Chapter 21 #2
King Dómhnall turned toward her, brows rising in disbelief. “Do you know to whom you are speaking?”
Papa stepped forward, his face cold as stone. “Do you see what I have been telling you, Your Grace? He has poisoned my daughter’s mind and turned her against her own blood.”
For once she felt no fear of her father, only outrage and burning frustration. “He hasnae!”
Calum pulled her down to his side, keeping his head bowed.
“Apologies, Your Grace, for my lady’s outburst. Please, ignore her.
” His voice stayed measured as he lifted his eyes, slow and deliberate.
“My lady means only to explain that she suffered a grave injury weeks ago. Circumstances necessitated our marriage, which your father himself contracted. We have been friends since childhood, and I took her to seek help in the middle of the night. That was all. Nothing untoward. Thane Ragnall has chosen to twist the circumstances since. In any case, he accepted my bride price and signed the banns, and we were wed at Lochbuie.”
Again she leapt to her feet, fire sparking in her chest. “My father kicked a boiling cauldron and its contents spilled over my legs. I needed a healer.”
Calum’s hand clamped on her wrist and dragged her down again, his eyes flashing her a sharp warning.
Papa shook his head, face solemn. “I would never do such a thing. She tripped and fell into the cauldron herself. I told her I would take her to a healer in the morning.”
The king crossed his arms, his gaze heavy on her. “I am told MacLean used the moment to his advantage, stealing you away in order to gain more control over the MacSorley faction of your clan.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd, some of the auld MacSorleys shaking their heads as if swayed by the false tale.
Calum swallowed, his voice steady but tight.
“I would never do such a reckless and foolish thing. Every soul in this hall knows angering Thane Ragnall is the surest way to lose the MacSorleys’ cooperation.
That is why the defense of this island has failed.
Many were unsettled by our marriage, by my taking his daughter for healing in the night. ”
Rory came closer, his face full of false injury.
“As I’ve told you, the lass loved me. He stole her against her will, used the church to undermine her father’s authority, and now threatens to beat her if she does not repeat his version of events.
She sent word to me through her father that this is the truth.
Even now she lies only to avoid punishment. ”
Freya tore free of Calum’s hand and rose again, voice ringing clear despite the danger. “I did not wish to marry Rory, nor did I ever support their bid for my father’s chieftainship. The whole clan saw me pledge my fealty to Calum the night of his return!”
Another swell of whispers coursed through the hall, louder now, divided. Fraser stepped forward from the crowd, bonnet clutched in his hands, his voice trembling but resolute. “’Tis true, Your Grace. We all witnessed it with our own eyes.”
Papa snorted. “And she swore to me that night she only did it to spare me from Cù Ceartas’s punishment for lawfully pressing my claim to his chieftainship before the clan.”
King Dómhnall folded his arms, his gaze heavy on her. “Is that true?”
Her heart plunged. “Yes, but—”
“Why did you marry Calum MacLean?”
Silence fell over the hall and Freya swallowed, on the spot and aware everyone in the room was listening.
Not wishing to contradict her husband, she tried to explain.
“Calum has told you—we are friends. We have known each other since childhood. I hold him dear to my heart. He took me for help, as he said.”
The king’s voice cut in, sharp. “And when did you consent to wed him as a result of that help?”
“When I woke from my fever. I was sick for ten days after being scalded. He had made the arrangements—to protect me, to wed me, to do the right thing.”
Dómhnall’s brow furrowed. “A fever. Hardly a lucid mind, then.”
Her hands balled into fists. “No—no—”
The king’s embroidered slipper began to tap against the plank floor, sharp and deliberate. “Your father tells me you have managed to remain pure. That MacLean has not touched you, has not brought your marriage to completion. He confessed this himself during a guard training weeks ago.”
Calum’s eyes snapped up, contempt distorting his face as he fixed his gaze on Ragnall.
Her heart sank, knowing where this was leading. “I am pure,” she whispered.
Behind her, she felt Calum rise, his solid presence pressing against her back.
Rory’s expression was full of false sincerity. “Lady MacLean and I courted before Laird MacLean stole her away. It was a love match. I believe she has kept herself pure for me, so we may handfast as true husband and wife.”
Her mouth fell open. Words abandoned her, her mind reeling at the audacity of his lie, the depth of his corruption.
Rory lifted his chin, voice full of false righteousness.
“I make no secret of my love for Lady MacLean. But she has been poisoned, her mind twisted by the man who stole her from her father in the night and locked her away in Moy Castle for a month. She lives now in fear and confusion. Her father pledged her to me first. The banns were signed. By law she was already my wife.”
“They were not sealed by Chief MacLean,” Calum burst out, taking a threatening step toward him.
“Ours were signed by John of Islay himself. Your so-called banns were nothing but a promise of a future handfast, and the Church does not recognize such pledges. Freya is a daughter of the holy Church. She cannot be bound by heathen custom.”
