She does nothing. She stands and looks at the mare. Then she takes a step along the lake shore. One step. She waits, never taking her eyes off the mare.
And the mare actually takes a step.
Brigid takes another step. She waits.
The mare takes another step.
They continue like that till the mare finally slogs out of the bog onto the shore. Brigid picks up the muddy reins and leads her into the shallows. She washes off the mare’s legs. Then she brings her around to me.
“How do you do that?” I ask.
Brigid shrugs.
“Really. I want to know. How do you get animals to trust you?”
“You don’t do it by throwing things at them.” She smiles.
I laugh in spite of myself. “I didn’t start out throwing. I clicked to her. And called. And sang.”
“There’s your error. A horse doesn’t click or call or sing. Animals don’t talk. So you don’t talk to animals. You keep your mouth shut and watch them.”
“Silence with the animals,” I say. Brigid hands me the reins. “Is there any food left?”
“No.”
“You were right,” says Brigid. “You said last night we should save some of it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. We can’t be far from that ringfort now.”
“No.” Brigid shakes her head in that stubborn way I know too well. “I don’t want to go to a settlement. I want to go home.” Her voice gets sharp. Her eyes are already liquid. It always takes me by surprise, the way she can be so grown-up one second and such a baby the next.
I don’t know what makes me look at the sky right then, but I do. I grab Brigid’s arm and spin her to face south.
Her mouth drops open, her eyes widen in wonder. “How many do you guess there are?”
The storks stretch back as far as I can see. Father says that in spring and summer there are more white storks in Eire than there are people. They spend the winter in hot Africa. But they come home to breed and roost. I love to see them. They say storks are the best parents; they’ll be consumed in a fire rather than abandon a nest. If it’s true, it’s a piercing truth.
“How many?” asks Brigid. “Hundreds?” She bounces her finger on the air as she points at them in an attempt to count.
This one mustering is thick and wide, covering the wetlands like a feather blanket, so many it’s dizzying. “Thousands,” I breathe.
They land with loud flapping, hopping from trees to the ground, then walking around us on pink-orange legs with their straight, red-orange bills pointed down. Many of them tower over us. We’re enveloped.
Every now and then those long necks straighten with a snap as their bills poke the mud. I think of snakes striking, and I pull Brigid to me. I’ve never seen a snake, of course. There aren’t any in Eire. But I’ve seen their images in the Gospel book at the Kells monastery in Meath. Father says snakes can kill with one bite.
“They’re eating” Brigid’s tone is authoritative. She’s back to being grown-up, not the least upset by being in the middle of a mustering. “Frogs.”
“Ew.” I shudder.
She gives a satisfied laugh at my reaction. “They eat rats and lizards and just about anything. But they love frogs best. That’s why stork feet are always wet.”
I hug myself and stand very still. A loud rattle comes from a stork to my right. Then another near him. Then from all directions. They’re throwing their heads back and clattering their bills. Swan bevies can make you practically deaf with their trumpeting and hooting. But I realize now I’ve never heard a stork make a peep, just this bill clatter. I practically shout in Brigid’s ear, “And why are they silent?”
“Silent?” shouts back Brigid with a grin.
“You know, why don’t they use their voices?”
“It’s something to do with their throats” Brigid cocks her head at me, and her eyes twinkle teasingly. “Did you think the vampire Dearg-due had struck them mute?”
I slap her shoulder, but not hard. I’m only half-annoyed.
The rattling stops as suddenly as it started.
“We’d better get going,” I say as gently as I can. “We have to get to the ringfort and stay till word comes that it’s safe to return home.”
“Home,” says Brigid. “I want to go home. I want to know what happened.”
“I do too,” I whisper. “But Mother said.”
Brigid’s face pinches with disappointment. “Storks bring good luck.” She walks very slowly toward the center of the mustering.
Well, all right, we can spend a little longer here.
