Only the Stones Survive: A Novel (7 page)

Although Sakkar was looking at her face, he did not see her lips move. Instead, words in a woman’s soft voice sounded inside his head. They froze him where he stood.

Do not be afraid. We mean you no harm. We only want to know if we can help.

And then a different voice said,
Here you are, Lerys! I was wondering why you left us.

Sakkar’s teeth were chattering. In his mind he turned and ran back toward the beach faster than was humanly possible. In reality he remained paralyzed, watching slack-jawed as another woman appeared beside the first. On her unlined brow she wore a golden circlet set with glittering blue stones. Like a pouring of glossy cream, her pale hair cascaded over her shoulders and fell almost to her knees.

Sakkar had never seen a queen before, but he knew one when he saw one. She could not be anything else. To avoid embarrassing himself, he clamped his jaw shut to silence his chattering teeth. We never should have come here, he thought. Never, never.

The stately woman turned her glowing gray eyes full upon him.
That depends,
she responded,
on why you did it
.

Sakkar felt an inexplicable urge to kneel.

“He is very frightened, Eriu,” Lerys said aloud in the language of her race. To Sakkar it sounded like birdsong and the tinkle of a stream running over pebbles.

Eriu replied, “That is not fear you see on his face, Lerys, or not entirely fear. He is suffering from complicated emotions in addition to his deformity. We can help his shoulder, but I am not so sure about his emotions. They are unlike our own.”

Inside Sakkar’s head, she asked,
Were you born with a misshapen shoulder?

He understood these words perfectly—and was dismayed. It was unthinkable that a strange woman could enter a space that was his alone and start asking personal questions! A man should have privacy inside his own head.

But the habit of obedience was deeply ingrained in Sakkar, forcing him to reply. “I was in a shipwreck more than a year ago,” he said aloud, “and the mast fell on me. The joint was crushed. It’s never been right since.”

Eriu rewarded Sakkar with a radiant smile
. You are fortunate. Your body will remember what it is like to be whole. Bodies never forget; we need only to remind them.

She took her companion’s hand in one of her own and reached toward Sakkar with the other. He shrank back.

The women did not appear offended.
What is your name?
Eriu asked politely.

His mouth was dry. “Sakkar.”

Sakkar,
she repeated.
It is a good name, firm but not hard. Where do you come from, Sakkar?

His odyssey was too complicated to explain, even silently. “I came here with the Mílesians.”

The gray-eyed woman looked quizzical.
And who are they?

“The sons of Mílesios.” This still explained nothing, yet she accepted it.
I am called Eriu, and my cousin beside me is Lerys. Please stand still for a moment, Sakkar. We will not hurt you.

Her long, thin fingers closed on his ruined shoulder. He experienced nothing, neither pain nor comfort. And yet … and yet …

A peculiar feeling coursed through him like a flood of warm water. Starting at the base of his skull, his skeleton realigned itself. The sensation was one of incredible relief. When he felt the bones and tendons of his shoulder resume their normal position, Sakkar gasped. “How did you do that?”

You did it yourself, Sakkar.

“But you … I … it can’t be…”

Yes it can,
said Lerys.
Try and see.

He gave his arm a tentative swing. The formerly crippled limb responded effortlessly.

Again,
Eriu said.
This time use your arm just as you did before the injury.

Sakkar followed her instructions—and discovered that he had regained the full range of motion in his shoulder. There was no pain at all. Impossible. Unbelievable. Yet when he made a fist his right hand was as strong as it had ever been.

“How can I ever repay you?”

Eriu laughed.
It was a small thing and you did most of the work yourself, Sakkar. No payment is needed.

“But I must give you something! I am obliged.”

Very well. Explain to me why the strangers are in this land. Do they think to establish trade here? If so, they are mistaken; we do not trade with foreigners.

When Eriu’s gray eyes fixed on his, Sakkar could not lie. What good would it do to lie to someone who could hear his thoughts? “The strangers, as you call them, are Gaels, members of the tribe of Mílesios. They have come…” He bit his lip.

They have come,
Eriu repeated, gently urging.
For what purpose?

