Seer of Sevenwaters Page 23

  His eyes have narrowed. “What do you mean?” he asks, his tone quite different.

  I do not answer, for across the garden someone else is approaching: Knut, tight-jawed, striding fast. As he comes up to us, Johnny emerges from the infirmary.

  Knut’s ice-blue gaze sweeps over us, pausing on the box, which is now closed and strapped. “Look for wife,” he explains. “You see her?”

  “No,” says Cathal.

  “Svala’s not here,” adds Johnny.

  Knut looks at me. “None of us has seen her,” I say in Norse. There is an unspoken question on his face. He’s been shown this box before; he knows what it holds. He’s seen me with Cathal. His eyes ask: What have you told, ill luck man? He turns on his heel and leaves.

  I see the jetty at Ulfricsfjord, men loading supplies, the crew readying the vessel to sail. One of them has Knut’s face. Paul is keeping guard over the box that holds the gifts and the chest with its cargo of silver pieces. Colm is excited, his gaze going everywhere, his enthusiasm spreading to the rest of them, even the weathered Norse crewmen. The others tease him, saying he’ll be sure to meet a buxom Norse girl and achieve another first along the way. A girl. A woman. But not on the ship, because there are no women on Freyja. A crew of Norse sailors, a party of Irish courtiers, and with them a pair of brothers, Breizhiz both.

  I’m on the verge of saying it to Johnny and Cathal. This woman, Svala—she was not on the ship when it left Ulfricsfjord. What the significance of that is, I have no idea, but the need to tell is strong in me. My memory of Knut’s eyes stops my tongue. There is peril in that last, lost memory. In this moment I understand what Cathal is feeling, the turmoil that has led him to threaten me. Misery washes through me. I look up at Johnny, and he looks back at me. A strong, clever, just man; a true leader. A man who would listen, I think, if I told the truth. But what good is an incomplete truth, one in which the missing piece might place them all in peril, the wife and child for whom Cathal so fears, generous Gull, and Sibeal, most precious of all?

  “I want to leave the island,” I tell Johnny. “The moment I can fend for myself, you must send me away.”

  ~Sibeal~

  I would tell Ardal about Svala’s vision first. He might interpret it as something cryptic, needing scholarly consideration. After all, the scene had been like something from an ancient story, with its lonely isle, its massive seas, its fearsome monster and desperate men. But perhaps Ardal would tell me it was true. Perhaps he would remember.

  I walked briskly back to the settlement. As I passed the dining hall, the door opened and Clodagh stuck her head out. “Sibeal! Come in here!”

  Inside, I was somewhat surprised to see Muirrin seated in the kitchen corner with a cup of mead before her on the table and her cheeks flushed a becoming shade of pink. Biddy sat beside her, and Brenna opposite. “What’s this?” I asked, seating myself beside Brenna and accepting the mead I was offered. Muirrin was hardly seen outside the infirmary during the day, and for a moment I had been concerned that some misfortune had occurred, another disaster for which the community could blame the ill luck man. But there were smiles all around.

  “Tell her, Muirrin,” said Clodagh.

  “Tell me what?”

  My eldest sister looked at me across the table. I saw the joy that lit her eyes, and guessed the news before she spoke. “Sibeal, I’m expecting a child. At last! I thought it would never happen, and now . . . ” She had tears in her eyes.

  “Oh, Muirrin, that’s wonderful. Congratulations.” I went around the table to embrace her, thinking how far my mind had drifted, these last years, from the concerns of hearth and home. I had never considered it unusual that after more than six years of marriage Muirrin and Evan had no children. It had not occurred to me that they might have wanted them, perhaps badly, and have faced the possibility of never being parents. I had simply thought of them as healers, dedicated to their profession.

  “I’ve suspected it for a while,” Muirrin said, “but I didn’t tell anyone except Evan, because . . . well, we’ve been disappointed before, thinking I was with child and then . . . But I’m sure now. I even have a little belly—look.”

