Winter Serpent (10 page)

The old Viking turned his eyes on her and they burned with fervor.

“Most mysterious in magic is the man who takes you. Much love have the rest given him; they have followed him to this land for his sake. Among warriors he is a great hero, the bravest of the brave. Heavy is his heart.”

He subsided into drunken muttering in Norse.

The girl wrapped her plaid about her and stood for a moment looking at the wild men upon the beach. What Sweyn had said to her so boastfully did not surprise her, for all men talked so when the fighting spirit and drunkenness were upon them. Yet it was easy to fear the Northmen. They had the outward appearance of men but she knew now that they worshipped demons in the form of beasts, and the secret mark of their madness was upon them.

They were bringing more wood for the fire. It leaped up and showered sparks into the loch. The Norse were in an orgy of destruction; it seemed they would set fire to the very night. They lurched about in their battle gear, hacking drunkenly at any shadowy tree or boulder which they thought to be an enemy come upon them from the darkness. They flung themselves about, growling like bears or wolves, giving bloodcurdling screams like wildcats.

Doireann took a last look at the firelit scene. The Jarl, the man who had claimed her as his legal wife, had been astride a beached smallboat when last she saw him, downing long draughts from a drinking horn. Now he lay sprawled on his face on the sand, and his loyal warriors stepped carefully around him.

The morning of the second day there were only a few Northmen still left on their feet. But already a new group was recovering from the night’s debauch; they had gathered around the ale pot to nurse their aching heads. When she went out cautiously Doireann found Sweyn across the door, his beard laced with vomit.

The first night had been noisy, but in the full moon of the second a weird conviction came upon the Northmen that they were indeed filled with the spirits of animals. They began anew the insane screeching and howling, and there was more in it than just drunkenness. As she lay in bed she could hear their bodies hurtling crazily outside the house. Neither the late spring cold nor the obstacles of trees and boulders seemed to hinder them. She heard their feet rattling on the pebbles and the thud of flesh on flesh. In their craze they screamed out that they were eagles, serpents, and other monsters that nothing could subdue. With daybreak the noises faded away, and when Doireann came to the door the scene was one of quiet and stillness; the fury had spent itself.

Their sacred weapons dedicated to their valor and manhood lay scattered among the fallen bodies. The dawn breeze ruffled their hair and clothing as it passed the shore. The gray light was over all in pitiless clarity: the dull expanse of the inlet, the leaden sea beyond the bar, the vanquished Northmen.

Doireann rubbed her eyes, still gummed with sleep, and thought what a sight this was to greet the day. Her head felt as though it had burst in the night from all the racket.

The bonfire site was blackened and cold. Close by it lay a knot of men, among them the Jarl tightly wrapped in his bearskin. The smaller guard fire in the meadow was abandoned.

She gathered some leaves and twigs and went to revive the guard fire. The embers at least had been carefully covered, and she soon kindled the leaves. Even the sea watch must have come down from his perch to enter into the celebrating, for there was no sign of life anywhere. The small fire
burned fitfully in the damp air, but she was able to coax enough flame from it to warm her hands.

She shivered. The place was so quiet, with not even the gulls about, that it was like the gray land of the dead.

There was someone coming. Any movement was like the rending of the spell which hung over the place. Her eyes made out a small figure, indistinct in the misty light but becoming clearer as it approached. It was a Pict, one of the shepherds from the Coire.

He skirted the bodies warily, holding his spear alert for any signs of movement from them. He looked the typical Cruithne, short and bandylegged, with the lank black hair, high cheekbones, and tilted eyes so common to his people, his forearms and chest marked with blue tattoos. The blue mouth-tattoo of the eastern Picts, the mark of the free peoples, was missing. His kilt of sheepskin slapped his knees as he trotted and the light glinted softly from his round iron helmet. Doireann recognized him as Barra, one of the bound men of the macDumhnulls, and the same Pict who had signaled her in the forest.

He gave no greeting, still tight-lipped with caution, looking over his shoulder mistrustfully at the fallen Vikings. She motioned him over to the fire and, after hesitating a moment, he squatted on his haunches. He took from his belt a leather pouch containing meal and rapidly mixed it with beer from a discarded horn nearby. He quickly fashioned two cakes which he thrust into the fire. As they cooked he turned them with a stick until they were hard and well-covered with ashes. But when he broke them between his stubby fingers they were gray and steaming and smelled good. The girl and the man ate without speaking and washed the cakes down with beer.

“All this I saw from the tulaich this morning,” the Pict said abruptly, waving his hand toward the beach, “and I could hear that which occurred in the night. Of this I wish to speak.”

He brushed his hands together and held them to the fire.

“Doireann nighean Muireach, I bring you greetings from the north. Word travels among the Picts in Dalriada that the Red Fox of Coire Cheathaich, Calum macDumhnull, gave the Northmen what they wanted for their feast and did not call the warriors from the dun to drive them out when they were drunken. This is a very strange thing. It is my thought that Calum toiseach wishes them here, although he should fear and avoid these Fingall, these fairhaired ones. The people wonder at this madness and that he shelters pirates in the lands, believing their words when they say they are peaceful. Who has heard of peaceful Northmen? It is not good. The Fingall are devils; they have destroyed many earth villages in the far north. Their mark is that they leave nothing without the blackening of fire, no dead body whole, unless
they are driven off and must leave in haste. Not only are they savage but they take the shapes of wild animals and ghosts and are protected by their magic.”

He spat and crossed himself quickly. The girl stirred.

“This I have already heard.”

He changed from the Gaelic to the Pictish tongue with a furtive air, although there was none to hear his words or understand.

