Seer of Sevenwaters (6 page)

“In the name of all the gods, Sibeal,” my sister said, “has this place turned you into a fearsome warrior so soon?” She stepped back, her hands on my shoulders, and scrutinized me more closely. “You’re freezing cold,” she said. “And hurt, too. There’s blood on your face.”

“I’m fine,” I said, sniffing. “Don’t worry about me. He’s the one who needs help—”

My knees gave way. One of the men uttered an oath. I fell into someone’s arms as the world turned black.

CHAPTER 2

~Felix~

T
he fog lies heavy on me. It weighs me to the very bone. My eyelids struggle against it. Ebb, flow. Ebb, flow. Tides. Faces above me, coming and going.

I thought I saw a woman. Between the shadowy curtains she turned strange eyes on me. The veil came down again, and I lost her.

My eyes hurt. My head hurts. I try to turn it and my neck shrieks protest. Iron bands around my chest, tighter, tighter. Each breath a mountain to climb. If I were dead, would I feel this?

I am cold. The chill is in my bone and in my blood. Blankets piled on me. A heated stone at my feet, some kind of creature beside me in the bed. I am so cold.

There are three women. One comes more often, neat-featured as a marten, dark-haired, green-eyed, a line between her brows as she leans over me. The others are like her, but not quite like. The second woman has locks the color of sun on autumn leaves, and a scattering of freckles across creamy skin. The third . . . the third has eyes that startle and compel, eyes like still pools under early morning sky. They fix on me and I feel the power of them in an untouched place, deep inside. I seem to know her.

I am in the afterworld, perhaps, or on my journey there, and these are three guardians. Three goddesses? Three Fates? Which cut the thread that was my life? What do they want of me? And what . . . What . . .

Are these three sisters? There is a dark-skinned man as well, who comes to look at me, a calm-eyed man in a white robe. A physician? Sometimes he seems old, sometimes young. What place is this?

Night outside. A lamp’s glow brings a landscape of moving shadows: monsters, demons, serpents. Another man sits by my bedside awhile. His face is tattooed with a raven’s mask. His gaze is somber. I am at the gate of death; this is a threshold spirit, a guardian warrior. He speaks of trust, of choices and chances. He tells me I am safe here. He names the place: Inis Eala. Swan Island? I do not remember such a name. I do not remember . . .

I wake with heart hammering, my skin clammy with sweat, my mind reeling in terror, from what, I do not know. Under all these covers I am naked. Where . . . What . . . There is no question I can ask. I know nothing. Nothing. Save that, after all, perhaps I am not dead.

The neat-faced woman, the eldest sister, sits by my pallet. The dark-skinned man stands behind her, his hand on her shoulder. Young now. Her husband? He moves to slip an arm behind me, lifts me, raises a cup of water to my lips. Gods, I’m thirsty. I could drink an ocean.

“Slowly,” he says. “A little at a time. That’s it. Rest now.”

I understand him. But the tongue he speaks is not the language of my thoughts. It is the same as the raven man used. Have I strayed far from home?

The woman fixes her emerald eyes on me. “What is your name?” she asks with careful enunciation. She gestures toward herself. “Muirrin.” And to the man, “Evan.” Then back toward me. “What is
your
name?” As she says this she points at me, brows raised.

I cannot answer. I have no answer. I close my eyes.

The two of them talk to each other. I catch some of it, not all. The man speaks of a ship, and someone called Knut who may know me. The woman says I do not look like a Norseman. They talk about my chest, my breathing.

“Perhaps we can get him through this,” Evan says. “Let us hope Sibeal’s heroic effort was not in vain.”

“Sibeal would give the credit to the gods,” says Muirrin. They speak further, then she goes away, her footsteps soft on the earthen floor. I let my lids fall over my eyes. Perhaps I will sleep. Is it night or day? Perhaps I will wake in terror again, not knowing what it is that sets such dread on me. Something unthinkable. Something unspeakable. It is gone from my mind, along with everything that makes sense of this day, this hour, this moment. Breath to breath. I cannot remember my dream. I cannot remember how I came to be here. I cannot remember.

