Rain fell next day, in a blue-grey curtain that created mud everywhere while reducing visibility to little more than the length of a man’s arm held before him. Work on the scapha was delayed. The excursion asea must be postponed until the morrow.
Cormac conferred with Wulfhere on the matter of their new craft and very secret plans for the move against… “Ran’s Daughters”. Then the Gael gained privacy with Irnic Break-ax. To that respected fellow man of weapons Cormac strongly suggested that spies be set to watch Lucanor of Antioch.
“It’s something dark is afoot within this realm, Irnic, and he’s connected or I’ll eat grass. Best he be watched, and closely, but with great care that he knows it not.
“I will use several, then,” Irnic said, “that Lucanor may not grow accustomed to the same person about all the time. Aye, person, for there is this and that woman who acts for me, in Galicia.”
“Good that you love Veremund,” Cormac said, with a smile that was like a brief flash of light. Then, “And… Irnic… best too that this be secret for the present from all save yourself and me and your spies.”
Irnic lifted a brow. “All, Cormac?”
“Aye, Irnic. Even the king and queen. Will ye agree to that?”
“This… bodes naught sinister for them?”
“Irnic! Your spies at watch over Lucanor will not be bringing harm to your cousin and his wife!”
“I will agree; they need hardly be bothered with every detail of what goes on in this realm. Will you explain, Cormac?”
“Soon, aye. Will ye be humouring me, Irnic, and let explanations come after? And, commander: the leech from Antioch is to be watched night and day.”
Irnic nodded, and made as if to speak, and reconsidered, looking into Cormac’s eyes while he held thought himself. Then Irnic went to see to it, without a word more. And another day passed, a grey-grim and ugly day of rain and mud, while a son of Eirrin fretted and fidgeted and aye, fell out too with his Kit-cat. And on the morrow Irnic had words for him, and that report was none too cheering.
“You saw the old temple, Cormac, there near Lucanor’s house.”
Cormac nodded.
“Was to the Old Gods of the Suevi that temple was raised, the gods my people held to when they abode back in Germania. It is long unused. That is, so we thought; it is officially unused. Now… I know not what transpires there now, but it was therein Lucanor went, on last evening. Nor was he open about it, but waited until darkness had closed and wore a robe my man had not seen on him afore, and too he took a circuitous route, all cloak-wrapped and hood-muffled-though this was after the rain had stopped and was not that, cold. He walked many minutes and came in by the grove alongside the temple, and-well, my man described it thus: Lucanor scuttled within. This, when his home is practically next door. My man continued his watch from outside, concealed, and watched a half-score others enter that temple, and not a one with a torch or without furtive behaviour. They were as clandestine much later when they left, so that my men-there were two, now, a relief having come and the first having decided to remain during this strangeness-my men identified but two of them. And… one more joined them, in that old temple.”
“Ah, Cormac said. “Twelve, then. The old magic number. The zodiacal total of Lucanor’s eastern haunts… and him with a zodiac sign on his finger.” Then he realized that the Sueve had spoken portentously, and wanted to be asked: “One more. Who, Irnic?”
“The queen.”
“So. Now it’s knowledge we have of her nocturnal trystings, is it!”
“My lady Queen Venhilda,” Irnic said, nodding and looking not happy. “She was well and fully muffled, in a hooded cloak not of fine weave, an old green and red one. A double disguise, then. And… I admit with some shame that I have checked. Such a cloak was indeed in the queen’s chamber this morning. With much mud on its skirts.
Cormac clamped his lips and gave his head a sad shake. “So. Queen Venhilda. It’s not to some nightly lover she goes, but to some damned rite in that abandoned temple! And presided over, I’ve no doubt, by that scowly eastern shaman. And him once unable to save her life! Hmm… mayhap he gained some hold over her then, while she lay so near death-how then was she recognized?”
Irnic smiled, though thinly. “A normal little error. She forgot to remove her ring until just before she was about to enter. By that time the moon was out, and my man saw it clear. What boots it how much care one has for disguise, when one wears the most distinctive ring in the realm?”
“Ah,” Cormac said, and loosed a long pensive sigh. “That ring-Starry Night-a gift of her husband?”
