Chapter 40
The horse cart jolted along the road, and Freya gripped the wooden frame, drawing in deep, precious breaths of sea air.
Gulls dipped on the wind, crying overhead.
The bracing salt filled her lungs, and she clung to every sight, every sound, imprinting them in her mind as her body began to tremble.
She could endure this. Only a few moments more, and then—paradise.
Along the roadside, farmers removed their bonnets as the cart rattled past. Were they praying for her? For her condemned soul? Beside her, Cota Liath slumped against the cage wall, his face hard, eyes fixed on the sky.
The road bent, carrying them into Lochaline. Freya lifted her gaze, and for the first time she saw it—at the hill’s crest, the scaffold stark against the deep green, the village clustered below. A stage for justice and a warning to all who watched.
As the cart rumbled closer, another platform came into view, three seats raised high.
At the center sat the King, to his right the Wolf, to his left the Abbot of Iona.
Freya’s heart dropped. Never, since the war with the Wolf began, had she imagined her own kingdom would bow so low.
That the rulers she once trusted could twist peace into pretense, letting evil men trample the very people they were meant to protect.
The cart drew level with their platform.
King Dómhnall’s eyes found hers, and she held them, staring back with all the condemnation she could muster.
How must it feel, she wondered, to condemn your own blood for the sake of power?
God had given her a hard life, a bruised childhood, a burdened path—but He had also given her a heart that still felt compassion.
That was blessing enough. She would meet death knowing she had loved well and acted rightly.
Better that than the cold stone beating in her half-brother’s chest.
The cart jolted to a halt before the scaffold. Brian dragged himself to his knees, and she slipped her arm beneath him, helping him rise as he leaned heavy against her. His heart thrummed against her shoulder, his breath ragged, a tear glinting before he set his jaw.
She tightened her hold. “It will be all right. Just a moment, and then it’s over.”
He gave a single nod.
The Stewart guards unlocked the cage. “No speaking. The Earl of Buchan forbids it. No words to each other, none to the crowd. Out. Quickly.” She stepped forward with Brian, but a guard seized her arm and wrenched her away.
“He needs help!”
The blow came fast, a smack across her wounded cheek that made her cry out.
“No talking.” He shoved her onto the road. Pain shot up her wrist as she fell, his boot forcing her toward the scaffold stairs. “Up. Quickly!”
On muddied hands and knees, Freya scrambled for the steps.
The planks were roughly hewn and still smelled of fresh timber, an almost pleasant smell that made her stomach suddenly roil.
The guard took her arm and began to drag her, her knees knocking against the stairs.
When they reached the platform he shoved her again and she flew forward, splinters digging into her palms.
“On your feet!”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She could not help it. This was not the solemn, judicial execution she was expecting; this was a performance. A lesson to the crowd below of what awaited any who defied Stewart rule. With effort, she rose and at last turned to face them.
Her eyes searched the horizon, the sea beyond, the rooflines of the village, hoping beyond hope that the Shield was near, yet everything looked as it should.
From every narrow lane in the village, men, women, and children were rounded up and forced down toward the ceremony herded by armed Stewart guards with swords and spears pointed at their backs. Deep fear was etched upon every face, especially among the children.
A crushing realization settled in her chest. This death, they would remember.
How she faced it would carry them forward into the war with bravery, or it would crush their resistance.
And so she dried her cheeks, swallowing the salty burn at her throat, remembering that she was still Poet.
Whether her team was with her or not, she was on her final and most important mission.
God, give me peace. Give me strength.
The fierce spirit of the Storyteller tingled through her arms, her spine, stilling her trembling.
She brushed hair from her eyes and began to plait it over her shoulder.
When the braid was finished, she wound it round her head and tucked it in.
She would need a naked neck. Better that the crowd, and Dómhnall, Stewart, and Fingon, should see it.
She drew a confident breath and lifted her chin high.
The crowd continued to gather at the foot of the scaffold, their scared eyes looking at her as she stood defiantly in the Hebridean wind.
In front of her, a headman’s block was carried and dropped down, shaking the board she was standing on.
Her stomach twisted again, but she kept her face rebellious.
They wanted fear, Stewart thrived on it, and she would give him none.
Brian stumbled over to her, his appraising eye studying her. He lifted his shoulders, raising his chin beside her, hiding his mangled hands behind his back. He understood, though they spoke no words. Neither one of them would go down cowering in fear.
