Viking Vengeance
Page 1
Viking
Vengeance
DEDICATION
This work, the third in the series, is dedicated to the law enforcers of Texas and the wider world. Your courage, integrity, and dedication to justice inspire me daily.
In addition, I wish to thank:
The Firewheel Fictionistas Writers’ Group for their continued support and assistance
Members of the Scottish community here and across the world, in particular, the cordial Nova Scotians I met while doing research for this volume
My content experts and beta readers
My long-suffering editor and brainstorming partner, Mary Foster Hutchinson, without whom none of these books would have been possible
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The font used on the covers, in the titles, and for the chapter headings in this series is PR Uncial, created by Peter Rempel. It has been a continuing source of delight throughout this endeavor and I am happy to have this opportunity to tell him so. Vielen Dank!
The Mackenzie Dress Clan Tartan is listed as WR1981 on the Scottish Tartans World Register.
Vengeance quote – “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” by Sir Walter Scott, Canto First, Verse IX, lines 7-10.
Vengeance definition – “A Dictionary of the English Language” published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson. Also found in the revised edition on page 800 of “Dictionary of the English Language” (1839) by Samuel Johnson.
The noble friend/enemy quote is from Chapter XIV, “The Last Battle” by C.S. Lewis (1956) NY: Macmillan.
DISCLAIMER:
Dear Readers:
This is a work of fiction. That means it is full of lies, half-truths, mistakes, and opinions. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is unintended and purely coincidental.
Similarly, the businesses, organizations, and political bodies are mere figments of the author’s overactive imagination and are not in any way intended to represent any actual business, organization, group, etc.
Neither is this story intended as a travelogue. The locations mentioned in this book exist as of this writing, but the reader is warned that the author has re-shaped Heaven and Earth and all the mysteries of God to suit herself and begs the reader, for the sake of the story, to overlook any discrepancies in fact.
VIKING
VENGEANCE
Loch Lonach Mysteries
Book Three
by Maggie Foster
“Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the slain
Had lock'd the source of softer woe;
And burning pride, and high disdain,
Forbade the rising tear to flow”
The Lay of the Last Minstrel
by Sir Walter Scott
“Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged – crimes are avenged. This distinction is perhaps not always preserved.”
Samuel Johnson
VIKING VENGEANCE: LOCH LONACH MYSTERIES, BOOK THREE. Copyright © 2019 by Maggie Foster. First edition. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner or form without prior written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. For information contact: Maggie Foster at maggiesmysteries@gmail.com
Cover design by M. Hollis Hutchinson
Foster, Maggie.
Viking vengeance: Loch Lonach mysteries, book three / Maggie Foster
ISBN (pbk)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9989858-2-4
ISBN-10: 0-9989858-2-1
ISBN (epub)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9989858-5-5
Fonts used by permission/license. For sources, please visit lochlonach.com
Everyone knows
Some laws are made to be broken.
The trick is knowing which – and when.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Ginny Forbes
An ICU nurse
Sinia Forbes
Ginny’s mother
Jim Mackenzie
An Emergency Room physician
Angus Mackenzie
(“Himself”)
The Laird of Loch Lonach, Jim’s grandfather
Charles Monroe
A grieving husband and father
Hue Tran
A Dallas Police Crimes Against Persons Unit Detective
Gregory Gordon
The Laird of the Beverwyck Homestead, a psychiatrist
Loch Lonach is a Scottish community established before Texas became a Republic in the geographic region that would become Dallas. It has retained its culture and identity. Loch Lonach boasts its own schools, police force, churches, and other civic institutions. The head of the community is the Laird, currently Angus Mackenzie.
Chapter 1
Tuesday Night
Loch Lonach
Ginny Forbes threw her airsaid over her shoulder and hurried after the men. Period costume was not required for the Up-Helly-Aa, but a fair number of outsiders attended and it was permitted to show up in eighteenth century Scottish clothing. After all, the men got to wear their kilts. Why shouldn’t the women have some fun?
The March of the Loch Lonach Men had begun at sunset, more than two hours earlier. It started on the outskirts of the community and had gone from house to house picking up the troops as it went. The participants had also indulged in a variety of pick-me-ups before, during, and after joining the parade and the atmosphere was most decidedly cheerful.
The skirl of pipes filled the dark air between the land and the sky. It was deliciously intoxicating, causing the men to march and the kilts to swing in a rhythm guaranteed to stir the blood. Each of the men bore a flaming torch, wore his claymore on his hip, and had a sgian dubh tucked into his sock. Three of them were also armed with bows and arrows.
Fire festivals in the dead of winter took many forms, some of them violent, all edged in fear, but this version was relatively modern and owed more to Hollywood than to Sol, the ancient Norse goddess of light. All were invited to help build the Viking long ship that rode at anchor on Loch Lonach. The construction started in December and the crews worked hard to make sure the ship was finished by the last Tuesday in January. On that night the ship, anchored off shore to minimize the danger, was ceremoniously burned.