Irnic snorted. “Hardly! Of Lucanor! Once he left her, and Zarabdas effected her cure, she could not remove it. I remember that the king wanted it off. She proved to him that could not be done, and would not allow it to be cut away-as it’s of gold, a good knife would do it, in time.”
“Lucanor! Rue will be worked by this man, Irnic-is being worked.”
“I know,” the king’s cousin said, very quietly and with dolor, and for a time the two men were silent.
“Well,” the Gael said at last, “to business. Irnic: Tonight we’ll be going in quest of the sirens, or whatever lurks out there, directing kelp to prey on men and the beacon. A chancy business, this invasion of another’s demesne, and worse when it is water and him at home in it. Worse still when the enemy appears… unnatural. Now additional nervousness is on me, Irnic.”
With lips held very tightly, Irnic said, “You think the-the business in the temple may have something to do with the kelp and-Wulfhere’s Ran’s daughters.”
“I think it may.”
“I am personally involved, Cormac. A woman of the cult is married to my cousin,” Irnic said, as if he were not talking about the wife of the King of Galicia. “Take command-my thinking cannot be clear in this.”
“And you are too good a soldier to try. Irnic, Irnic-what a man you are! What great good fortune is on Veremund to have you by him! But I cannot take command-I shall be asea. Or rather hugging the coast in that merchanter coaster, looking for the false beacon.”
“No, I mean-tell me what should be done by my men.”
Again they looked at each other, the tall and dark Gael and the powerfully built Sueve with his auburn hair coiled into a tortured Arabic eight on his head. And Cormac nodded, and spoke.
“On the responsibility of mac Art: Lucanor and all those with him on this night, are to be arrested. All of them. As quietly as possible. Peradventure they could be held there, or near there.”
Irnic, whose face looked as if he’d just bitten into a very green apple, was nodding. “Aye. And… Cormac…”
Cormac turned away from Irnic’s face and put a hand on his shoulder while he stood by his side. He knew the man was in agony over his queen-moreso that her husband was Irnic’s cousin.
“Her too, Irnic, an she be there. Ye knew ye must, man. Bring her away from the others. Mayhap she’ll not be going, this time. As it’s so muffled in the peasantish cloak she goes, mayhap she is unknown to the other… adherents, acolytes… whatever be their purpose.”
“Aye,” Irnic said, very low, and Cormac knew what he was thinking: not likely none would know the queen herself was among them!
“Though there is no doubt she be known to Lucanor.”
“Aye.” Terribly quietly. “And him? What of that damned Syrian himself?”
“He must be taken and kept closely mured up, Irnic. An he has powers, he must be given no opportunity to use them. And be ye mindful that the fellow may have to be made ever silent. An it chance possible to draw a cloak of silence about the queen’s involvement… would that not be the better for all?”
“Were likely necessary all eleven must die. I’d do it, for Veremund.”
“And meanwhile…”
“You suggest that we do not tell the king.”
“That is my meaning. If it is possible, Irnic. I am no Sueve.”
“How well I know, and that I am!” And Ki
ng Veremund’s military commander nodded, looked gloomy as a priest of the Dead God, and sighed, and departed.
My lady queen, Cormac mac Art thought, remain this night within these walls!
And he went then seeking Clodia, to gain her agreement to suffer a headache and her courses and chilblains as well this night, if necessary, to keep her and the king apart. Mayhap then he and his wife would seek each the companionship of the other; unhappy couple!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The sea-spawn
The sky hung low in a veiling threat that glowered on the little band of Danes and Sueves. Not even the setting sun was visible. Armoured and well-armed, the silent men accompanied their dark leader onto the dock and aboard the scapha modified to conceal them. Well equipped with grapnels on stout cords the coaster was, as tough to be turned from merchantish pursuits into piratical ones. Spears, too, had been laid aboard, and the sail was of deepest blue.
Though he claimed that no superstition interfered with his excellent mental processes, their Eirrin-born leader had caused the flat-bottomed skiff to be given a name. It had been painted along her hull in green: Sword of Lir. Scapha had become spatha.
