Chapter Thirty-four
Two days later, they set off in the longships. Tormod had not wanted to leave the village under-protected, so a large group of warriors had been left behind.
They sailed north up the sea-loch, rather than south and around the tip of the peninsula. Tormod planned to portage the ships through the isthmus at Tairmbert, at the top of the sea-loch, and from there, sail into Loch Llumonwy and approach Car Cadell from the north.
The thought made Aoife smile. Her father would not expect Norsemen from this direction. Gaels, maybe, but not the Norse. Any in the past had used the entry from the River Clut into the River Llumon and arrived from the south.
In the longships, the rhythm of the waves made her feel queasy again. With each passing day she became more convinced she did, indeed, carry Tormod’s child, although they never spoke of it.
The croak of a bird came from above. The ravens were back.
Watching her. Warning her. She was so absorbed by them she didn’t even sense the vision descending over her until her sight became obscured as if by blood and her knees buckled.
“Tormod!” A shudder ran through her as she called out his name, and he grabbed hold of her before she fell.
She closed her eyes and ran her hands across them, trying to rub away the blood.
Blood everywhere, pooling between the cobbles in the courtyard, splashed on walls, matted onto horses’ coats, seeping from the bodies of the fallen.
Below her, she could see the hawk flying about the fort wall.
She was part of the thunder rolling above, and far beneath on the flagstones.
The bear and the wolf prowled around the dead.
They were not attacking, and were not responsible for the bloodshed, but she could feel the thirst for blood, for revenge, in each of them.
“They’re dead,” she whispered as she came back to the present and opened her eyes. “All of them. Blood is running down the walls. My father… We should go back. It’s not safe there.”
“Tell me what you saw,” Tormod said, ignoring the curious glances of those around them.
She told him as coherently as she could, but as with many of her visions, what she had seen became less clear when she tried to put it into words.
“Be extra vigilant,” Tormod ordered the warriors. “I will keep you safe,” Tormod assured her.
She clung to him. A deep sorrow welled up from inside her, but she refused to let the tears fall. Not over a dream. She heard a now familiar croak and looked up. “The ravens,” she said, gesturing towards the mast where they sat.
“If only they could talk,” Tormod replied. “Or maybe it is they who speak through you.”
“Perhaps.” She made her way to the prow of the boat and grabbed on to the side, staring at the place where they would land.
It would be hard work pulling the boats across even though it wasn’t far, but it would be worth it.
Before, she had worried about how she would react to her father and stepmother, but now a much greater danger faced them.
An enemy waited for them. An enemy far more powerful than her father.
She was sure of it. As sure of it as she was sure her father was dead.
She closed her eyes, trying to make sense of all her visions.
The bear and the wolf and the hawk. The sound of thunder.
That sound filled her, reverberated through her very being.
It wasn’t fear it made her feel, but peace.
She smiled to herself. All along it had been Tormod.
Why were her visions so slippery? Why could they not just be clear?
Or perhaps it was the lack of clarity that mattered.
She didn’t actually see the future, since the future could always be changed by her actions, the actions of others. Nothing was set in stone. Yet.
For a moment, she nurtured an ember of hope her father still lived. Then it sputtered and died. She knew in her heart he was dead. Betrayed.
The boat’s prow scraped against shingle. She opened her eyes as Tormod picked her up and lifted her onto the shore. When he put her down, he didn’t let go straight away, but held onto her and kissed her thoroughly until Bjorn nudged him.
“Just because you have a woman,” his cousin grumbled.
Tormod let her go and laughed. “You have Ylva.”
Bjorn gave him a dark look. “No one has Ylva. Ylva does what she pleases.”
“Then maybe it is time someone tried harder to please her,” Tormod said.
Bjorn’s expression grew darker, and he turned away.
Aoife crossed to where the few other women who had accompanied them waited, ready to assist if necessary.
As a group, they made their way across the narrow stretch of land separating the two lochs at the isthmus.
The men dragged the boats up a narrow stream and then finally across bare land, using tree trunks hewn for the purpose where necessary, until they reached the edge of Loch Llumonwy.
“My lady,” Tormod said as he lifted her again. He splashed through the shallow water with her in his arms and set her down in the longship, then climbed aboard himself.
“I could have walked,” she said.
“I know. But I don’t want your father to think you have become a barbarian. You should arrive looking like a lady.”
