ragnall forced her to live by the Norse ways under threat of her freedom. She wouldnae yield, so he kept her under house arrest. Much as he later did with Freya. That was when I first began to suspect something strange about the union. It was unlike Ragnall MacSorley to even speak with a coigreach—let alone wed one. Beautiful or not. I began to think there was more to it than he ever told.”
Stunned, Calum sank onto a wide rock. “What do you mean?”
“The woman began to show with pregnancy only a few days into their marriage. I began to suspect that perhaps that was why Amie agreed to marry him. That perhaps—”
He broke off.
Calum leaned forward. “Perhaps what?”
Da met his eyes, grim. “Perhaps Freya was never Ragnall’s.”
He snapped his mouth shut, the question dying on his tongue. It couldn’t be true. Freya had been recorded as illegitimate on Iona, but never had it crossed his mind that this was why Amie agreed to wed a heathen. He’d thought Ragnall had simply stolen her.
“Why did you no’ tell me weeks ago?”
Da grimaced. “It seems hardly a kindness to talk of it. I didnae know Amie that well, none of us did. None except Maw that is.”
“My maw?”
“Aye. They carried at the same time, so your mother befriended her. Amie taught her to read and scribe—she’d done it at the abbey, copying the works of the coigreach.
Your mother was raised in a believing family on Shetland.
It was a comfort to her to have a friend who thought the same.
She told me of the things Amie wrote—not only her tales, but of the saints and apostles, things she remembered from her growing up.
Of the man, Jesus. It’s why you were named Calum, after Columba1 who built the chapel at Tarbert. ”
Open-mouthed, he stared. Peculiarities of his childhood—things that had never fit their Norse ways—suddenly began to make sense.
Da went on. “Your maw could not help but love Amie. Much as one cannot help but love Freya. She was kind. Persuasive. A lover of stories, of creation, of the stars in the heavens. But she revealed little of her past—only that she was from the mainland, had gone with Ragnall willingly, and would never be parted from her daughter.”
A weight settled in Calum’s gut. “How did she die?”
Da grunted and lowered himself beside him.
“A grim day. We pieced it together only from Freya’s wee words.
Amie asked her to fetch a candle to light the cauldron fire.
Freya tripped. Wax and flame spilled across Amie’s skirt.
Freya tried to fetch water, but couldnae help her.
The screams—your mother and I ran from our cottage, but by the time we reached them, half the house was ablaze.
The smoke was so thick I could barely see, but I caught hold of Freya, sobbing at the threshold.
I dragged her out, but couldnae reach Amie.
I pray the smoke took her before the fire. ”
Calum’s stomach cramped. “Is that why Freya believes she is a curse?”
Da nodded. “Aye. Since that day she has believed she killed her mother. Ragnall too. He’s never forgiven her for the accident—and never forgiven me for saving Freya and no’ Amie as well.
From that moment, he was bent on overthrowing me as chieftain.
He roused both MacSorleys and MacLeans to believe Amie’s God was to blame.
That He was evil. That nothing but harm would follow if Jura heeded Him.
From then, any mention of the coigreach God was branded a curse.
And that is why I would not let you go to Tarbert when you became a man. ”
“Because you believed my God was evil?”
Da shook his head, his expression grim. “Because I believed the clan would kill you for it—for breaking the charter and dishonoring Somerled’s ways.”
“My belief does not shame you?”
“Before I understood what you believed, I admit I struggled. I did not understand why you would choose this path over your clan and family. Even now, understanding a bit more—it worries me.”
The day of the tànaiste ceremony now laid bare between them, a bit of weight eased from his shoulders. They had carefully tiptoed around that fraught day for weeks, and now they spoke not as enemies about what had happened—but as father and son.
Calum rubbed the tension from his neck. “I shouldnae have shamed you. I should have confessed beforehand and not hidden the truth.”
Da put a hand to his shoulder. “It doesnae matter now. Besides, she saved you.”
“What happened when I left? Half the clan think that I spoiled her.”
Da tossed a stick into the water. “Freya came to us, your mother watching over her. We all waited, wondering why she’d helped you. That was one explanation. But no bairn ever came.”
Calum scowled. “I would never.”
Da gave a small shrug. “You wouldnae have been the first lad to slip before marriage, believer or no. She insisted she only did it because of some wee reason. I cannae even remember what it was.”
“A favor I did her when we were eight.”
“Aye, something like that. There was always a frightened look about the lass, but not until she stayed with us did we ken the full extent. It came out in bits—the way Ragnall kept her hungry, controlled her appearance, robbed her of sleep, tormenting her day and night with her shortcomings.”
“Was it then you taught her the use of henbane?”
Da’s eyes widened. “You know about—”
“She used it on me last night.”
A deep chuckle rumbled from his father’s chest, and Calum had to fight a smile of his own.
“Aye, I taught her. I suppose that was when the stories began, too. She had the same gift for tale-spinning as Amie. Freya knew many of her mother’s tales, but not all.
Your mother thought she might take joy in the papers Amie left behind—hundreds of sagas from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
She taught Freya to read them, to scribe them.
And for the first time, we saw her blossom. ”
Calum studied the age lines carved into his father’s face, weighing what to do. “She says you wanted to weave the tales for my sake.”