~Sibeal~

Gareth insisted on carrying me all the way back to the settlement, although I could have walked perfectly well once I recovered from the faint. The man I had rescued was taken straight to the infirmary. Clodagh bustled me off to the bathhouse, where she made me soak in a tub until I was glowing pink all over, then stood over me as I put on clean clothing. She dried my hair in front of the bathhouse fire, which served the dual purpose of heating water and keeping the place warm. Biddy brought in food and drink on a tray, and the two of them refused to let me go anywhere until I had finished it all.

“I don’t think you realize what a fright you gave us,” Clodagh said, watching me with her arms folded. “The least you can do is be sensible now, Sibeal.”

I was not even allowed to walk back to the infirmary alone—Cathal went with me, moderating his long stride to keep pace with me. My brother-in-law had his dark cloak wrapped around him. He was not saying much at all.

“Thank you,” I said. “I wasn’t sure if you would hear me. It was the only way I could think of to fetch someone quickly. If we’d had to wait until someone noticed I was gone, he might have died.”

“So might you,” Cathal said, but he did not sound as if he was judging me. “I don’t suppose you thought of that.”

“It did occur to me, but it seemed . . . I don’t know quite how to describe it, Cathal, but something drew me out there.” I thought he might understand, where others would perhaps think I had taken a foolish risk. “Part of me knew that man was still alive and needing to be found. There must be a reason for all of it.”

“You worried Clodagh and Muirrin. You’re their little sister and they see you as their responsibility. As for my part in this, all I can say is that your summons reached me clearly. Proving, I think, that you are druid first and little sister second.” Cathal was a man who seldom smiled, but he did so now, his somber features transformed by it. “You’ve saved a man’s life. Your sisters may scold you, but they were impressed. We all were. As for why you were called to do it, this whole episode is troubling. It was no ordinary storm.”

“You think uncanny forces had a hand in it?” I was not prepared to ask him directly whether he thought his father responsible.

“Who knows?” Cathal said lightly, but the smile was gone.

We had reached the infirmary. Cathal saw me in the door, then headed off.

Unusually, Muirrin was not working, but standing by the fire, staring into the flames. Behind a makeshift screen, Evan and his father, Gull, were tending to the survivor.

“I’d like to help look after him,” I said. “That would feel right.”

“There’s nothing you can do to help, Sibeal,” Muirrin said bluntly. “Maybe you don’t realize how sick he is. There’s the immersion in water—that’s affected his lungs. He’s weakened by cold and exhaustion. And I think there’s something else wrong. I must be honest. Even with the attention of skilled healers, he may not get through the next few days.”

There was something deeply wrong in saving a man’s life only to see him perish soon after. How could I let that happen? For a little, I listened to the low voices of Gull and Evan as they went about their work, calm and methodical. Then I said, “Muirrin, I may not be a healer, but I am a druid, or will be as soon as I get back to Sevenwaters and make my pledge. If this man is dying, what I have to offer may be what he needs most.”

There was a lengthy pause. Muirrin moved to sit down on the bench by the fire, and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. My calm, competent sister, the one who always coped with everything. “I’m sorry, Sibeal,” she said, scrubbing a hand across her cheek. “You scared us. We hadn’t realized you weren’t somewhere here in the settlement, and when Cathal suddenly jumped up and said you were out there in the dark . . . You did a very brave thing. I can’t understand how you can be so calm and collected about it.”

“It didn’t feel dangerous at the time,” I said. “As for the man, I thought I could sit by him sometimes and say a prayer or tell a story, to remind him he’s among friends. I think Clodagh would take a turn, too. We won’t get in your way.”

“Of course,” Muirrin said. “Tonight, if you like. Sibeal, we won’t let him die if we can possibly prevent it. Evan and I will tend to him during the day. Gull’s offered to take the night watch for as long as it’s needed—there’s a pallet in the corner there that we use sometimes.”