The sun that was only a cloud-fronted glow was setting when they eased the square-sterned boat out of Brigantium Harbour and set her big dark sail. At the steering oar was Ivarr of the keen eyes, not he who was surely the best steersman on all the ridge of the world, Ordlaf son of Skel of Dane-mark. Ivarr ruddered the ship out past the lighthouse, then back in shoreward. The tower was unmanned, and its beacon dark.
An the volunteers aboard Sword of Lir saw aught of beacon-light this night, they would know at once that it emanated from their unknown and surely unworldly foe, whether wreckers or sirens or… Ran’s Daughters.
The glow of Behl’s Eye left the sky. Unusually subdued men exchanged looks and glanced this way and that, though from their concealment it was precious little they could see. The world about them went the colour of slate, and then darker still. Their coaster rocked gently amid waters that made lapping, slurping sounds. The men were silent. All knew their vulnerability. The inexperienced Sueves, hardly accustomed to the sea, felt it more than their Danish shipmates. All knew that in full armour as they were, any man who went overboard would sink like a stone and not return in this life.
The sky went indigo-and-black, shot through with streaks of azure and jet and grey-bellied clouds. The sail was hardly lively, in a breeze no more than a zephyr. Seagoing pirates and land-loving horse soldiers alike, the crew breathed deeply of salt-scented air. Crew? Nay; concealed war-men they were; marines.
Cormac stood forward, gazing steadily, moving his head back and forth, back and forth. Beside his left foot lay his helmet, upside down. His deepset eyes moved always, in a roving questing gaze. He strove not to strain his eyes to pierce the dark; any light would be easily seen, this night. Sword of Lir hardly more than drifted along. Across the water came the sounds of insects amid the woods ashore. A frog that must have been fist-sized glugged in a voice deep as the sea.
Behind mac Art men waited, concealed by the new additions to Sword of Lir’s simple construction. Hardly normal soldiers these, in their byrnies of steel or metal-studded leather; with their heavy round shields of good linden rimmed with iron; their vicious, newly-sharpened axes and long swords slung from baldric or waistbelt. Each man’s sponge-lined steel pot or iron-covered leathern cap lay close at hand.
They waited, looking up at their foreign leader’s back and at the dark, unconcerned sky. Only four men were visible along with mac Art; unhelmeted men. They knew their duties. Insofar as words could tell, they knew what to expect. They too watched, and waited. The breeze drifted gently, riffling their hair and only stirring the sail. The Gael’s black mop stirred and he jerked his head when a lock tickled his cheek.
A light appeared. A light flashed, a spot of citrine in the night.
“Cormac!”
“I see it. It’s the beacon, lads-the false one, low to the water. Stand ye by for the fearful, and see ye’re not affected as they expect. Ivarr-we’re being seduced. Gudfred, Hermanric-they wish to lure us from the shore. Let us be succumbing.”
They succumbed. The flat-bottomed boat was lured willingly away by the rocking yellow glow. The scapha, nigh immune to rocks no matter how close they rose to the surface of the water, closed as if naively on that beacon of treachery. Adam’s apples bobbed as men swallowed. Darkness ensorcelled the world in a night haunted by the unknown. They knew death lurked in strange form, awaiting them.
The coaster slid over the gently tossing bracken sea toward whatever inexorable end the Fates held in store for her and her crew. Mac Art stared ahead, a dark-visaged statue wrapped in sombre anticipation. The spot of yellow grew, and now he could see that it was a dancing yellow flame.
“Closer,” he reported. Behind him there were rustles and clinks as grim-faced men removed baldrics and belts and held steel naked in their hands. An they went into the sea, they’d be encumbered at least by no leathern straps.
“Ah, gods of my fathers, Wulfhere spoke true,” their commander reported. “A barge, lads, broad and flat as this save with no hold or shelter-but a deck just above the water. Aye, ’tis plain now-constructed all of dead white bone yon craft is!”
“And-women?”
Cormac stared. “Something disports itself in the water about the barge. Many of them. Large, methinks-Crom’s beard, those heads-their faces are men and fishes all at once, lads! It’s some creatures called up from some damned kingdom ’neath the sea we’ll be facing, and do ye remember who has weapons and who-or what-has none!”
