The Island House

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  But Solwaer was not finished. “And I call on our Gods to witness these, my acts and intentions today, and those of Lord Edor also. All that I do, I do in your names.” Some of his men might think of themselves as Christians now, and the Norse had their own barbarian Gods and rites. Worshiping Cruach was a hangover from the old days, when he’d grown up the despised son of a slave in the old clan settlement, but by claiming the support of these Gods, he seized fate in his hands and took the initiative from Edor. In the end, he did not care what any of them believed so long as he was obeyed. “Midsummer Day approaches quickly, and by that time, we will have built a great burial chamber in which our heroes shall lie. Fortunately, we have enough slaves.” Solwaer stared at the monks.

  The Abbot bowed his head; he would not allow Solwaer to enjoy his despair.

  The Chieftain lifted his arm, a sword in his hand. He waved it above his head. With a roar, the fighters raised their weapons.

  Edor, cheering with the rest, knew he’d lost round one, though the tomb would bolster his prestige as well as Solwaer’s. He glanced at the brothers; perhaps he owed them that at least. Blood price.

  CHAPTER 42

  DAN LAY beside Freya on the single bed. She was deeply asleep, and his arm, under her head, was numb. Gently, he eased it out and flexed his fingers to get the blood moving. Freya shifted, and her eyelids flickered.

  Dan stroked her cheek. She muttered and half-smiled.

  What was it about this girl? Like a gale she’d swept through his life and taken all certainty away. A few days, that was all it had been—less than two weeks. Could life really change so fast?

  Freya fidgeted. She was frowning. “No. I said no!” She half sat up.

  Clearly, she was still asleep, but he engaged her. “No?”

  “No,” she echoed, sighing. “Not now.” She snuggled into the pillow again.

  Dan smiled. She always knew her own mind, Freya Dane, even in sleep. Had she been sleepwalking last night, or was that something else? His money was on something else, but eventually Katherine and he had persuaded Freya to go back to bed. He’d tried to stay awake beside her—chastely lying on top of the covers—just to make sure she didn’t take off again. But of course he’d gone to sleep, waking cramped and crammed against the wall. Freya might have thrashed around, but she hadn’t left the bed.

  Dan propped himself on one elbow. There was a mystery to Freya’s face. Asleep, without those vivid blue eyes challenging life, challenging him, she seemed much younger—and so vulnerable.

  The desire to protect—even to protect someone as spiky and well defended as Freya Dane—was a deep surprise to Daniel Boyne. He’d like to get used to it—the certainty that she’d run to him when she needed shelter, between the rounds of sparring. Sparring was quite good fun with this girl. Dan smiled.

  “Why do you look so cheerful?” She was staring at him.

  “Free country, isn’t it?” He pushed her hair back.

  “Sometimes.” She sighed happily and cozied up against him.

  “You’re not under the covers.”

  “I am not.”

  “Why?” She struggled to sit up.

  Dan tried to create more room, fluffed a pillow for her back. He said, solemnly, “I am a Scot, and we have hardly been introduced.”

  “Have you been here all night?” Her eyes were serious, but there was devilry in the depths.

  As gravely, he replied, “I have. Well, if you call four hours a night. But what a pleasure it was.”

  Freya giggled. “A pleasure, you say. What sort of pleasure?”

  “Contemplative.” He smiled broadly.

  She yawned. “Sounds way too monastic to me. Must be this place.”

  Dan put an arm around Freya’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Do you remember much of last night?”

  “Of course. Katherine talked about Dad seeing the people here, then we had dinner. After dinner she showed us the last diary entry. The Pagan prayer. Very odd. Do you think, could it be possible . . .” Her eyes were suddenly huge.

  Dan nodded. “It would be remarkable if it could be proved. That the girl in the grave wrote—”

  “The diary! Yes, but it seems just too much of a coincidence—doesn’t it?”

  “You’d know that better than me, Freya.”

  She pushed back the covers and swung out of bed, in knickers and T-shirt and nothing else. “We’d have to get dating evidence. We’ve got the bowl from the grave, and her bones and the diary itself. It’s possible, I suppose; there is that cross on the stone—she might have been the nun.”

