Calgaich the Swordsman (55 page)

The
Lydia
moved slowly away from the drifting
Fortunata.
Her oars dashed against the water, and her sails filled. Soon the dim shape of the bireme was lost in the darkness. All that could be seen was the faint light of the unknown vessel coming up astern of the galley.

There would be no sleep for the crew of the
Lydia
that night. One of the great oars of the galley was set up as a jury mast in a hole chopped through the afterdeck of the
Lydia.
Stout braces were fashioned below the deck to hold the improvised mast in place. Shroud lines were fastened to the top of the mast and made fast to the railings. Cunori cut up the large spare mainsail of the bireme and fashioned a smaller sail for the after mast of the
Lydia.
The sail was hoisted. It filled with the freshening breeze and the craft surged ahead with her lee rail so low the oarsmen had difficulty working their oars, but they could not be allowed to stop rowing. The
Lydia
must put as many miles as she could between herself, the
Fortunata
and the unknown vessel, which by now must have found the drifting galley.

The storm-battered
Lydia
was on a northeasterly course off the west coast of Britannia, fighting her way through a fall storm. The wind was rising again. The cold gray sea was churning itself into waves whose crests were tom off by the whining wind and driven like stinging hail against the vessel and her crew. For two gloomy days and pitch-black nights the storm had driven the
Lydia
toward the great firth, or estuary, which cut deeply into the land of southwest Caledonia.

Calgaich mac Lellan stood in the bow. Just an hour past they had been sighted by a Roman patrol galley which had passed so close that an archer on her deck had driven an arrow into the right arm of Cunori while he had been steering. Lugh had aided the
Lydia
and her crew by bringing clouds and mist between the two vessels. Still, the patrol galley must be close at hand.

Calgaich looked back over his shoulder. A human chain composed of most of the crew was bailing steadily, ever since a plank had given way and a leak had started below the waterline. Some of them were standing knee-deep in bilge water. Cairenn lay in the after cabin bunk, attended by Fomoire. The violent pitching and tossing of the
Lydia
had brought on premature labor.

Calgaich could see the powerful figure of Ottar as he steered the
Lydia.
The Saxon chieftain was a born seaman who had often raided the east coast of Britannia with his sword-brothers in the days before he had been captured and taken to Rome.

Cunori raised himself in his bunk, which was opposite to Cairenn’s. “How does it go, little one?” he asked.

Cairenn was swathed in a spare sail so that only her pale, heart-shaped face, framed in her thick and lustrous black hair, showed against the weathered material of the sail. “The pains are stronger now, Cunori. Let's hope Nodons doesn't claim my baby as a sacrifice for our safe passage to Caledonia."

Cunori shook his head. “Do not say such things!"

Fomoire looked up from where he sat on the deck. "Sometimes Nodons is not to be denied when he's in such a rage. We'll be lucky if he doesn't take the
Lydia
and all of us with her," he prophesied gloomily.

Cairenn looked quickly at Fomoire. “No!" she said firmly. “I bear the son of Calgaich! Nothing must happen to him!"

Fomoire nodded. “Nor to Calgaich," he added quietly. “The
Lydia
and the rest of us don't really matter. But Calgaich must return to Caledonia to take over his chieftainship and he must have his son with him so that he, in turn, will succeed to the chieftainship.
That is written
. . .”

“Where?" Calgaich asked dryly from the doorway.

Fomoire smiled weakly. “In the stars. Those same stars by which we steered a true course here from the Pillars of Hercules."

Calgaich squatted beside Cairenn's bunk. He passed a sword-calloused palm across her brow and then cupped his hand under her chin to raise her head a little so that he could look into her eyes. She, in turn, could see the pain in his eyes. She knew he was suffering almost as much as she was.

“How much farther, Calgaich?" Cunori asked.

Calgaich shrugged. “I've seen no landmarks in this hellish weather, Dolphin. But we can't be far from land. That Roman patrol ship could not have been far from the coast."

“It's a long coast," Fomoire put in.

Calgaich looked through the doorway. He could see the bent backs of the crewmen as they mechanically took the containers of water from the men in the hold and then threw the water over the side. How many of them would still be alive when they reached Caledonia? He shook his head as he thought of the comrades who had been left behind as sacrifices so that the
Lydia
might win her way to Caledonia.