“We of the Picts, the people who were your mother’s people, are watching. Yet Calum macDumhnull your foster brother watches also, and word is brought to him of your coming and going in this place. He has not tasted the sweetness of your misfortune as he had thought. Because of this, and because of your plight in the hands of the terrible Norse who are demons, word has been carried to the Old One in the north, the King of the Picts who is also your kinsman, to tell him how the ancient blood of the Cruithne has been dishonored. He is not happy. He wonders at such treachery done to the child of his sister, and yet he is mindful that you are here in the land of the Scots and under the eye of Calum macDumhnull. As for myself, I remember Ithi your mother, and I have observed the oaths which bound me to the house of the macDumhnulls only to be with her child, who is also of the Cruithne.” His eyes roamed the beach. “Once this was our land, the land of the Picts from sea to sea, and not even the legions of the long-dead Romans could take it from us. In those ancient times, it is remembered, the power of the druids was strong.”

“If you still believe in druids, why do you now cross yourself?” He spread his hands sorrowfully.

“In this world all is confusion.”

They were silent once more. The man was not able to think of anything to say, yet he was reluctant to leave the girl alone in this mournful place. The wind soughed in the trees on the peaks and he was reminded that his sheep would scatter far in the high pastures. Still he lingered by the fire, seeing that the girl had fallen into a reverie, aware of his presence, yet not needing him.

This one was a fine woman, he thought, beautiful as any woman of legend, yet with the sturdy spirit of the dark people. Her head was drooped and she looked at the ground with faraway eyes to some place where she was no longer faced with her ordeal.

He sighed. For beautiful women there was no retreat, no escape. Their beauty made them prized above all things, and their only rescue from torment was the decay of old age. For some, ruin came swiftly, grief and madness destroying them. But for women like this, like the one sitting before him who struggled with a man’s courage, the gleam of beauty often stayed long, until the final breaking. He wished that he could speak to her and tell her his
thoughts, to warn her, but he knew also that it would be cruelty. Let her think that there was hope and that somewhere she would find kindness from others and the contentment she sought. Let her think that she had some control over her destiny. This much he owed her out of admiration for her bravery in the scheming hands of the Red Fox.

The gulls returned noisily from the sea, suspiciously circling their nests. The sound roused the two by the fire and the small man stood up and stretched and picked up his spear.

“We are always near,” he assured her. Doireann nodded that she understood.

The short figure cut rapidly across the beach and into the woods and was gone.

Doireann did not rise at once. The day was empty. She scanned the wreckage of the beach. There was nothing she could do until the rest bestirred themselves. At least she was free of them for a while. There was always the thought of escape. She sighed. But to what? And where?

It would be a good day to fish, for the water was still. It seemed that it had been a long time since she had done anything for the pleasure of it. The tide was now at full flood, making small islands of the rocks which marched out into the cove. They made a good place from which to cast a net.

She went into the hall, stepping over the body of Sweyn, and found a net in the pile of ship’s gear. It was in poor repair but she chose it thinking if any calamity came to it, at least it was not valuable.

She took her time and chose her footing carefully on the shell-crusted rocks until at last she found one that she could stand up on. She tried her skill at casting the net in the shallow bottom. It was strangely weighted and she could not get the feel of it in her hands. Once she slipped and would have fallen into the water. She caught herself in time, but sliced her hand on the needle-sharp barnacles. She stood in some disgust, sucking the wound. There was a curse on everything that belonged to the Northmen. And since she was now one of their possessions, there was undoubtedly a curse on her, too.

As she stood glumly she imagined that she heard footsteps on the pebbly beach behind. She did not turn at once for the net was still in the water and it had become entangled on the rocks. It tore in many places while she worked it loose. With the remnants of it in her hands she stood up and looked back to shore.

The man in the bearskin, the Jarl, stood watching her with red eyes, his mouth drawn back in a drunken grin.

She stood without moving. It was not difficult to guess what he wanted. There was only one way to escape him and the cold sea looked uninviting. And she had sworn not to betray her fear but be submissive. All she could
manage at this moment was dull confusion. Her feet would not move. She could not make any pretense of going to him.

It does not make it any easier, she thought, to see him transfigured by the skin of the bear.

He beckoned to her, still grinning, speaking Norse. She could not answer him. She sidled from the rock and waded parallel to the beach. He began to unlace the bearskin, never taking his eyes from her. He folded it neatly and put it on a boulder as he followed.

She must not try to run, she told herself. Her skin shivered. But she slowed her steps so that it seemed to her that she barely moved, and he overtook her.

She stood with her head turned away from him waiting for the feel of his hands. But instead he swooped on her and bent and heaved her to his back like a sack of grain. She was hanging head down as he started to jog, and his stride slammed the breath from her. He began running along the beach to the ocean side of the cove.

With what breath she could gasp she screamed at him, but he seemed not to hear. He grunted to himself and staggered tipsily in the sand. At any moment he might fall and she prayed that he would not fall on her and crush her. Then she thought in terror of what he would do to her in his heavy-handed drunkenness.

When they had reached the waves breaking on the seaward beach, he stumbled around in a circle, careening to a stop. He flipped her over his shoulder and she hit the hard-packed sand flat on her back. He bent and quickly grabbed the hem of the arasaid and shook her out of it. She went head over heels again and landed on her hands and knees.

She whimpered. Here she was with this cackling maniac and she was sure he meant to kill her in one way or another! She scrambled away on all fours and got to her feet and ran toward the sea. It was better to drown than be mauled to death.

Even as unsteady as he was, he caught her easily. He dragged her by one arm into waist-deep water and threw himself down beside her. A long roller from the sea went over them both and when she came up for air, her hair hanging in her eyes, he pushed her head under again with his hand.