“Signy!” Bear’s breath pushed her own name deep, and that was, finally, the thing that called her back. He felt her move beneath him. Life! Terrified that gossamer thread would break, Bear inhaled again and blew as if he were each of the four winds.
Signy struggled, found the strength to push him aside. The vomit when it came was clear water, no blood, no foam.
White as driftwood, they sprawled beached at the high-water mark near the hull, abandoned by the sea, and soon it was cold. This night might ice their bones yet.
Bear floundered to his feet. On the sand, the girl lay within touching distance of the steering oar, which had nearly claimed her life. But the boom had dislodged when the ship struck the beach. It had collapsed down the mast, spilling the loosened sail like a curtain over the side; cubits and cubits of woolen material lay on the sand, and it was largely dry.
“Don’t fight me, Signy.”
“What?” Her voice was a thread.
Signy’s body left a pathetically shallow trail in the sand when he dragged her closer to the hull, but that was a good thing—any heavier and he couldn’t have managed it.
“Now, I have to do this.” Bear ripped at her wet clothes so that she was exposed to the night, naked and twitching with cold. “You’ll be warm soon, then I can find your parents,” he told her.
She was too cold to speak.
Tucking one edge of the sail under her body, Bear turned Signy over and over in the material until she lay imprisoned within its stiff cocoon. The wool was coarse and scratched her skin, but she had no surface feeling.
Surrendering to the dark, Signy closed her eyes. Fugitive warmth became her beloved companion. She slept.
Tell her parents. Tell them she’s alive.
The words ran through his head like a chant, but Bear was exhausted and very cold. If he did not find them soon, he, too, might die; but he had to do this. For her.
There were only a few buildings in the clan’s settlement. On a natural stone terrace above the beach, three or four round huts were grouped around a low, log-built house thatched with reeds. The cliff that protected their backs towered against the sky, a black-cut shape against the setting moon.
Bear felt nothing, but he knew he still had a body because he watched his feet as they trod over rocks beside the landing beach and found the wooden trackway. In the black and white of night, they left dark smears behind.
Blood? It was an effort to remember it was dangerous to bleed. It would be too easy, now, to float away from his collapsing body, except for Signy. She needed him.
Bear fell down by the God stone at the door of the largest building. He felt that, for the pain in his knees was so sharp he whimpered like a small child. On his belly, he shunted closer to the door, banged on it with a closed fist. Again. There was no movement, no stirring from the other side.
“Friend, help!” He used what words he had of the clan tongue.
A voice in the night is to be feared, but his had not yet broken, and he heard himself. He sounded like a girl. Who would be frightened of a girl?
“Please, Signy here. Please . . .”
He used their daughter’s name so that the family inside would understand.
There was a rock close to Bear’s hand, water-smoothed, a big gray egg. Last strength closed his hand around it, last strength picked it up.
He hit the door, and the sound was enormous. He heard the crash as it rolled around inside the house unobstructed, unabsorbed.
Using the God stone beside the door, Bear pulled himself upright. He was slow because his legs were weak. He stood and listened. Nothing. No sound at all.
His fingers convulsed again around the rock in his hand. Leaning forward, he shoved the blank face of the door with his chest and a shoulder. It moved. And stopped. There was something in the way.
Bear pushed again, expecting, at any moment, to hear a voice raised in anger or confusion.
He made an opening big enough to slide through, but the dark behind the door seemed wrong. Where was the glow from the fire pit? Ashes would have been banked high last night—enough for some light to remain.
But there was no light. Instead, faint radiance from the stars spilled through a hole above his head.
The place yawned, deserted. No one slept beside the fire pit; the box beds by the wall were empty, and the sanded floor puddled with water. A broken bench told the same story as the clay cooking pot, shattered on the floor. The hall had been looted, the clan was long gone.
Where? Who could say?
At least there were no rotting bodies. Signy would be grateful for that. And perhaps there was hope that her family had escaped and were still alive. Somewhere.
As the night waned, Bear crept in beside the sleeping girl, burrowing beneath the sail. He lay along the length of her, hoping that his body warmth would reach her or hers him, even through the layer of coarse wool. At least they were still alive.
Then he slept.
Signy touched the God stone at the door from habit—there was a dimple like a navel where many fingers from the clan had rested. There had been just enough light to see that, and the open door. No door is left open all night.
And so Signy did not call the names of her family. She knew there was no point. As she had run from the beach toward the houses, not even a dog had barked. No loving voice would ever welcome her home. They had all gone. The clan settlement was empty.
But still, she must show respect; then perhaps her family’s Gods would offer protection, for this hall had been their dwelling place. That was why the stone stood by the door.
She said, softly, “I ask permission to enter this place. I am the daughter of the Shaman Odhrahn, son of Alhrahn, son of Ehrwald. This is our hearth-home.” Her throat seized, but still she continued. “I must tell you what I know, so that it can be recorded in the stories of our people in this place.”
Signy stood by the fire pit gazing up toward the hole in the roof. She avoided the sight of the empty bed her father had built. She would never sleep there again.
“I have nothing to offer, except this.”
