The Island House (21 page)

His head burst through to the air, and hers followed. If he could just get her to the shore, if he could only squeeze the sea from her chest, if . . .

Signy lay open-eyed on the surface of the water.

“Help her!” What God would hear him in the surf’s roar?

Time ceased. There were only the stars to see his despair as Bear struggled to the beach. Half-sitting in the shallows, he held Signy from behind, his arms clamped around that frail chest. He’d seen it done like this when men were hauled from the sea having fallen from one of Reimer’s ships.

Signy was too young to have breasts, but as Bear compressed her chest, he could feel ribs like little sticks beneath the skin.

“Breathe for me, Signy!” He was shouting at her, blind to everything but that calm, indifferent face.

Nothing. There was nothing.

Sobbing, Bear dragged Signy from the shallows and laid her on the hard sand, away from the waves. All he had was his own breath. Gasping air, he sealed his mouth over hers and blew. And again. Once more. Her mouth was soft and slack, her teeth a hard little barrier, but he would empty his life into her body if he exploded his own lungs to do it.

“Signy!” Bear’s breath pushed her own name deep, and that was, finally, the thing that called her back. He felt her move beneath him. Life! Terrified that gossamer thread would break, Bear inhaled again and blew as if he were each of the four winds.

Signy struggled, found the strength to push him aside. The vomit when it came was clear water, no blood, no foam.

White as driftwood, they sprawled beached at the high-water mark near the hull, abandoned by the sea, and soon it was cold. This night might ice their bones yet.

Bear floundered to his feet. On the sand, the girl lay within touching distance of the steering oar, which had nearly claimed her life. But the boom had dislodged when the ship struck the beach. It had collapsed down the mast, spilling the loosened sail like a curtain over the side; cubits and cubits of woolen material lay on the sand, and it was largely dry.

“Don’t fight me, Signy.”

“What?” Her voice was a thread.

Signy’s body left a pathetically shallow trail in the sand when he dragged her closer to the hull, but that was a good thing—any heavier and he couldn’t have managed it.

“Now, I have to do this.” Bear ripped at her wet clothes so that she was exposed to the night, naked and twitching with cold. “You’ll be warm soon, then I can find your parents,” he told her.

She was too cold to speak.

Tucking one edge of the sail under her body, Bear turned Signy over and over in the material until she lay imprisoned within its stiff cocoon. The wool was coarse and scratched her skin, but she had no surface feeling.

Surrendering to the dark, Signy closed her eyes. Fugitive warmth became her beloved companion. She slept.

Tell her parents. Tell them she’s alive.

The words ran through his head like a chant, but Bear was exhausted
and very cold. If he did not find them soon, he, too, might die; but he had to do this. For her.

There were only a few buildings in the clan’s settlement. On a natural stone terrace above the beach, three or four round huts were grouped around a low, log-built house thatched with reeds. The cliff that protected their backs towered against the sky, a black-cut shape against the setting moon.

Bear felt nothing, but he knew he still had a body because he watched his feet as they trod over rocks beside the landing beach and found the wooden trackway. In the black and white of night, they left dark smears behind.

Blood? It was an effort to remember it was dangerous to bleed. It would be too easy, now, to float away from his collapsing body, except for Signy. She needed him.

Bear fell down by the God stone at the door of the largest building. He felt that, for the pain in his knees was so sharp he whimpered like a small child. On his belly, he shunted closer to the door, banged on it with a closed fist. Again. There was no movement, no stirring from the other side.

“Friend, help!” He used what words he had of the clan tongue.

A voice in the night is to be feared, but his had not yet broken, and he heard himself. He sounded like a girl. Who would be frightened of a girl?

“Please, Signy here. Please . . .”

He used their daughter’s name so that the family inside would understand.

There was a rock close to Bear’s hand, water-smoothed, a big gray egg. Last strength closed his hand around it, last strength picked it up.

He hit the door, and the sound was enormous. He heard the crash as it rolled around inside the house unobstructed, unabsorbed.

Using the God stone beside the door, Bear pulled himself
upright. He was slow because his legs were weak. He stood and listened. Nothing. No sound at all.

His fingers convulsed again around the rock in his hand. Leaning forward, he shoved the blank face of the door with his chest and a shoulder. It moved. And stopped. There was something in the way.

Bear pushed again, expecting, at any moment, to hear a voice raised in anger or confusion.

He made an opening big enough to slide through, but the dark behind the door seemed wrong. Where was the glow from the fire pit? Ashes would have been banked high last night—enough for some light to remain.

But there was no light. Instead, faint radiance from the stars spilled through a hole above his head.