“Conquest,” he admitted. “They’ve left their own land to start new lives here.”

They cannot!
Lerys cried inside Sakkar’s head.
This is our sacred island. We will never permit colonization!

Eriu turned toward her.
Be quiet, Lerys. Anything you say in haste might reveal more than he should know. We must tell the others about this at once.

Because their silent communication excluded him, Sakkar tried to read their expressions. But their perfect features might have been flowers; they gave nothing away.

Can you make him forget about meeting us?
Lerys was asking Eriu.

If I take away the memory, Sakkar’s body may forget the healing. Is that what you want?

Of course not. Ungifting causes a disharmony. I would not inflict that on him. Perhaps he will think it was a dream,
Lerys added hopefully.

Perhaps,
Eriu agreed. But storm clouds darkened in her eyes.
We must keep what we have learned about his language and share it with the others, Lerys. I fear we may need to communicate with these strangers again.

A sudden wind whirled through the stand of ash saplings, propelling tiny grains of earth that stung Sakkar’s skin. He threw up his hands to protect his face. The wind ceased at once. When he lowered his hands, the two women were gone.

Sakkar took a hesitant step forward, paused, turned around, started toward the beach, then stopped again. Looked in every direction. Nothing. No one—if there had ever been anyone there at all.

But he could not forget those gray eyes.

When he raised his right arm above his shoulder, it still worked perfectly. His body was not any younger or any stronger, but just as it would have been without the shipwreck.

Sakkar sank to his knees and pressed his forehead to the fragrant earth.

Éber Finn saw the Phoenician returning and called a greeting to him. “Where’ve you been, Sakkar? The women are cooking some big blue fish, and it smells wonderful. If you didn’t come back soon, I was going to eat your share myself.”

Sakkar said nothing. He looked dazed. Walking past Éber Finn, he made his way to the campfire blazing on the beach, fed by a heap of driftwood. He held out his two hands toward the flames. He did not feel the heat. All he felt were Her fingers closing on his shoulder.

Éremón was having a similar but less sanguine experience. His wife Odba had managed to secrete herself among one of the Gaelician clans and make it safely to Ierne. She joined the other colonists on the beach and, to Éremón’s alarm, tapped him unexpectedly on the back. He had never been so astonished. When he recovered himself, he accused her of stowing away as a deliberate ploy to ruin his future.

And Taya’s.

The quarrel that followed was spectacular, even by their standards.

Éremón wanted to hit Odba. He wanted to hit somebody—anybody! It almost but not quite destroyed his appetite for the meal the women were preparing.

Sakkar remained remote from the busy scene around him. He was given tasks and he did them, he was given food and he ate it, yet all the time he was somewhere else.

As the sun set, the men dragged the galleys farther up the shore so the women and children could sleep on them. Amergin noticed that Sakkar was using both his hands to haul on the ropes. After the ships were in place and securely blocked, the bard sought out the Phoenician. “Your shoulder appears to be greatly improved,” he said, indicating the limb in question. It now looked identical to its opposite number.

Sakkar ducked his head and scuffed his toe in the sand like a boy who had been caught in a lie. “Yes,” he mumbled.

“How did that happen?”

“How?” Sakkar raised his head.

“Your shoulder. What happened to it, Sakkar?”

“My shoulder?”

Amergin was perplexed. The Phoenician had never been reticent; in fact, Sakkar was always willing to talk to the bard, delighted to find someone who took an interest in him as a person. The former shipwright had proved to be a treasure house of information about distant lands and exotic customs. Their conversations had enriched Amergin’s mental store.

Now Sakkar seemed to be struck dumb.

Amergin tried to reestablish normal communication. “I thought your shoulder was permanently ruined, Sakkar.”

“Yes.” Sakkar stared into the distance.

The bard waited. Cleared his throat. Rearranged his worn tunic. His tranquil expression and relaxed body said he was not going anywhere until Sakkar talked to him.

With a visible effort, the Phoenician pulled himself into the here and now. “I met a woman.”

Amergin raised an eyebrow. It was the first time Sakkar had ever spoken of a woman. “Which woman?”