Aoife said nothing. She felt little need to turn up looking for anyone’s approval. She stared down the loch, seeing the familiar landscape, albeit from a different angle. Once this had been her home, and yet it had been a long, long time since the word had meant what she believed it should.
“How does it feel to be going home?” Tormod asked.
“I was just thinking…” She stopped, looked up at him and tried to smile. “Car Cadell has not felt like home for a very long time, not since my mother died. And yet…”
“And yet?”
“And yet in so many ways it is home. Or was.”
“Was?”
“My home is with you now,” she explained, frowning at him.
He stared at her for a moment, then reached for her hands and held them in his own. A simple gesture and yet it made tears spring to her eyes. “We will be there soon. And once things are settled, we will go home, together.”
They stood side by side as they journeyed down the loch. The winds were with them and it would take less than an hour to get there. Aoife wondered how long it would be until they saw movement on the shore.
When they were more than halfway to the fort and had seen no signs of life, she turned to Tormod. “Do you not think it is odd?”
“The stillness?”
She nodded. There was barely even a sound of nature beyond their boats.
“Silence!” Tormod ordered.
All noise on the boats ceased, bar the creak of the mast. Everyone looked around, puzzled expressions on their faces. They rounded a headland and Car Cadell lay in front of them, set back a little from the shore on a craggy hillock. Dark rocks lay between it and the water’s edge.
“There’s no smoke,” said Aoife.
She stared at the coast of her father’s lands, frowning as they got closer to the fort and the first of the guard towers appeared.
She watched it carefully but saw no sign of movement, no sign anyone had noticed their approach and sent a message.
Perhaps a boy on foot ran through the woods?
But no birds flew up, and the woods seemed silent and still.
Tormod must have noticed her focus, because he placed his hand on her waist and gave her a querying look.
“The guard towers are empty,” she said.
“Are you sure? You don’t think they are expecting us and lying in wait? That they are just hiding?”
“No.” She shook her head. “They are not there. There are no fires or anything.”
“Do you think your vision was true?”
Aoife stared at the fort, at the palisade, at its gates, at the surrounding land.
Little by little, she began to see differences.
Then, although she could see the scene in front of her, it was as if a second image had appeared in front of it.
She closed her eyes, and the vision grew stronger.
She could smell roasting meats, hear the clanks of cutlery and crockery.
The meal began, but she could feel the tension in the room.
Ula stood apart from her father. She saw her father stare at his wife, his eyes questioning.
Ula and her daughters left the hall. Cadell stood, confused, and then chaos ensued.
Aoife pressed her fists against her eyes, but nothing could block out the vision of the short swords and axes pulled from beneath cloaks and tables, and used to slaughter first her father and then any man, woman or child who had gone to his defence.
There was a deathly silence and the vision was gone. Tormod’s arms were around her, holding her, his voice reassuring her. “What did you see?”
“They’re dead,” she said and opened her tear-filled eyes. “They’re all dead.”
“All of them? The whole fort?”
Aoife took a few deep breaths, aware of the scrutiny of the warriors around her. “No,” she whispered, “not all of them. Only the ones loyal to my father. And… my father.” She felt Tormod’s arms tighten around her in response to the news.
“Who did this?”
“I don’t know. My father’s men, some of them.
They were sitting down to eat and then Ula and her daughters left the room.
Then they used short swords and axes and…
” She stopped and looked up at Tormod, then at his cousins and the other Norsemen surrounding them.
Some of them were staring at her, but as she looked at them, really looked at them, it was with an expression of awe rather than fear.
“This may not be what happened,” she said. “At least not exactly. Sometimes it is an interpretation, rather than fact. Like the bear and the wolf and the hawk surrounded by the sound of thunder that haunts my dreams. So you might not want to take it all too literally.”
Tormod smiled at his cousins. “It seems my wife is a seer of sorts.” Then he squeezed her arms and laughed. “She has been seeing us in her visions for some time now.”
“If only you could fly like your namesake, Arne,” Ulf said. “As a hawk, you could fly above the fort and come back and tell us whether an army waits for us in there.”
Aoife smiled, relieved he had finally accepted her.
“What do we do in your dreams?” Bjorn asked with a grin. “I mean, if you are dreaming of me…” He stopped as Tormod frowned at him.
“The thunder is only the beginning of the storm,” she said.
All of them stared uneasily at the fort ahead of them.