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ensure that the abbot could not prevent or disrupt Donald’s installation.
    Donald had dressed all in white, although other nobles in the procession wore the splendid velvet doublets, puffed hose, and black velvet robes of the royal court. Still others wore more traditional Highland garb, including kilted plaids and saffron shirts, and many carriedswords. Hector Reaganach carried Lady Axe, Clan Gillean’s legendary battle-axe, in her sling on his back. But no one appeared to be in a bellicose mood.
    Pipes skirled and drums beat a tempo for the procession. Then all fell silent, and the prayers and blessings began. Sorcha began to fear that every cleric there meant to speak, but at last, Ranald stepped forward and spread his arms wide.
    “To all who bear witness as Donald of Isla accepts his destiny today, I say this,” he said. “All here know that his grace our lord father, John the Good of Isla, named Donald to be his lawful successor. And all know I have given my word that it shall be so. Therefore, let any who retain doubt or disloyalty step forward now to speak of it, or forsake it forever and swear fealty to Donald on this day of days.”
    Sorcha heard the same murmuring that she had heard when the priest had demanded that anyone who objected to Adela’s marriage speak or forever keep silent. With a shiver, she realized she half expected to see masked riders bearing down on them again.
    But the murmurs faded to silence when Ranald raised one arm high and cried, “Let
Lia Fail
, our sacred Footprint Stone of Destiny, be carried forth!”
    Four men carried the sacred stone, said to be older even than the mainland Stone of Scone, on which Kings of Scots had been crowned until Edward of England had stolen it and carried it off to England nearly a century earlier. Before Ranald brought the Footprint Stone to Eigg, it had lived at Finlaggan.
    They set the stone down reverently, and two priests stepped forward, bearing vials of holy petrel oil withwhich they lightly oiled it. Even from her rather distant vantage point, Sorcha could see that there were two prints, an outer, very large one, and an inner one the size of a normal man’s foot.
    When the priests moved away, Donald stepped forward and placed his bared left foot in the print, wriggling his toes to settle them in the hollows. His foot fit the inner print perfectly, stirring more murmurs, smiles, and nods from his audience.
    The Bishop of Argyll handed him a white wand as an emblem of his solemn duty to maintain justice in his realms. Another bishop gave him the Great Sword, one of the two emblems of Clan Donald and the Lordship, to symbolize his position as Guardian of the Isles. After he had turned around three times to his right as a sign of the Trinity, and brandished the Great Sword three times on high, everyone there shouted, “MacDonald, MacDonald, MacDonald!”
    Donald of Isla was now formally installed and accepted as Lord of the Isles.

    On the day of her abduction, as Adela had come slowly to her senses after her swoon to find herself lying on something soft, hope stirred that her abduction had been only a nightmare. Then a nearby sound made her open her eyes.
    Her captor stood a few feet away, watching her. They were in a tent large enough for him to stand upright, and she lay on a pile of furs and blankets that was doubtless his bed. Hope vanished, and a chill swept through her asshe recalled what he had said to make her swoon at his feet. The shock she had felt when he pulled off his mask had been bad, but this felt much worse. She had remembered his name.
    Something he’d said before her swoon awakened the memory, because at Orkney he had said that one of the things he liked most was teaching a woman her proper role in life. He had also declared himself without sin then, and he’d claimed God’s favor. Although she had been in his presence only minutes then, she had seen his ruthlessness, so the memory provided nothing for her now but renewed