Cairenn rested her hand on his forearm. “It couldn't be helped, Calgaich,'' she murmured.

He looked quickly at her. She had an uncanny way, sometimes, of reading his mind. “What about those who died in the arena that we might be free? Or Garth, who died in the filthy streets of the Emporium with a watchman's spear in his back? What of Chilo, who was swept under the ram of the
Fortunata
and drowned, and Eogabal, who died on the foredeck of that same galley? Both of them died so that we might have water and stores to continue our escape. And Nepos, who guided us to water in Hispania and was recaptured by the Romans? How many others shall be lost before we can reach our home?”

Cairenn had no reply.

Calgaich stood up. “A terrible price to pay.”

Cairenn twisted suddenly in great agony. Cold sweat broke out on her pale face. “Fomoire,” she gasped. The pains were greater than she had expected. Were they pains of life or death?

“Leave us,” Fomoire said to Calgaich. “I think her time has come.”

Calgaich stood in the doorway uncertainly. Cairenn's breath was coming in gasps, and she was writhing beneath the rough sail. Her belly heaved as if she were herself a sea. He did not want to leave her, but Fomoire gently pushed him out onto the deck.

The
Lydia
shuddered as a great wave struck her. It was followed by another. Some of the crewmen were swept into the lee scuppers. The men below decks cursed savagely as they were pitched about like pebbles in a shaken cup.

Lexus was laughing as he hauled one man after another to his feet and shoved him back toward the hatch to resume bailing. Little Conaid had gone partially over the side and was clinging to the railing. Lexus leaned toward him to help him get back aboard.

No one saw the enormous grandfather wave rise smoothly from the depths. It swept cleanly over the amidships of the
Lydia
like a moving wall of blue-gray stone. When it passed, little Conaid was still clinging desperately to the railing, but Lexus was nowhere to be seen. Nodons had taken his sacrifice.

Cunori reeled from the cabin to give Ottar a hand at the tiller. The two of them fought to bring the
Lydia
back on her course.

“Head her into the wind!” Ottar shouted.

Cunori shook his head. “Well never make it! We’ve taken too much water aboard!”

“Bail, damn you, bail!” Calgaich roared at the badly shaken crew. “Do you want my son to drown as he is born! Bail, damn you, bail!”

They were in a wild, watery world of the sea and flying spindrift. It was almost as if they had sailed off the earth onto an unknown planet composed entirely of water. The
Lydia
plunged and wallowed. She took the waves solidly over her sides so that at times the deck was knee-deep in water from railing to railing. The laboring craft staggered under the repeated liquid blows of the sea as Nodons exerted all his powerful and terrible strength to founder the
Lydia.

Yet the
Lydia
drove on, fighting like a living thing to survive. She would plunge deeply into the water until it seemed as though she would never come up. After a nerve-shattering hesitation she would begin to rise, shake herself off like a wet hound, only to dive again into the next wave.

There was a wide grin on the face of Cunori. “See how she fights the sea! Nodons shall not take her!”

Ottar looked quickly backward over both shoulders as though Nodons himself might have heard the Venetus. “Be careful,” he warned.

Calgaich worked his way forward. He drove the point of his war spear into the deck and held onto the shaft with one hand, while steadying himself by holding onto the forestay with his other. There seemed to be nothing ahead of the
Lydia
but a deceptive gray opaqueness. Calgaich narrowed his eyes. There was a faint difference in the grayness off in the distance, the most delicate of nuances, and hardly perceptible,
but it was there
... He shook his head. Perhaps it was a trick of Nodons to lure the unwary into his watery world. Calgaich stared fixedly into the distance. Then he knew where he was!

He turned, jerked his spear from the deck and pointed it toward the barely discernible coastline. “There she looms!” he shouted into the teeth of the wind. “Albu! Albu! Albu!”

Suddenly the wind slackened and died away.

The
Lydia
forged on, driven by the powerful inshore current.

No one looked up from their bailing. There wasn't time.

The dim arms of two bay headlands showed through the grayness. They were entering a large bay off the firth that Calgaich knew was but half a day's march from Rioghaine.

