Deirdre (41 page)

“To think, I wanted that kingdom,” Alric grumbled to Deirdre and Cairell as the dock men removed the planking from the side of the ship. “They’ve never been of one accord on anything.”

Accustomed to unquestioned obedience and a crew that worked as a cohesive unit, he’d been at the edge of his patience with everyone, save Deirdre. With her, her growling wolf became a loyal hound, sensing her pain and trying in his limited way to let her know that he suffered for her. Even the rambunctious Tor seemed to sense her grief, keeping constantly underfoot as though to protect her from further dismay.

Meanwhile, life went on all around her as though the tragedy of her father’s death meant nothing to the world at large—only to her and, to a lesser degree, her brother. But then men weren’t as given to emotions as women.

“How would you choose?” Cairell asked Alric, seemingly a world away from her at the moment.

How could Alric care whether the mayor and those of British blood favored a Welsh alliance, while the shire reeve and those of Saxon, Frisian, and Angle heritage leaned toward their Mercian brethren? Their father lay dead of a heart needlessly broken. Would that good news traveled half the speed of bad.

“If I were them? The Mercians,” Alric answered without hesitation. “No offense intended toward your friend, for I’m certain his word is good, but I understand the Mercians better than the Welsh.”

God forgive her, but she could not possibly see how Fergal’s death served anything but a vile purpose.

“Even though they are heathen?” Ordinarily she dove into discussions with relish, but instead, she foundered in a greater sea than that which lay ahead of them. Waves of questions, anger, and hurt battered her without relent.

“They worship power and wealth. That makes them more predictable. The only reason these people left—” Alric nodded toward the passengers lining the rails between the rowers’ benches—“was fear of the queen’s revenge, not the Mercians as a people. I should have sought her out and killed her.”

Alric’s vehement declaration pulled Deirdre from her woe. No, for if he had taken time to find the queen and exact revenge, then he might have been lost as well. And without him, Deirdre would be lost as well.
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the L
ORD
.”
The priest’s words from her mother’s funeral service emerged from her memory, like a rope tossed to her from above. God took her father but gave her Alric … and Cairell.

Stepping up to the rail, she linked her arm in her husband’s. “You did exactly as you should have. And I thank God all the more for your wisdom.” She meant it.
Father, forgive me for my self-pity and narrowness of thought.

Not to be cheated of his share of affection, Tor nosed between them as the ship drifted away from the dock with the tide.

“Wisdom?” Her husband gave a halfhearted laugh, apparently to cover the anxiety that troubled his gaze. “I’m setting out with an untried crew of craftsmen and farmers and a cargo of women and children. I’d wager Noah had less trouble provisioning the ark than I have suffered this week. At least animals don’t complain.”

The river current caught the vessel with a sudden jerk. Startled by the movement, Tor yelped and leaped away from the rail, landing in an awkward half squat. Uncertain just who was responsible for this malady the dog looked around him, growling.

“At least not so you can understand them,” Deirdre stipulated, laughing for the first time since she’d received the news of Fergal’s death. Somehow God would fit it all into perspective for her, if not in this life, surely in the next. She had the choice of growling at the shift of the ground beneath her like the disconcerted Tor, or adapting with sea legs of trust.

Deirdre knelt to comfort the dog, cooing softly and cradling him, while Alric turned his attention to the men aloft. They, at least, were veterans of the sea—most of them. Those who were not were shaken into action by the instruction of their cohorts.

“I make my circuit in the fellowship of my saint …”

Startled at the sound of Scanlan’s clear voice, Deirdre rushed back to the rail. In disbelief, she saw the priest sitting in a chair that had
been carried to the shore by servants. Beside him stood Aelfled, who had not left his side except to replenish her herbs. Once Scanlan refused to leave with the others, she offered him her home until he was fully recovered. When Deirdre bade him good-bye that morning, she thought she’d seen the last of him.

“Though I should travel ocean and the hard globe of the world …”

The priest’s voice crossed the water as though carried on the rush of angel wings. Nearby Deirdre and the thatcher’s wife from Galstead took up the song she’d learned from Scanlan’s meetings in the common. Abina, who helped Kaspar’s wife with the new baby, added her high, sweet voice to the hymn.

