Chapter 22 #2
He hefted the deer into his boat and whistled for Bog, who leapt inside.
Catching his dim reflection in the still water, he saw himself splattered with deer blood.
Not wishing to meet his wife in such a state, he shed his cloak, hood, kyrtill, tunic, and trousers.
From the bag Freya had filled with fresh clothing, he drew out clean trousers.
As he tugged free a kyrtill, something slipped from the folds and landed in the bottom of the boat.
He crouched and picked up a small ivory packet.
Within its parchment folds rested a wooden bead no larger than his fingertip.
The fawn-colored surface was etched with a tree, its branches dotted with tiny berries, its roots spread wide.
Around the base a scarlet thread was carefully inlaid into a narrow groove, wrapped round and round like a slender vein of color.
Rolling the bead between his fingers, his breath caught. A rowan tree. Their rowan tree. He struggled to read her carefully scribed note in the dying light, his fingers trembling, his breath catching.
For Calum - A little bead that holds the strength of its rowan tree, steadfast and rooted through years of wind and storms. Beneath its branches we found each other so many years ago, my dearest and most beloved friend, my protector and keeper.
Keep it close, and let it remind you that it is part of your roots, and those roots make you strong.
A man created by God, not in part but in whole.
A man who deeply roots me through every storm.
Take it, and think of me, as I now think of you. — Freya.
A frown crept across his face. But how did she think of him?
He turned the page as if more words might appear. Again he read the note, comparing it to the bead, noting the crimson thread. From her pledge dress, perhaps? If so, surely a token of affection.
My dearest and most beloved friend… He grimaced. Then, my protector and keeper. That was…something.
Roots make you strong… Straightforward enough.
A man created by God, not in part but in whole… He paused, baffled. She might as well have written it in French.
A man who deeply roots me through every storm… Promising, maybe, though he wasn’t sure of what.
Take it and think of me, as I now think of you.
He shook the paper, fighting the urge to shred it. “Arrrrgh, but how do you think of me? Friends or more? Friends or morrrrrre!”
Why couldn’t she just say it plainly? I fancy you, Calum. A lot. Please resume our courtship. Kiss me whenever you like. Or even, I’m glad we don’t kiss anymore—here’s a friendship bead, kindly keep your distance.
He reread the message ten more times, each pass making him more confused. His brow furrowed, his temples throbbed.
With a growl, he yanked the pouch over his head, stuffing the note and bead inside. Three months of trying to untangle her mind was giving him an almighty headache.
He looked up at the stars, shaking the pouch. “Why did you make me so bad with language? This is my sign and I cannae figure it out!”
Close to freezing, he jumped into the skiff and yanked on his clothes and boots. Enough already—he would ask her. No more circling, no more guessing. He would just ask.
He bent to shove off when Bog’s hackles lifted, ears pricked, muzzle curled in a low snarl. Calum stilled, hand closing on his bow, an arrow nocked as he scanned the heath. A faint quiver caught his eye. Slowly, he drew.
“Show yourself.”
An arm rose from the brush, then a head.
“Balder.” Calum let out a sharp breath, lowering the bow. “Why are you crawling out of a bush like a spy?”
The young man scrambled up, brushing dirt from his brat. “I didnae want to risk being seen.”
“We’re in the heath, ye numpty. I nearly put an arrow through ye. Why the secrecy?”
Balder shrugged. “Ye ken how it is for my da since Ragnall took over. I couldnae risk being seen. Folk talk.”
Like most MacLeans, Calum was barred from meetings and didn’t know. “I’d expect your da is pleased. A true son of Odin, burning incense and making sacrifices—his kind finally rules the clan.”
Balder leaned forward, hand out to Bog. The dog backed away with a whale eye and a growl, and the lad jerked upright, swallowing hard.
“Pleased? He’s no’ pleased. Ragnall’s wexen out o’ wit.
He runs unopposed with mad schemes—speaks of seizing every boat so he alone decides when folk sail, fish, or work the sea.