Behind them a spine-curdling sound began to alight, the sound of a hone dragging across the blade of an axe. Sharpening, grating, shrieking with finality.
The guard who had jostled her up the stairs stood to the front of the platform. It was here. It was upon her. Heart thudding, she struggled not to tremble.
“Whereas Freya Anna MacLean, convicted of high treason…”
He began the reading of her writ of execution, and she searched the crowd, praying that Calum was there, somewhere, among them.
If she could only see him, or one friendly face, it would make this easier to bear.
A sting of tears prickled at her eyes, but she drew in a deep breath of sea wind, refusing to let them fall.
She slipped her hand inside her chemise and slid Calum’s ballad discreetly into her hand, the warmth it held from her body making her feel as if he were near, sheltering her.
“…is adjudged to death, by decapitation…”
Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed sudden movement.
She turned her head, hope surging for moments before realizing she saw only the flash of a pure white dove escape from the top of the chapel belfry at the far end of the green.
It dipped low over the crowd, wheeled, and vanished back toward the tower.
“Witness the King at Ardtornish, the eleventh of March, in the fourth month of our reign. Signed by His Grace, King Dómhnall.”
Beside the platform a drum began to thrum, each beat echoing in her ribs.
A boy, no more than thirteen, stepped forward and scattered hay at the base of the headman’s block.
Stray stalks lifted on the wind and clung to the plain blue wool of her leine.
She swallowed hard, lifted her chin, and held it high.
A maid she recognized from Ardtornish stepped forward, eyes glistening, a solemn white cap in her hands.
Somewhere in the crowd, a baby cried. From their platform the King looked down, unmoved.
Fingon steepled his fingers, not in prayer, but in satisfaction.
Alexander Stewart stared at her, disappointed, as though he had expected more of a scene.
The guards took each of her arms and drug her forward, forcing her roughly to her knees.
The maid knelt before her, hands shaking.
Carefully she guided the tight-fitting cap over Freya’s hair, tucking in every strand carefully, a sob escaping from her throat.
Freya caught her eyes and gave her a short nod of thanks.
The thunking boots of the axeman rattled across the platform, and he loomed before her, a black hood over his head. He seized her chin in his rough hand, fingers brushing her lips and digging into her flesh. “Shame to kill such a comely little piece.”
The crowd gasped. Beside the platform the wagon of hay was alight.
For a heartbeat no one moved, not understanding the sight.
A lantern had somehow fallen into the center.
Seconds later its glass burst with a shattering boom—shards spraying outward, a thick cloud curling skyward in a great grey-blue plume.
The concussion knocked Freya sidelong into the maid.
The scaffold was still swaying as fire engulfed the hay wagon spreading fast. Guards began jumping down, running toward the well for water.
Brian staggered forward, eyes wide. “What the devil was that?”
Freya got to her knees, rising, her heart surging. “Black powder.”
Chaos erupted. From beneath heather bushes, from beneath thatch and through windows, from barrels, stables, and trees, men poured into the green. Their bare chests, arms, and faces were streaked with wild streaks of blue as they came screaming forward with axes, swords, and spears raised.
More guards leapt from the platform, rushing to shield the king. The villagers before the scaffold shrieked and scattered, believing themselves under attack. The maid fled down the steps, swept away with the crowd running north.
The careful control Freya clung to shattered as she realized who the pack of wild men were. Tears blurred her eyes. They were Jurans.
Alexander Stewart shot to his feet beside a pale-faced Dómhnall and a dismayed Fingon. “Kill her. Kill her now!”
The remaining two men shoved her forward. She kicked out, sending the block crashing over. A rough hand clamped her shoulders; another seized her throat, hauling her up. She choked for air, terror flooding her, as the block was dragged upright before her once more.
And then, beyond the green, a sound split the air—a war cry, savage and primal, so fierce it made her ears ring. The crowd parted in panic, clearing a path as a figure streaked toward her.
Calum. The same face she remembered from the day he’d hauled her aboard his skiff — but now ten years older, fierce, daubed like his Pictish forebears.
His muscled body was covered in heathen blue, the black wolfhound emblazoned across him declaring him to be Cù Cogaidh, the unmatched hound of war.
And he was streaking toward her, faster than the speed of lightning.
The guard forced her down, shoving her neck into the groove of the block. “Do it! Kill her!”
She screamed in disbelief. Not now—not when he was this close.
The axeman scrambled, raising his blade high. And then it fell.