The Gael continued to stare ahead while his unlikely craft closed on the unnatural one. Aye, he saw them now… women, or something like, of womanly form. The hair at the back of his neck stirred as though someone stood close and puffed air on it. Eerily phosphorescent were those beasties sporting about the bone-ship, and huge and round and without colour their eyes, save for the spots of black that were their pupils.
The unnatural fire did indeed burn on that dead white deck, and around it, close as though they were freezing or it a flame of cold fire, lounged… crew? Passengers? Mac Art did not know. Strange unearthly women these were, with large eyes that glowed like twinned lamps in every face… and those colourless eyes were blank, inhuman, fishlike, noctiluminescent glims staring and expressionless as death itself. Robed all in greenish-bluish-greyish sea mist these feminine creatures were, all slim and sylphlike and gleaming. Peradventure that raiment, mac Art thought, protected the unworldly creatures from the heat and dancing flames of their deck-burning beacon. If flames those were.
Lounging, they stared unblinking at the approaching scapha.
Slim, and lifeless and unblinking… like…
Like my lady Queen Venhilda, Cormac thought, staring back. From time to time he lifted his voice in command to his four men on deck. He saw arms draped impossibly in sea mist lift, stretch toward him all aglisten; saw the loveliness of parting lips in piquant, point-chinned faces; saw the misted outline and swell of tiny, dainty girlish breasts that called to a man and sought to kindle his rut with visions of nubile youth.
He spoke low. “Now lads, remember. These… women expect the bemazement of their very appearance to draw us in… the horror of those eyes to ensorcel and panic us so that we may be capsized and drowned with ease. Such must be their way and their experience. Only Lir’s son is after knowing how many they’ve thus murdered. Be ye prepared. Flinch not, but remember that it’s deadly enemy they be-and that things be not always as they seem. Surprise is with us, this time. For we expected them… and it’s hardly the ordinary sailors they expect we are!” And he added, “Trim sail. Rudder aport.”
And his men obeyed.
And steadily, whilst fish-things cavorted in the water and made strange croaking sounds that rode the night air with ugglesome eeriness to prickle a man’s nape, the ungainly craft yclept Sword of Lir slid toward the barge of bones.
The cold
dead colourless eyes of those… sirens seemed to brighten with anticipation. The sea-creatures about their barge slowed their activities, staring. Waiting for the scapha’s approach.
Then Cormac seemed to go mad.
He shouted, and his voice lofted high. “Five more on deck! Run about as if moon-struck, lads! AH, GODS AND BLOOD OF THE GODS! Aegir and Mamannan aid us! Wulfhere-all sail, all sail! Hard by steerboard!”
But Wulfhere was not aboard, and at the steering-oar Ivarr knew better than to obey: the calling of the absent captain’s name was the signal they’d agreed upon hours agone. And Ivarr seemed too to go mad, even while five men sprang up from below. Unhelmeted they came, and bearing no shields. Given the order to swing hard aright, Ivarr ruddered leftward as if in panicky confusion.
With men running screaming and arm-waving about her deck, the scapha rolled in toward the unearthly craft.
Ever closer they manoeuvered, and each time Cormac called out Wulfhere’s name before his command, that order was carried out in reverse. And the women aboard the bone-ship smiled, smiled and seemed to yearn toward Sword of Lir…
“Close enow!” Cormac bawled. “Grapple fast and haul us in to her, lads! Helmets and shields and fistful of steel! And by the blood of all the very gods, remember how many good men these creatures have done to death!”
Grapnels flew like steel claws from the hands of men whose sanity had been regained on the instant. Inexperienced Hermanric, unsteady on his feet on the bobbing craft, overthrew. A hideous shriek rent the air as one clawing fluke of his grapnel tore down the arm of one of the women on the bone-barge, and another sank to its back-hook in her shining white thigh.
Blood’s red enough, Cormac thought, and gave no thought to his own callousness.
Now the two craft were made fast, and up from the sea came horror.
Surely horror was the very name of these sea-spawned monsters of glistening, dripping, greyish-green. Scales plated their backs and shoulders like the hides of fishes. As fish-like were the enormous unblinking eyes that bulged from ugly piscine heads. Gills moved restlessly on either side their necks, sucking and palpitating.
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