  Muirrin was a small, slender woman, like all of us sisters. Under the practical homespun of her gown, her stomach was indeed very slightly rounded. Even I knew this meant her pregnancy was a fair way on, three turnings of the moon or four. Looking at Clodagh, whose form currently resembled that of a very ripe fruit, I felt a deep shiver of unease. The dreams, the visions, the murmurings among the islanders . . . Gods, keep my sisters safe, I prayed. Let their children be born whole and healthy.

  “We’re all taking the afternoon off work, even Muirrin,” Clodagh said. “We’re going to find a nice corner in the sun and sit there doing absolutely nothing. You, too, Sibeal.”

  A protest was on my lips, but I held it back. I had never seen that look on Muirrin’s face before, save perhaps when she told us Evan had asked her to be his wife. Her happiness was a gift of great worth, and I would do nothing at all to spoil it. “Biddy, you’ll be a grandmother again!” I said. Clem and Annie had three children, Sam and Brenna one.

  Biddy’s amiable features were pink with pleasure. “And that man of mine will be a grandfather,” she said. “Not that he doesn’t think of my lads as his own, of course. But this is different.”

  Evan was the only one of Biddy’s three sons who had been fathered by Gull. Sam and Clem were the offspring of her first husband. It was easy to imagine Gull as grandfather to a tiny child. I saw him singing songs; telling tales; holding a small hand in his big, maimed one and leading his grandson down to the shore to watch the boats come in. Yes, it was a boy I saw: a curly-headed mite with almond skin and mischievous dark eyes. A sturdy, healthy child. I remembered my vision of Clodagh’s infant, tiny and frail, naked in the forest, and suppressed a shiver. “Has Gull heard the news?” I asked.

  “Muirrin told him earlier,” Biddy said. “He needs time to come to terms with such tidings, welcome as they are. Brings back the past, you see. He doesn’t talk about it, but a long time ago, years before he and I were wed, he lost his whole family, mother and father, sisters and brothers, wife and children, all slain by raiders. He’d have done away with himself, but for the Chief’s intervention. Gull’s content here. He loves the family he has now. But that sort of thing never goes away. The shadow lingers. He’ll look at his new grandchild and see the babes he lost.” I saw a trace of that shadow on her own face, and wondered how many times she had gentled Gull through his nightmares.

  The apple grove would have been a good place to sit and talk, but Clodagh could not manage such a long walk today. The baby had shifted and was pressing down awkwardly, her back was aching, and between her discomfort and Cathal’s dreams, she was short of sleep.

  “Not the kitchen garden,” said Brenna firmly. “If Muirrin’s in sight of the infirmary she’ll be wanting to go back up there and start brewing something. Nowhere near the work room, or Clodagh won’t be able to keep her hands off the loom. I don’t know what it is with you Sevenwaters girls, but you seem to like being constantly busy.”

  “It’s our mother’s influence,” Clodagh said. “She never was comfortable with idleness. Why don’t we go to that sheltered area out the back of the married quarters?”

  “Take some of those oatcakes with you,” said Biddy, who evidently did not plan to come with us. “And a bit of cheese. Sibeal, I’ll give you a basket.”

  It was no surprise to me that Clodagh went to her chamber and fetched her embroidery, so she would have something to do while we talked. She was working a border on a tiny tunic, fronds of seaweed and curious goggle-eyed fish. “You won’t have to sew a stitch for your baby,” she told Muirrin with a smile, settling on one of the two wooden benches placed in this sunny corner. The wall of the married quarters screened us from one side, and a lone blackthorn from the other. “Everything I’ve made for mine can be handed on.”

  “Just as well,” Muirrin
said wryly. “I may be able to stitch a wound, but I doubt if I’d be up to such delicate work as that. My infant will be proud to wear your handiwork, Clodagh.”

  “I’ve already passed Fergal’s smallest garments on to Annie’s youngest,” Brenna put in. “He’s grown apace. Takes after his father.”

  “Where is Fergal this afternoon?” I asked idly.