He even talks of taxing their use. A tax, Calum! ”
Calum rolled his eyes, unwilling to be dragged into clan matters. “A mad notion, aye, but no’ my concern.”
Ye heard about Tànaiste MacDonald lowering rents? Pay the year up front and get a small portion deducted?”
Calum pulled his cowl close against the wind, dipping his oar into the water as a hint. “Aye. Popular enough, though no’ something I could manage myself.”
“Oh, it was popular—nearly every family on Jura paid in full. And do ye ken what those two did with it?”
He sighed. “What?”
Balder’s face flushed. “They gave Hector what was owed—”
Calum shoved off, bored already. “Astonishing. Have a fine evening, Balder.”
“Wait!” Balder clutched the stern. Bog lunged, snapping at his fingers. “Ragnall’s used the rest for a redistribution scheme. There’s a bounty on your head. And on Freya’s.” Calum stabbed his oar into the silty bottom, halting the boat. He wasn’t sure he’d heard right.
Balder shook out his bitten fingers, cursing.
“Aye, that’s right, foul beast. I’m trying to help yer master.
Ragnall and Rory have set up a redistribution fund—coin for any word on you or your wife.
Where you go, how you earn, what missives you send.
If you leave Jura. And that’s when I thought of Freya and her stories.
They dinnae ken yet she was Tyr’s filí,3 but it’s only a matter of time.
Someone will take the coin, Cù Cogaidh. Someone always does. ”
Calum’s stomach tightened. A bounty on him and Freya. Every word of Balder’s breathless confession felt like a knife’s edge. He didn’t know where to begin. “It’s Calum. Call me Cù Cogaidh where Ragnall can hear and it’ll be your neck.”
Balder scowled. “Aye, I ken. It isnae right—”
“What makes you think my wife and father worked together?”
The lad hesitated. “I dinnae ken for certain, but I suspect. I was eleven when you left for Duart. I’d heard Freya tell tale after tale as a child—hundreds, maybe six hundred—each one different, none about you.
The MacSorleys always whispered she learned them from her mother, Amie.
The sheer number alone made it seem she must have been an ollam4.
” He blew into his hands for warmth. “Folk liked her, Ragnall’s Amie. What little they saw of her, anyway.”
Calum felt his hackles rise. He didn’t like the lad’s roundabout way of speaking—or that someone close to Ragnall might betray Freya. “You havenae answered my question.”
“After you left, Ragnall kept Freya shut in, so the stories stopped—at least we thought so. Then word of your time in Duart began to spread, and I suspected she’d written them. They were good tales, like Amie’s, only…”
“Different?”
“Aye. Better. Sharper. As I grew, I noticed none of the MacSorley bairns near Ragnall’s circle knew the stories—only those close to the MacLeans. That’s when I thought…perhaps it was Tyr’s doing. Who else would commission tales about a traitor, if not his own father?”
Calum bristled. “I was never a traitor.”
Balder’s face flushed. “I ken that now. I saw ye the night of the raid—how ye fought, how ye hunted the men that took your wife. The skill, the fury, the bravery. I want to fight like that. I want to learn from you.”
“No.”
Balder’s face fell. “Ye wanted to train a guard before.”
“No. I’m done with war, with fighting. Besides, I thought ye knew it all.”
“I thought battle was different. More organized. More…I dinnae ken.”
Calum barked a laugh. “Organized? War?”
Balder flushed. “Aye. Our side on one end, the enemy on the other. Not this—a lawless massacre, a coward’s fight. Sneaking up on folk in the night, murdering women and children. I thought the enemy would seek warriors.”
Calum drew a long breath, the weight of truth settling heavy.
He’d never known war to be as ugly and brutal as the last three years.
In Scotland he had fought soldiers on open fields, guard against guard.
Never this. It had changed him, hardened him, sickened him, and left a bitter ache in his chest.