I walk out of the mustering, and now I notice nests in the trees. Last night I thought the trees were particularly thick, but it was just all those nests. This mustering must return here every spring. I imagine them cleaning out the old nests and patching up holes. And I get an idea.
I go to the closest tree with a nest, climb level with the top edge, and shimmy out a branch till I can look down into the nest. A human family could fit inside, it’s so deep. But a human’s weight would crash through.
I don’t have to climb in, though; what I’m looking for is easy to snatch.
Three big feathers are caught in the far edge of the nest. With black on them—wing feathers.
I hold on to a nearby branch and lean farther. My fingertips graze one, but I can’t grasp it.
I look down. It’s not that far. I might not get hurt even if I do fall. I clasp a branch with my left hand and lunge across the nest, trying to stay clear of the swarming lice, and I close my right fist around feathers as I realize I’m falling. Dry sticks jab me. I thump on the ground and roll.
When I finally stop shaking, I smile. The three feathers came with me. And all it cost was scrapes.
I hold them up to the sunlight. What looked all black from a distance is highlighted with a sheen of purple and green iridescence. A proper present these are. Something to delight Brigid with the next time she’s on the verge of crying. I tuck them inside my tunic.
“Brigid, my colleen” I call.
She comes running—she’s finally ready to leave too.
“We’ll find that kind family—that Michael and Brenda and whatever children they have—and we’ll eat something good. What would you like? What would be lovely?”
“Dried apples,” says Brigid, putting on a brave face.
I smile.
She smiles back tentatively. “Dripping with honey.” Her eyes search mine.
I smile harder for encouragement.
She grins now. “Not liquid or chunk honey—but creamed honey. The best.”
“Bread dipped in hot sheep milk,” I sing.
“Cakes fried in pig fat!” crows Brigid.
I can’t top that. “We could try to catch a salmon if we had something to use as a net.”
“Or crayfish. I love crayfish.”
It’s a happy dream. But we have no nets.
We mount the mare, through the help of an ash tree this time.
“Whoa,” I cry out. “Aren’t you sore, Brigid? Please go slow”
Brigid laughs. But she pulls the mare to a walk.
It’s slow going without a path. But I know we’re heading south because the sun is to our left—and this is the direction the birds came from. And I’m pretty sure we’re staying close to the coast. Whenever the trees permit it, I look through for a glimpse of water.
Very soon we emerge from the trees on a large lake. Carlingford Lough, for sure. The ringfort Mother told us to go to is a short ride up the other side of the lake.
Within moments we spot a stone mound. We stop and watch, cautious. I know what it is—a hermit’s dwelling. It’s made without any mud at all, just well-fitted stones. There’s no sign that it’s used, though. The grass around it isn’t matted anywhere. We walk the mare as quietly as we can.
“It’s abandoned,” whispers Brigid. “There could be food.”
“Not a chance,” I say. “And it’s bound to be nasty in
side. Besides, we’ll be at the ringfort soon.”
“I’m hungry now, Mel. Please, let’s look.”
I’m hungry too. And Mother misjudged how long it would take us to get to Carlingford Lough. Maybe she misjudged how long it will take us to get to the ringfort from here too.
“All right. There won’t be anything edible. But there could be a fishing net. Listen, Brigid. You stay on the mare’s back. I’ll get down and toss in a stone. If anyone comes out, you race off and I’ll run after you.”
“You can’t run. You can hardly walk. I saw you. You’re sore from riding. So I’ll be the one.” She slips off the horse before I can stop her. She grabs a stone and throws it through the low entrance.
I hold my breath.
But nothing happens.
Brigid throws a handful of stones. Then she stoops over to peek inside. “It’s dark. Come help me.”
I slide off the mare and tie her up, to a tree this time—I won’t make the same mistake twice.
We can stand easily inside, but it’s dark. A capstone covers the smoke hole, and that makes it so dark it feels safer to go on all fours. We touch our way. It’s dry and cold and messy with old animal scat. We’re standing now. But the walls are no better than the floor. No food, of course. But no net, either. No tools. Not one useful thing.
