by Amanda Scott
Sidony saw the look in his eyes, and when he stepped toward her, she stepped hastily backward, clapping her hands protectively over her backside.
He stopped, made a sound like a growl low in his throat, then turned and went out, slamming the door behind him.
Drawing a long breath and letting it out, she picked up the shawl that in her rage she had let slip to the floor, rearranged it, and waiting only a minute or two to let him get well ahead of her, she followed him downstairs to the hall.
Fife had awakened on damp, uncomfortable shingle in the wedge-shaped bay where they had beached the longships. It was still raining then, and he ached all over but was glad to be alive. As if the landless stretches of the Moray Firth had not been terrifying enough, to see the damage wrought when they had hit the field of shoals off Noss Head had been enough to make him retch until he could barely stand.
The lead longboat had just scraped the top of a huge sandbar, but the second boat, only minutes behind, had stuck fast on another part of it. Then they had heard the horrible screeching of ships striking rocks that they themselves had missed.
Men had drowned, screaming for help. They had rescued many, but the three ships that had struck hardest on the rocks had sunk before they had got everyone off. They’d turned back south then, where men from ships that had avoided the shoals reported that the wedge-shaped bay could provide shelter for them all.
So they had beached the longships, anchored the others, and set up tents against the rain and the threatening storm. Fife had taken the first opportunity to seek his tent, and when de Gredin had brought him wine, he had drunk it gratefully and for a wonder had slept deeply. Now, his head ached, and he had a raging thirst.
A call to the man who had slept outside his tent achieving nothing, he got up to wake the fellow. No one was there. In fact, he did not see any of his men.
De Gredin had taken to giving them orders, something to which Fife knew he would have to put a stop. So, seeing the chevalier standing by a small fire they had managed to start under a protective ceiling of canvas, he strode to join him there.
Before Fife could speak, de Gredin greeted him cheerfully, saying, “You’ll be pleased to know, my lord, that the ship now at Girnigoe is indeed the Serpent. Men I sent ashore with the first boats got a look at it and say it is moored in an inlet with sheer cliffs all round it. My lads can easily look down on it from the landward side, so we’ll know if MacLennan tries to unload cargo, but apparently, the only access to the castle is up steep, narrow steps, so I doubt they can unload there.”
“Gratified as I am to hear that,” Fife said stiffly, “I would like to know what you have done with my men. You seem to think they are yours to command, but—”
“I am afraid they are no one’s to command, my lord,” de Gredin interjected. “Unfortunately, all of your men drowned in the disaster yestereve.”
“That’s impossible,” Fife said. “I know that some were on your other longship, and several were with me. One was sleeping right outside my tent.”
“Aye, it was very sad to lose them all so,” de Gredin said.
The chill Fife felt was no fault of the weather.
Chapter 19
Giff found Henry standing before the great hall fire, apparently oblivious to smoke billowing in great gusts from its chimney. The vaulted ceiling was high, and the smoke drifted upward, but it stung Giff’s eyes and made breathing a penance.
“They’re at Wick Bay south of Noss Head,” Henry said. “There’s good shelter for them there. Our bay is open to winds coming from the north or east, except here, where the inlet behind the headland provides some protection.”
“You’ve set men to watch them?”
“Aye, sure, just as I’m sure Fife has ordered men to watch us here.”
“I won’t worry about his, although if you want to send your lads hunting, I won’t object. Capturing one or two of his men might tell us more than we know now, such as whether Fife has reason for allying himself with France and Rome in this business, other than to exploit de Gredin’s treasure hunt in aid of his own effort to undermine the vast powers of the Sinclairs and Logans, and others of their ilk.”
“We might well learn something,” Henry said. “But I’ve no wish to increase Fife’s enmity by seizing his men. He’s made it clear these past years that he not only resents my Norse title but wants to weaken every powerful clan, thinking thereby to increase Stewart power. ’Tis well known that he did all he could in the Borders to undermine Douglas. But if Fife demands hospitality, I’ll feel obliged to provide it.”
