Paul, I will be brave. I will be as brave as you were, my brother.
The third day. Tempers fray; we are all on edge. It is overcast. The sun stone is useless. The wind is a mere breath.
Sigurd catches a fish. Svala receives it with wary hands. She takes her prize to a dark corner of the hold, where she squats down and guards it. Eating, she turns her back to us. Her feast is soon gone.
Late in the day, Gareth calls me up on deck. Cloud blankets the sky from north to south, from east to west; if it does not lift, there will be another night at anchor. On every side the sea stretches to the horizon, an endless expanse of heaving gray water. No island; no reef; not the smallest skerry. The sky is empty of birds. We are alone.
I lean beside Gareth at the rail.
“We’re near the place, aren’t we?” I ask him. “The spot where Freyja was taken?”
“As close as we’ll get with little more than guesswork to go by.” Gareth sounds somewhat dour. “What do your instincts tell you, Felix? Does it seem right? Can you remember any signs, anything at all we might use to help us find a way?”
I wish I could help him. “My instincts would be a poor guide. As I said, I was down in the hold for the best part of Freyja’s voyage. What will you do?”
“This breeze feels like a southeasterly to me, and it’s gradually rising. But I won’t go on until I can be more sure of the direction. Pray for clear skies.”
By night, in the hold, I overhear Knut telling Sigurd that I am the ill luck man, and that this wild and crazy voyage has been born entirely of my madness. My goal is to get everyone killed, he says. My ambition is to exact vengeance for my brother’s death and my own inadequacies. Sigurd listens without comment, then changes the subject to fishing.
When Gareth comes down, he and Cathal argue in lowered voices. Cathal believes that if the wind strengthens we should head in the direction we believe is northwest, even if the clouds make our tools of navigation useless. Gareth disagrees. Cathal sounds edgy, his tone full of the need to go, to move, to get this job done. Gareth’s is the voice of reason: our captain’s voice. Cathal goes up to take his watch with nothing settled. Glancing across the hold, I see that Sibeal is awake, sitting up with her eyes closed and her hands in her lap, a blanket loosely around her shoulders. I wait until she is finished: a long time. A poem forms in my mind as I watch her, a poem I will never speak aloud.
She returns, blinking, stretching, the veil of that other world slow to lift from her features. I am ready with a water skin.
“Here. Drink.”
She smiles. “Thank you, Felix.”
We speak in whispers; around us many are sleeping. I have found it hard to sleep on board the boat. While I no longer suffer from seasickness, I cannot lie here without feeling the immense power that lies beneath our fragile cradle. I cannot close my eyes without seeing the wave come over. With every breath I take, I feel the water’s chill embrace, carrying me away.
I do not ask Sibeal what she has seen. I wait for her to tell me.
“We’ll find the place,” she says. “I’m certain of it.” Nothing of what came to her in meditation; nothing of whether the gods still smile on our endeavor. She wears her contained expression, the look suited to the enactment of a ritual. I wonder if she has seen disaster and wants to spare me. “Best sleep now,” she says. “Rest well, Felix.” She looks over at Svala, whose eyes are on the two of us, watching, watching. Sibeal mimes sleep, resting her head on folded hands. “Good night, Svala.”
But as Sibeal and I lie down, a discreet distance apart, Svala makes no move, save to turn her gaze up through the opening toward the starless sky. I close my eyes and wait for the wave to come.
There is no need for further dispute between Gareth and Cathal. The choice is made for them. In the darkness a strange fierce wind rises, and suddenly we are all wide-awake. No need for the guidance of stars or sun. It is the same wind, blowing to the northwest; I know it in my bones. Something severs the rope that holds our sea anchor. With commendable calm, Gareth orders the crew to hoist the sail. We must ride before the storm or become a scrap of flotsam, helpless under the buffeting of the waves. Liadan’s joints creak and groan. Above us, on deck, crewmen exchange shouts as they fight to get her under some measure of control. The seas are rising. Spray dances high above the rail, splashing into the hold and drenching us.
