by Lee Savino
The wind whipped up, tossing her words out to sea. We bowed before the howling force, squinting and turning our faces aside.
Out on the water, the mist boiled with strange shapes. The swirling grey solidified for a moment into a curving prow. I started. Was that a ship out on the water?
“What is it?” Nanny shouted, looking where I stared.
“Nothing.” Nothing emerged from the fog. Not a ship, not a ghost. Perhaps I’d seen a vision but more likely it was nothing at all.
We ran the rest of the way to my father’s hall as wind sang like a lone wolf, a piercing cry of sorrow.
Once inside, Nanny secreted me to her favorite room off the kitchen. Here the light and warmth from the great hall’s hearth fire seeped in, but the herb bundles hanging from the lower roof gave us some privacy. Servants hustled about, but none dared trespass Nanny’s realm. I sat and sipped an herbal brew while Nanny fussed with my hair.
“Shall I tell you the story?”
“Why not,” I sighed. I’d heard all of Nanny’s stories before, but it would help pass the time.
“Once there was a great and fearsome warrior named The Wolf. He was the strongest and best of the king’s men but wished to keep his strength forever. He went to a witch for a spell to make him the greatest warrior of all time. The witch warned him that her magic had a price. She would make him the greatest warrior of all, but he—”
I closed my eyes and allowed Nanny’s voice to take me away as her clever fingers untangled the snarls in my hair. By the end of the story, my dark mane was tamed into a respectable plait befitting of a lady. And I was calm.
“There,” Nanny said at last, stepping back. “Now you can change, and you’ll be ready for the crossing.”
“I’m not changing.” The gown I’d worn to hike the hill wasn’t my best, but it was clean, and the color reminded me of my mother’s eyes. Paired with my sturdy boots, it would serve to deliver me to my intended.
“You’re wearing that to the wedding?” Nanny sounded scandalized. “What will the Uí Néill think of us?”
“The same as they already do.” I rose from the stool. I had no great height, but I towered over Nanny. “That we’re pagan savages.”
“Don’t let Father Pátraic hear you say that.” Nanny crossed herself but her rolling eyes belied her piety.
I grinned. “He knows he has work ahead of him to make our people forget the old ways. He’ll think it easier with me gone.”
“Dòmhnall won’t let you keep the old ways.” Nanny bustled about, gathering herbs into a linen cloth. “The Uí Néill keep the Christian faith.”
“I’ll never abandon my mother’s teachings.” I crossed to the hearth and gazed into a bowl of water. For a moment, smoke seemed to cross its surface. I stilled, willing the vision to come to me. My mother could scry at will, but my own visions came to me unbidden.
Before the smooth surface could show me anything, Nanny plopped down on the hearth, bumping the bowl. As she tsked and wiped up spilt water, the smoke swirled away.
“Your husband might insist you do. According to Father Pátraic, Christians prefer their wives silent and biddable.”
“Silent maybe. I doubt I’ll have much to say to the Uí Néill. But my new husband has a lesson coming to him, if he thinks I’ll be biddable.”
“Good lass.” Nanny handed me the linen bundle. “Keep that secret and safe. You’ll know how to use it, if the time comes.” She winked but I tucked away her offering carefully. My mother taught me to use herbs to ward off sickness and prevent quickening since I was old enough to tend a fire. I had my own herb sachets in my packed belongings. I’d not bear Dòmhnall a child unless I wished.
Murmurs outside the stillroom made our conversation cease. A young servant heralded the arrival of Father Pátraic.
“The boat is here. Your bridegroom awaits,” the priest said, his ceremonious air ruined by him addressing one of the hanging herb bundles. Nanny cleared her throat and he turned his myopic gaze to me. “The Lord grant you safe passage over the channel.” He shifted from foot to foot, ill at ease in Nanny’s domain.
I nodded my thanks and swept past him. Of all my father’s people, the priest would be the happiest to see me go. With Nanny’s help, I’d taken my mother’s place as healer and wise woman. I took care not to gainsay any of the priest’s preaching, but my very presence seemed to threaten him. In his narrow world, a woman should not speak her mind, or wield so much power.
