Éire’s Captive Moon (11 page)

Inwardly, Cowan relaxed in relief for a moment. Martin was saved. But now Cowan had to make his escape.

Tuirgeis eyed him carefully before speaking in a quiet tone of voice. It didn’t matter, Cowan thought. The warriors were noisy in their mockery of the monks and their preparations for departure.

“Kingson,” Tuirgeis said, making the two words that described him into a name. “I know you would care for the priest there, but he is not worth saving. He will not come with us.”

Hope flared in Cowan’s breast. “If I have served you well, sir, then may I stay with him and take him to my father’s house?” Latin served as easily as
Gaeilge
, Cowan decided.

Tuirgeis’s huge bark of laughter dashed Cowan’s hopes as surely as if he’d hit rocks along the coast in his little skiff. “His life depends upon you, Kingson. True. But you are not as smart as I thought if you think I would give up one with your skills.”

“But what about ransom?” Cowan blurted out, shocked.

“For you? It would take time, Kingson. Time that we should spend sailing home.”

“My father has treasure,” Cowan said, praying that it was true. He had to get home. Even if the Northmen were leaving now, there would be more. There would always be more; it was a lesson he had heard in Tours, from men who had escaped the raids. “He would pay.”

“I’m sure he would,” Tuirgeis said, “but you are worth more in the flesh than in gold and silver.” With that, the big man turned to join his men. Cowan could only watch him go, with an emptiness inside himself that ached.

Then that empty place was filled with fire.
No! I will not go! I’ll get Martin and we’ll—we’ll just have to run, that’s all.

He trusted that Tuirgeis was not a stupid man. He prayed that the Northman was busy, however, as he edged to where Martin lay, face white with pain under the dirt and mud that tracked his cheeks.

“Cowan,” the Frankish monk whispered. “You’re alive!”

“Of course I am. I’m not after getting myself killed for no purpose. Can you get up? If I help?”
 

Martin shut his eyes and grimaced. “Why? I don’t want to see those accursed men.” His feet moved restlessly, scraping the dirt. “I’d rather die with the brothers of Bangor.”

Short of pulling up a wounded and reluctant man, Cowan did not know what to do. He knelt next to his friend. “Martin, please. Come with me. I’ll get us to my father’s home. You’ll heal. You can help the monks rebuild.”

His first hint that he had been overheard was the shadow that fell over Martin’s face. “I do not think so, Kingson,” said a rough, power-filled voice. “I am sorry,” was the last thing Cowan heard before a bright light flashed behind his eyes and a blinding pain made his world go black.

Chapter 8

“Khar-iss.”

She didn’t recognize the name as hers, at first. She was trying to make sense of where she was. It was still light. Above her head was a cloth, keeping the sun from striking her full in the face. The motion was disorienting. Up and down, up and down. The ground didn’t move like that.

Panic-stricken, she jolted herself upright. “What! What’s happening? Where am I?”

A heavy hand pressed her down again so that she was almost on all fours. “Khar-iss.”

Up and down she rocked, but the surface under her was solid. “Where am I?” she repeated, brushing her hair out of her eyes and trying to sit up again. “What happened?”

“Charis?” the voice said, sounding amused.

The amusement claimed her attention. Though her heart was pounding and her mind spinning with uncertainty, Charis made herself meet the disconcertingly blue eyes that hovered over her. That voice. Those eyes. That hand.

It was him. Fury rose inside and she pushed herself up, fingers extended to reach his face. “I’ll kill you!” she said. “I won’t wait. I won’t!”

Her captor smiled easily down at her, knelt, and secured both her wrists in one hand. “
Né
,” he said, shaking his head. Then he growled something else in those incomprehensible words of his. He ended by saying, “ . . . 
skipniu
.”

Determined to do all she could to defy him, she turned her head and sought a friendly face. Where were her people? Where were her friends? Where was . . . anyone? Anyone she knew?

Anyone but
him
.

He captured her jaw with his free hand and Charis didn’t bother to struggle. She had heard waves lapping against something and finally concluded she was on a ship. That terrified her; she had never sailed before, though her village was next to the shore. She could smell the brine as she had every day of her life, but now it infused the air around her, the cloth above, and the wooden deck below.

“A ship! No!”

Water. The sea. She couldn’t bear to be in the sea. Heart thudding in her chest so she was sure someone would hear it, Charis panted. Though she lived next to the sea, she never even so much as went out on a fishing boat, not since she had been a little girl . . . 

Shoving her fists over her eyes, she dove inside, trying to find a way to calm herself.
Achan! Devin! Devlin! Help me!
She knew they were dead, but there was no one else.

She saw an image of a leaf on a small stream in her mind. A pale leaf in autumn, it floated lazily on the current, not putting up any resistance but not sinking either. It barely took on droplets of water. It stayed afloat as the water passed by large rocks, as fish swam underneath it, as it went around a bend in the land and out of sight.

With a jolt, Charis understood. She just had to be a leaf on the water. She would pretend it wasn’t there as much as she could.
 

From somewhere out of her view, a strange voice called out something to the man who still held her by the jaw. “
Skipniu, ja
,” he said, nodding. Then he let her go and got to his feet.

Another invader appeared, and the two of them towered so far over her that Charis rose to her knees, trying to balance herself with her hands as the surface beneath her shifted. Her stomach clenched in nausea and fear. What had happened?

“You’re a slave, Healer,” came a barely familiar voice, low to the ship’s deck. “So am I. Believe me, I did everything I could to make sure it wouldn’t happen.”

 
A slave?
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head in abject denial.

“Yes.” It was the son of Branieucc. She met his eyes, and they were deeply compassionate, sorrowful and resentful. “Yes. The
Ostmen
have taken us. You have, apparently, been claimed by Agnarr.” Cowan inclined his head towards her captor, the man who’d murdered Devin and Devlin.

