Erinsong (3 page)

“Good,” he said quietly. “Perhaps he’ll favor
a wager as well.”

A buzzing rippled the air and he was startled
to see an arrow
quivering in the sand near his
knee.

A row of heads appeared
over the hillock. A sinewy,
dark-haired
man climbed to the top, another arrow nocked on the string. Brian
of Donegal leveled his aim at the Northman’s chest with cool
precision. The mantle of leadership rested easily on the Irishman’s
shoulders and the men with him followed suit.

“Release me daughter!”

The Northman shouldered the cask and rose to
his feet. “Greetings, Brian, King of Donegal. I’ve done your
daughter no hurt.” He grimaced and added softly enough for only
Brenna to hear, “Though she can’t say the same for me.”

Brenna crossed her arms over her chest and
sidled away from him.

Brian and his men trotted across the sand and
formed a ring around the Northman. The Donegal edged his daughter
behind him, with a quick, assessing glance, taking note of
Brenna’s disheveled hair and sand-crusted tunic.

“Has he harmed ye, lass?” the king asked
softly.

“No, Da.” Brenna dropped her gaze to her feet
and stepped back, meek as a lamb.

“Ye did well keeping an eye on the fiend,”
Brian said, gruff approval on his features. “But we’d have found
him at any rate. Ye took an awful chance, daughter. Don’t do the
like again.”

Brenna’s lips tightened into a thin line.

The Northman was surprised by the change in
the girl. Brenna had been firmly in charge since he opened his
eyes, ordering her sister to safety, attacking him, and keeping her
wits about her when he pinned her to the sand. She was even brave
enough not to run off when she could have. To see her subdued now
struck him as odd.

But he didn’t have long to
puzzle over it. Brian Ui Niall hadn’t lowered the point of his
arrow one jot.
The Donegal narrowed his
eyes at the Northman.

“What business have ye here?” Ui Niall
asked.

“I can’t say.”

“A Northman never travels
alone. Like a pack of
wolves from the sea,
ye are. Where be the rest of your
heathen
crew?”

“I don’t know.” He frowned. Why did they hate
him so?

“Ye’d best be telling me,
and quickly now. My fin
ger gets tired of
holding back this arrow.”

“He truly doesn’t know,
Da.” Brenna placed a restraining hand on her father’s arm.
“His
wits are addled. The man doesn’t even
know his own
name.”

“Your daughter is right. I
don’t remember any
thing before I woke up
on this beach.”

Brian squinted at him,
taking his measure. “ ‘Tis
easy enough to
trick a woman, but ye’re daft if ye be
lieve I’ll be fooled by a Northman.”

“Better we should just kill him, says I,” one
of Brian’s men grumbled.

“Hold there, Connor,”
Brenna interrupted the king’s bloodthirsty follower. “One Northman
alone
isn’t likely to harm us. Alive, he
may be useful. We
know precious little
about the
Finn-Gall.
I’ll warrant he remembers more than he wants us to know. Or
he
will, if he’s allowed to live. I’d like
to know how he comes to speak our language. If he’s dead, he can’t
tell
us anything.”

The king’s gaze shifted to
his daughter for a flicker
as if
considering her words. Even so, the Donegal
raised the point of his arrow at the Northman
again.

“Are you a betting man, Brian of Donegal?”
the Northman asked, his voice surprisingly calm.

The tip of the arrow dipped
slightly. “What wager have ye in mind,
Ostman?”

Northman thumped the cask
with his knuckle. “This barrel came up out of the sea with me. It’s
ei
ther full of ale or salt water. Here’s
my wager: If the drink is good, I’m telling the truth about not
remem
bering. You lose nothing by letting
me live.” He
shrugged eloquently. “If the
ale is foul, then you can
kill
me.”

“We can kill ye at
will,
Ostman,
and
use the ale to toast your dead carcass.” Nevertheless, Brian’s
keen
dark gaze swept over the briny cask.
Then he looked
again at his daughter, an
unspoken question in his
narrowed eyes.
Brenna sent him a silent entreaty, and
the
Northman’s hopes rose. The Irish princess pleaded his case without
a word.

Clever
girl
. Now if only the Irish king
doted upon his offspring to heed her.

Brian eased the tension in
his bow and replaced
the arrow in the
quiver slung over his back.

“Wager accepted, Northman,”
the king said. “Ye
are either a fool or a
brave lad. Come back to me keep
and we’ll
raise a horn to prove which. No sense in drinking out here when we
can do it in comfort.
Aidan, take the
cask. Connor, bind his hands.”

The Northman’s wrists were cinched together
and the knot jerked tight. Then he was shoved into line with the
Irishmen as they began plodding up a path leading into the hills.
Brenna walked ahead of him and he allowed himself to enjoy the
twitch of her hips as she climbed.

“Princess,” he whispered to her.

She didn’t answer him, but she turned her
head to one side, so he knew she’d heard him.

“
I
thank you for your help.”

“ ‘Twas not for ye I
spoke,” she whispered back. “
‘Twas only
sense. If you’re no use to me father, he’ll
kill ye anyway.”

The Northman expected no less. “Why didn’t
you introduce me properly?”

“How could I be doing that?
There’s nothing
proper about ye,
Northman,” Brenna hissed at him.

“I’d like it better if you found something
else to call me. Northman isn’t a well-favored name around
here.”