Brigid crawls out first.
I give a last wistful swipe of my hand. Nothing. But that’s all right. We’re almost at the ringfort.
I duck out the door behind Brigid, straight into the hands of a large, hairy man.
My scream is cut off by the cloth he ties over my mouth. I kick as another comes over my eyes. In seconds my hands are roped together behind my back. I buck and kick out behind, but someone takes my elbow and jerks me along.
Where is Brigid?
I smell clay. The man who pulls me is pungent with it.
Nearby I hear feet tramping, struggling.
Brigid?
Where is Brigid?
PART TWO
CHAPTER EIGHT: PRISONERS
I’m pulled into water. Up to my knees. Now my thighs. Waves lap at my belly. Deeper.
I yank against the hand on my elbow. The man’s fingers dig into me. They cut. Long fingernails. Claws.
Deeper.
I won’t be able to swim with my hands tied behind my back.
I kick at him, but the water slows me and my tunic gets caught in my legs. I fall and swallow salt water and choke on this gag in my mouth.
His grip on my elbow never loosens. Tm pulled up and dragged along, slogging, slogging through sea.
I will die in a peasant’s tunic. If anyone finds my body, they won’t even know who I am. If Mother and Father live still, they will never know what became of me.
I see nothing inside this blindfold; I strangle inside this gag.
Deeper.
I yank, and kick, and fall, completely underwater this time.
I’m grabbed around the waist from behind and lifted out into the air. The smell of clay on this man overwhelms me. A voice from above shouts in a foreign language.
The man who holds me, the one who stinks of clay, shouts back.
I’m thrashing like a caught fish.
Hands grab at me from above and Fm dropped onto wood. I feel the planks on my arms as I roll.
More shouts. Another wet thump on wood. Brigid? The floor moves under me.
This is a ship.
I crawl as quickly as I can toward the thump I just heard and I slam into someone. The person lets out a garbled cry.
With no hands or eyes to help, I cannot even tell if this is man or woman. But it’s not Brigid.
The boat lurches. I knock into someone else. And another. Muffled yelps. And it dawns on me: These people are gagged like me. Probably blindfolded as well, with trussed hands. Maybe people from my own Downpatrick.
I stop and lie still. Beyond the noise of wind and fluttering sails, I hear them bashing into things, falling, struggling to get up. Now and then someone tries to speak. The distorted cries rend my heart.
Someone shuffles by and I hear the smack of flesh on flesh, a cry of pain, a loud thud, gulping groans of agony. Someone trips over my feet and lands beside me, weeping. A woman’s noises.
My bottom suddenly warms with hot liquid. I stand quickly. My nose tells me the woman urinated. My tunic was already wet from the sea, but now it’s filthy.
And I need to urinate too.
A man shouts in my face. His breath is sour beer. The words aren’t Gaelic, and it doesn’t seem like the little Norse I’ve heard. Who on Earth is he? I thrust my face forward and would shout back if only this gag weren’t here.
A punch to my ribs. I crumple to my knees. My forehead slams on the deck.
I give in to darkness.
The wind is cold. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but every part of me aches from having been in an awkward position for so long. It must have been the whole rest of the daylight, for the air feels like night.
With much struggle and pain, I work myself up to sitting. My rib cage hurts. Every slight pull of my tunic over that stretch of chest makes me flinch. I fear a rib is cracked. This crew gives wicked blows. Who are they? What right do they have to abuse us like this? My jaw clenches in anger.
Many people in Father’s kingdom have never traveled. But I have. And all the long journeys except that one damnable trip to Dublin have been by boat. Even journeys inland, since much of our countryside is impassible except by river. I know what happens on a ship. I am blindfolded and gagged, but there’s still much I can figure out.
I strain to distinguish sounds. Fluttering comes from two separate sources. So this ship has two sails. Two. Viking ships have one. This isn’t Bjarni’s ship, then. The other prisoners might not be from Downpatrick, after all.
