“Still, there’s a strong resemblance between you and this Grim,” Ula persisted. “You’re both big, burly men with strong faces some might call hard or fierce. Dark hair, though he’s tied his back with a length of leather. You’ve each ringed your arms with silver bands, though your cousin also has the warrior rings braided into his beard.
“But your eyes…” She paused, angling her head as she peered at him. “They aren’t-”
“My eyes are green. And you’ve just described Blackie and nigh every man in the Skerries.” Callum touched his sword’s hilt, his superstitious Celtic side warning that a hundred lookalike souls could race ashore at Skerray and – still – he and Grim Mackintosh would stand out as marked by fate.
Grim to fight like a Berserker, weep over an injured animal, aid feeble old chieftains, and worship his woman, while he, as last heir to a luckless family, hurtled through life, always chasing the next horizon, seeking a dream he couldn’t reach.
Then, much to his amazement, he found hehadreached the bonfire.
Though he’d have sworn he and Ula hadn’t budged, they somehow now stood at the road’s end, Skerray’s largest beach spreading before them, the sand reddened by the fire’s leaping flames. Shouts, laughter, and song filled the cold night air, as did the crackling of burning driftwood, the ever-present pounding of the surf. Pipes blared, the rousing skirls and wild dancing joined by the lusty cries of lovers deep in the throes of carnal bliss.
Wondering what midwinter madness saw him here rather than in the longhouse, on his pallet and beneath a few thick plaids and a furred blanket, Callum kept his gaze off the many bowers of pine boughs, holly, and mistletoe scattered up and down Skerray’s broad, crescent-shaped beach. It was there the tupping would be going on and he wasn’t of a mind to see even one bared bosom – for sure not the full-naked writhing of an Aberdeen tavern wench.
“The Skerrymen honor the gods.” Ula flashed him a look, her eyes alight with a blend of amusement and knowing. “They will sleep well this night.”
“The gods?”
Ula laughed. “The men.”
“No doubt,” Callum agreed, leaping aside as a cloud of sparks whirled past, the spark-shower followed by several serving lads running about with ale jugs, as much of the potent brew sloshing onto the sand as revelers tipped down their throats.
At the shoreline, there where the surf gleamed white, a group of men began striking sword blades against shields and the rhythmic beat rolled along the beach and out across the waves, the echoes taking all present back to distant times, then when the magic of these dark winter nights was potent indeed, and never doubted.
But all that faded in a blink, leaving only the telltale barks of Blackie’s hounds –happybarks, and coming closer.
Grim neared.
And Callum felt each of his footsteps as if they seared his soul.
Chapter 2
“Cousin!” The big man strode forward, finely dressed as always, his beard-and-arm rings shining. His mailed shirt gleamed as bright and a smile split his face as he gripped Callum’s arms, wholly at ease with the pack of yapping dogs racing around him. “Guid Yule!” he said, lifting his voice above the ruckus. “Hail, Thor and Odin!”
“And Njord,” Callum added his own favorite, the god who ruled the winds and the sea, aiding seafarers, bringing them wealth – or so his ancestors claimed. “Merry Yuletide.”
“Where have the months gone?” Grim shook his head, his beard rings clacking. “It’s been too long.”
Not long enough, Callum almost returned, noting his cousin’s finery. The huge fur cloak thrown back over his powerful shoulders, his tall leather boots, war-lord trappings made all the more imposing by his silver-studded sword belt and long-handled war ax, something Blackie would never allow on Skerray lest worn on Grim’s back.
The Pirate King trusted and admired Grim.
So did Callum, though he wasn’t wont to admit it.
He did step back when Grim released him, hooked his thumbs in his sword belt, secretly glad he stood just as tall and fearsome as his cousin, both men generally ranging heads and shoulders above other men in any given crowd. Unfortunately, before he could enjoy that small victory, Ula slipped away.
Something she wouldn’t have done without a reason.
A truth that kept him from smiling.
“So...” He looked on as Grim bent to pet the dogs sniffing his boots. “You’re no’ here to guzzle mead on a freezing night, feed dried beef twists to someone else’s hounds while your own, and your fair lady wife, bemoan your absence.
“I ken you better.” Callum did. “What brings you to the Skerries?”
“You, of course.”
Callum almost laughed. “At least you’re honest.”
“Always.”