Together Nanny and I made our way down to the beach.
“The fog’s still upon us. Do you think Dòmhnall will wait to send the boat for you tomorrow?”
“He did not want to wait, remember? He saw me at the fair and would have no other for his bride.” My lip curled.
“And your father wouldn’t gainsay him.”
“Only because he is the son of a great chieftain who has the High King’s ear. The daughter of a tiny tuatha should be grateful for such a match.”
Nanny sniffed. “You’re the daughter of a chieftain, equal to Dòmhnall. And your mother had great power.” She glanced around but none of my father’s servants were close enough to hear her lowered tone.
“Some power, that it could to save her.” My mother had died when sickness came to the village. “Some power, that it cannot save me.”
“It could…” Nanny began carefully.
“No. I told you I would not. Do not speak of it again,” I snapped. Escape would lead to my father’s ruin, for all it tempted me.
Nanny fell silent, bending to tuck away a loose thread in my cloak. She didn’t chastise me. She didn’t have to.
I rubbed my forehead. “Forgive my short temper. I am already weary of this day.”
“Cheer up, child.” Her efforts to disperse my melancholy were relentless. “Remember the stories your mother told, of the great warrior who’d bear you across the sea? Your mother knew this day would come. That’s why she named you ‘Muireann’.”
“The bullying son of an Uí Néill is hardly a great warrior. And the channel is hardly the boundless sea. Besides, that is only a tale she told me to sleep.”
“The seed of a story is truth. Your mother told many stories and they all bear a truth.”
“You speak of the charm she spoke over me.”
“As a raven flies true, you’ll always find your way home,” Nanny recited.
I twisted to face her.
“That was before my powers had come to be,” I whispered. “She could not have known.”
“She knew. Where do you think your powers came from?”
I straightened, unwilling to speak more about what should be kept secret. My mother’s powers were whispered about in the village, but I took care to limit my gifts to herbs and healing arts. Not even my father knew what I could do.
“There’s the boat,” Father Pátraic caught up with Nanny and I.
A small skiff lay beached next to its oars. One of my father’s men, Danny stood by ready to row me across. Other than him, only two of the men gathered on the beach were unknown to me. They were big, thuggish types, fully armed as if they expected trouble. These must be Dòmhnall’s men, come to ensure his unwilling bride got in the boat.
“Dòmhnall didn’t come himself.” Nanny frowned.
“He knows we dare not disobey him.” Dòmhnall made it clear in the marriage talks with my father. If I did not marry him and give him inheritance rights through my dowry, he’d come with a band of men and take the island by force. By blood or by marriage, he’d possess our island. My sacrifice meant no folk would fall to his fianna’s swords.
“So much for the great warrior bearing me across the sea,” I murmured to Nanny before greeting Danny and giving a nod to my escort. The two thugs ignored me. With any luck, after the formality of the ceremony, their lord would too.
“A moment before you board,” Father Pátraic couldn’t help officiate. “Your father is coming to see you off.”
“Better hurry,” Nanny muttere
d. “If the weather gets any worse, you’ll have to wait. But at least the wind’s died.”
I strode to the water’s edge, toeing a few rocks with my boots. The fog lay like a grey cloak on the water. I could not see the way across. But as I stared, the dark depths swirled, offering up strange shapes and wraiths. Was that a ship in the mist? The proud curl of a dragon-headed prow?
I caught my breath. Such ships had not been seen on these shores for many years.
“My lady?” Nanny tugged on my arm and I let her pull me back from the shore.
I was Seeing things. Perhaps I should’ve spent the morning trying to scry. Not that I wished to see the future, but if the gods had something to tell me the visions came whether I wanted them or not.
A crowd had gathered on the beach to see me off. The villagers approached me one by one to thank me and bid me safe travel. I murmured my thanks while Father Pátraic looked on sourly. I’d said goodbye to the last when the ranks parted and my father came forward, his new young wife at his side.
“Storm’s coming. Are you sure you should not leave tomorrow?”