Maybe Mother and Father and Nuada are all still alive, and Downpatrick is safe. Oh, Lord, let that be so.
Two sails. The second ship that passed us last night had two sails. A man on deck waved to us. That ship was going south.
The motion of the waves combined with the wind tells me land is to our right—starboard; so we’re heading south.
If it’s the same ship that passed us, it must have stopped for the night right after seeing us. Almost as though it stopped just in order to lie in wait for us.
But that makes no sense. What kind of ship would have stopped to wait for Brigid and me?
Someone pulls at the knot on the back of my blindfold. He yanks my hair in the process. I twist to slam my head at him, but the searing pain in my rib stops me cold.
I blink and stare down at nothing, then up at the starry sky. It’s the middle of the night.
The man who took off my blindfold is now untying the blindfold of a woman beside me. She must be the one who urinated. The one who wept. He’s rough with her, too. He’s short, with a dull, mean face. The woman looks at him and cries again. She gets to her feet.
He leers at her and brushes a hand across her breasts.
Lord.
I haven’t cried. And now I’ll make sure I don’t. For all intents and purposes I am a boy.
When my eyes adjust to the dark, I make out bodies farther away. Some are still blindfolded.
Brigid! She’s but ten paces away. A mixture of sadness and gladness washes over me. I wish she had escaped. But at least we’re together. Immalle.
I get to my feet. Lord, how it hurts to move.
The leering man unties Brigid’s blindfold. She blinks and our eyes meet. But she quickly glances past me.
I slowly, carefully, sink back to my haunches. My broken rib stabs at my innards. I sit and count the others, breathing shallowly to cut the pain.
It’s hard to be sure, because so much obstructs my vision, but by my best reckoning there are eight prisoners. Two adults—women, I think. The rest of us, children. The crew outnumber us, but not by much. They’re moving about, adjusting the sails, fiddling with gear, so they’re even harder to count accuratel
y.
Three of the children clustered together as soon as their blindfolds came off. They’re trying to talk to one another. The gags make it impossible, of course. But they don’t stop. Stupid peasants.
The last child’s blindfold is now untied. The child runs and falls. He buries his face in the tunic of the other woman—not the weeping one.
My eyes grow watery. I blink and turn my gaze to the water. A choppy, unforgiving sea separates us from the far-off shore. And, oh! It’s on the port side. What?
I stand again—Lord, what pain—and look starboard. No land there. As far as I can see, nothing. Are we really going north again, back toward Downpatrick?
But now I see white cliffs! My heart thumps so loud, I can’t hear anything else. What a fool I am. We’re nowhere near Downpatrick. We’ve been sailing fast. It must be past midnight. The sky is turning rosy off to starboard. It’s close to dawn.
And the timing is right; if we went south and then crossed the Irish Sea and circled around Wales and headed back up the channel, it’s possible that those could really be the famous white cliffs I’ve heard tales of.
This ship is on the southeast side of Saxon Britain. Never in my life did I expect to be this far from home. The enormity of the distance undoes me. What on Earth is going on? Where are we going?
We have to escape. We must get off this boat right now, before it gets any farther from Eire.
If our hands weren’t tied, Brigid and I could jump overboard and swim for it. We’re both strong swimmers. We swim in the river near the monastery. And we swim in Strangford Lough in summer.
But the sea’s so cold.
And that shore is far.
And my rib is cracked.
And our hands are tied.
I feel heavy and stupid and absent. As though I’m nothing but a pile of dirty clothing, no better than the other poor slobs on this boat.
CHAPTER NINE: MORE PRISONERS
Morning mist makes me shiver. My tunic is still damp from being pulled through the water. Brigid’s must be too. I assume a wide stance so the wind will dry me.
A crew member walks to the center of the deck and bangs on a metal box. He shouts at us in that ugly, unknown language. He’s short too, but much wider than the leering one who took off our blindfolds. All our eyes are uncovered now, all are on him.
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