  “With a clutch of other children, under Alba’s care. By the time she settles down and has a child of her own, she’ll be expert.” Brenna’s tone changed. “It shocks me to think Alba liked that fellow, Rodan, gods rest his spirit. I saw through him the moment he tried to worm his way into Suanach’s favor. According to her, Rodan assumed she’d be ready to open her legs as soon as he asked her.” She glanced at me. “I hope I don’t offend you, Sibeal. We women can be rather frank in our discussion when there are no men around to hear us.”

  “Rodan must have thought himself irresistible.” Clodagh stabbed her needle into the linen with more force than was strictly necessary. “No sooner did he get a refusal from Suanach than he was trying again with Flidais. We should not speak ill of the dead, of course. But I’ll be happy when these Connacht men are gone. It hasn’t been a good time. There’s unrest everywhere.”

  The seed of an idea had started to grow in my mind, and I did not like it much at all. Svala naked on the shore, playing with sand as if she were a child. Something half-seen in the bushes on the cliff top. I had dismissed my thoughts of a watcher. Svala earlier today, on the cliff’s edge. My heart tightened. I must be wrong. Surely I must be wrong. “Brenna,” I asked, “do you think it was true, what the Connacht men seemed to be saying about Rodan at the time of the burial, that he didn’t care much whether a woman was married or single? That if he was attracted to her he’d approach her anyway?”

  Three pairs of startled eyes turned in my direction; nobody had expected such a question from me.

  “I heard a few remarks along those lines,” Brenna said. “Flidais was of the opinion that it was her husband’s identity that put Rodan off, rather than the fact of her being wed in the first place. Nobody in his right mind would want to get on the wrong side of Rat. Why would you ask such a thing, Sibeal?”

  “I had a strange encounter with Svala today and I was just thinking . . . I was wondering if Rodan might ever have tried to . . . ”

  Brenna looked at Clodagh who said, “Anyone who made advances to Svala would have Knut to contend with. Everyone’s seen how Knut can fight. And everyone knows he’s very proud of his handsome wife, unusual woman that she is. According to Cathal, Knut talks about her in a way that makes some of the men quite jealous. He almost brags about her.”

  “She’s the kind of woman men lust after,” Brenna said. “What fellow’s going to care if she’s a few stalks short of the full haystack, when she’s built like the goddess of love?”

  “Sibeal,” said Muirrin, “you can’t be suggesting Knut had something to do with Rodan’s death.”

  “Not exactly, but—”

  “Even if Rodan did take advantage of Svala,” said Clodagh, “and I don’t suppose we’ll ever know if that’s so, Knut couldn’t be responsible for his death. Rodan went missing during the morning’s combat session. Knut was present the entire time.”

  But Svala wasn’t. My mind showed me that magnificent figure on the cliff’s edge, spreading her arms to the wind, hair like a wild banner, eyes bright with . . . vindication? It was all too easy to reshape that scene into one where Rodan, drawn to the place by desire for a woman who was, without a doubt, the best prize on the island, met her, embraced her, felt the sudden pressure of her strong hands and found himself falling, falling to oblivion on the rocks below.

  “What are you thinking, Sibeal?”

  I would not say it. There was no proof. Svala was mute and Rodan was dead. We would never know what had happened. That did not stop my mind from showing me Svala with her arms around Rodan, offering him her mouth. An instant’s distraction, that’s all it would have taken, and he would have been over the edge. I remembered the day when she had shared her fish, and the moment when I had thought she was going to drown me. “I’m thinking about Svala,” I said. “I spent some time with her this morning, at the seer’s cave, and she told me a very strange story.”

  “Told you?” said Clodagh. “You mean she finally spoke?”

  “Not told in words. She showed me, in a vision.” I had not intended to tell them the story but suddenly I needed to get it out. Rodan was gone; it was too late for his tale to be told. That made it all the more important to share the other, stranger story. “In the cave, with Svala, I believe I saw images that came from her mind, not mine,” I told them. “I couldn’t tell if it was a true vision of something that had happened to her or more of a . . . myth. It was frightening. And odd, almost like a dream. Svala became quite distraught when I didn’t understand properly. One thing I am sure of: she’s desperate to leave Inis Eala. She wants to go home. And home seems to be . . . somewhere impossible.”