In one hand Signy had an oyster shell—she’d picked it up from the midden beside the trackway. She closed her eyes and slashed the shell’s edge across her right wrist. It raised a welt, but nothing more. Teeth pinched her lower lip as Signy tried again, but it took several attempts before she achieved the sacrifice. Blood, her blood, dropped onto the cold ashes of the fire pit. It was joined by her tears.
“Mother, Father, I ask help from you now even if we shall not meet again. I need a knife and clothes for me and for my friend. Show me.”
Faith was something Signy did not question in her family’s hearth-home. The sacrifice had been made, she would be given what was asked for. To stop the blood, she clamped her other hand across the cut and opened her eyes.
Nothing seemed to be different, but then, her injured arm freed itself and rose in the air. This was the sign she’d expected. Signy relaxed and watched her right arm as it swung around; her hand was pointing toward the back of the room.
She waited for the summons. It came. The blood stopped flowing.
Signy walked forward, carefully watching her hand and arm as they floated ahead of her.
Just before she reached the blank back wall, her feet stopped and her arm dropped. Now it lay quietly at her side, and there was no sense, as there had been just now, that it was separate from her body.
“I thank you, Mother and Father.”
Signy managed the words in a strong voice before she looked for her gift. They had helped her, and that meant they must be dead, their spirits with the ancestors in the clan haven in the sky.
Whoever had sacked this place, when they came, had missed the small box. Careless, perhaps, or in a hurry; it might have looked too humble to contain anything of value. But Signy knew what she’d been given, and she removed the lid with clumsy fingers. Inside something flared red, the same color as her blood, and that almost defeated her.
But she leaned forward and reached inside; something soft was there. Cloth. Garments. Two tunics—one red, one brown—and two shirts of soft linen.
They were men’s clothes—these would be her mother’s work made for her father, or perhaps for Nid or another of her brothers. Swampingly large on her own body and on Bear’s, they would at least be warm and, too, there were belts. One was of plaited leather with worked silver ends, another had an iron buckle.
Best of all, there were leggings and straps to bind them—enough for her and for him—and one pair of men’s leather shoes. She would still go barefoot—but that was best at sea. Bear could have the shoes.
At the bottom of the chest were further riches, for a dagger lay there. Coated in pig fat—only a little rancid—it was still inside its leather scabbard. Signy remembered. She had seen it in her father’s hand, often; that it had been left behind confirmed much.
She would not think of that now. No, from this time on, her father’s knife would hang from her own belt. This would be her knife—his gift to her.
It took no time to dress. Bear would need her now even though he would not know that—because she had the knife. With it, they could gut fish and strike fire. She would give him the silver-ended belt; men, too, liked pretty things.
As she left, Signy turned back one last time, at the God stone.
“I thank you for my gifts. As a child of this clan, I ask your help as I go into the world. May you, my father, and you, my mother, be safe, and all of my brothers. If you are in our haven in the sky, may you find rest and good food and deep sleep. And may we meet again.”
Signy pulled the door closed.
CHAPTER 15
WHEN BEAR woke, he was alone.
His clothes had dried on his body, and the morning was fine enough to treasure though the sun’s light was, as yet, weak and pale.
“Signy?”
Shaking sand from his hair, Bear sat up. His panicked glance swept the empty beach; then he saw the line of small prints leading toward the trackway and the huts.
“Ah . . .” Bear was angry with himself, suddenly furious. She’d gone there alone, but as he ran across the beach, he saw her walking toward him, a little figure rimmed by rising light. She was carrying something.
He ran, waving vigorously, calling out, “I’m here! Here I am, Signy.”
She stopped and waited for him to reach her.
Bear was breathless. “I’m sorry, truly sorry. I wanted to be there when . . .” He saw the red tunic she was wearing.
She held up her hand—Don’t speak—and dropped the bundle at his feet. “These are for you. The shoes too.”
Bear bent down. He picked up the shirt and the tunic—even he could see how well they’d been made. He swallowed. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “Yes. A gift from my family.” She was only a little girl, and her dignity was heartbreaking. “They’ve gone, Bear, and I think they are dead.”
He blinked tears away. No one should suffer like this. The boy held out his arms.
That broke Signy’s courage. With a sob she fled to him, and he held that fragile body against his own thin chest, trying to breathe her pain.
“I have to go back, Bear.”
It was hard to understand what Signy said, the words sobbed out between great gasping breaths.
“But . . .”
She nodded, wiped her eyes fiercely, hiccuping. “I wanted to come home, yes.” She stepped back from him. “But there is no home for me. And now I must tell Laenna. She should know.”
Bear said the wrong thing. “But she’s dead, Signy.”
“Yes, she is dead. The raiders killed her. Just like my parents.”
Those dark eyes, awls to score Bear’s soul. He shook his head, pleading. “They may have gone somewhere else and we will find them.”
She yelled at him. “No. You came with them. You sacked the island with them, and then they did this. You’re just like them.”
“No, I’m not. Not anymore.” Bear shrugged the thought away, the treacherous thought, Yes, I am.