She flashed a look back over her shoulder
that should have reduced him to cinders.

They walked in silence for
a while, the only sound
the even thudding
of leather-shod feet on the hard-packed path.

“I don’t understand,” he
finally said. “Why do you
all hate my kind
so?”

Brenna whirled and planted her fists on her
waist.

“Look ye into yonder
clearing and tell me what you se
e.”

He peered through the
spindly stand of trees. Scorched grass surrounded
black
ened timber and the crumbling ruins
of a round struc
ture. “Looks like
there was a fire.”

“Aye,” Brenna said. “There
was a fire, but before
that there was a
crofter’s cottage where a man and his wife lived with their three
bairns and one on the way. Liam and Colleen, they were, and they
had
nothing of value—nothing but each
other. After the
Northmen came, all we
found were charred bones. And ye wonder that we hate
ye.”

“I’ll not hold a grudge
against all women just because
I was
stabbed by one once,” he said, favoring his
good leg a bit more than necessary. “Even if I am a Northman
as you say, I don’t see how you can blame
me for this.”

“Can ye not?” Silver flecks
in her gray eyes flashed at him. He recognized both controlled fury
and lively intelligence in her level gaze. “Ye speak
our tongue. That means ‘tis not your first time
on our
island. For aught ye know, ye may
have been the leader of that murderous raid. Can ye in good
con
science tell me different?” When he
didn’t answer immediately, she turned on her heel and
marched up the path behind her father’s
men.

He stared after her, then
back at the blackened ru
ins. Connor gave
him another shove.

“Get on wi’ye!”

He stumbled forward,
following Brenna’s sway
ing skirt. The
girl was right. He couldn’t deny he might have led the raiders that
killed those crofters. He really
had no
clue what sort of man he was. Was he capable
of butchering a family—women and children—for no
reason?

He had no way to know.

The thought made his head
throb, and he raised
his bound hands to
feel the crust of matted hair at his
temple. Why couldn’t he remember? He strained to concentrate
as he walked. Disjointed images, indistinct faces, and sudden
flashes of sound split his brain, but nothing coherent
came.

He must have slowed his pace because Connor
pushed him forward again.

Better to concentrate on
now
.
Let the
past
trouble about itself.

His present was trouble enough.

Sunlight streamed in the
open windows of the scriptorium,
sending
dust motes swirling. The call of a song thrush, sharp
staccato blasts followed by a trill, floated on
the breeze. The cool waters of the river Shannon called to Brenna,
but she
couldn’t answer the summons. There
was too much work to do. She sighed, dipped her stylus in the
shimmering liquid,
and turned back to the
nearly transparent sheet of vellum.

The Gospel of Matthew lay
on the table before her. She squinted, intent on the delicate
interlace she inked in, rim
ming the page
with layers of undulating chains. With deft
strokes, she added crosshatching in gold over blue. As
she
worked, her gaze was drawn to the
text.

‘
In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation,

And weeping, and great mourning,

Rachael weeping for her
children, and would not be
comforted,
because they are not.’

An empty ache throbbed in
her chest. She shook her head
and focused
on the ornamentation again. As she neared the
lower corner of the page, the design wavered and
writhed.
Brenna squeezed her eyes shut and
pinched the bridge of
her nose. Father
Michael warned her to take frequent
breaks
to protect her vision when she was illuminating a
manuscript. She’d been at this close work too
long.

She breathed deeply. The
sharp scent of ink and the com
fortable
mustiness of books soothed her. But when she opened
her eyes and looked down at the folio, her hand
flew to her
mouth. The chain pattern had
grown a serpent’s head and
was slinking
off the page and across the table. Blue and gold
smeared on the dark oak.

Brenna leaped to her feet,
sending her chair crashing to
the stone
floor behind her. From out in the courtyard, a scream pierced the
air, pulling her to the open window.
Clonmacnoise Abbey was overrun by hairy Northmen, their axes
dripping red.

She turned to flee, but
there was a small bundle on the
table
where the vellum had been. A tiny hand stretched out
of the coarse blanket and reached toward
her.

A babe! She snatched up the
child and ran out of the
scriptorium and
down the corridor.

The clatter of footfalls
behind her spurred her on. She felt
someone’s hot breath on her nape, and gorge rose in the
back
of her throat.

It was him. She knew it.
She knew he’d be there. He was always there. Dread lay in her belly
like a lump of under
done porridge. She
tossed a glance over her shoulder.

But it wasn’t him.

Instead it was the abbot,
his usually pleasant, pudgy
features
distorted in rage. He whirled her around, snatched
the child from her arms, and raised a booted foot
to kick her
in the gut.

Brenna lofted into the air
as lightly as if she were a
cankerwort
seed. She seemed to watch herself from outside
her own body as she sailed through the tall double doors
of
the abbey and landed with a thud in the
dirt.

Brenna’s whole body jerked.
Her eyes flew open
and she stared up at
the underside of the thatched roof, the final wavering image from
the nightmare
leaving her confused for a
moment. Beside her, Moira
moaned softly
and rolled over, taking most of the
blankets with her. Brenna was safe in her own bed.

‘
Twas just a
dream
. Her heart
pounded against her ribs and she willed her
breath
ing to slow.
Just a foolish dream.
It had no
power to
harm her. Still, her hand shook
as she pushed back
what little of the
coverlet Moira had left her. Brenna eased out of bed without waking
her sister.