Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Sorcha drew a deep breath, braced her shoulders, and walked away from Lucius… forever. She fixed her eyes on her brother, who stood at the entrance of Dun Tren watching her. Head held high, she maintained her steady, dignified pace until she reached Maonos. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“Of course we came. You were not harmed?” His voice was fierce with emotion.
“Not at all.” She folded him into a hug that made him hiss. Sorcha released him. What was the matter?
He must have read confusion on her face. “My arm. A javelin glanced it.” He took a step back. “Mother doctored me, so you needn’t fuss.”
“Then I shan’t,” Sorcha said, well aware, thanks to her many younger brothers, that youths did not take coddling from their womenfolk at all well.
“Come. We were about to depart.” He led the way into the small fort.
Her warriors had filtered down from the ramparts. Now they stood around watching, waiting, clearly confused by the scene of her parting from Lucius. “Men, I thank you for searching for me. I’m glad to be in your midst again. Let us return to Dun Creg without delay.”
They mumbled their assent.
Maonos mounted the pony she expected Lucius had ridden and led another to her. “Take my horse,” he said.
She mounted the Roman cavalry horse that Maonos had ridden since liberating it from one of the Romans north of Mai Dun on that fateful day.
At mid-morning, they arrived at Dun Creg to a rapturous welcome. Alina hurried to greet Sorcha, a worried frown lingering despite the welcoming smile that lit up her face.
Sorcha reassured her mother that she was unharmed and her exchange for Lucius had proceeded without a hitch.
The lines disappeared from Alina’s face. “We shall all miss him,” she said before proceeding to thank each of their warriors for their role in the rescue party.
You don’t know how much. An ache pinched her chest, she rubbed it with the heel of her hand, hoping to relieve just a little of the pain. With his leaving, the void in Sorcha’s future stretched before her like an endless becalmed sea.
Idiot! Their clan’s survival must be her only priority, not moping about what might have been.
The grain storage pits were emptying fast. The workers were harvesting the crops in the fields beneath the fort, but much of the crop had been damaged during the Dumnone attacks. The settlement would be short of food this winter, unless Garamaros’s boat returned with supplies soon.
If the Roman army laid siege, Dun Creg settlement would be reliant on its stores and fish they caught from the Halfen Sea… if they could withstand an assault.
Would Lucius betray their location to the Romans? He had told Maonos that he would report he had escaped when the Dumnone attacked their hillfort. And that he would try to convince his superior officer that only swampy wastelands lay north of the Cantuc Hills.
If he didn’t… they would be destroyed. They did not occupy a massive hillfort, like Mai Dun.
Theirs was a small peninsula fort on a clifftop with an exposed slope that would face the artillery firepower of the Roman army.
If it brought its navy as back up, sheltering on the beach from a ballista fusillade would not be possible either.
With time and manpower, the Dun Creg people could raise the embankment and deepen the ditch that enclosed their horse paddock beyond the current rampart.
However, as the Romans could be here within days, Sorcha ordered those men not involved in the harvest to line the existing ditch with sharpened stakes.
A few grumbled, but this was not a time for the warriors to refuse manual work as beneath the duties of their rank. Their role was to defend the community, and in Sorcha’s view, arming ditches was part of that task. Maonos led the party of men into the woods to fell the necessary timber.
Sorcha set Osgaros and Eachann the mission of riding into the woods to the southeast to hunt game and watch for any sign of approaching Romans.
Eachann, with his sound knowledge of their herd, was charged with choosing the fastest mounts to ride.
They left at dawn. When they returned before nightfall, game slung across the withers of their horses, they reported no sighting of the invaders.
One work-filled day folded into the next with a repeat of the activities of the previous.
And, as each day passed, the leaden weight of dread in Sorcha’s stomach grew heavier. At the end of three days, still the Romans had not arrived. She stood on the rampart rubbing her midriff, watching the warriors completing the last stretch of the upgraded fortifications that Lucius had initiated.
If only he were here. Her heart ached with the loss. She missed him. His support. His quiet confidence. And his utterly gorgeous body.
She shook her head. It was no use wishing for the impossible. He had returned to his world, his duties, his people, and she belonged here leading hers.
From the clifftop came screeching shouts. The cluster of children tasked with watching for any approaching boats while they collected kelp from the rocky foreshore raced from the cliff path, yelling, “Boat!”. They huffed as they scrabbled over the top and pointed to the northwest.
Sorcha hurried from the platform to her mother, who had emerged from their roundhouse. They jogged to the clifftop rocks to watch.
With their arms wrapped around each other, Sorcha and Alina tracked the smudge on the horizon as it grew larger. A single vessel rode ever closer on the rising tide. Surely the Roman navy would come in a flotilla?
Could this be Garamaros and Drustan returning at last?
It had to be. All their lives depended on it.
A second boat in full sail appeared from the south, on a course to intercept the incoming vessel. Sorcha’s stomach cramped, bending her double. Soon, the boats met. She held her breath.
Which crew would triumph?
For an agonizing length of time, neither boat seemed to move, then finally the first vessel broke free and continued its advance. Sorcha sighed.
At last, the outline of the boat was clear. It was their wide-hulled, high-prowed trader. Behind it was tied the second, smaller boat, built for speed. Somehow, the Dun Creg crew had overpowered the other vessel.