“If he were a fellow Highlander, perhaps, but he’s not,” Giff said.
“Our rules of hospitality do not reserve it only for Highlanders.”
“Aye, sure, but if you think you can trust that lot of villains inside—”
Henry’s chuckle silenced him. “Rules of survival supersede all else, Giff. Come to that, mayhap we should invite Fife in. It would keep him closer, easier to watch.”
“Do as you like, but stay that invitation till I’m gone,” Giff said brusquely.
Henry’s eyebrows shot up. “Have I offended you, lad?”
Giff grimaced. “Nay, but my lass put me in a temper. I told her she must stay here, but she declares she won’t. And, in troth, Henry, I don’t want to leave her. She tells me she would hate not knowing my fate until someone deigned to reveal it to her. Sakes, I cannot blame her, especially when I doubt she would be in any more danger on the ship, even in a storm, than she has been with that lot chasing us.”
“What of your own judgment whilst she is aboard?” Henry asked, frowning. “Would you act the same to save the Stone? What then, if Fife does catch you?”
“She said I should see that he doesn’t,” Giff said.
Henry laughed, and suddenly Giff was able to see the humor, too. He saw something else just as suddenly, a way he might further protect the Stone.
He might have shared that thought with Henry, particularly as it ought to allay some people’s fears of his so-called recklessness. But he had no wish to debate the newborn idea until he’d considered it more, if then. In any event, Sidony walked in from the stair hall just then, looking serene and perfectly at home as she moved toward the dais, where a basket of rolls and a pitcher of ale still sat on the table.
Taking a roll, she deigned at last to note their presence, smiling as she made a slight curtsy in Henry’s direction. “Good morrow, my lord. Your countess has been very generous. I have enough garments now to clothe me for a year.”
“I’m sure you are welcome to them, lass. Did you sleep well, or did last night’s fierce winds and crashing seas disturb you?”
“I slept well, thank you. That bed is most comfortable, although it did not rock me to sleep as the one aboard the Serpent does,” she added with a gleam that told Giff if not Henry that she knew where Henry meant the conversation to go.
Henry persisted. “A ship is scarcely the safest bed during a storm. Our Pentland Firth is particularly noted for its storms, and this one will certainly grow worse.”
“My husband promised to provide me with a proper home, sir,” she said with her demurest smile. “I mean to see that he does so as soon as possible.”
Giff’s idea stirred again with a simple adjustment and took firmer shape, for what protected the Stone might also provide protection for Sidony. He said, “She is right, Henry. I did say, after all, that she could make this decision for herself. And I do not think Fife and his lot will catch us if we can get safely away in the darkness.”
“Sakes, but it’s madness to go out on this bay when you won’t be able to see your hand before your face,” Henry objected.
“He’s sailed in the dark these past two nights,” Sidony pointed out.
“I do know that neither this bay nor the firth is at all like being on open sea well away from the coast, Henry,” Giff said before Henry could point out the same thing. “But I’ve a good compass and a fine partner in Maxwell. And on
ce we round Duncansby, I do know the firth and its habits well enough to get us safely to Cape Wrath and then southward.” Just how far south they would all go, he did not say.
“But what if they do follow you?” Henry asked.
“If they do, and it’s still storming, they’re mad,” Giff said. “They’ll perish on the Boars of Duncansby or the Men of Mey, for they won’t be expecting either hazard. For days, they’ve kept us in sight and done what we’ve done. I doubt anyone on those ships kens the firth waters as you or I do, so if I can steal a full day’s march on them, I’ll make Cape Wrath easily. Sithee, they cannot know where I’m headed.”
“Fife may guess,” Henry warned. “There are few choices if he learns you’ve not gone to Orkney or stayed here. All he needs to do is stop at one village or another and ask if the Serpent has passed by. Ships, even my own, do not so commonly sail west in these waters that folks won’t take notice.”
Giff was watching Sidony, whose eyes shone bright with expectation. He said, “You still mean to go with me, sweetheart?”