“No harm can e’er befall me ’neath the shelter of Thy shield …”

Another voice joined in. And another and another until all Scanlan’s little flock applied to the Creator for the protection of the archangel.

“O Michael, the victorious, God’s shepherd thou art.”

Across the water, Deirdre sought out Scanlan’s gaze. More likely it was her soul that met with his and took flight in celebration. The torch they’d carried—the obedient priest by choice and the willful princess by God’s design—now burned brightly where darkness had met them and in the hearts of those who left it behind. It caught upon the edge of Deirdre’s black despair and consumed it with the brightness of hope and a comforting warmth.

“Everything on high or low, every furnishing and flock, belong to the Triune of glory …”

A deep voice resonated behind her and strong arms encircled her waist. She turned, mouth agape, to hear Alric finish the song with the others.

“And to Michael the Victorious …”

“What?” A lopsided grin spread across his clean-shaven face. How handsome her husband was, especially when he smiled.

“I … I didn’t know you could sing, much less that you knew a hymn.”

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know, milady, but you’ve a lifetime to learn.”

As Alric turned her in his arms, Deirdre caught a glimpse of something beyond him in the corner of her eye that sent a shiver running up her spine. Her husband’s quick but thorough kiss claimed her attention, so that when she glanced back, she saw nothing but a group of women gathered around Kaspar’s wife and the new baby.

Next to Deirdre, unable to find stable footing anywhere, Tor hopped from spot to spot, his bravado given over to a distressed whimper.

“We’d best put a leash on this four-legged landlubber until he gets his sea legs.” Alric chuckled, turning her loose to see to the wolfhound.

Deirdre knelt and called to the dog. Like as not, her imagination was as raw edged as her emotions. She didn’t even know what she thought she saw, only that it made her feel as if a splinter of ice pierced her chest. But in the wake of her husband’s warm affection, it was gone.

By the following day Tor could not stand at all. The wolfhound sat listless at Deirdre’s feet and convulsed at the smallest intake of food or water.

“What’s this about, mongrel?” Alric chided gently as he held the dog’s head in his hands and scratched its ears. “What kind of a mariner’s dog suffers from seasickness? If you seek to humiliate me before the crew, rest assured you have.”

Tor’s dark eyes were dull and distant, but then the wolfhound wasn’t the only one who did not take readily to the water. At least half the passengers and crew kept a close vigil at the rail, while the provisions aboard went nearly untouched.

Deirdre and a handful of women kept the deck washed and coaxed watered-down wine and bread into the sufferers. One elderly lady went down in the hold, refusing to even look at the water, despite the mate’s insistence that the closed-up quarters would only worsen her condition. Abina, every bit as stooped as the ailing woman, seemed to grow stronger and lighter of foot with the need of the others.

By nightfall, Tor convulsed one last time and closed his eyes, curling his long body against Deirdre on the deck. Exhausted, she didn’t realize
the dog was dead until Alric turned the watch over to Wimmer and checked on Tor before turning in beside her. To keep panic from spreading, Alric and Cairell quietly lowered the wolfhound over the side of the ship and into the water, while Abina and Deirdre comforted each other.

“Do you think the food is tainted?” Deirdre asked Alric, as the latter settled down next to her.

Alric shook his head. “If that were so, we’d all be sick.”

“Could Tor have eaten something he shouldn’t … like a dead rat or something spoiled on the dock?” Deirdre ached for her husband. Indeed, even she had become fond of the rambunctious, oversized pup.

“Tor was like the Irish here,” Alric answered wryly “He ate anything that didn’t eat him first.”

Forlorn as the remark was, Deirdre had to smile at the jibe aimed at Cairell. Nothing made her brother sick. He chewed the dried meat and dipped it in the cook’s peas porridge with relish, even in the midst of the heaving and retching. Alric, who never flinched at the vilest gore, had twice been to the rail in sympathy with the ill—once with Tor and once after a young lad, whose idol worship of the captain resulted in a lost bellyful at Alric’s feet.

“I can’t help it if you can’t hold down your gullet,” Cairell defended himself. “There’s no sense in all of us arriving at Gleannmara half starved with a hold full of food.”