At last Sorcha could identify the man at the bow.
Garamaros!
And, piled on the deck was cargo. Now they had a chance of surviving the winter, if not a siege.
Sorcha laughed as relief swamped her. Garamaros had not only returned with supplies, but he had doubled their fleet. The weight in her stomach lightened.
She joined with the other watchers as they waved in excitement at the crew.
Sorcha hugged her mother, who was quietly sobbing.
Alina had spent so much of her life waiting for Garamaros to visit her each year, but this must have been the most yearned-for return yet, now they were free to be together.
The boat set its anchor and chain into the water where it usually rested on the beach at low tide.
Now they must wait for the tide to recede before unloading.
Sorcha and Alina clambered down the path to the rocky beach. They waited on the last step above the lapping water. Several boys in coracles paddled out. Garamaros and Drustan returned to shore in the first of them. Sorcha climbed up a step to make room for Garamaros.
Freshly shaven, but with clothes stiff and grimy after days at sea, Garamaros scrambled from the little vessel onto the step and into Alina’s arms. They clung to each other as though they would never let go again. Lurcher whined and pushed his head against Garamaros, his tail wagging rapturously.
Sorcha had never seen her mother so happy. As she watched the joy and love on her mother’s face, she finally understood what Alina must feel for Garamaros. A soft smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
Sorcha reached past them to help Drustan from his coracle. In the weeks he had been gone, he had grown. New experiences had written knowledge and confidence on his face and in his bearing, as though he was far older than his fifteen years.
Nevertheless, Sorcha pulled him into her arms and hugged him hard. A tear trickled down her cheek. “Welcome back.”
“Did you see the Dumnone boat attack us?”
“Yes, what happened?”
“When Garamaros saw them put to sea, he had us hide behind the bulwarks until they were upon us. We outnumbered them. When they made to board us, we leapt from cover and dispatched them into the sea.”
“Was anybody from Dun Creg hurt?”
“Nothing serious,” he answered with youthful disdain.
“We must have them checked by Arawynos.” Sorcha sent a boy to fetch the druid healer.
At last her mother released Garamaros, and he turned to her. “Sorcha.” His voice vibrated with love.
“Father, welcome home.”
He blinked at the unfamiliar title, then opened his arms to her.
She stepped into his embrace and accepted his love at last. And it felt right. She thought she heard him let out a small sob, but she could not be sure and she would never embarrass him by acknowledging it. The idea warmed her heart.
Once the boat settled on the beach with the low tide, unloading began. By sundown, half the cargo had been carried up the cliff path and stored. The rest would come up the next day.
That night, each family celebrated the return of their loved ones in their own homes.
Garamaros and Drustan stripped off their salt-soaked clothes and scrubbed their bodies clean before entering the family’s roundhouse.
At the seafarers’ request, they ate a meal that did not comprise fish—salted, pickled, or fresh.
Garamaros cast a fond look around the gathering. A frown grew on his brow. He leaned towards Sorcha. “Where is Lucius?” he whispered. “Not tied up somewhere again for being Roman?”
Sorcha’s heart contracted at his reference to her previous punishment of Lucius—how cruelly she had treated him when he had given them so much. And now he was gone forever.
Sorcha relayed the events that had led to Lucius’s return to the Roman army.
Garamaros’s mouth flattened. “A pity. I thought he would remain with us. His knowledge and experience of warfare were invaluable to us.” His gaze ran over Sorcha’s face as though trying to read her thoughts about Lucius. “Not to mention his importance to you…”
Her throat constricted and she tried to smooth all emotion from her face. She would not cry. She would not reveal how much she missed Lucius. How important he had become to her.
“Hmm.” The sound rumbled in his chest, but he didn’t say anything further.
Thank the gods for that, because tears fogged her vision.
Following the meal’s conclusion, Alina smiled at Garamaros, sharing a private communication. Garamaros threaded his fingers with Alina’s and led her outside to walk in the moonlight.
Sorcha and her brothers sat around the fire late into the night, listening to Drustan relate the saga of their voyage and all he had seen in the land of the Gauls.
Through the links Garamaros already had with merchants, they had sold their wares with profit enough to purchase the supplies the settlement needed for the winter months.
Drustan was eager to set sail again.
“I am well-pleased with your success,” Sorcha said.
“However, the season for sea travel is waning, and we need your crew for harvesting, fishing, and preparing for the coming winter, if not a siege. You shall journey to Gaul again next spring. Until then, we should re-establish trade links with the Silures across the Hafren Sea.”
The next night, when their storage pits were full, the whole settlement assembled at the meeting place in front of chieftain’s house to feast and thank the gods for the crew’s safe return with their precious cargo.
Sorcha sat in her carved chair waiting for the toasting and storytelling to wind down to its close.
Already, some of the crew were sleeping off their overconsumption of beer.
Others, like the druids—their healer, priest, and law keeper—had retired to their beds.
Sorcha’s youngest brothers were on their pallets inside and, she hoped, asleep by now.
Alina and Garamaros remained seated at her side, united in support of her.
It was Sorcha’s duty to see the event to its end, but she could barely keep her eyelids from closing.
“Horsemen approaching!” The cry came from the sentries perched above the entrance gates.