  “That wasn’t a nun’s grave, however.” Dan, before he looked away, saw that Freya’s legs were as he’d thought they might be—long and strong and lean. Warmth flooded his belly. He leaned back against the wall, eyes half-closed. “You’re a handsome woman, Freya Dane.”

  She paused in the act of pulling on her jeans. “Have to get dressed. No time for flirting.”

  She seemed happy rather than embarrassed, and he grinned amiably. “But I have to practice or I’ll never get good, will I?”

  She giggled, dragging a brush through wild hair.

  Dan said quietly, “What else do you remember, Freya?”

  She stared at him from the scrap of mirror next to the window. “About last night? Well, after the diary, we all went to bed. Very chaste. You to the couch, me up here, Katherine to Dad’s room.”

  Dan limped to stand behind her. He put his hands on Freya’s shoulders and, head beside head, they stared at each other. “How did I end up here, on your bed?”

  She looked puzzled. “This is embarrassing. I don’t know.”

  Dan allowed his hands to roam, the curve of each shoulder, down her arms. “It was not for the reason you might expect, though I will admit, before I tried to sleep on that damn couch, I was sorely tempted.”

  “You were?” Freya leaned back against him, her throat a beautiful, supple column.

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I was.” Watching her in the mirror, he stroked the tender skin.

  “What happened then? Don’t stop.” She tipped her head against his shoulder, her eyes half-closed.

  Dan sighed. “Oh, I must, or we shall both be distracted. There’s something you have to see.”

  They lit the wall as brightly as the combined resources of the house would allow—all the candles, the flashlights, and the lamps—but nothing was quite enough. The dark lodged very deep in the corners of the undercroft, even on a bright day.

  “I don’t know what to say.” I did this? Freya stared at the carnage.

  Katherine said, firmly, “Somnambulism. You cannot control a thing like that.”

  Dan was staring at the massive pieces of stone embedded in the wall; last night’s final impression held. He pointed. “So, what does that remind you of?”

  Freya stepped back. She searched for words. “I . . . it looks like a lintel. The lintel over a door.”

  “I agree.” Katherine almost spoke to herself.

  Dan limped to stand beside Freya. “Any other thoughts?”

  “I still cannot believe this, but what’s done is done.” She touched his arm. “And I want to know what’s on the other side.”

  “All right with me.” Dan picked up a masonry ax.

  “And me.” Katherine hefted a crowbar.

  An unspoken signal, and all three stepped forward.

  For some hours they worked in near silence. The dust was pernicious, but Freya found face masks and they kept going, focused on the task of breaking through.

  “Can you hear that?” Daniel tapped the head of his ax against the wall—a hollow tock-tocking. “We’re close.”

  Tension ramped up as they all concentrated on a small area where the structure of the wall seemed weak.

  Katherine wiped her sweating face. “It’s odd, don’t you think? Monumental masonry like this under an ordinary house.”

  “Odd isn’t the word I’d use.” Dan had chipped around a lump of rock, trying
to ease it from the wall.

  Freya caught her breath. “I suppose, as a long shot, it could just be a bricked-up chamber of the undercroft. Some sort of storeroom, maybe.”

  Dan scoffed. “Lot of trouble to go to.”

  “Depends what they were storing.” This from Katherine. “Watch out!”

  Dan’s rock fell with an abrupt thud. They all stood back coughing as the dust slowly cleared.

  There was a hole now—a big one—all the way through the wall. Dan poked a flashlight through the opening. “You have to see this.”

  The women crowded close. Freya yelped. “There’s a passage!”

  There was, long and wide, and light bounced off the walls—Dan was too excited to hold the flashlight still—displaying massive stones, stacked one on top of another to form each side of the tunnel. Overhead, the roof was made of long stones laid like logs alongside each other.

  “But . . .” Katherine was awed. “They’re just enormous. Where did they come from? Who put them here?”