“I do,” she said firmly. “What are the Boars of Duncansby?”
They left not long after midnight while the sky and all around them was pitch black, and raging winds whistled around the castle walls. Every now and then, an inquisitive gust darted in from the sea to sweep right up the precipitous stairway.
Not having quite trusted Giff to wake her, Sidony had awakened twice with a start, fearing to find him gone. But he had shaken her from a deep sleep at midnight and told her to dress if she truly wanted to go.
She was grateful now for the countess’s warm cameline surcoat, although she wore it under Fife’s thick wool cloak. Giff had put that around her himself, insisting not only that she would keep warmer, but also that it would conceal her better than the pink surcoat. It was her own thought that Fife’s cloak could get as dirty as it liked and would thereby protect the soft surcoat. She reflected sadly that the latter would not feel as soft or look as pretty by the end of their journey as it did now, but Giff liked the feather-soft fabric, so perhaps he would buy her more of it.
In the shelter of the castle forecourt and on the stairway down into the narrow goe, one did not feel the brunt of wind or rain because, like the tongue of land on which Girnigoe sat, the goe ran almost parallel to the Caithness landmass. But on the narrow wharf, the wildly churning sea suddenly became a terrifying roar of chaotic, thunderous crashes of waves against the outer wall of Girnigoe’s perch. Without light, tied to both walls of the goe, the Serpent became no more than a denser, noisier piece of the all-encompassing blackness. But its struggle to free itself from its moorings stirred nearby air and made the darkness all the more menacing.
The ties held, and Maxwell’s voice came to her from close by, “I’m right here, me lady, and if ye’ll take me hands, I’ll help ye step aboard.”
Giff steadied her as she gripped both of Maxwell’s hands, but the boat did not want to stand still, and it took the efforts of both to get her aboard. Immediately she slipped on the wet rowers’ bench, and to her annoyance, Giff just stepped over the gunwale onto the same bench, still holding her arm. She landed awkwardly on her feet in the room between benches, but he stepped down beside her without letting go. He slipped an arm around her then and drew her close beside him.
“I’ll take you to the aft cabin, sweetheart, so come onto the gangway with me, but take care there, and hold tight to me. It is rolling a little now, but you’ll grow used to it if you can make yourself relax and try to anticipate its movements.”
Rolling a little!
Easy for one who had lived on boats for years to say, but she had spent many hours on them, too, albeit not in any storm like this one.
“Why have you no lights here?” she asked. “Surely, no one could see us, especially as you and Henry said that Fife’s boats are not even in this bay.”
“He will have watchers on the headland and elsewhere, who need only discern a glow to grow suspicious,” he said, his voice louder than before. “We’d as lief they not see anything to make them wonder about us.”
“Here, me lady, take hold o’ me shoulder,” Jake said, materializing out of the darkness on a bench to her right. “I can help ye.”
Gratefully, she accepted, and with him beside her and Giff on the gangway ahead of her, by the time they reached the cabin, she had found some of her balance.
“The tide is ebbing,” Giff said as he opened the door. “I want to make the other end of the bay well before flood, so we can pass the Boars safely and speedily enough to get beyond the Men before it ebbs again. As it is, it’ll be a near thing.”
He and Henry had explained that the Boars of Duncansby and the Men of Mey were the Scylla and Charybdis of the Pentland Firth, violent agitations that the sea produced at each end of the narrowest part of the firth, where the currents that ran in opposing directions collided, with sometimes cataclysmic results. Huge breakers, they said, would jet up as from a boiling cauldron and tumble over each other in utter frenzy. Men had seen them rage even when the rest of the firth was calm, but they behaved particularly badly, Giff said, during a big storm.
Her eyes were growing accustomed to the blackness outside. She could make out shapes and tell the difference between solid, stationary ones and tossing, wild ones, but she felt as if she were entering a cave when she went into the cabin.
As Henry had warned, she could not see her hand in front of her face.
