Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Upon her return, Orabilia found the keep bustling with the end of the day’s sunshine chores.
Wood was being split to cure; freshly laundered bed coverings and undergarments were being folded into baskets after drying all day the rare bright sun.
Woven floor coverings and tapestries were being taken back in after being thoroughly beaten and left to breathe in the fresh air.
Through the delivery of her goods to the kitchens, the evening meal, and lying on her pallet that evening, she thought of the voice that seemed to have called to her.
And cursed herself for not finding her own voice in the bustle of the evening’s doings.
She didn’t make the effort to take aside her father’s man in charge, despite him sitting not two persons away at the evening meal.
And most disturbing was the list she was making in her mind of things she would need when she returned on the morrow.
Bandages, yarrow, tinctures, rope, and her sharpest blade.
The pain in the voice she heard had wormed into her mind and sat like a toothache.
The next morning, she was up early, her racket collecting bread and ale bringing the cook to the kitchen door. “What has ye up before the cock crows?”
“Patch of dew-touched thistle in the upper forest lands; then I’ll hunt in the cove and bring you langoustines.”
His only reply was a laugh at a joke he didn’t understand as she left without the traps for the small crustaceans.
Orabilia was back at the cove as the sun was cresting the far hills, throwing long shadows over the land.
It was quiet, almost peaceful. The tide was out, as she had hoped.
The dragon ship had been pulled lower down on the beach by the evening’s high tide and was listing dangerously in the deep water of the inlet.
It likely would not be salvaged in time before it fell into the water and drowned. ’Twas a pity.
She set her things down and quietly went to the serpentine entrance of the cave she thought of as her own. In the low light, she saw that it was empty. Once, she found a fox sleeping on the chiseled bed she’d made.
With her skirts drawn up in a knot, she slipped her blade out and left the cave.
Over the rocks and toward the far cliff face, Orabilia carefully stepped; her soft leather boots made no sound.
The chill of the inlet’s stone facade from the overnight dip in temperatures cooled her superheated skin.
She was likely on a fool’s errand and knew if he wasn’t fully dead, he might need to be killed if he was one of the wilder ones.
With her sharp sgian-dubh gripped tightly in her fist, Orabilia hopped onto the next large gray rock.
It was there that she found him. His honey hair, still plaited, was copper-streaked with dried blood, and he lay slumped, his chin on his chest and palms lifeless, facing the sky.
It was as if he’d made his way to sitting and that was all he could do.
Crawling like a beetle over the rocks, Orabilia made her way to his feet.
His eyes were closed, and his mouth was slack.
He was not the right color. But she’d seen enough in life to know that sometimes color lied about the vitality of the spirit within.
She kicked his foot, and he groaned. His head rolled to his other shoulder, and Orabilia heard the sound again.
His voice was in her mind while his groan was in her ears.
Help.
She whispered in wonder and awe, “How is it that you do that?”
He did not respond. His boots were torn and hung off his feet.
His tunic was ripped, exposing a shoulder, and the furs she knew Vikings wore were gone.
The gold on his wrists and dragon torque around his neck said he was no common berserker; this was a Viking of means and wealth.
He was of value. Orabilia then understood why the fates had called upon her to rescue this death dealer.
The ground beneath him there between the boulders was fine black sand.
With great effort, she pulled his ankles and laid him flat.
With fresh water and a clean cloth, she bathed his face.
Then she searched his body, looking for the wound that was killing him.
She found it on the back of his head. He groaned when her fingers probed it.
Orabilia was familiar with war wounds and knew that had a sword made the slash, he’d be dead from fever.
Instead, this was saturated with the healing waters of the sea; he’d gotten it in the wreck, and that, she knew, was the only thing that had saved him.
There were powers the sea held that even she could not explain.
She knew an old woman with joints that pained her could swim in the loch each day for three cycles of the moon and walk freely again.
Gathering more seawater, Orabilia rolled the Viking to his side and washed the wound deeply.
She plaited his hair away from the gash that had nearly knocked him into the afterlife, padded it with masticated herbs of willow bark, plantain, and yarrow, then loosely dressed the wound with clean remnant cloth to keep the healing poultice in place.
From her bag, she retrieved the nourishment she’d planned for him.
Putting the skin to his lips, she poured drops of broth into his slack mouth, and like all folk, his throat automatically swallowed.
She fed him until he choked, a sign his body could take no more.
Leaving him there, she went to the water’s edge.
Mussels were easily got with her short blade and a quick twist. And below the water’s edge, the clabaidh-dubha were in abundance.
They would do well for a midday meal. The Viking ship groaned at the edge of the inlet.
The next high tide would see it taken as a sacrifice to the gods.
There was nothing she could do save to watch it drown.
As the sun set, Orabilia fed the Viking again.
“On the morrow, I shall return, and when you are awake, I will bring you bread soaked in rich milk. You will need it to regain your strength. Enough to get you to the cave where I can build a fire, or a chill will set into your bones and take you from the living just as surely as the wound at your head might.”
When he choked, she stopped feeding him and then gathered her things.
“On the morrow,” she said to his limp form there on his side. She made a note to bring a woolen rug to place over him. If he survived the night.
For several days, Orabilia returned to the cove. On the fifth, the Viking’s eyelid cracked, and she glimpsed the piercing green gaze of the man she had brought back to life. She had expected blue. To see the green felt like a sign. It felt like the abundance of the forest and kelp in the sea.
“You’re awake.”