  “The tools you’d need to work those things . . .” Dan’s voice trailed away. Ahead, beyond the reach of the flashlight beam, light was swallowed whole.

  It’s a passage tomb, Dad. A big one. You talked about a tomb. Dialogue with the dead—this was the right place for it, no question.

  Responsibility hit Freya, a tangible jolt. She was an archaeologist, and people waited their whole professional lives for a fraction of what she’d been handed in this place by her father. And she hadn’t even recorded what they’d been doing—she’d just been hacking into the stone like a navvy, with no more thought in her head than breaking through. Mortifying!

  “Can you both stand back, please?” Two baffled faces turned toward her. “I’m sorry, but this is just so potentially important. It needs to be documented properly.”

  Dan leaned on the pickax. “A bit late for that, isn’t it?”

  Freya rubbed gritty eyes. “I know, but something sane has to be taken from this situation.”

  CHAPTER 43

  CRUACH HAD thrown a golden road across the water tonight—a road that reached all the way from Portsol’s harbor to Findnar’s cove. Shimmering and changing as the sky was bled of light, that glittering path showed Solwaer his destiny—the joining of these two places in him, and his descendants.

  For now there was also Findnar, defensible Findnar with its sheltered cove. This would be his second domain, the natural fortress of the trading empire he would build.

  Out of this new alliance with Edor, he would control much more than his eyes could see. Not bad for the hungry son of the slave woman.

  But first, the bond must be made solid. The burial of the brothers with Fiachna would help. That would go down in legend—his legend—since the tomb of Bear and Grimor would be lavishly equipped.

  Of course it would cost more than a pang when he surrendered some of the fine things he owned, and it would cost Edor dearly, too, for an entry into joint lordship of the sea would not come cheap. However, with another good season, this large outlay should be recouped without trouble.

  Solwaer shaded his eyes. Edor’s ships and his own were blocked from sight by the edge of the cliff, but he could just make out the monks in the fading light—their black robes stood out against the green of the meadow. They were clearing the entrance to the Pagan tomb that lay beneath the swell of rising ground.

  Solwaer guffawed. Christians preparing the main chamber of a heathen burial place to receive new occupants? He could hear the old Gods laughing, though the monks tried to pretend they were dead.

  This had been his decision. With limited time before midsummer—the most propitious time to bury the brothers—but also a recognition that the bodies would stink very soon, Solwaer and Edor had agreed that constructing a new tomb was unrealistic.

  Findnar had always been a sacred island, since well before the Christians came. Generations of important local men had been buried here, but only the hereditary shamans of this coast knew where to find their tomb. Solwaer was their successor—he was the Knowledge Keeper now. That was because of the girl. She’d told Idorn about the tomb—burrowed into rising ground and well concealed by what seemed a natural fall of rock—and he had told Solwaer.

  Why would she want me to know this thing, Idorn?

  She loved Bear, Lord. She wants him to sleep with her ancestors since, under other circumstances, they would have married.

  Solwaer frowned. The girl mourned for Bear, but she was his now and, if she was wise, she would recognize that fact quickly. He did not wish her to grieve. He preferred cheerful bedmates, and he hoped Signy was young enough and intelligent enough to learn what was required of her.

  Of course, it would advantage him locally—and her too—if the daughter of the last shaman became his concubine. If she pleased him, he might make her one of his minor wives.

  She was waiting on his ship. A pleasant thought. He intended to enjoy their first night together, and Idorn had been instructed to set up a tent at a discreet distance from the fighters’ camp. The translator had also been told to find something pretty for the girl to wear, even if he had to go back to Portsol to get it.

  Solwaer yawned. It had been an eventful few days, and he was tired. He walked across the meadow in the long shadows, gazing appreciatively at his new possession. On a still night, this really was a very pretty place if you ignored the burned buildings. A useful view, too, from the cliffs. Any approach across the strait would immediately be seen.

  Solwaer paused. He gazed at the line of toiling monks. More than half were working in the inner chambers, and it would be dark there by now. Yet leather buckets of bones and rubble were still being passed hand to hand to the last monk in line. Standing on the cliff’s edge, he emptied the buckets into the sea below. Not many ancestral bones left now, Signy. He laughed as another skull sailed out into the sky and down.