“No!” she moaned, dropping her head. “No, it can’t be. We . . .” Then a face flashed before her eyes. Aislinn. Charis’s breath came fast and dry to her throat and she swallowed. “Cowan?” One purpose had her leaning forward to keep her voice as low as possible. “Did they find the children?”

“Children?” Cowan’s eyes darted back and forth and Charis watched only his face, for the future of her people rested with Aislinn and the children. “No, I saw no children,” he whispered, his expression carefully blank.

“Oh . . .” Relief swamped her and she collapsed again on the deck. The children. She had saved some, yes, she had. Her guilt for her husbands’ deaths would never go away perhaps, but she had saved some lives.
Yes
.

Then this shifting, floating
gaol
became more real to her. She shut her eyes, but the smells of salted fish, male sweat, rancid leather, iron and old water could not be avoided. She heard the sound of the sea, seagulls, and men speaking that harsh language. Compared to
Gaeilge
, the tongue of the Northmen was ugly and unimpressive. Charis wouldn’t listen to it. But she heard the sounds of Éire, too, and that made her sit up at last.

“They just burned them all,” a male voice said. Charis shut her eyes against the pain of seeing Devin and Devlin set on fire. Vengeance . . . vengeance would come.

“Had you worked on them?” asked a male voice.

Worked on them? What?
Opening her eyes again, Charis saw Cowan first, listening intently to the
Gaeilge
speakers. It was not one of her village who was speaking; it was one of those horrible monks.

The monks of Bangor Monastery had made life miserable for her and her village for years. It was only in the last few seasons that they had relented in their pursuit of Ragor’s wealth and children. Worshiping a dead god! A weak god, too, who let his son be killed by men.

Her men would never have let that happen, if she had been able to give them a son.

The wave of grief was paralyzing and Charis slumped over herself, her forehead almost touching the salt-crusted deck.

She could not escape her surroundings, though, no matter how much she wished to.
Gaeilge
and—what had Cowan called them?
Ostmen
?—their speech would not leave her ears. Footsteps pounded the deck; she could feel them. The soft cries of despair blended with the monotonous chanting of Latin that the monks spoke. She had never bothered to learn that tongue. Ignorant men. Ignorant of the bounties of their home. Ignorant of the wealth of knowledge that was growing just under their feet.

Her people were enough for her. They loved her.

But where were they?

Her curiosity compelled her to move a little, to look around beyond the wooden mast and sheltering cloth.

“Where are they?” she whispered.

“Some are here, others on the other ships,” Cowan said.

He seemed to be permanently attached to the mast, since he was always there. Charis studied him for the first time since she had met him. He was not a monk, she was relieved to see. He had a full head of blond hair and a red beard. He was tied with leather strips to the center mast, his hands bound behind him, wrists red and swollen, crusting with blood and dirt.

“What happened to your head and hands?” she asked him, reaching inside one of her pockets instinctively. “Let me clean you up.”

He winced, but his voice was colored with dark humor. “Is it noticeable? I haven’t been able to deal with it myself.”

Charis was eager to have something—anything—to occupy her, so she scooted closer to the king’s son and probed the bloody lump that protruded through his rough hair. She muttered a soft curse and said, “I wish I had some boiling water, Cowan. I can’t even clean this otherwise.”

He snorted derisively. “
Na, na
. It’s only a scratch. I’ll be fine.”

“Only a scratch.
Isea
. Only a scratch that’ll make you lose your senses if you’re not careful,” she admonished, ignoring his grunt of protest as she pushed hair away to see the extent of the damage. “What happened to you? Were you wounded in battle?”

Cowan glanced over his shoulder at her, a twinkle in his eye. “Now, lass, that’s a long story.”
 

“I need a long story,” Charis murmured, searching for her mint wash in her pockets. The specially treated pouch should be in her right pocket, but it was not there. “Do you know what happened to my medicines?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.

She heard her new patient inhale to answer, but the answer didn’t come. Instead he said, “No time now, Healer.”

She followed the way he nodded his head, only to see a huge barbarian who carried himself like a king. “Who is that? He wasn’t in my village.”

“That’s Tuirgeis,” Cowan replied, his low voice carrying a warning. “He’s the leader of the raiders.”

Charis grimaced. “Oh, now that’s grand.” The man had long dark hair and wore a mail shirt, leggings, and a bright blue over-tunic that seemed to indicate he came from a wealthy family, for blue was an expensive dye. The color required alum to keep it in the cloth, and that was a costly element. Her own blues faded so quickly without it.

Tuirgeis was a lord, she decided. He caught her studying him and he smiled at her, saying something to her captor, the Northman Agnarr, as Cowan called him.

“What’s he saying then?” she inquired of the red-bearded prince.

He paused before saying, “I’m not sure. I’m still learning their tongue. It scrapes in my mouth.”

“Ha!” she spat. “If only it would scrape in theirs.” The blond man who had slain her men beckoned for her to stand, saying something. His voice was commanding, harsh, and she chose not to understand him, looking back to Cowan’s bumped head.

“Healer,” Cowan rasped, “he wants you to stand!”

“He cannot expect me to understand now, can he?”

The language changed then, and Cowan stiffened. “Tuirgeis, their leader, is speaking in Latin. He wants you to obey Agnarr. I am translating.”

“I don’t speak the priests’ tongue either,” Charis went on, an angry vibration starting in her core. “Besides, I am tending to your wound.”

The leader spoke again, and Cowan turned as far as he was able. “Healer!”

“They may have captured me, but I am not their slave!”

“Leave my head alone. Your defiance could cost us all.”

It was only then that Charis noticed how quiet it had become on the deck of the Northmen’s ship.