“Frig’s mercy, man, the mite’s breakfast went down in my boots. Seeing is one thing. Wearing it is another.” Alric shoved his windblown hair off his face. “I mean,
God’s
mercy. He of all knows we need it, what with Galstead’s taint still lingering with us.”

“He’s seen us through worse than this.” Deirdre lay her head on Alric’s chest, “I’m so sorry muirnait.”

After heaving a sigh, he brushed the top of her head with his lips. “Do you suppose this archangel Michael has need of an overgrown pup?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised at all,” Cairell ventured.

“What the beast lacked in obedience, he made up for in love,” Abina sighed.

Through her quiet tears, Deirdre smiled.

S
omething was wrong, horribly wrong, and it wasn’t the red sky heralding the break of day behind them. Alric couldn’t see it, but he felt it. It raised the hair on the back of his neck. He eased Deirdre off his shoulder and over to her brother’s. Cairell stirred momentarily but at Alric’s shush, he nodded off again, a willing pillow for his sister.

Sniffing the air as he made his way over and around sleeping bodies on the deck, Alric nodded to the few men who took the night shift at the oars. Wimmer maneuvered the ship to catch the contrary wind as best he could.

“How long has it been like this?” Air this thick and still bode ill.

“Not long … since the sun opened its bloodshot eye behind us,” Wimmer answered, glancing over their heads. “Still as ghost’s breath.”

The leather sail hung limp, as though it had given up hope of catching a breeze.

“The trouble’s not up there, friend, it’s beneath us,” Alric said, shifting easily with the faint sway of the deck. “We’re sluggish as a loaded barge.”

In three strides, he reached the open hold and stared into a blackness that even the ship’s lantern could not penetrate in the dawn’s early light. He couldn’t see the danger it harbored, but he could hear it. With an oath, he went down the ladder. The easy slosh of water around the contents gave way to a splash as his boots struck water on the next to the last rung. It was cold as a northman’s blood, but Alric’s blood ran colder. He raised the alarm with a bellow.

“All hands to their stations, we’re taking on water!”

The deck came alive as he vaulted out of the hold, barking orders at the sleep-dazed crew and passengers. Cairell reported at once, Deirdre only moments behind him.

“What can we do?”

“Form two lines with any who are able—one to bail water and the other to lighten our load to get more freeboard,” Alric explained. “Deirdre, the women will have to take up the vacant oars as best they can.” Reaching past her, Alric took a lantern from its hook.

“What are you going to do?” Alarm grazed her features, but her voice and manner were as calm as the sea itself. Its serenity helped quell the roaring thunder in his chest.

“God willing, I’m going below to find that leak and plug it.”

“Listen up, men,” Cairell shouted. “Spare nothing that doesn’t draw breath. Everything comes out of there … water … goods …”

Alric joined the four men who dropped into the hold. Stepping clear of the passage, he stooped and held up the light in the low space to examine the load. Everything was tied down, exactly as it had been when he last inspected it before setting off, except that now water rose up around it, nearly to the knee.

Where was this Michael the Victorious?
Alric grimaced at the cynical slip of thought. Faith did not come easily to a man so long unaccustomed to it. Hoping God sensed his regret, for there was no time for lengthy confession, he prayed.
Please give me a sign, God, anything.

A flurry of activity drew Alric’s attention to where two rats struggled to climb atop the cargo. Another swam against a tide that carried it away from the stern.

“Aft first, men.” Brandishing a knife from his boot, he began to cut away the ropes securing the stored goods in place and knocked them forward when he spied a narrow passage that had been cleared through the hold. Weapon in teeth, he twisted sideways to inch through. The water swirling past him confirmed he was on the right trail. The path had been made by someone, but whether divinely inspired or maniacally made, remained to be seen. The loose ends of rope that had secured the cargo in place kindled the unthinkable suspicion that this was no accident.

Reason prevailed. What possible motive would anyone have for this?

Alric sat the lantern on top of a stack of some crates that were hastily assembled to contain the belongings of those passengers who had no trunks or means of stowing their possessions. Easing down to
his knees, he felt for the strongest flow of water. The bilge stench assailed his nostrils, not nearly as strong as it should be—yet another sign of a leak, of dilution with fresh seawater. Closing his fingers around something that blocked his way Alric lifted it from the water, ready to sling it aside until he saw what it was.