There was no special reason to light the fire using flaming arrows, other than it was really fun to watch. Those who held the bows had competed for the honor and would be roundly praised (and given drink to quench their thirsts) far into the night.
Ginny glanced at the sky, hoping the rain would hold off until they had retired to the Cooperative Hall for the singing, dancing, and drinking that followed the burning. She found a vantage point on a small rise, and watched as the men ranged themselves along the shore.
The elegantly curved vessel could be seen intermittently, the moon emerging from the billowing clouds and pouring colorless light on the loch, then slipping behind the veil and plunging the scene into torch-lit shadow once more.
Ginny watched as the three bowmen lit the rag-wrapped tips of their arrows and took aim. There was no signal. Each bowman let loose as he saw fit, aiming at the square sail, a piece of canvas soaked in something the fire marshal would have classified as an accelerant. The crowd held its breath, watching the fire catch hold, then begin to spread, the fabric dripping flame onto the deck of the ship.
The wind was rising and the sail flapped suddenly in the shifting air. Ginny could hear the crack of canvas, then a crackle as the deck caught fire.
“Oh!” The crowd sighed as the flames began to lick up the mast. As if the sound was a signal, the watchers erupted with excited chatter and laughter, then shrieks of joy from the children as the vessel became a bonfire.
Ginny stood wat
ching, her mouth open, her eyes glued to the spectacle. She was vaguely aware of the dampness hitting her face, but the sensation was so exactly right that she ignored it. This was atavistic delight in its purest form, three of the classical elements (air, water, and fire) embracing the wooden sacrifice before them.
The flames roared, leaping higher, and now the crowd was having to look up to see the tops of the flames, and in that same moment, the heavens opened up and let loose a deluge.
Ginny shrieked and grabbed her airsaid. She threw the heavy wool over her head and held it up, using it to ward off the rain while she raced to her car. She slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door against the downpour.
Dripping, but out of the wind, she put the car in gear and drove across the park to the Cooperative Hall. The rain would not stop the party. Nor was there any danger of the fire getting loose, despite the rough wind. There was too much water both above and below the boat for it to do anything other than sink. Ditto the torches. She had heard them hissing out as she turned and ran.
She was not the first to reach the hall. The musicians had stayed behind, to warm up, and there were some who had chosen not to follow the procession. Ginny found the ceilidh already underway.
Ginny unbelted her airsaid and hung it over the coat rack. This left her momentarily tartanless, but still in shirt and skirt carefully designed for dancing. She helped herself to hot spiced something-or-other, then joined a swaying line of revelers singing loudly (on key and in surprisingly good voice), the words familiar and the martial sentiments stirring.
By the time the musicians had finished this set, the crowd had gathered from the soggy fields and the party was in full swing. By the time it broke up again, the rain had stopped and the moon could be seen, peeking out from behind the scudding clouds, washed and brilliant and silent in its ancient knowledge of the ways of man.
* * *
They had gone. All of them. The marchers, the women, the children, the old and the young, Scots and spectators. They had all gone. All except him.
The rain came down in torrents and lightning flashed, searing the image into his mind, and threatening to strike him dead. Not that he cared. The ship burned still, the flames abated, but not gone, not yet.
He watched as the vessel fell apart, the mast first, then amidships, then pieces of the decking. The wood roared and cracked and smelled of hot resin and dripping smoke. There was a faint odor of something else, too. Something unexpected.
The rain continued, settling in, a soaking rain, not as hard as the first barrage. The lightning went, too, leaving the loch in deep shadow beyond the flames. The darkness grew as the flames died, leaving him empty, spent.
When it was gone, when the last of the ship had slipped beneath the surface of the loch and the only disturbance was the sound of rain hitting the water, he turned his back and headed for the parking lot.
He saw no one, though he looked. Decent folk were indoors on a night like this. It was too cold for comfort, the cover of darkness cold comfort for a soul in torment.
* * *
Chapter 2
Wednesday
Loch Lonach
No one on the edge of the loch the next morning was moving very fast. Even those who had not stayed until they were thrown out last night had signs on them of the success of the party. They were cheerful, just somnolent, or sated, or simply conserving energy against future need, Ginny among them.
Loch Lonach and the park that surrounded it belonged to the city of Dallas. As a condition of being allowed to hold the Up-Helly-Aa there each year, the Scots promised to clean up promptly. More than thirty volunteers were therefore walking along the shoreline, pulling bits of half-burned Viking ship off the grass and depositing them either in plastic bags or a pickup truck that rolled along beside them. Ginny and her best friend, Caroline, walked side by side, eyes down, intent on the task.