Gareth calls Knut up on deck; in such conditions, every able crewman on board must be put to work. Knut obeys. I am forced to recognize how brave he is. Once he is out of sight, something changes in Svala. Or has the storm done this? Her eyes are bright, her back straight, her head held proudly. She stands up and moves toward the opening as if she, too, would haul herself up there into the wild wind and the ocean spray.
“No, Svala!” Gull has to raise his voice to be heard over the gathering storm. “Sibeal, tell her it’s not safe.”
Sibeal staggers over to Svala, takes her arm, says something I do not hear. Svala seems to understand either words or touch, for she comes back and sits down, but there is a restless energy in every part of her. She could be a different woman. As for me, I am glad we have this crew, this captain. If the men of Inis Eala cannot stand fast against the storm, I think nobody can.
I am not sure I believe in the sea god, but I pray to him: Keep Sibeal safe, at least. I go to sit by her and hold her hand. Who cares about propriety? On her other side is Gull, calm and quiet. As the sky lightens to a tentative dawn we hurtle through monstrous seas, our sail bellying, on a path straight for the serpent isle.
CHAPTER 12
~Sibeal~
We sailed on before the storm. The pace was unrelenting. Keeping Liadan on a steady course and in one piece became the only thing that mattered. Days and nights passed in a blur. A man would climb down, white-faced and shaking with exhaustion, to snatch brief rest; another would struggle up to take his place on deck. They lay down and were instantly asleep, inert as felled trees. Gull told stories to the rest of us to help the time pass, but even he could not go on forever. The memory of death shadowed Felix’s eyes.
As a druid I was trained to endure. I made body and mind quiet; I slowed my breath. My thinking shrank to the kernel of a nut, the petal of a flower, a single blade of grass. Night followed day. A small part of me was aware of the purposeful, grim-faced men, the violently rocking ship, the waves washing over, the white face of Felix beside me.
On the third night I dreamed of violent struggle, of screams and clawing fingers. I woke abruptly to a hand on my shoulder, and swam up to full consciousness to see Cathal crouched beside me. It was morning. Through the opening above the hold, the sky was a clear light blue.
“What is it, Cathal?”
“We need to talk.”
I sat up. Gull and Felix were both awake, seated not far from me. Felix had dark circles under his eyes. And Svala—what was wrong? She was standing awkwardly, her hands up in front of her, and . . .
“She’s tied up!” I exclaimed in horror. Was this real, or was I still dreaming? Svala’s wrists were bound together with a rope, and a length of it tethered her to the timbers of the hold’s interior. No wonder Felix looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “What happened?” I demanded, struggling to rise. My legs were cramped from my uneasy sleep. “Who has done this?” I must release Svala right now.
“Leave her, Sibeal.” Gull reached out a hand to hold me back. “Captain’s orders. You slept through it all, but last night she got up on deck while the ship was under full sail. I was down below, but Gareth said she caused chaos up there so he ordered the men to bring her back to the hold and restrain her. She fought off four crewmen. Did a lot of damage. I’ve been kept busy attending to scratches and bruises. Believe me, Sibeal, Gareth had no choice.”
This was wrong, utterly wrong. It made a mockery of the mission; it was akin to caging a beautiful sea bird. And I couldn’t bear that look on Felix’s face, the look that told me he was remembering Paul; I couldn’t bear it a moment longer
. “How can you be so calm about it, Gull?” I burst out. “I don’t care what she did! She’s frightened—just look at her!” Svala was pulling against the ropes with some violence. A raw bracelet of damaged flesh encircled each wrist. A whimpering came from her, the hoarse, defeated sound of someone who has raged and wept all night long. “I’ll set her free myself if none of you is prepared to do it!”
I was moving toward her when Felix’s arm came around my shoulders, holding me, halting me. “Sibeal,” he murmured in my ear. “I know how you feel. Wait.”
His touch slowed my hammering heart. His steady voice told me I had been on the brink of behaving in a manner not befitting a druid. Perhaps there was another way to do this, a better way. “I can keep her calm,” I said, looking at Cathal. “Please ask Gareth if I can untie her bonds. She has a link with me. She’ll listen to me.”