“Won’t Biddy object?”

Muirrin smiled. “Biddy will probably appreciate a few nights’ unbroken sleep.”

“Oh?” I queried, perplexed.

“Gull gets up three or four times every night to go to the privy,” Muirrin said. “He can’t hold his water; it’s a common enough problem for older men. It’s a standing joke among the fellows here, but not so amusing for him. You may as well know, since you’ll probably hear him coming in and out when he’s sleeping here.”

“It won’t bother me,” I said. The privy was out the back door, beyond a particularly lush bed of medicinal herbs. “If I wake, I’ll soon fall asleep again.”

I sat by the fire for some time. I would not retire to bed until I had taken a closer look at the man I had wrested from the sea’s grip. Eventually Evan took away the screen, and he and Gull started cleaning up the area around the pallet where the survivor lay. They’d propped him up on pillows. He was conscious, his eyes open to slits. His skin was a blanched gray-white. His hair, which I had thought black, had proven on drying to be of a deep chestnut hue. It was an interesting face, though so thin as to be almost gaunt. The brow was broad, the nose straight, the mouth generous. In health, perhaps his features would be handsome. Right now he looked wretched.

“I’ll sit by him awhile now, if that suits you.”

Gull had no qualms; he placed a stool by the pallet for me, smiling. I wondered what the survivor would make of this nursemaid, who looked every inch the warrior with his night-black skin, his powerful build, his hands with less than their full complement of fingers. Before the incident that had seen him maimed thus, Gull had been a fighter of exceptional skill. Afterward, when he could no longer hold a sword, he had continued to prove his worth on Inis Eala as an herbalist and healer. He had been the closest friend and confidant of Johnny’s father, Bran, in the early days, and was viewed with special respect by all on the island.

“You look tired, Sibeal,” Gull said now, scrutinizing me across the pallet. “Why don’t I make you up an infusion, something to help you sleep? I know just the thing.”

“Thank you. I feel fine.” But I didn’t, entirely. I had cuts and bruises everywhere, and now that I was close enough to see how ill the survivor looked, I was filled with doubts.

“Can’t seem to get him warm,” Gull said over his shoulder as he went to rummage for ingredients among the myriad jars and bottles on the infirmary shelves. Evan had joined Muirrin by the fire, where they were talking in low voices. “He’s cold to the bone. I know how that feels.”

The man was indeed cold, despite the fire in the chamber and the blankets piled on him. Bouts of trembling coursed through him. “Has he spoken to you?” I asked. “Does he understand Irish?”

“He hasn’t said a word yet. Doesn’t have the look of a Norseman, does he? I think Johnny’s planning to bring the other fellow up before bedtime. Knut, I mean. Might reassure this one if he sees a familiar face. Now, where is that jar . . . ?”

“What are you giving my sister, Gull?” Muirrin was smiling.

“A pinch of ease-mind, hot water, a drop of honey . . . works wonders on the nerves.”

I was not sure whether to be amused or insulted. One of the things folk most often commented on, when speaking of me, was my composure.

“You’ve had a shock.” Gull had seen the look on my face. “This will keep away bad dreams.”

I swallowed my pride, which had no place here. Gull was not Ciarán. But he was wise in his own way, and I could learn from him while I was on the island. I turned my attention back to the man on the pallet. “You’re safe here,” I said, in a voice intended for his ears only. “You’re among friends. We’ll look after you.” Gods, his breathing must be like fire in his chest. The rasp of it was hard to listen to; each inward breath tensed his whole body. “It hurts, I know,” I whispered. “But you’ll get better. Manannán chose to release you. That must be for a purpose.” He was watching me, conscious of my presence even if he could not understand my words. His half-open eyes were of an unusual dark blue. One long-fingered hand lay atop the bedding, and something about it caught my attention. “He has blisters, like that other man,” I said in a different tone.