“I’m fine, Father. Best not delay.”
He signaled and a maidservant brought forward a gift. A thick cloak lined with fur. Nanny helped wrap me in it.
“Would that your mother were here. She would be proud to see you.”
“Thank you, Father,” I willed my voice not to shake. A sob caught my throat when I saw the brooch Nanny used to secure my new brat. A raven made of heavy silver. As a raven flies true, you’ll always find your way home. The brooch would be a reminder.
“My lady?” Nanny asked when I fingered the shape of a bird in flight.
“I’m fine,” I whispered to her. “I’ll not fly away.” Not yet.
She patted my cheek, tears in her eyes.
“Be good, daughter,” my father kissed me clumsily.
“Goodbye, father,” I said and stepped back to let Nanny draw down my veil. My mother had worn a similar veil when she came across the sea to marry my father. The dark head covering was my one concession to ceremony. “I’ll send word when I am married.”
Danny helped me into the boat. Dòmhnall’s men had already commandeered the prow. I sat straight and proud, looking to sea as Danny rowed away.
The way across the channel was not treacherous as long as we did not lose our way and head for the rocky parts of the shore. The mist made monsters out of the great rocks, turning them into shrouded heads rearing from the sea. I waited for another vision to come, but none did. I turned my thoughts to my bridegroom.
Dòmhnall was son of a powerful chieftain. Both he and his father were rough and fond of battle, and land hungry. Why they thought our island was worth negotiating for, I’d never know. Perhaps the tale that Dòmhnall thought I was the loveliest woman he’d ever seen was true. More likely I had insulted him somehow with my reticence to any man’s claim, and he wished to prove his power by ruling over me.
Dòmhnall was a bully, but as bridegrooms went, there were worse. I would be fine. I would survive.
“Curse this bitter weather.” Danny muttered after a time.
“Shut up and row,” the warrior ordered.
“Do as they say,” I murmured, adjusting myself in my seat to keep my gown out of the bilge water at the bottom of the boat.
“You’re a quiet one,” said the younger of Dòmhnall’s men.
I ignored him, looking out over the sea.
“Our lord prefers his women quiet. He has other uses for a woman’s mouth.” Their crude laughter echoed over the water.
They continued with many rude jests until Danny was white-faced and tight-mouthed and ready to burst with counter insults.
I pressed my lips together and motioned with my hand to be sure Danny would restrain himself. He knew I could handle myself.
My mother had often told me the tale of a great warrior, cursed by a witch to become a monster forever roaming the seas. The same tale Nanny had told me earlier. The story ended with the promise: As a raven flies true, you’ll always find your way home.
My lips curled. Nanny said there was a touch of truth to my mother’s tales, but Dòmhnall was no great warrior, though he would boast otherwise. Nor was he a monster, unless monsters were men who ruled because they had the biggest armies and loudest voices, voices as empty and hollow of reason as their baying hounds. Those were the only monsters I knew.
Dòmhnall’s men had fallen silent until the only sound was the creaking oars and the beating of my heart. The mist was a grey wall on the water, blinding us to all but ghostly shapes in the distance.
When the dragon headed prow first loomed from the mist, I thought I was dreaming.
“What the—” one of the warriors let the strip of dried meat he was chewing fall from his mouth.
“What is it?” his companion twisted and stared into the fog.
“I thought I saw—” the first set a hand to his weapon, shifting on the bench. “There! Ahead, do you see it?”
“Curse this fog. Those are only rocks.” And, to Danny, “Row, boy.”
I stared into the billowing cloud low on the water. I could not be sure, but my ears caught the cry of a wolf, far across the water. My arms prickled. In the mists of time, the Sea Wolf stalks his prey.
“I saw something,” the warrior insisted. “T’was more than a rock.”
“You’re supposed to wait ‘til tonight to drink. Wait until I tell his lordship you were in your cups—”
“There! Look.” The first warrior seized his friend and faced him north. At least, I supposed it was north. Thick grey walls surrounded us.