“Now you know why I wanted you all to work and drill together; strategy and structure are the only things that seem to succeed against them.”
“We should have listened. My father said the same.”
The lad looked earnest, but Calum still didn’t trust him. “Aye well, the jobby’s out of the cow.”
Balder snorted. “There’s an image.”
Calum’s temper snapped. He stepped out of the boat, dirk drawn, boots crunching on the pebbled shore. His chest heaved, every word dragged from three months of loss.
“It isnae a jest—it’s true. I cannae turn back time.
I cannae bring back my mother or father, or the ninety-one of our clan who died.
I cannae make you listen so we might’ve had a chance to survive what barreled our way.
Because of your father, because of Ragnall, because of your own haughty attitude we lost—and lost badly.
You could have been prepared. Ye could have known something instead of absolutely nothing.
And now you come to me with tales about my wife, and I’ve half a mind to cut your tongue out to stop them. ”
Balder lifted his chin, unafraid. “And who cared a whit about Jura before you crossed the Wolf? No one. You’re as much to blame as I am.
You drew his eye running with Hector’s Shield.
And someone—perhaps Freya, perhaps not—was feeding the fire with tales of your deeds.
And unless I’m fresh from the cradle, that person that commissioned them was Cù Ceartas, I’m positive. ”
The dirk in Calum’s hand trembled, his grip bone-white on the hilt. He yanked Balder closer, ready to strike, to silence him—but the fury gave way to a crushing heaviness. Strength drained from his limbs, as though the last three years of war had landed on him at once.
His hand fell. He staggered back toward the boat, chest heaving, legs shaking.
He needed to get home. Needed to go back three years—to stay a simple guardsman, to let Hector save his own wife, to undo the missions, the losses, the rivers of blood.
The weight of it pressed into him, bone-deep.
None of it had been worth the price of losing his parents.
Behind him, Calum heard Balder step closer.
“Cù Cogaidh, you cannae leave us to weather Ragnall alone. You cannae go from chieftain to no one. We need you. Ragnall will crush us all to satisfy his greed. Look at what he did to his daughter—that will happen to the rest of us.”
Calum shook his head. “I cannae undo it. I’ve said as much.”
Silence stretched. Bog whined, impatient for home and supper. Calum tossed his dirk into the boat and climbed in. “I’ve got to be going.”
“At least think on it. My father tried sending word to Chief Hector, but Rory’s squire intercepted it and gave it to Ragnall. That’s why Da’s under house arrest, why I’ve got to be cautious.”
Calum looked over his shoulder. “Ragnall’s turned on your father?”
Balder gave a defeated shrug. “It’s why I’m here.”
“What can I do with a bounty on my head?”
Balder dropped into the sand, rubbing his forehead. “I dinnae ken. I was hoping you would.”
Calum gripped his oar, aching to row away, to leave Jura and its burdens behind.
His heart beat for Freya, for the fragile life they had built from grief.
Yet the chieftain’s vow, the legacy he had abandoned for love, echoed in his mind.
He had laid down the title, but not the responsibility.
Not entirely. With a heavy breath, he set his jaw.
“I’ll teach you to fight.”
Balder looked up, surprised. “You will?”
“Aye. If you know any strong, trustworthy men willing to train with you, bring them to the auld broch5 at Crackaig tomorrow night. But be cautious. They must be loyal to the clan itself, no’ to one side or the other. As for the rest—I need time to think, to pray on it.”
The young lad’s hazel eyes cast around at the dark sky as if something was watching. “You’ll pray to the man-God?”
Calum nodded. “Aye. I’ll pray.”
Balder nodded, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
Calum dipped his oar into the dark water, the skiff rocking gently.
Above, stars pricked the sky like distant watchfires, and he imagined his da among them, waiting.
The tide’s rhythm steadied his thoughts and the weight of his calling.
Prayer was all he had for now, yet even in the dark he felt the faint stir of resolve. A plan was forming. It was time to act.