“No, Sibeal, I won’t ask him. You didn’t see her. No seafaring man wants to risk a madwoman on his vessel. And that was what she was, laughing, singing, screaming, climbing in the rigging, leaning over the side with waves like mountains crashing all around. What if there had been a reef? The crew were so distracted that we’d have sunk with all hands. I won’t ask Gareth, and I won’t untie her. And you won’t either. In a matter like this, you don’t go against the captain’s orders.”
A slap in the face. My authority as a druid counted for nothing. I stood silent beside Felix. To restrain Svala was to mock the gods. My chest ached with the wrongness of it. Standing beside Felix, with his body touching mine, I felt his pain. How could he be so stoic about this?
“What was it you came down to say?” Gull asked Cathal.
“We can’t sustain this pace much longer,” Cathal said flatly. “The toll on men and boat is too great. I’m starting to have doubts about the course. Could we have sailed right past the place?” He looked at Felix.
“I can’t tell you,” Felix said. “The conditions feel the same, the wind, the seas, the light. This part of the journey was shorter for Freyja. But you must allow for a different vessel, almost certainly a different starting point, the speed of the wind, and . . . ” His voice faded away.
“That is the question. Is this an ordinary storm, a phenomenon that is perhaps quite common to this particular place? Or is it something more? What great hand stirs the seas? Whose fell breath drives Liadan onward?”
“I take it you’re not referring to Manannán,” I said. I was furious with him, with Gareth, with Gull for allowing this to happen to Svala. That did not take away all my common sense. We were in danger. The situation was perilous. If Cathal needed my advice, I would give it.
“No, Sibeal, I do not refer to any godly power. It is in my father’s nature to toy with folk, to play tricks, to exercise his particular form of cruelty. We might sail on and on, and . . . ”
“And never reach land?” put in Gull. “The wind doesn’t blow in the same direction forever. Sooner or later it will change. If it’s later rather than sooner, Gareth will have no choice but to turn and head for home, our supplies being limited.”
“It’s not blowing in the same direction, Gull,” says Cathal soberly. “Some time in the night we veered off closer to due north. Just now, the clouds lifted long enough for Gareth to check it with the sun stone, and his reading bears that out.”
Felix was silent, his jaw clenched tight.
“That need not mean we’re off course,” I said. “We started from Inis Eala, not Ulfricsfjord. The wind may have picked us up at a point further west than it did Freyja. If we accept that the storm is an uncanny thing, whether sent by the gods or by some other power, then perhaps it blows in whichever direction will bear us to the serpent isle.”
“So if you were Gareth you wouldn’t even attempt to steer a course?” Cathal’s brows went up.
“I’m offering a theory only. And no, I wouldn’t suggest any such thing to Gareth. Didn’t you imply that the captain’s word is law?” Anger rose in me again, and I might have spoken rashly, but there was a different kind of sound from Svala, and I saw her looking toward a particular corner. “Gull,” I said, “how can Svala use the privy if she’s tied up?”
Without a word, Gull went over to unhook the long rope that anchored Svala to the timbers. He made no move to untie her wrists, or her ankles, which I realized were linked by a rope perhaps two handspans long.
Beyond words, I made my way to the corner where the privy bucket was wedged between various other objects. In the storm it had not always been possible to keep the contents where they belonged. Fortunately, it seemed Gull had been up to empty it over the side this morning.
I was sure none of the men had considered quite how difficult performing this function might be for a woman with her wrists and ankles tied, however loosely. I helped her as best I could. As I smoothed down her skirt, she held up her bound hands, moving them to and fro. Her eyes pleaded with me. I had never felt so strong an urge to disobey a direct order. I would not let Gull fasten her to the timbers again. I could not let it happen. I opened my mouth to say so, and Felix spoke instead.
“Cathal, you said the wind changed during the night. When? What was happening at the time?”
Standing beside Svala, with my hand on her arm to reassure her, I felt a sudden calm possess me. I understood what Felix was thinking of, and it made perfect sense to me.
“I believe it was about the time Gareth gave the order for Svala to be taken below. I can’t be certain, Felix. All of us were somewhat preoccupied.”
“So she was manhandled down here and tied up, and then the wind changed?” I said.