The place yawned, deserted. No one slept beside the fire pit; the box beds by the wall were empty, and the sanded floor puddled with water. A broken bench told the same story as the clay cooking pot, shattered on the floor. The hall had been looted, the clan was long gone.

Where? Who could say?

At least there were no rotting bodies. Signy would be grateful for that. And perhaps there was hope that her family had escaped and were still alive. Somewhere.

As the night waned, Bear crept in beside the sleeping girl, burrowing beneath the sail. He lay along the length of her, hoping that his body warmth would reach her or hers him, even through the layer of coarse wool. At least they were still alive.

Then he slept.

Signy touched the God stone at the door from habit—there was a dimple like a navel where many fingers from the clan had rested. There had been just enough light to see that, and the open door. No door is left open all night.

And so Signy did not call the names of her family. She knew there was no point. As she had run from the beach toward the houses, not even a dog had barked. No loving voice would ever welcome her home. They had all gone. The clan settlement was empty.

But still, she must show respect; then perhaps her family’s Gods would offer protection, for this hall had been their dwelling place. That was why the stone stood by the door.

She said, softly, “I ask permission to enter this place. I am the daughter of the Shaman Odhrahn, son of Alhrahn, son of Ehrwald. This is our hearth-home.” Her throat seized, but still she continued. “I must tell you what I know, so that it can be recorded in the stories of our people in this place.”

Signy stood by the fire pit gazing up toward the hole in the roof. She avoided the sight of the empty bed her father had built. She would never sleep there again.

“I have nothing to offer, except this.”

In one hand Signy had an oyster shell—she’d picked it up from the midden beside the trackway. She closed her eyes and slashed the shell’s edge across her right wrist. It raised a welt, but nothing more. Teeth pinched her lower lip as Signy tried again, but it took several attempts before she achieved the sacrifice. Blood, her blood, dropped onto the cold ashes of the fire pit. It was joined by her tears.

“Mother, Father, I ask help from you now even if we shall not meet again. I need a knife and clothes for me and for my friend. Show me.”

Faith was something Signy did not question in her family’s hearth-home. The sacrifice had been made, she would be given what was asked for. To stop the blood, she clamped her other hand across the cut and opened her eyes.

Nothing seemed to be different, but then, her injured arm freed itself and rose in the air. This was the sign she’d expected. Signy relaxed and watched her right arm as it swung around; her hand was pointing toward the back of the room.

She waited for the summons. It came. The blood stopped flowing.

Signy walked forward, carefully watching her hand and arm as they floated ahead of her.

Just before she reached the blank back wall, her feet stopped and her arm dropped. Now it lay quietly at her side, and there was no sense, as there had been just now, that it was separate from her body.

“I thank you, Mother and Father.”

Signy managed the words in a strong voice before she looked for her gift. They had helped her, and that meant they must be dead, their spirits with the ancestors in the clan haven in the sky.

Whoever had sacked this place, when they came, had missed the small box. Careless, perhaps, or in a hurry; it might have looked too humble to contain anything of value. But Signy knew what she’d been given, and she removed the lid with clumsy fingers. Inside something flared red, the same color as her blood, and that almost defeated her. But she leaned forward and reached inside; something soft was there. Cloth. Garments. Two tunics—one red, one brown—and two shirts of soft linen.

They were men’s clothes—these would be her mother’s work made for her father, or perhaps for Nid or another of her brothers. Swampingly large on her own body and on Bear’s, they would at least be warm and, too, there were belts. One was of plaited leather with worked silver ends, another had an iron buckle.

Best of all, there were leggings and straps to bind them—enough for her and for him—and one pair of men’s leather shoes. She would still go barefoot—but that was best at sea. Bear could have the shoes.

At the bottom of the chest were further riches, for a dagger lay there. Coated in pig fat—only a little rancid—it was still inside its leather scabbard. Signy remembered. She had seen it in her father’s hand, often; that it had been left behind confirmed much.

She would not think of that now. No, from this time on, her
father’s knife would hang from her own belt. This would be her knife—his gift to her.

It took no time to dress. Bear would need her now even though he would not know that—because she had the knife. With it, they could gut fish and strike fire. She would give him the silver-ended belt; men, too, liked pretty things.

As she left, Signy turned back one last time, at the God stone.

“I thank you for my gifts. As a child of this clan, I ask your help as I go into the world. May you, my father, and you, my mother, be safe, and all of my brothers. If you are in our haven in the sky, may you find rest and good food and deep sleep. And may we meet again.”

Signy pulled the door closed.

CHAPTER 15

W
HEN
B
EAR
woke, he was alone.

His clothes had dried on his body, and the morning was fine enough to treasure though the sun’s light was, as yet, weak and pale.