Lord of the Black Isle Read Free Page A

willna turn away until I give ye leave. I am not finished wi’ ye!”
    As was his usual way of dealing with the earl, David did not respond and continued on his way. A moment later, he heard the angry tread of his father’s footsteps upon the stairs and the too-familiar sound of his harshly spoken words.
    â€œBy the hand o’ God, I canna disown ye and prevent ye from becoming the Earl of Kinloss, but I can see that ye rot in a dungeon! I willna rest until I find a way to make ye pay for yer insolence. Mark my words well, for ye will rue this day!”
    â€œI canna regret it any more than I already do,” David replied. Suddenly, someone screamed, and he turned in time to see his father fighting for balance just before he tumbled backwards and fell down the stairs.
    By the time David reached his father’s side, a pool of blood was widening beneath the earl’s head, and David knew his father had at last found a way to make him pay, just as he had said.
    In the ensuing days, David felt tremendous guilt as the castle bustled with the preparations for the funeral of the Earl of Kinloss, and if he could have grieved at all, it would not have been for the loss of a father, but the loss of the kind of father he might have been.
    In the end, he felt some satisfaction in knowing his father got exactly what he wanted, for David did rue this day.

Chapter 3
    Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing.
    There is a time for silence.
    A time to let go and allow people
    to hurl themselves into their own destiny.
    And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.
    â€” The Women of Brewster Place (1982)
    Gloria Naylor (1950–)
    U.S. novelist, producer, and playwright
    Isle of Mull, Scotland
    A few months later
    Growing up, Elisabeth had always heard that the history of Scotland was complex. She’d never dreamed that by going back six hundred years, she would discover for herself just how complex it was… forbiddingly so.
    Scotland was a puzzle of ten thousand pieces in which one tried to painstakingly find some semblance of order, shape, and color to be able to put it all together, forming a country, for according to her archaeologist sister, Isobella, Scotland had been known by many names: Albion, Alba, Alban, Pretanikai Nesoi, Cruithintuait, Pictland, Caledonia, ’O chrich Chat co Foirciu , and Scotland.
    It possessed a history that was powerful, sad, strong, persuasive, potently addictive, melancholic, and not easy to see clearly or understand without the skill of discernment. For how can you make a whole out of so many sad fragments? How can one assemble the bits and pieces of tradition, sprinkled with falsehoods, peppered with truths and scratches of Pictish symbols that no one has been able to translate, or the fragments of long-forgotten facts, faded memories, superstitions, myths, Druidic beliefs, Catholic documents, Roman writings, Viking legends—and then heap it all together and call it Scotland?
    Scotland, Elisabeth decided, was still complex, for its people were as muddled as its past, with Picts, Celts, Norse, Danes, and Angles all coming together in a mix of language, history, and culture, rolled up with a mountainous landscape that rose out of the North Sea like a clenched fist.
    No wonder she was confused. Making a decision wasn’t as easy as it sounded, for after Ronan was torn from her future and her life, how slowly the days passed and bled into weeks, and the weeks became months, and the months became blurry until Elisabeth realized she had lost track of time.
    Lethargy gripped her and passed through her like the fingers of thieves, stealing her spirit and stripping away her very soul. Life had no purpose. Inwardly, she was washed out and empty. The world was callous and cruel, and it left her indifferent. If only she could care… for something. And for a while she stayed busy, but now there were no ailments within the castle.