  However, the monks remained a problem. Since his baptism, Solwaer had made sure the settlements up and down the coast saw him as an honest Christian trader now—a man of peace. He did not doubt the loyalty of his own men where his reputation was concerned, and no one would believe what Edor might say about him, but the monks from the Abbey, particularly Cuillin, knew the truth about the raid.

  Of course, too, they now knew the location of Bear and Grimor’s grave. Sorry, Fiachna, you too—he kept forgetting his former chief carl.

  Solwaer came to a decision. In this instance, the magnificence of the gesture, the economic sacrifice, would serve only to increase his reputation; no, his legend . . .

  Solwaer ambled toward the monks. Frightened, they increased their pace of work, for the whips of their overseers had shredded cassock and flesh alike.

  “I pray for you, Solwaer,” Cuillin mumbled—he had few teeth left in his broken mouth.

  “Do you, Abbot?” Perhaps the Lord of Portsol was amused.

  The monk straightened. “I pity the suffering that will come to you. There is a place in Hell for apostates.”

  Solwaer laughed. “This God we spoke of once or twice”—he winked at the Portsol men guarding the monks—“perhaps He does not exist—or He’s weak, very weak.” Solwaer waved a contemptuous hand over the laboring brothers. “Why does He not protect you better?”

  Cuillin held a bucket filled with Pagan bones. He dropped it deliberately. “God requires us to bear your horrors so we may emulate His suffering. He died for you, Solwaer; He died for your sins, innumerable though they are.” The Abbot’s voice boomed, scaring birds into the air. “For I say that you are damned and I say that your bones will never rest peacefully within His kind earth.” The monk flung the bucket toward the cliff in a violent arc. Holding up his arm, he advanced on Solwaer relentlessly. “Your soul will writhe in a lake of hellfire, and your blood will boil in your veins, for you brought fire and blood to this holy island.” Cuillin began to sign a great, sweeping cross in the air.

  That was too much.

  With a roar, Solwaer charged and, shoulder
down, he took Cuillin in his bony midriff; knocking the monk to the ground, he kicked him where he lay. The brothers rushed to protect their abbot, and most unchristian punches were thrown as the melee developed.

  But the Portsol men had axes, knives, and swords and, most of all, whips. The unequal contest claimed two lives.

  At the mouth of the Pagan tomb, Solwaer shouted, “Shut them in. All of them. No food tonight. Let them think about the power of real Gods.”

  The Lord of Portsol stalked away. A lake of hellfire? Rubbish. He was always the victor because he had luck and the Gods, all the Gods, were on his side. Now, too, he had a shaman’s daughter. What more protection did he need?

  Something came at him out of the half-light, a white shape. For one paralyzed moment he thought it was Bear’s spirit. Like a stone down a well, Solwaer fell to the turf, hiding his head. Something brushed his skull, and all the hair on his back stood up, stiff as pigs’ bristles. He felt the air move as the thing passed on. And when he dared to look he saw the truth—it was an owl; a bird had unmanned him.

  Had they seen? Solwaer stood warily. But the light was mostly gone and his men too busy herding the monks to witness what had happened. His breathing calmed.

  This was a good lesson, because an owl symbolized good luck, his unfailing luck. Solwaer thought of the Shaman’s daughter; yes, she was part of his luck. He smiled.

  “Brother! Wassail.” A yell.

  Solwaer turned. Edor was waving to him from the gathering place, an ale horn in his hand.

  “Idorn!” Where was the man?

  “Here, Lord.” The translator had been trailing Solwaer at a discreet distance. He hurried toward his master.

  “What did that barbarian say to me?”

  “Lord Edor offers ale and food, my lord, and he called you brother.”

  Solwaer snorted. “Brother. Ha!” He was annoyed now. He craved oblivion in the arms of the girl—he’d earned that—and another night of drinking held no appeal. He grunted. “Is the tent arranged?”