“I noticed it when we came back up on deck,” said Cathal, and I saw on his face that he was starting to follow our thinking. “I didn’t make much of it at the time—I wasn’t sure. Then Gareth asked me if I’d noticed a difference; he’d felt it, too.”
We sat silent for a while, listening to the scream of the gale and the pounding of the waves against the hull. Eventually I said, “She knows the way. Svala knows the way. Gareth must untie her and let her go back up on the prow. It doesn’t matter, for now, who’s stirring the seas and making the wind blow. Without Svala, we won’t find the serpent isle.”
“The wind changed because she was not there to guide us?” Gull sounded somewhat sceptical. “What is she, a goddess?”
“I don’t understand it either, Gull, but my instincts tell me this is what we must do. Tell Gareth, Cathal, and get her back up there quickly, before we go too far off course.” I realized I was giving orders. “Please tell him I’m sure that’s what he must do.”
“Felix?” Cathal lifted his brows. “You concur with this?”
“I do,” Felix said. “The sooner Svala is set free, the sooner we will reach that place. Perhaps today. Perhaps today we will find them.”
Cathal went on deck. Very soon after, he came down again. “He’s prepared to try it. Felix, will you untie Svala’s bonds?”
I had not thought it possible for Felix to go any paler, but he did so now. “I will,” he said. “Sibeal, I may need your help.”
I stood by Svala, using gestures to explain as best I could what was happening. My link with her was weak here in the hold; there were, perhaps, too many others close by to allow that joining of thoughts we had sometimes shared. But I could keep her calm while Felix undid the knots and freed her hands. I could murmur to her while he knelt to unfasten the ropes around her ankles. It was a slow job; his hands were shaking. I understood why Cathal had laid this particular duty on him.
“It’s done,” Felix said eventually, and rose to his feet. Tears were running down his cheeks. “You’re free.”
I had expected Svala to dart away as soon as the last knot was untied. But she laid her hands on Felix’s shoulders—she was slightly taller than he—and nodded gravely in recognition. Then she took my arm and pointed up to the deck, giving voice to a sequence of liquid sounds that were somewhere between speech and song. A series of clear gestures followed: you, me, up there.
Then a sweeping, almost imperious movement of the arm, indicating Felix. And him. She motioned to Gull. That one, too.
“We should do as she wants,” I said, trying to ignore the quavering terror in my belly. Up there in the storm, in the open, amid those heaving seas . . .
“Are you sure, Sibeal?” Gull was getting to his feet. He winced as he straightened. The close confinement of the hold and the lack of opportunity to stretch our legs had taken their toll.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. There was a reason for everything Svala did; I was more and more convinced of that. Even the things that seemed wild and uncontrolled had their purpose. “Cathal, is it possible for us to be somewhere on deck but out of people’s way?”
“If you can keep Svala from wreaking havoc, I expect Gareth might agree to it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Let me go up first, then. I’ll find you a spot.”
Up there, in the teeth of the wind, I could think of little but staying on my feet. I wedged myself against the rail, and Felix stood between me and the gale. As for Gull, the moment he came up on deck he changed from healer to sailor. There were tasks even his crippled hands could manage: stowing equipment quickly and neatly, lending his strength to jobs requiring the force of several men, keeping an eye on which crewman needed to rest, calling the next to take his place. I realized that if it had not been for my presence on Liadan, his voyage would have been quite different. I saw a purpose and pride in him that touched me even as I clung to the rail with one hand and to Felix with the other, praying wordlessly to Manannán to let us live.
Svala was restored to herself. She stood tall on the prow, heedless of the salt spray, the fearsome swell and the scourge of the wind. She was at one with the sea. Her golden hair flew wildly above her, tossed in all directions. Her bare feet were planted firmly. While I could not have taken a step on my own without falling, for the deck was tilting one way, then the other, she had no need to hold on. I watched her in awe. There was a freedom about her, and a power, that awoke a yearning in me, a longing for something I could not name. Now and again she turned to me, eyes alight, as if to share her excitement. Here we are! Isn’t it wonderful? I managed a grimace in return. Truth to tell, I was not able to face this with the fortitude I would have wished for. I was terrified.
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