“I see nothing,” the second warrior said, but his brow wrinkled. Even Danny craned his neck and I leaned over the side of the boat. Was that a shadow on the water?
“Tis nothing. A trick of the light…”
The wind picked up, cleaving the mist like a knife shearing wool. Out of the gloom a ship appeared, a great black sail straining beyond the wooden prow. A carved dragon head, sharp-toothed and snarling, gaped at us.
For a moment we were all frozen.
Chills ran through me. The dragon-headed prow, the billowing sail—I’d heard of such ships before. They’d come to harry our shores, attack and set fire to our crofts, steal gold and any goods, kill the men and carry the women off for slaves. But the High Kings of old had fought and driven the Northmen off. The Northmen’s ships hadn’t haunted our land in over hundred years.
The dragon-headed boat glided forward, silent for such a great craft. It was not legend. It was real.
And it was headed straight for us.
“Morrigan’s britches,” Danny gasped.
“Row, damn you,” one of the armed men shouted, but too late. The long boat glided close to us, the swells making us bob up and down like a tiny cork in a sloshing barrel of ale.
Alarm clutched me. The boat tilted sideways, sliding down the side of a wave, threatening to tip. Bilge water slopped at my feet. A white-knuckle grip on my perch kept me from tumbling out. We hovered sideways for a heart stopping second before balancing.
When we bobbed upright, the Viking ship was upon us.
Dòmhnall’s men may not have been my choice of an escort, but they were well trained. As one, they rose and drew their swords, one grimly straddling the bench and the other setting his back to his companion’s. But their brave stand was overshadowed by the great ship.
Danny struggled to row, but the wake overwhelmed us, and his hands slipped on the oars. I didn’t blame him. My own face and limbs were numb. I was glad of the veil hiding my fear-filled expression.
For all its speed catching us, the ship did not seem manned by anyone. If the wind wasn’t slapping the sail, whipping the tattered edges, I’d say it was a ghost ship, a vision, a nightmare haunting rising from my fears about Dòmhnall’s threats and my wedding. Would that I would wake up…
A figure appeared at the prow. Danu preserve us. A huge warrior stood with a boot propped on the boat
edge. He was half-naked, his broad chest half covered in a white fur pelt. His golden head was bare, long hair streaming in the wind like a standard. And he was looking right at me.
The wolf howled again. It was not a trick of the wind. My toes curled in my boots and I gritted my teeth, tears pricking my eyes at the long, mournful note.
The fog swallowed the prow, hiding the warrior for a merciful moment. When it broke again, another fearsome figure appeared. This was no man. The head was a bear’s head, teeth bared as if the animal was a second away from attacking.
Then the fog slipped away, revealing the truth. The bear’s head was only a pelt, worn on the tall man’s head.
Another man appeared, and another. Warriors all, ranged along the side of the ship, big and brawny with bare chests or rough garb. Some wore animal pelts. A few had rough helmets made of dull metal. Besides the bear, there was another wolf’s head, its mouth open and roaring.
“Danu save us,” Danny whimpered. The warriors all glared down at us, silent. Waiting.
Calm suffused my limbs. They were not here to do battle. Perhaps we would be spared.
My escort’s voice rang out.
“Who are you? This channel belongs to Dòmhnall now, given in marriage. What right do you have to sail these waters?” the man blustered but his voice cracked.
None of the warriors answered. I began to believe they were ghosts when they moved aside and the first warrior I’d seen set his hands on the side of the ship. He was the biggest warrior of them all. Tawny hair tumbled over his broad shoulders. In his huge hands, he held a double headed axe.
Silently, he handed the weapon to one of the ghostly men before hopping onto the ledge.
Oh, mother, I thought despite my fear. This is a great warrior. And he was looking straight at me as if he’d strip off my clothes with his gaze.
I shrank before I remembered I wore a veil.
“Tell us what you want,” the elder of my escort boomed. I would’ve laughed at his ridiculous bravado if we hadn’t been staring death in the face.
The golden-haired warrior raised a hand and pointed to me.
My heart thumped once, twice.