Chapter Six
“Master Quarrie? Master Quarrie, come quick.”
The call came from the top of the wall and carried a note of urgency that had Quarrie’s pulse speeding. The guard was about to change, with the dawn. One of the men set to depart, it was, who cried out.
The fellow’s name was Lohr, and though barely twenty, he had a serious nature and showed a lot of promise.
Even as Quarrie’s feet thundered up the steps, he called again, “A sail!”
Och, by all that was holy, no.
“Where?” Quarrie gasped out even as he joined Lohr and the other members of the night guard, including Borald, who stood at the line of wall that faced west.
Another soft, clear morning it was, and rare enough to have two in a row along this stretch of coast. Rain came swiftly here, in frantic bursts as swiftly gone again, and the wind could threaten to pluck a man from the parapet.
This morn, though, looked like a dream, utterly still with the light reflecting out on the water. The islands clustered there gazed at their own images like a woman gazing into a glass.
Far too lovely a morning for incipient death.
“Where?” he repeated even as he saw. He saw.
It hung out beyond Oileán Iur the way a hawk hangs in the sky, motionless, just before swooping in upon its prey. An apt enough comparison—indeed, the stillness of the image had Quarrie blinking his eyes and then blinking again.
Was it really there?
Other men came running up the stone stairs, crowding the wall.
Far enough off the boat was, to make Quarrie doubt himself. Near enough that—
“They want to be seen.” He said it aloud. Whoever commanded that boat knew as much about these distances as he. Showed himself in the bright light of the morning. Wanted them to know he was there.
A threat? A dare?
“Just the one?” he asked Lohr. “Ye ha’ seen only one sail?” A vital question. One boat, and he had a chance. A flight of them—
The very thought turned his stomach.
“Aye, only one,” Lohr said grimly. “So far.”
What did it mean?
Quarrie narrowed his eyes against that reflected light. The keep faced west and the sun rose behind them, stretching over the hills to the east. The sail—most of what he could see of the boat—showed black. Unmoving.
Borald came pushing in beside him. “He wants for us to see him, aye. That’s deliberate, that is.”
“Aye.” Quarrie breathed it. But why? Such attackers came swift and hard. They did not float there like something out of a dream.
He thought again of the dream he’d had, of the woman with the brown hair. No ordinary dream, that. But he could not waste time contemplating such things now.
To Borald he said, “Mobilize the men. See everyone armed. Spread word among the women for them to be ready. Keep them fro’ panicking, if ye can.”
He spared a fleeting thought for Norah and her wee boy. His every instinct was to protect them, despite the pain.
Borald rolled his eyes. If a group of Norse boats hung over the horizon, there would be no holding back the panic.
He dashed off. Another body came pushing in beside Quarrie.
Coban. His former good friend.
Coban was as fair as Norah was dark, with a rough-hewn sort of face and a wide mouth now set in a grimace. Arguably one of the last people Quarrie wanted to see.
“Are they movin’ in?” Coban asked.
“Nay. No’ yet. Just hanging there.”
“Why?”
“The devil knows.”
“They must know we can see them.”
“Aye.” A game it was, Quarrie decided. He would much rather deal with what was, terrible as that might be.
The men around them began to mutter.
“I do no’ see any other sails.”
“Is he movin’ to attack??
“Nay.”
It seemed unreal as the moments trickled by and trepidation grew. The sail on the horizon continued to hang while more and more men and, aye, a few women crowded the walls.
“He’s moving!” cried someone who must have very sharp eyes indeed.
Was he? Quarrie’s gaze narrowed instinctively and then—the sail was just gone.
Men exclaimed. They cried out. To be sure, the sail could not possibly have disappeared.
He had moved back behind the island.
A game of cat and mouse, it was. He had waited there till he was sure the light was strong enough that they would see him from shore.
A chill of apprehension chased its way slowly up Quarrie’s spine, leaving his whole body cold. What was this? Whatever it was, it could not be good.
*
Hulda lifted her chin and closed her ears to the protests all around her. From Ivor, she’d expected it. From the others, nay, though now they were all complaining.
They wanted to fight.
She—she wanted the man who’d killed her brother. She wanted him dead, ja. She would prefer to take him home to Avoldsborg in chains.
So she let her crew’s hard words wash over her the way waves washed the rocks of the shore. Those waves might do some damage, ja, but it would take a while.
A beautiful morning it proved to be, and the land beyond looked just as fair. The harshness of winter fast withdrew and the green of spring spread apace. In the distance, away toward the heart of the land, blue hills floated in the clear light. What mysteries awaited there?
The stories, as she knew, abounded. Her people had been taking captives, slaves, from these lands for generations. From them had she learned the Gaelic tongue. Having learned the tongue, she had listened to the stories.
They wove some fantastical ones.
Her faeir possessed a Celtic harper, taken from farther north. A talented man he was, who, after a few beatings and some threats to break his fingers, had settled in to entertain them.
Garan, for that was the man’s name, insisted his homeland had a spirit and a heart deep within those blue mountains, lying there as beneath a fair woman’s breasts. A mysterious heart.
Cursed if Hulda did not half believe him.
Did not such things also exist at home? There were the trolls who lived deep in the mountains, who—more—were made from the mountains. The elves who inhabited the forests and dales. The gods who oversaw all and whom one might encounter while out rambling.
Why, then, should she disbelieve Garan’s stories? Unreasonable, that would be.
She seldom felt happier than when listening to Garan’s music. If happy could be the proper word. His music called up something from within her and gave her…peace. Perhaps that was better than happiness. A kind of dreaming peace.
She needed that now.
The men were bored, she knew that. She had not chosen them—or Faeir had not—because they liked to sit on their asses and whittle. Another day spent hiding between the arms of the little island might well drive them over the edge.
Garik came up beside her, and she turned to gaze into his eyes. A very fine young man, was Garik, with that far-seeing blue gaze and a face to rival Baldur’s. Indeed, had she not sworn off men, she might well be interested.
She had sworn off men.
His eyes now held a rueful light. “Captain, are you looking for mutiny?”
“Nei, not in the least.”
He cocked his head, not having to ask the question.
“Ready the faering,” she told him. “We are going ashore.”