“Not one of ours.”

“Are you saying there are other people here?”

“Not … people. I don’t know what they are.”

Perhaps Sakkar had taken a blow to the head, Amergin thought, one that temporarily deprived him of his senses. Whatever had happened, it was serious. The bard stood up and looked around for help. “There’s a man over here who’s been hurt!” he shouted.

A druid healer labored over Sakkar for a long time, rolled back his eyelids and peered into his eyes, thoroughly examined his skull with fingertips as light as a moth’s wings, smelled his breath and tasted his urine. Finally pronounced him uninjured—yet could not explain the dramatic change to Sakkar’s shoulder.

Amergin was not satisfied. He resolved to keep an eye on his friend for a few days. Then he went to seek his own bed.

By the time Sakkar was left alone, the sky was a sea of stars.

Sleep eluded him. His brain had never been so active. He tossed and turned, remembered and imagined. At first light he took a disc of polished metal from the faded tapestry bag in which he kept his personal possessions. Peering into the mirror, Sakkar frowned at the face that looked back at him. It was entirely wrong for a man to whom something extraordinary had happened.

From a rolled leather case he selected a small knife and a set of razors with handles of polished horn. A soft pouch provided a well-worn whetstone. Chewing on his lower lip in concentration, Sakkar sharpened his neglected blades. Then he propped the mirror atop the tapestry bag and began trimming his beard. Since the injury that limited the use of his right hand, the beard had grown unchecked. Now it was an impenetrable tangle of thick black hair. After a few preliminary cuts, Sakkar’s restored fingers began a patient search for the hidden man.

The Mílesians were waking up. Grunting, yawning, stretching, farting, scratching, calling to one another, talking about food. A horse whinnied. A baby cried. Odba and Éremón had an argument that roused the most determined sleepers. Donn organized a foraging party. Some went to seek game while others scoured water’s edge for crabs and mussels and edible seaweeds. “Don’t overlook anything that might be eaten. If in doubt, take it to the women and try it on them.”

Sakkar worked on, oblivious. At last he scrutinized himself in the mirror again. What remained of his unruly beard was trimmed very tight and close, coming to a precise point on his chin. It gave a newfound distinction to what had been an ordinary face.

He might have been a desert nomad. He might even have been a Persian prince.

SEVEN

A
S THE MÍLESIANS
MADE
preparations for occupying their new homeland, Sakkar the Phoenician was given his choice of going on an expeditionary party with the warriors or staying in camp with the women—warriors’ wives who would regard him as a coward for remaining behind.

So he reluctantly allowed Éremón’s armorer to fit a sheet of hard-cured leather across his chest to protect his torso. The leather had been soaked in seawater and then moulded to shape with heated stones before it dried. A fitted helmet made of the same material was jammed onto Sakkar’s head.

He had never worn body armor or a helmet before. The breastplate was stiff and chafed the tender flesh of his underarms. The helmet had been formed to a Gaelic skull shape and kept slipping down over his eyes.

When Éremón’s attendant asked, “Are you a sword man or a spear man?” Sakkar had no answer, having never used either. From observation, he thought the sword seemed marginally less awkward, but both were alien to his hands.

“Must I carry weapons?”

The armorer, a grizzled veteran who had served the sons of Mílesios throughout their fighting lives, gave a snort of contempt. “Are you going to just stand there with one arm as long as the other while your enemy cuts you down?”

A memory of the woman with gray eyes flashed through Sakkar’s mind. The enemy?

The armorer took advantage of his lapse in attention to press a weapon into his hand. “Here you are, shipbuilder. This will do for you; it’s a short-shafted thrusting spear, easiest for a beginner. All you do is ram it into your opponent’s belly, low down, give it a twist, then pull it out as fast as you can. If he doesn’t die immediately, he will bleed to death soon enough. Think you can manage that?”

Without waiting for an answer, the man moved on to adjust someone else’s breastplate.

Sakkar was left holding his spear and half-blinded by his helmet. The edge of his breastplate pressed painfully into his chest. Soon it would become an agony.