He made to speak, but his mouth was dry.
“Come now.” Orabilia kneeled and fed him cool spring water.
His eyes closed as soon as the water coated his tongue, and he greedily drank it down.
“Hold off.” Orabilia pulled the flask from his lips. “You will be sick if you drink too much at once.”
With a grunt, he grabbed her wrist. His grip was surprisingly firm. Even half-dead Vikings… With her free hand, she slipped the sharp, short blade of her sgian-dubh from its scabbard at her hip and brought it to his throat.
“’Tis a pity if I kill you now, after all the work I’ve put into getting you whole. But slice your neck and have you bleed out, I will.”
He looked at her blade and then her face. “Water,” he croaked in her native tongue.
“You’ll have more. I’ll put you under the spring myself once you are better and let you drink until you drown. But suck it down like a lamb at the teat, and you’ll retch it all back up. And ye have broth and milk in your belly. I’d like to see that settled before ye retch.”
He gave a faint smile, and his hand slipped off her arm as he lost consciousness again.
Orabilia didn’t know how to interpret the slow smile that had spread on his face. Had he been happy with her chastising him? Was it sarcasm?
She sighed at the man. He might be a bit touched from the head wound.
“Now ye’ve gone and done it. Grabbing me has used all your strength. Just rest.” She gave the large man’s shoulder a pat and then left him.
After some time foraging for late-spring mushrooms in the upper forest, Orabilia returned to the cove, set her things down, and pulled the broth from her pack. It was then that she realized the Viking was sitting on a rock, hands on his knees.
Slowly, she reached back for her pack and pulled out a thick loop of rope. She shouldered the rope and dropped her pack. Pulling her sgian-dubh, she approached. With hands and feet tied, he’d be a nonlethal threat she could still feed but also escape from.
He looked up and squinted across the cove.
Orabilia made her way toward him, the waterskin held up high. “Are ye hungry?”
When he didn’t respond, she added, “Lunge at me, Viking, and I’ll spear ye through.”
When she was within arm’s reach, she heard his rough, unused voice ask her, “Are you a Dane?”
Orabilia tsked. “Had yer head bashed, and finally after seven moonrises, ye get the strength to stand, walk, then sit again, and yer first question to me is if I’m a Dane?” He looked as if making eye contact was hard; his eyes squinted against the daylight. “If I were a Dane, ye’d be dead.”
He found something humorous in her words, and with that lightening his features, he closed his eyes. “True.”
Orabilia didn’t say she was something altogether worse: Laoch’s firstborn who would likely release him to men who would kill him slowly while they extracted every secret he held. One thing at a time was best.
“Come. If ye can stand, you should come with me; just beyond is a cave—”
There was a great creaking groan before the ship behind her slipped into the inlet with a splash. It floated on its side for a moment before the hull gulped seawater, slipping with a gurgle below the surface.
She wondered if the words the Viking uttered at the sight were as foul as they sounded.
She couldn’t help looking back at him and asking without mercy, “Oh, was that yers?”
He could only bare his teeth at her, like a wolf threatening to bite.
“Aye, easy…” Then she held the bladder out to him. “Sip this, verra slowly, and I’ll get ye a bed made and a fire to warm your bones.”
His hand was slow, and when he missed the skin, she grabbed his massive hand and shoved the bag into it.
“Drink. Slowly.”
Orabilia made her way to the cave—one last look back before she entered; he was raising a shaking hand to his mouth. “Aye, good boy,” she whispered.
In the cave, Orabilia set down a woolen rug, then another, and her fur coat, which she’d worn to the amazement of the keep guard, who’d commented, “Aye, ’tis looking to be another sunny day, yer ladyship!” before giving her coat a pointed look.
Next, she set to work on the fire. After several tries, the dry kindling caught a spark, and the pine needles went up with the small sticks next.
In a moment, the fire was good enough to stack small logs.
Satisfied, Orabilia dusted her hands and headed back out.
She stopped short outside the cave. The Viking was now staggering toward her.
Orabilia made to reach for her short sword when he caught himself on a boulder and doubled over, retching.
The empty bladder hung from his hand.
“Och. I told ye not tae suck it down like a wee lamb. Now ye’ve gone and lost it—”
He teetered, and she rushed to his side. “Och, no ye don’t. Inside,” she commanded.
She wove him through the entrance, then to the bed near the fire. His weight became heavier and heavier with each step until, at the bed, she let him collapse. He sat first, then lost consciousness, keeling backward into the blankets.
“Oof!” Orabilia grabbed the back of his neck to keep his head from striking the bed and was pulled atop him with the force of his flopping body weight.
She saved his head, but as she lay atop the man, she caught her breath and looked down into his unconscious face and said, “Why am I going through all this trouble for ye? When I should take yer fine jewels and leave ye to your fate?”
She let his head slowly relax down, cushioned in its bandages, then rested her chin on her fist and observed the man up close.
His beard was unkempt, of course, but it was done in three small plaits so it looked like he had kept it tidy before he fought the rock face and lost. Like the Viking nobility he surely was when he was not dying in enemy territory.
Slipping off him, she gathered her things, leaving the bread and bladder of milk with him. He was a miracle. She’d never seen a man his size recover from a head wound like he had nor so swiftly. If his traveling voice, haunting green eyes, and luck were any indication, he was blessed by the gods.
She left that day and knew that tomorrow, she would have to tie him up. He was getting stronger each day; each day she returned, she was that much closer to danger.