Chapter One
Western Scotland, the ninth century AD
The storm brokewild over the stones of the keep just at sunset, blowing in from the sea with sharp wind and lashings of rain. Deathan MacMurtray, hurrying in across the narrow bailey and up the steep steps to the walls, looked out on the heaving sea below the stretch of land where sat the stronghold. Naught could be seen but dark green waves and an ink-black sky.
A thousand attackers could lurk out there, and no one would know.
Not that he expected an attack. In this year of 843, Scotland was at peace, or at least so much as a land of warring clans and angry factions could be. Their new high king, Kenneth MacAlpin, had declared it so.
A wry smile, defying the misery of a face pelted by rain, touched Deathan’s lips. Even here in the far reaches of the western Highlands it was said to be true, a united Scotland, all one. He knew his country, though, and the folk who inhabited it. If they could not find great matters over which to quarrel, they would find small ones.
A nation of restless hearts, it might be said.
Not allowing the weather to interrupt his duty, he paced the walls clear round, a dangerous exercise given the wet. Not until he’d assured himself all was safe did he relent and head inside, thoroughly drenched.
The keep—or some form of it—had stood for many years on this location at the edge of the sea. In the old days, it had been no more than a round house with a clutch of huts gathered around its skirts, protected by an encircling wall. His ancestors had fought to hold it against both their avaricious neighbors and the native tribes, they who called themselves Caledonians and others called Picts, or Blue Men.
Over the many generations, a fortified stone house had been built, a place where the clansfolk could shelter beneath the protection of their chief, the Murtray. And as prosperity had allowed, it had been expanded into the present keep.
They were not a wealthy clan, nor a poor one. Hard work kept their heads above water, and loyalty held them together.
Deathan loved every stone of the place with an unswerving devotion, and he would die defending it if he must.
Thunder rumbled overhead as he climbed yet another set of stairs to the house proper, through the arched entryway where one of the guards, Dannoch, stood wooden-faced. Unusual for that man, who loved to waylay anyone to talk. Perhaps the crashing thunder rendered conversation too difficult for him now.
It certainly kept Deathan from hearing the raised voices until he was well inside and approaching the upper hall where the family met, dined, and mostly dwelt. He paused abruptly at the entrance of the space, his senses going on alert.
A storm raged within the keep as well as without, or so it seemed.
It was not rare for Deathan’s older brother, Rohr, and their father, the Chief MacMurtray, to disagree. Both strong-minded men and more alike than they would ever want to admit, they often refused to see eye to eye. But there was a threshold of discord they usually refused to cross. Rohr might challenge Da; he might even tease. Da might slap back verbally.
They seldom bellowed at one another.
But they did so now, both on their feet there in the hall, facing one another with heat and passion.
Deathan paused where he was, dripping water onto the flagstones. Overhead, thunder cracked so loud he could not hear the words being cried, as if the very elements sympathized with the men of Murtray.
He did not want or need this discord. Fresh in out of the wet, he wanted the heat of the fire and a mug of warm ale. A measure of peace as the stormy night drew down.
It seemed he would have none of it.
He eyed his father and brother, separated by a mere four paces or so, but by an incalculable distance. Their stance and appearance were so similar it looked uncanny, like a reflection disarranged by time. Both tall men with rangy builds. Da still held himself upright as befitted the warrior he had been. Rohr, though in his prime, could not quite dwarf his father.
Da’s hair, once sandy brown, had early turned to silvery white. It formed a cloud around his head and shoulders from which his face looked stern, as one carved from stone. A wise leader he was, and a kindly one. Deathan had rarely seen him as enraged as he now appeared.
Rohr had hair the color of new-felled ash wood and eyes of blue, inherited from their mother. At the moment they glinted like the lightning that illuminated the windows, and flashed every bit as brightly.
The room brimmed with as much elemental power as did the world outside.
“What is it?” Deathan asked from the doorway. “What has happened?”
Neither of them heard him. Too busy arguing with each other or perhaps deafened by the storm, they raged on.
“Ye did no’ think to tell me?” Rohr bellowed with none of the respect he surely owed his father. “No’ before the messenger came to the door?”
Aye, there had been a messenger arrived this afternoon, so Deathan recalled. A single rider on a fine horse come from the east. He had marked the arrival but had been too busy to inquire after the man’s business.
“I did no’ think,” Da roared back, “I had to bring to ye every small matter that came before me.”