  “Tell us,” Brenna said, moving closer.

  I related the tale as best I could: the brutal storm, the stark rocky island, the cliffs, the narrow passage. The relief on coming through to safe water, and then the monster. “A sea serpent or water dragon,” I said. “It reared out of the waves and put its claw right through a man’s chest. I wonder now if it was there earlier, harrying the ship forward through the gap so the men would be trapped in the bay.”

  My audience of three had been captured by the dramatic tale.

  “You mean it was . . . fishing.” Brenna’s tone was hushed.

  “Sibeal, it sounds more like an old tale than anything,” said Clodagh. “I can imagine such a story as part of the adventures of Cú Chulainn or another hero. You’re sure this ship was the same one that was wrecked on the reef here? The one that brought Svala and Knut to Inis Eala?”

  “I think so. A substantial ship, with a hold for cargo and the capacity to go by sail or oars.” I wished now that I had paid more attention to details. “But they weren’t under sail. There were men rowing, a lot of men. Knut was one of them. When the storm drove them close to the rocks they panicked and lost control. Ardal’s brother—the man I think was his brother—kept his head and started shouting orders. He maneuvered them through the gap. After the monster attacked he managed to get them in to shore.”

  “And then what?” asked Clodagh with some eagerness.

  “I don’t know. It finished there. A vision doesn’t always show the whole story, or even the true story.”

  Muirrin had listened in silence. A frown of concentration creased her brow. “And Svala showed you this,” she said.

  “I don’t know whether she has the ability to scry and to share her vision. Perhaps the feelings she had pent up inside her were so powerful that they took control over what appeared in the water. I’m certain those images came from her.”

  “I thought she was sad because of what she lost when the ship foundered,” Brenna said. “Her child in particular.”

  “You mentioned Knut and Ardal,” Muirrin said. “What about her? Was Svala in the vision?”

  “I didn’t see her. But it was a big ship. I suppose the women and children might have been down in the hold for safety.” I could hardly imagine how terrifying that would be, below deck, buffeted by wind and waves, listening to the men’s panicked screams as they lost control of the oars.

  “If she’d been in the hold she wouldn’t have seen what happened,” Clodagh pointed out.

  “True. But visions don’t usually show a picture of something just as it was. They are not the same as memories. Perhaps that was what she thought I needed to see.”

  “What did you mean, Sibeal, about Svala wanting to go home?” asked Muirrin. “What has that to do with this vision?”

  “She couldn’t tell me, of course. But I felt what was in her heart.” The power of Svala’s yearning was still with me. “She wants to go back to that place. I’m sure she was tryi
ng to tell me that inhospitable island is home.”

  There was a lengthy silence.

  “That’s crazy,” Brenna said eventually. “It makes no sense. Who’d live out in the middle of the ocean on a rock? With sea monsters on the doorstep?”

  “It seems unlikely,” said Clodagh. “The ship came from Ulfricsfjord, headed for the Orcades. That’s a well-traveled sea path. Traders use it all the time. If such an island lay between Ulfricsfjord and the north coast of Erin, we’d know about it. If a giant sea serpent lurked there, there’d be a hundred tales of it.”

  I was starting to think I should have talked to Johnny before I aired any of this before others, even if those others were the trusted women of my family. “What if they were not going to the Orcades when the ship hit our reef,” I suggested, “but coming back?”

  Everyone looked at me as they digested this.

  “You mean Knut lied to Johnny?” Clodagh said, brows up.

  “Svala was quite sure the island lay due north of here. It isn’t between Ulfricsfjord and Inis Eala.”

  “Why lie about something like that?” asked Brenna. “A storm, a monster, nearly losing the ship—Knut would have spilled out everything.”

  I was still considering sea paths. “There’s another possibility. If they were heading to the Orcades and had already traveled quite a distance to the northeast, past Dalriada, and were driven off course by the storm, they could have ended up due north of here. Perhaps the ship was damaged. Perhaps they lost so many men they gave up the original plan. They might have turned back and made for the nearest land. That would have brought them straight to Inis Eala.”