Chapter 9 #3
She kept a body length ahead of him until the rocky point became visible.
It was then the first dorsal fin and boney scutes appeared beside her.
Suppressing a grin, Scáthach slowed, allowing Cuchulainn to catch her.
He’d just glanced sideways at her between strokes, his eyes glittering with his victory, when one of the sturgeons—body as large as the warrior’s—circled them, passing close enough to Cuchulainn that it scraped against his side.
“Lugh’s balls!” Cuchulainn cried out. Treading water, he looked frantically around them, eyes widening at the swarm of huge fish that escorted Scáthach as she reached the rock, turned, and raced back toward the shore. “Sturgeons! Of course!”
From behind her Scáthach heard Cuchulainn’s exclamation, and then he noisily swam after her, attempting to close the gap between them again.
He could not. Even had Scáthach not been surrounded by enormous fish, Cuchulainn did not move in the water as she did—as if it were her home—as if she’d grown up swimming in the slate sea that surrounded Skye for most of her life.
She reached the shallows so far ahead of Cuchulainn that she had time to caress the sturgeons, thanking them for their escort as they wriggled happily around her before she sloughed from the water and jogged to her discarded clothes.
She was smiling and drying herself with her tunic when Cuchulainn finally emerged, coughing and shaking his head like Leannan, who lay on a rock near Scáthach, tail thumping happily as she chewed a water-whitened stick.
Cuchulainn grabbed the short blanket and wrapped it around his waist as he joined her at the rock. He smiled wryly. “I believe you cheated.”
“Ha!” she said before she pulled on her damp tunic, took a long drink of mead from the waterskin, and then handed it to him. “I swam to the rocky point and back faster than you. How is that cheating?”
“You called your sea monsters!” He flung a hand seaward at the dorsal fins that glistened silver as they sliced the water heading out to sea.
Scáthach shrugged. “I didn’t call them. And even had I called them, they don’t make me swim any faster.
” She raised one tawny brow. “Oh, did they frighten you?” She clutched her throat dramatically.
“I certainly never expected that. Did they throw off your swimming strokes? Slow you? If so, I must apologize, though I really do expect my students to be prepared for anything, including swimming with a few fish.”
“Fish? Those creatures aren’t fish! They’re sea monsters.”
Scáthach’s laughter rang across the water and a sturgeon leaped, breaching with joy at the sound.
“See!” He pointed at the sturgeon. “Sea monster.”
“Those sea monsters were my nursemaids.” She grinned at his incredulous look and continued. “They taught me how to swim. They also taught Uathach how to swim.”
“Truthfully?”
“Truthfully. They’re attached to Béfionn, which means they are attached to me. Whenever I’m near the water, they come.”
His gaze studied the water. “Even without your mother’s presence?”
“Yes, of course.” She stopped herself from asking about Lugh and the animals associated with him.
She didn’t want to see the happiness in Cuchulainn’s eyes dimmed by the mention of the God of the Sun.
Instead she held her hand out for the skin, which he gave her as he began to dress.
“Enough swimming now?” she asked after taking a drink.
“I’d rather not swim with sea monsters,” he said.
“Well, then, we should leave. The monsters know I’m here now, and they did look rather hungry.” She spoke nonchalantly. “They wouldn’t eat me, but . . .” She let her gaze travel up the long length of his partially clothed body.
When his head emerged from the tunic, Cuchulainn’s eyes widened. “They would eat me?”
Side by side they walked through the sand, heading to the grazing horses and the cart. When she said nothing, Cuchulainn bumped her shoulder with his and repeated, “They would eat me?”
“Only if they were truly hungry.” She grinned at him before she whistled for Leannan, who bounded after them.
Still smiling, she reached down to ruffle the big dog’s ears and something glittering in the sand caught her attention.
Scáthach picked it up and brushed the sand from it.
“A seer stone! When I was a child, Mother and I used to collect these.”
“What is a seer stone?” Cuchulainn asked as he peered at the round piece of Skye marble. It was flat, no bigger than the end of Leannan’s nose, and had a perfectly round hole in the center of it.
“The Skye legend says if you peer through the center of a marble stone like this, you’ll be gifted a vision.” She held it up so they could look through it together.
“I don’t see anything except what’s on the other side of the stone,” said Cuchulainn.