Ragnall snorted, loud and cutting. “I never raised my daughter in the Church. She is Juran, as her mother was, sworn to the auld ways of the Norse. Any record otherwise is a forgery.”
“Papa!” The cry ripped from her throat. To hear him betray her mother’s faith so brazenly, to see him standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Rory, sickened her to the core. Whatever bonds of loyalty had held her to him until now were shattered.
King Dómhnall stepped closer, his sharp eyes measuring her. “A claim easily proven. If you are truly Christian, recite the Apostle’s Creed.”
Her stomach dropped and she strained to remember what an apostle was. A long, stifling stretch of silence passed, and she looked at Calum, his brow beginning to knit.
Dómhnall chuckled darkly. “Perhaps something simpler. Recite the paternoster.”
Heat burned in her throat. Her eyes stung.
The word meant nothing to her. She swallowed hard, forcing her voice steady.
“I—I believe in the man-God Jesus. I know there is one God, three in one—Father, Son, and Spirit. Through him all things were made. I—I believe he came and died for his people, to save them from sin and despair, and rose from the dead.”
From beneath the bench, Arne MacSorley poked out his head. “He is a King, Freya. Dinnae forget.”
Grateful for the boy’s small but loyal voice, she lifted her chin. “Aye. He is a King. One who hears prayers, who answers swiftly. I believe he knows me… even if I dinnae fully know him.”
A low chuckle rippled through the MacDonald guard. In seconds it grew into sweeping laughter, echoing off the rafters. Her chest clenched, shame and fury burning in equal measure. They were laughing at her.
Calum stepped forward, planting himself squarely between her and the king, his shoulders back and his gaze like iron. “As good a confession of faith as any creed. Do you dare mock her for it?”
Dómhnall shrugged. “I asked for the paternoster, the simplest of all Christian instruction, and she failed to prove herself a true member of the Holy Church. I have word from the Abbot of Iona that the record of the birth was likely a forgery. He has already issued a dispensation for the annulment of your marriage. She proves him correct.”
Calum burst with fury. “Fingon MacKinnon is as corrupt as the Wolf himself!”
The king raised his hands for silence. “Enough. This is clearly a quarrel between two former rivals. It seems to me Laird MacLean has acted out of jealousy. Rory has given me no cause to doubt him as a trusted member of my guard. As for Laird MacLean, it remains to be seen where his loyalties lie.”
Anger twisted in her chest as she felt Calum stiffen beside her. It took every shred of restraint not to seize his sword and cut down this smug pretender of a king for daring to insult him.
“MacLean, as it stands, you have flagrantly disobeyed my orders, just as the rest of the Shield has. It will be a hard lesson for you all to learn, but this disobedience must come with consequences.”
Freya’s heart pounded. She opened her mouth to protest, but Calum shook his head at her in a firm, decisive no.
The king continued. “If you agree to give up Freya MacSorley to Rory MacDonald, we will handfast them here and now, and you may retain the chieftainship. Alternatively, you may keep Freya MacSorley as your wife and cede the chieftainship to Thane Ragnall MacSorley.”
The hall erupted. Outrage exploded from every MacLean and half the MacSorleys, men springing to their feet, voices rising in a roar.
Two guards surged forward, wrenching Freya from Calum’s side and shoving her toward her father. Calum lunged, but three more seized him, forcing him to the floor under their weight.
“Calum!” she cried, her voice breaking. The nightmare unfolded before her eyes. She would be forced to Rory’s side. Her marriage undone. Her bond to Calum erased. He could never sacrifice his birthright—not after the oath he had sworn.
Rory clamped onto her wrist, yanking her against his side. His face was triumphant. He knew. Knew he had won. Knew that he had given Calum no choice.
The king lifted his hands over the feral uproar as guards pressed inward, swords raised toward the clan. “Silence! SILENCE!”
The hall fell still. Dómhnall stepped over Calum’s restrained form, his voice low and merciless. “What is your choice?”
The guards eased away, and Calum rose. In one motion he unfastened his father’s amber chieftain’s brooch. The Jura plaid slipped from his shoulder, falling in a heavy spill around his feet.
Everything stood still. The walls pressed in upon her, but shock kept her standing. She dangled, suspended in time, unable to comprehend what she was witnessing. The anger twisting his face. The lust for justice in his eyes. The resolute way he squared his shoulders—like a proud and noble warhound.
“Calum, no!”
He strode down from the dais with steely resolve. Grabbing her father by the shoulder, he drove the amber chieftain’s brooch straight into his flesh, pinning it to him. Papa staggered, crying out as the metal bit skin and muscle, slammed backward by the force of Calum’s hand.
Calum pivoted on Rory, seizing his cuirass and heaving him clean off his feet, sending him skittering across the wooden floorboards away from her.
Freya tumbled into him and he pulled her against his chest, shielding her with his body. Every muscle was coiled, ready to strike. His voice was low and lethal: “Dinnae ever put your hands on my wife again. Try it again, and I’ll tear you apart.”