Winter Serpent (19 page)

The girl twitched. The two little Picts squatted beside her, their weapons cast upon the ground. With soft shepherds’ hands they pulled up the gown and eased the mantle under her hips. The swollen belly vibrated with the efforts to force the child down.

“Still she labors,” the younger one said admiringly. Barra grunted.

“The child is dead. Too long has she struggled. It would have been a short labor if she had not been tied. Look how the crotch strains. She has the muscles of a horse. But she has killed the child with her straining.”

The younger one shook his head.

“I have seen a long and difficult labor, worse than this, in which you would have surely thought the breath of life had been crushed from the child. Still, it lived.”

“In animals.”

“No,” the one called Ildri persisted, “in a woman.” Barra shoved him.

“Kneel upon her hands so that she may not tear at herself or roll about.” Barra grasped the girl’s ankles and shoved them into the buttocks. The

heels dug into the earth and she heaved her hips from the ground, almost jerking from their grasp. Twice she did this and at the second, a whisper of sound fell from her lips. The dark head of the child appeared and Barra grasped it quickly. He held it as she forced the shoulders to appear, and then the child’s belly slid from her. Barra gently withdrew the legs and unfolded them. The child’s chest filled with air and let out a reedy squall.

“See!” Ildri shouted. “It lives!”

“Watch what you are doing,” the other told him crossly.

Ildri glanced down. “She is quiet now.”

Barra wiped the child’s head with his fingers, peering into its face, and then in a few moments he deftly cut the cord which bound him to his mother, and tied it. The other man held forth a ragged sheepskin and they folded it about the child, woolly side inward.

“The child comes early by the look of it. But it is large and strong.” “Shall I press down upon her belly?”

Barra looked at the face of the woman on the ground. “There is no hurry. She will deliver the rest in time.”

“If you had not made a small sound as we approached,” Barra said as they stripped the body of the Scot, “I would have killed at least two of them. My first arrow should have been for that whore’s itch, the chieftain of the Coire.” “I did not make a sound, Barra,” the young man protested. “What sound

did I make? I was standing next to you when your arrow missed the Red Fox and landed in the neck of the one leading the horse.”

Barra made a choking sound.

“How can you say this, that I missed a fair shot? I aimed for the throat of the one who held the horse so as to release her from suffering the sooner. My thoughts were not for them, but for her. Otherwise I would have pursued them, to have my revenge.”

The other man looked over his shoulder.

“It was a strange thing to see Calum toiseach running from this place screaming like a woman, as if all the hounds of hell pursued him. I do not think he knew who it was that attacked. Perhaps I should follow their trail to see if they circle and return.”

“Do not waste your time. The Red Fox is halfway to his hall. And those other brave ones who accompany him will not come back alone.”

At first, in the confusion of tumbling snowflakes, she thought them part of her dream. She saw the short dark figures bending over her, arranging her gown. They were naked to the waist in short leather kilts, sheepskins thrown over their shoulders. Iron circles such as smiths fashion for hitching rings were about their necks. The mouth of the shorter one was circled by a brilliant blue tattoo.

She licked her dry lips.

“What is this place?” she whispered.

“Princess,” said Barra, “this is a very wild place in the glens. Do you remember nothing of what has happened?”

She felt her belly with her hands.

“Yes,” she answered, “I remember.”

“You have a child and it lives. A boy. We thought it would be born dead and it is true his head is misshapen with your straining, but this will be nothing in a few days. He is very beautiful and strong.”

He beckoned to Ildri who held up the sheepskin bundle, uncovering the infant’s face.

“In a wee time we shall leave this place. Ildri, my sister’s son, will help me make a litter to carry you and the child, and later you must try to mount the pony. We must travel quickly, for there will soon be those who will come to seek us.”

He knelt beside her and picked up her hands, rubbing them in his.

“Are you cold?” He bent into her face and whispered. “I had thought you would like to see the child. But we need not take him with us.” At her look of alarm he drew back. “Well, it was but a thought. It is a very fine child such as one does not often see. I think it would be truly a waste to kill him. But I think this day will bring much trouble on you.” He shrugged. “As we travel the sky will send down snow to cover our tracks. You must keep a watch and let us know when it appears to be clearing.”

She frowned.

“But where are we going?”

“To the north, to the kingdom of the old Cruithne. Did I not tell you that he watches, even in this place? When we enter the land of the Picts news of our coming will fly before us. You will see.”

As they cut poles for the litter, Doireann lay with the child in her arms, the sheepskin covered warmly with the mantle from Calum’s dead servant. The infant made an angry, creaking noise, its red face compressed and indignant. She fumbled with her free hand to pull down the neck of her dress and put him to the breast. He rooted about, and then a tiny mouth opened in the wrinkled face, the pink tongue quivering with rage. She struggled with him, wincing at the loudness of his voice in the cold air.

Suddenly the mouth clamped shut on her nipple. She jumped with pain and surprise at the strength of his mouth. It was such a tiny thing to be so strong, so demanding. It was shocking, wrenchingly funny. As she bent her head to the face in the bundle two slits of eyes appeared, filmy, but like blue beads under the puffy lids. They seemed unwaveringly hostile.

“Oh, surely,” she cried, laughing out over the sob in her throat, “oh, surely this is the joke which fate has played on us all!”

9

By the light of the aging day the small procession ascended the slopes of the mountains to the north of Lorne. The two Picts bearing the litter with the girl and her child, with the pony following behind, saw the crest of the range before them, broad-based, jagged, seemingly

unbroken by any pass through which they might escape. Here were also valleys ringed by mountains, wide-floored and deep with snow, puddled with ice-rimmed lakes. The going was treacherous, and the small men hurried through the glens, taking advantage of each hollow or shield of trees to hide them from the eyes of pursuers. The desolation of the country and the monumental sweep of the mountains showed no signs of game nor forage for the beast, and they were uneasy for their rumbling bellies.