He tried to take her hand and flinched when he saw the gash across her wrist. “Come to my home, Signy. Live with my family. Please. My mother will welcome you as her daughter—she only has sons. Just a few days’ sailing, that is all—we can float the ship again and travel on.”
Unwillingly Signy looked to where the hull lay, canted on the sand. It was true, the sea was returning.
“Laenna is all that remains of my true family on this earth, and I will not leave her. Not after this.” She pointed toward the semi-ruined buildings. Fire had done its work—it was easier to see that in daylight.
“Take the ship, Bear. You need it more than me.” Signy hitched up her tunic and ran toward a cove between high rocks. White legs flashing, she was a red blur against black crags and the pale sky.
Bear called out. “Come back.”
But he had no choice. He ran after her, and the boy with the ruined face cried as he ran.
You would not have seen the coracle unless you knew where to look. Wedged upright at some distance from the high-water mark, it was the same color as the rocks, but Signy did not have the strength to pull it out, try as she might.
Bear wiped his face when he got close. He did not want her to see. “I can help.”
“Get away!” She bared her teeth, a small ferocious animal.
Bear reached up to grasp the odd little craft.
Signy bit his wrist. She drew blood.
Shocked, he dropped his hand. “Signy!”
“Leave me alone. I don’t need your help.”
“Oh, Signy . . .” Bear slumped. She meant what she said. He stared out toward the strait; now he did not care if she saw his tears.
Perhaps his sorrow shook her resolve. She licked one of her own bloody knuckles and after a moment sat beside him.
Poor Bear. It was a reflex action to put his arm around her bony shoulders. “We’re both hungry. Come on; we can sort this out later.”
Signy said nothing, but she allowed him to pull her up. Hand in hand they walked along the beach. There were oysters and whelks on the rocks and fish trapped in rock pools; food was there for the taking and driftwood, too, with mounds of seaweed cast up above the high-tide line.
Bear pointed. “If we can make fire, I can broil a fish or two.”
Signy pulled out her father’s knife. “All we need is something to strike against.”
Bear stared at the blade and grinned. “Maybe the Christ-brothers left tools onboard the ship; anything iron will do.” He trotted away toward the vessel and then stopped. Looking back, he called out, “You know it, don’t you?”
“What?” Signy was gathering driftwood.
“We’re good together, you and me. Us against the world.” He waved and ran off.
She watched him go. Against the world. How big was the world anyway . . .
CHAPTER 16
FREYA WAS trudging away from the cave in the rain pulling the cart. The journey back to the house was a repeat of the first but worse, much worse. Her mind seethed with images and sounds—and fear.
Walking time is thinking time—Michael always said that—and as Freya plodded on, her thoughts became calmer; logic is a wonderful thing sometimes.
The praying in Latin this morning, for instance; that had to be some kind of really, really vivid nightmare brought on by reading—and some of the material she’d dipped into at the library had been about early religious life in Scotland. Those monasteries must have been grim and cold, and blighted by an unforgiving code that had terror at its very heart. For a scholar, she was plainly far too imaginative—too much right brain, not enough left.
But there was the crucifix. That was trickier.
Freya reran the images in her mind. She’d been taking it out of its wrapping and peeling the cotton wool back when Daniel reached over to help. She’d tried to take it back, and they’d touched it together. Boom. She stopped, oblivious to the rain pricking her fac
e, and stared at the strait. Storm or no storm, Daniel Boyne was already halfway back to Port in the sturdy little dinghy. He’d be wet by now. She hoped he was soaked.
Freya stared at her hands, held them up. The wallop when he’d touched her—No, touched the crucifix—had been like sticking fingers in a power socket, but there were no marks on her skin, no aftermath. Daniel had gone white, though, and then green, as if he wanted to be sick. Then he’d flat-out lied.
They had both seen it—destruction, terror. It had felt like the end of the world.
She yelled at the sea. “Why did you run? Can you hear me?” Of course he can’t, idiot.
Trembling, Freya wiped water from her face. She knew the world to be a solid place—well, at the nonmolecular level. (So, not very solid at all, really.)
But this cliff was real rock; the rain was very cold and it was wet. She looked down. There were pebbles on the path, and pebbles were actual things, here-and-now things. But what you saw and he saw was just as real; it wasn’t a movie or something on the Net, some fantasy. And it wasn’t a dream.
Freya stared up toward the house. “Was this what you meant by ‘visions,’ Dad?”
Above, the path climbed away. If she wanted to be warm and safe inside Compline, if she wanted to know more—because she was convinced there was more to know—she had to do this. She started forward—and stopped. Her legs didn’t want to work like legs; they didn’t want to hold her up. Freya groaned; it was too hard, all of it.
“Come on, you can do this. Jesus!” Blasphemy—she tested herself, tested whatever had made her pray this morning.
Count. Count the steps. Freya nodded: Elizabeth. When you can’t face the thought of something, walk toward it and count the steps—enough steps and you forget what you’re frightened of. And what was she actually frightened of here? Insanity? She was pretty sure, really fairly positive, that she was not insane. But she took a step and began to count. “One, two . . .
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