“Too bad about the rain,” Caroline said. “There’s a whole lot more debris than usual and some of it isn’t ours.”
Ginny shrugged. “I don’t mind. It was worth it.” She smiled at the memory.
“Some of this must have come down river from the watershed.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but that piece is clearly ours.” Ginny pointed to a curved section of hull rocking gently against the shore. The blackened timbers had come to rest in a spot where the current swirled, dragging the water from lake to shore then out again, creating a heavily undercut span of bank.
They had to climb down to get to it. Caroline got there first. She put her hand under a plank and tried to lift it, then cried out, starting backwards, tripping over a root, and ending up in the water, her face white with shock.
“Caroline! What’s wrong?”
She pointed a shaking finger at the wreckage.
Ginny turned to look. She recognized it at once.
The fire must have been put out too soon to reach this part of the boat. There was superficial damage to the timbers, but they retained their shape and the joins were still in place.
Likewise, the thing that nestled in the curve of the bow retained its shape and distinctive features. The skull was black in places, where the skin had been charred, and white in others where the flesh had gone completely. Hair still clung to half of the scalp and the joint on that side retained threads of sinew. The jaw swayed in the moving water, giving the unpleasant impression that the skull was chewing. Ginny gulped, then turned and helped Caroline to her feet.
“Come on.”
They climbed the bank and flagged down the pickup truck.
“What’s up, ladies?”
Ginny took a breath to steady herself. “Can you tell me if the Laird is here?”
“I’ll ask.” The driver, one of the bowmen from the previous night, pulled out a phone. Caroline found a dry spot to sit down on and Ginny joined her. A moment later the driver approached them.
“Himself hasn’t left yet, but he says his grandson is here and will that do?”
Ginny nodded. “Yes, he will do. Thank you.”
The driver relayed the message and closed the connection. He looked from them to the shore then back.
“What did you find?” he asked.
“A body.”
His eyes widened. He made his way down to the water’s edge, stood for several minutes, just looking, then came back and sat down on the grass beside them.
“Deid afore?” he asked, dropping into the broad Scots that often accompanied times of stress within the community.
“I sincerely hope so.”
They waited in silence until a car pulled up and Jim Mackenzie got out. He looked the group over, his eyes narrowing. “What’s happened?”
The archer nodded in the direction of the shoreline. “Come look.” He led the way down to the edge of the water, then stepped back.
Ginny’s eyes followed Jim. He stared at the grisly discovery for a moment, then took out his phone and placed a call. She heard the driver asking, “What should we do?”
“Tell everyone just to stop and stay where they are until we get this sorted out.”
“Right.”
The driver climbed into his truck and drove off. Ginny could hear him calling to the next group of volunteers, telling of the gruesome discovery. The news would spread, and swiftly.
Jim settled down on the ground between Ginny and Caroline, putting an arm around each one.
“Come here.”
It wasn’t until she could feel his warmth beside her that Ginny realized how cold she was. She could hear him murmuring to Caroline, asking her questions, getting whispered responses, then, slowly, stronger ones. Ginny closed her eyes and relaxed against him, falling into a sort of limbo. Waiting. Until the police arrived.
The local police canceled the clean-up, saying they needed to examine every bit of evidence, then recanted and asked the volunteers to help them identify which pieces of flotsam were part of the Viking longboat.
Someone went out for lunch and
brought back pizza. The truck driver set up a ferry service to the local facilities. Several searchers called for backup and the reinforcements arrived bringing jackets and hot coffee.
Himself showed up about forty minutes after Jim had. Ginny watched as he climbed out of his car, then surveyed the scene, noting Jim in conversation with a police officer, and the two women still sitting on the ground, now wrapped in blankets. He came over and spoke to them.
“How are ye lasses?”
“We’re fine,” Caroline said.
“Caroline needs dry clothes and something hot to drink and I could use a jacket.” Ginny tended to think in terms of specifics when it came to first aid. She saw Jim’s head swivel toward them as she spoke, then back to the policeman.
“Would you be willing to let me go get my car?” she asked. “I’ve got jackets and another blanket in my trunk.”
Himself nodded. “I’ll ask the officer for leave.”
Ginny put her arm around Caroline’s shoulders. “I don’t care what that policeman says. You need to get out of those wet clothes before you catch a cold.”
Caroline was shivering under the thin blanket and Ginny pulled her closer. Having come up with a plan, she was anxious to put it into action and was on the point of acting without permission when Jim suddenly broke free and came over, pulling them both to their feet.
“Come on. I am to escort you home to change, then to the police station to complete your statements.”
By the time they were finished giving their statements, it was late afternoon. Jim took Caroline home, then headed for Ginny’s house. He glanced over at her. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “It was a bit of a shock, but not the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”
She caught his eye. “You realize what this means? Whoever put him there had access to the Viking long ship while it was being built.”