They waded streams barefooted, for the cold would freeze their boots at once if they wet them, and the thin air made them gasp with the effort of the burden they carried. With these hardships, and fearing the quick fading of the light in the mountains once the sun fell behind the peaks, they made their way slowly to the north. The Picts sweated freely for all the cold that seeped into their bodies and raw lungs; they were pressing hard for the haven they would find in the kingdom of the Cruithne.

From time to time Barra studied the sky anxiously for a change in the weather which would force them to seek shelter. At Loch Leven there was a house of the Culdee brothers where they might ask sanctuary. The thought was a tempting one, but Barra was fearful of the monks’ questions and the possibility that there might be a kinsman of the macDumhnulls among them.

The woman lay snug in the litter, sleeping deeply as they traveled, the child in the crook of her arm. Barra was glad to see she did not waken despite the rough swaying, and that she did not ask for food or water. There was little to spare. When they rested he covered her against the cold as best he could with branches of evergreens.

It was in one of these moments, as they squatted tiredly in a high pass, that he revealed some of his thoughts to the younger man. Ildri was kneading the stiffened muscles of his arms gingerly.

“From some high point near this place we should see the head of Bideann nam Biann, the highest of the peaks before Ben Nevis,” Barra told him. “To the east of there is a place I have heard of where no one will come to seek us out. We must stop and hide and let those who follow think that we have passed on before them, perhaps to perish in the cold.”

Ildri knitted his brows.

“This would be a good plan, but where will we find such shelter?” Barra gazed over the other’s head in order not to betray his anxiety.

“This place I have in mind will afford us shelter for as long as we want.” As he spoke his determination crystallized and the words were easier for him. “Now that the snow no longer fills our tracks we are like the roe at the mercy of the trailing hunter. Since we cannot travel swiftly then we must be guileful in order to avoid capture.”

“As we traveled,” Ildri said abruptly, “I had time to think upon the King of the Picts and the greeting he will give us when he sees us bringing the Viking’s child.” “This is a matter which does not concern us. Our duty is to bring his kinswoman to him alive. If you must occupy your great mind with worries,
consider what is in store for us if she dies.”

“Is there any reason why she should die?” Barra did not look at him.

“No more reason than we all should die, and there is cause yet for our deaths in these mountains.”

“I have been alone in many snows as deep or deeper than this,” the younger man said boastfully. “While once I hunted in the mountains of Crioch, a great storm came upon me…”

“Spare me,” Barra said crossly.

“Of course it is different now that we carry the woman and the child. They cannot live as the hunter lives. They should have warmth and food, and I have
not even seen game since we entered these alleys. I think the living things have departed from this country and it is the haunt of the sidhe.”

“See if your legs can work as hard as your mouth,” Barra said, standing up, “and we will be in this place I speak of before the dark.”

In a high pass marked by traces of an overgrown footpath they saw the towering head of Bideann nam Biann, the mountain in the north. Before them was a slope which went down to the valley floor, the latter as flat as any plain of the east coast, bare of trees and smooth with the fall of snow. At the far end of the vale a large lake gleamed dull gray. The whole was encompassed by a ring of hills dotted with the winter-bare branches of oaks. It would have been a pleasant scene in summer, the broad glen filled with the tall waving grass which now showed only struggling stalks through the sheet of snow. The air was crisp and silent, as unbroken as the expanse before them.

Ildri was puzzled.

“Is that a village I see upon the lake?” “It is a crannog, an island dwelling.”

“But why is it so silent here?” He twisted his head about anxiously. “There is a strange smell in this glen.”

Barra shoved the litter against his backside roughly.

“Move your feet. And when we descend keep to the wooded slopes so that we make no mark upon the snow in the vale. The crannog is our destination.” They skirted the trees of the hillsides and the sun sank behind them, casting shadows in their footsteps. Above, the peaks gleamed gold and white like beacons in the darkening sky.

They reached the reed-fringed shore of the lake.

“There is some enchantment upon this lake village,” Ildri called to him. “See, here is a coracle among the weeds and yet no smoke rises from the huts to welcome us. What name does this place have?”

“It has no name,” Barra lied. As he gazed out at the island he had an almost overwhelming sense of foreboding. He alone was responsible for the decision which brought them here.

In the twilight the village looked as though it stood upon a natural island, which was deceptive. Each foot of the island had been transported to the lake’s center by men’s hands. There had been a warlike tribe of Scots here once, and to defend themselves they had taken the ancient pattern of the lake village from those the Celts had once built in the lakes of Europe. It had taken months of labor to float the oak piles and brush mats to be sunk in the lake’s center, much labor to work the beams down among the fogs which would hold them in place. Many days and many tons of earth until the foundations
were covered and ready for the final turfing. A palisade of stakes around the water’s edge made attack most difficult.

The crannog was not large. There was room for less than twenty huts, but it was solidly constructed and offered safety and shelter to those who stood on the shore.

Barra inspected the coracle in the weeds. It was old and leaky, but it would not be required to go far.

“Wait here,” he told Ildri. “I will cross to the crannog and see what is to be seen.”

He was worried. He put the wicker craft across the gray waters with anxious thoughts that while he was gone Ildri would remember the tales of this village. He hoped the other man would not flee and leave him to take the girl to Inverness as best he could. Ildri must stay with him, if only because his own heart beat wildly at the sight of the silent huts before him, and only his desperation bent his arms to the paddle.