The faint cry of a baby came from the after cabin.

All eyes turned to look toward the cabin.

Cairenn came to the doorway. She extended her hands while holding the newborn babe.

“Calgaich!" she cried in a voice of utter joy. “I bring you a fine son, sired by you and brought into the world by this great storm!”

It was almost dusk. Calgaich stood on a hilltop with Lutorius, Loam, Niall, Onlach and Conaid, looking down on the
rath
of Rioghaine and the Dun of Evicatos. His other sword-brothers had stayed with Cunori and Ottar while the two seaman repaired the
Lydia
in order to guard Cairenn and her infant son.

Calgaich turned as Bron came through the grove of birches. “Guidd comes,” he said.

A wolflike, two-legged shape came noiselessly through the woods. Guidd threw back the wolf's head that covered his own gray poll and grinned.

"Well, Guidd?” Calgaich asked.

Guidd reached inside his wolfskin coat and withdrew an earthenware jug. He handed it to Calgaich, who passed it to Lutorius.

"My
crannog
den was untouched, Calgaich,” Guidd said.

"Were you at the
rath?”

Guidd nodded. "I was welcomed by our people because of the news I brought them yesterday, that Calgaich, the son of Lellan and the grandson of Evicatos, had returned to claim his chieftainship.”

"They'll back me if I attack the Dun of Evicatos?”

Guidd shook his head. “No need, Calgaich. When they learned of Bruidge's treachery to you, and that Lellan had died at the hands of the Red Crests in a Roman fort, they turned against Bruidge.”

"He still sits drinking in the
dun?”

"Yes, but alone. One by one his hirelings deserted him.”

Lutorius handed the jug to Calgaich. "How so, woodsman?”

"Some of them fled into the forests. Others just vanished. Like this!” He waved his hands sideways.

“With a Novantae spear in their backs?” Loam asked.

“Who knows?” Guidd asked. He grinned.

“Has anyone told Bruidge I have returned?” Calgaich asked Guidd.

“No. The people say he believes you died. Paralus, the Greek trader, came this way some time past. He brought the news that you had been sorely "wounded in the arena. He did not say that you had survived.”

“Good! I’ll bring him that news myself.”

“Well go with you, barbarian,” Lutorius said.

“No. I must go alone. Guidd will take you to his wolf den. Wait there. If all goes well, I’ll send Bron for you.”

Calgaich strode through the birches-with Bron at his side. He stopped when he was out of the woods and looked up at the towering
dun
. Not a light showed. He looked back at the woods. There was no sign or sound of the others. He heard only the soughing of the dusk wind through the pines, conifers and birches.

Calgaich started up the slope, then stopped short. There was something missing. Then he knew what it was—it was the first time in his years at Rioghaine that he had not heard the sound of the night-hunting wolves in the dense forest that bordered the dark loch and the shadowy hills. Was it an omen? An eerie feeling crept through him. He gripped his great spear and strode on up the rocky slope.

The dark
dun
loomed high above him. Calgaich paused at the thick, rough-hewn door. He reached out with his spear and pushed it open. The door creaked open on rusty hinges. The narrow passage beyond it was as dark as the pit.

Calgaich stepped inside. He catfooted through the passageway. The antechamber of the main hall was dark except for the faint dusk light that came through the high loopholes pierced into the drystone walls. Some small creature scuttled across Calgaich’s feet in order to escape. Bron growled.

The door to the great hall was closed. Calgaich placed his ear against it. He heard the faint sound of a voice. The ball butt of his spear bumped against the wall and the sound of it echoed in the antechamber. The voice stopped short.

Calgaich pushed the door open with his left hand while he held his spear ready for a quick thrust. The door creaked open and struck against its stone stop.

A deep bed of ashes and embers lay in one of the large stone fireplaces situated to one side of the hall. The draft from the opened door fanned across the embers and brought the fire back to a temporary life. Flickering flames flared up and formed dancing patterns on the walls.

The muttering voice came to Calgaich again. It came from a huge hunched figure sitting in the great chair behind the massive table; the chair that had once been the seat of Evicatos and later that of Lellan.