“I don’t suppose you’ll let me have a lantern in here when the door is shut.”
“Nay, lass,” Giff said. “We’ll have no flame aboard this boat tonight. What with—” He broke off, and even through the noise of the wind, she heard the distant grumbling his quick ears had caught before hers. “Sakes, I must get us onto the bay at once,” he said. “Jake, help her ladyship to the wee table nook and stay with her.”
When the lad began to protest, Giff added sternly, “I shall depend on you to keep her safe tonight, because I cannot stay to do that myself.”
“Aye, then, I’ll look after her,” Jake said. “Ye’ll ha’ nowt to worry ye.”
“Was that thunder?” Sidony asked as Giff turned. “Why do you hurry?”
“It was thunder, aye, but ’tis the lightning it attends that concerns me, for a single bolt over this bay will turn night into day and reveal us to Fife’s watchers.”
He shut the door on the words, and feeling her way, Sidony sat on the aft-most bench in the table alcove so she could face forward. She doubted the rocking motion would make Jake sick if he sat with his back to the prow.
“I’d no’ like being in here on my own,” he muttered a moment later.
“Nor would I,” she admitted. “I’m glad you’re with me, Jake.”
“Aye, well, wi’ two of us, we’re bound t’ scare off any boggarts.”
“Do you worry about boggarts?”
“Och, nay, they’re nobbut a nuisance from time to time.”
Recognizing the truth, she said, “Shall I tell you a tale my sister Adela used to tell me when I was a bairn and afraid that a bad fairy would steal me from my bed?”
“Aye, sure, we might as well do summat to pass the time,” he said.
Sidony told him a tale of water fairies calculated to make him laugh, and as she did, she heard men shout and felt the boat begin to toss more. She could not imagine how they would get it out of the narrow goe onto the teeming waters of the bay, but she soon felt the familiar motion of oars in the water and realized that Henry’s men on the narrow wharves were helping by pushing the Serpent far enough out for the oarsmen, two sets at a time, to plunge their oars into the water and pull.
The Serpent began to feel like a child’s toy tossed into a river in spate, for it rose, settled, twisted, and turned like a mad thing, but the running tide soon caught the boat and pulled them away from the shore. The tide would run for six more hours, she knew, and Giff had told her that in the firth, the tide could run as fast as ten miles an hour. The Bo
ars were dangerous only in a rising tide, he had said, but the Men showed their wrath with the ebb, which was why their timing would be crucial.
They had six miles to go before they would round Duncansby Head and pass the Boars, then another eight to St. John’s Head and the Men of Mey. She reminded herself of her confidence in Giff and focused her efforts on keeping Jake entertained.
The thunder continued rumbling in the distance, growing closer and louder until its deafening cracks seemed directly overhead. Two sent enough light through the space between the nearby shutter and porthole to see Jake’s outline opposite her.
For a time, as the thunder grew distant again, rain pounded down on them and the rocking motion of the boat grew less rhythmic. Experience told her the men had raised their oars and the Serpent was riding the waves. The ship steadied, and a few minutes later, Jake got up and went to the door, opening it carefully.
“What are you doing?” Sidony asked.
“Seeing,” he replied. “They’ve put up yon sail. I thought they had.”
“In this weather?”
“Aye, sure,” he said in a superior, male way. “Me da’ does the same thing to gain speed and the like, but Sir Giff be sailing gey close to this wind, I’m tellin’ ye.”
“Well, shut that door before he sees you’ve got it open,” she said. “Then come back, and I’ll tell you another story, or you can tell me one. It is your turn, after all.”
Perfectly willing, he soon had her laughing at the antics of a pair of Border brownies who lived with a woman who did not treat them properly. Since Sidony would not have known how to treat them, either, she felt for the poor woman.
Time passed swiftly until, without warning, the ship slewed broadside into a wave, nearly dumping both of them from their benches. Only the fact that she had put a hand to steady herself seconds before saved Sidony from a bruising, if not worse.