I grasped a lock of Dotán’s silky raven hair with my other hand. “Black,” I said. They giggled. I shook my head, laughing and joining the amusement. Colors seemed too difficult to distinguish from the objects themselves, so I shelved that clarification challenge for a later date.
After exhausting the supply of identifiable items around the fire, the girls abandoned their kitchen tasks, dragging me around their village, delighting in our new game. Thank God I’d been blessed with a photographic memory—a vital weapon for rapid retention.
In our quest for new subject matter, we wandered toward the outskirts, and a weathered, middle-aged woman who was hanging tanned animal hides barked a curt word at us. The course command doused our lightheartedness like a snuffed out candle, the girls instantly losing their smiles and turning around. With a swift pace, we returned to our abandoned food preparations, taking our former places while two of them whispered heatedly. I decided they were grumbling about the woman who still glared at us from afar, since overseeing our obedience had become her new primary function. We sorted in relative silence, finishing the preparations of a very large meal.
Suddenly, animal cries pierced the calm, a couple of teenage boys sounding some kind of alarm. Answers were carried to our ears on the wind. The dogs arrived first, circling the village several times. Two broke off and rolled around with the puppies.
Minutes later, dozens of men approached, carrying fresh kills from a hunt: a deer, several rabbits, and a goose dangling by its neck from one hunter’s fist. Velloc brought up the rear, accompanied by several men who held a regal, experienced air about them.
Velloc scanned the crowd until we locked gazes, and a smile lit up his face. He was either pleased that I’d worn the outfit he’d provided or that I’d had the wits to properly to dress myself in it; but perhaps he’d simply been happy that I’d been accepted by his tribe. If it was the last theory, that made two of us. In what had become my best academic day ever, I’d learned volumes in hours about the lost culture and language of the mysterious Picts.
Meat roasted on wooden spits over several small fires, and I watched as everyone helped themselves to a share with their own knife. I hadn’t any need for food weaponry, apparently. Velloc brought over a diverse sampling of food to where I intentionally sat away from the group, choosing to take a break from the day’s sensory overload by observing from afar. Before I had the chance to express my thanks, he left and mingled with the rest of his people.
An entire buffet had been prepared for the communal gathering. I hadn’t determined if they celebrated a special event or if the bounty represented their nightly meal. I slowly ate delicious mussels and tender root vegetables off an earthenware plate with my fingers as I silently watched everyone in the group interact.
A clear hierarchy existed among the men of the tribe, and each woman’s standing fell in line with their associated males: fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. Seasoned men—aged anywhere from their midtwenties to around forty—told suspenseful tales as younger men gathered close, hanging on every uttered word.
Velloc did much of the storytelling in the beginning, becoming the very warrior he portrayed with his fierce growls and the animal fur covering his back. After he finished a hunting tale to a round of shouts and whistles, he mumbled to the man to his right, nodded, and stood. Based on everyone’s generous no-questions-asked acceptance of me, and also the respect that every person young and old showed him, I’d come to a conclusion about Velloc: he was not only a leader among their warriors—he was the chieftain of their tribe.
Looking very much the dark predator amid his pack of wolves, Velloc took a direct line of approach to where I sat alone on a rock. Firelight danced shadows across the hard planes of his face. His intense expression was indiscernible, so I inhaled a steadying breath, readying for anything.
As he neared, Velloc extended an opened hand in invitation. The novel, gentle-mannered gesture surprised me. Intrigued by his change in demeanor, I cocked my head, accepting his request. With a firm grip, he pulled me up and held my hand tightly as if he’d been given a treasured gift.
He led me into the growing darkness, away from the crowd. Hand in hand, we walked down a worn earthen pathway overlooking a beach illuminated by the silvery cloud-cloaked glow of the moon.
“Isobel.” He articulated my name with quiet admiration.
A full minute ticked by as we continued to walk with no other sound coming from him. I glanced his way and saw him staring at the ground with a contemplative expression on his face. I spoke in the same respectful tone. “Velloc.”
Velloc stopped, pulling me to a halt with him. He looked at me, and I smirked. We had so much to say, but our discussion toolbox was disappointingly empty. He gave me a wicked smirk back. Well, there you go. On pure instinct, we’d communicated volumes without uttering a word.
All hadn’t turned into a vocabulary total loss, however. I pointed to my leather-covered foot. “Boot.” I beamed with pride as I provided his Pict term for it. Then I pulled forward a lock of my hair, holding the strands that seemed to fascinate him. “Hair.” I still hadn’t identified their word for yellow or golden, so I used my own. “Blond hair.” After which, I repeated the entire thing in English.
Velloc repeated my English, “Blond hair.” He chuckled.
I placed my hand in his again, tugging him along, recounting my repertoire of new vocabulary words in the only Pict dialect to ever grace modern ears. The beautiful language spilled from my lips like poetry. He added to my collection, pointing out and naming the ocean, the sky, a rock. I got confused when things encompassed a larger group, like the forest versus a tree, or the village versus a dwelling. But since I’d already mentally documented a dictionary of Pict vocabulary compared to any scholar I knew, I let all the inconsequential details slide.
We circled up toward the forest and curved down into the village through the flatland buffer. Five of their wolfish dogs spotted us and raced to our side as if we’d again become newcomers. Like a hired personal guard, they flanked us until we entered the perimeter of their dwellings.
An orange glow from the dying fires provided faint illumination on the way to Velloc’s home. The jovial banter of our word identifying had faded into a pall of silence. The tension mounted, suspended between us like the ocean mist in the air, as I worried about how to spend another platonic night with him after our intimate communication breakthrough . . . that had only gotten as far as basic nouns.
Velloc stepped inside first and held the flap open, waiting. With nowhere else to go but into the darkness of the wolf’s den, I followed. The leather covering dropped shut, sealing me into my unknown fate.
Shadows enveloped me. Velloc’s presence pressed in from behind without contact, his innate power charging the small space. Every ounce of the alpha I’d witnessed publicly carried through to the essence of the man in private. Overwhelmed, I struggled for air, moving forward to increase the distance between us.
Hot breath steamed across the back of my neck, and I realized he’d moved in concert with me. He removed the fur wrapped around my shoulders, and I shivered, the response having nothing to do with the cold air. My toes hit the edge of the pallet, and I sank down onto it, pivoting as I pressed my back against the uneven stone wall, folding my legs in front of me as a barrier.
The edge of the cushion shifted under his weight. What felt like the backs of his fingers caressed my cheek. I swallowed, trying to calm myself in an inky darkness where our already-difficult means of communication had been reduced to touch.