Seer of Sevenwaters Page 31

  “Sibeal,” he went on, “I believe in you, I believe in your capacity to guide this. Who else can interpret for Svala? Who else can hear the voices of the gods? I understand why it is important for you to come on the voyage. The runes do not lie. If you were a stranger to me, I suppose I would think what most of the island folk will think: that you cannot possibly have the strength to endure such a mission. The people of Inis Eala know you are strong in spirit, wise beyond your years. They also saw you faint away this morning. They see how slight you are, how delicately made. How could they imagine you on a ship sailing through mountainous seas toward an isle of myths and monsters?”

  “I know that, Felix,” I said. “But I don’t need to convince the entire population of Inis Eala that I’m more than a helpless young girl. I only need to convince one person: Johnny.”

  Felix did not reply, simply sat there looking at me.

  “Go on, then. Say it, whatever it is.”

  He cleared his throat. “Sibeal, I do not want you to come on the voyage.”

  It hit me like the punch of a hard fist. Any trace of druidic calm left me; I felt winded. “What?” I said, springing to my feet.

  “Sibeal, I speak not as the man who shared that runic divination, but as the man who held you in his arms only a heartbeat ago. The mission is too perilous. You should not go.” He reached to take my hands again, but I folded my arms. My heart had become a cold stone.

  “How can you say that?” It was not the voice of a serene druid, but the shaky tone of the vulnerable girl who fainted when overwhelmed; the quivering voice of the young woman who had melted in his arms a few moments ago. I was losing myself. This could not be allowed to happen.

  “Sibeal, let me explain, please. All I am trying to do is be honest with you, but . . . ”

  “But what, Felix?”

  “You’re angry. I have upset you.”

  “I thought you believed in me. I thought you were the one person who trusted me completely. I thought you saw my strength and not my weakness.” Oh gods, now I was crying. “I thought you understood.”

  “Oh, Sibeal.” He reached up to brush the tears from my cheek, and I shut my eyes, unable to bear the naked feeling on his face. There was such tenderness in his touch, I could not armor my heart against it. I knew I should step away, but my feet refused to move. “Sibeal, please listen. I believe in you. I know why you must come on the voyage. If you wish, I will support you when you speak to Johnny. But . . . now that it seems this journey might be real, that we might actually go there and find them, I cannot stop thinking of what might happen to you. If you were killed, if I lost you, I think my heart would break. I weigh it up—your death against the rescue of the men we left—and I begin to doubt the wisdom of the mission. I cannot doubt. I must do this for Paul.”

  My eyes were open now. “Oh, Felix,” I said, and I put my hand against his cheek. “Don’t think that. Don’t doubt.” His hand came over mine. “Besides,” I made myself say, “I’m destined for a future in the nemetons. We’ll be saying goodbye at the end of summer, whatever happens.”

  Felix closed his eyes. His voice was so quiet, he might have been speaking for himself alone. “That makes no difference,” he said. “It cannot alter what I feel.”

  And despite myself, I knew this for the deepest kind of truth; for the same conviction had awoken in my own heart. “I know,” I murmured. “And I’m sorry.” Sorry for you. Sorry for myself; oh, so sorry.

  “Sorry that you met me?” Felix was trying for a smile, without much success. “Or sorry that we must risk our lives together, for a mission with such small likelihood of success?”

  “I will never be sorry that I met you, Felix. It was . . . a privilege. A gift. As for the mission, I trust the gods. They’ve shown us we can achieve this if we are brave enough. And we can be very brave, the two of us. The day you were washed up on the shore here, we proved that.”

  “You are brave, Sibeal. I, not quite so courageous. Twice you have saved my life, once on the shore and once last night, with your . . . diversion. I hope I can be brave enough to take you into danger and still act with balance and wisdom. I hope my terror for you does not paralyze me.”

  “When I was a little girl,” I told him, swallowing tears, “sometimes my sisters would tell me I did too much thinking, when I should have been running about and climbing trees. Right now, we’re probably both doing too much thinking. If we trust each other, we’ll get through this. Other considerations don’t matter.”

  Someone was coming; I heard footsteps outside and the rattle of the back door.

  “Sibeal?” Felix murmured.

  “Mm?” My fingers brushed his cheek, moved away.

  “You have shown me both your strength and your weakness,” he said. “That, too, was a privilege. It was a gift of great worth. More than I deserve.”

  Then, as Muirrin came in carrying a basket, with Evan close behind, Felix stood up and moved away, and I turned my back, finding myself quite unable to enter into an ordinary conversation. Feeling the opposite of brave, I mumbled something about the bathhouse, headed out the front door and fled.

  I allowed myself the luxury of a long soak. Clodagh washed my hair for me and lent me fresh clothing, a skirt and tunic of her own weave in two shades of green. She did not ask if I had been crying. Indeed, she seemed unusually distracted, and not in the mood for talk. When I was clean and tidy I went out walking. I would talk to Johnny when I came back. Fang was still down on the jetty. Not far from her, two lads were fishing with hand lines. As I watched, one of the boys threw a small fish, and the dog caught it with the ease of long practice. Fang would not starve before her beloved Snake came home.

  On the cliff path, halfway to the north point, I found Cathal sitting on the rocks looking out to sea. With his dark cloak wrapped around him and his black hair lifted off his long face by the afternoon breeze, he looked like a sorrowful prince from an ancient tale. As I came up he shifted over to make room so I could sit beside him. We watched the play of wind and water for a little, and then he said, “They’re alive, Sibeal. At least three of them.”

  Perhaps I should not have been shocked, but I was. “You went to the seer’s cave?”

  Cathal sighed. “There seemed no choice. I can’t let men put their lives at risk over this if it might be a pointless mission. Not when I possess the ability to summon a true vision. Yes, I made use of the scrying pool. I saw the three survivors in a cave, high up among the crags. That isle is a desolate place. They had a few supplies: some kind of large covering that they were using for warmth, one or two other things—I don’t suppose Knut and his friends paused to reload what had been taken from the ship before they put back out to sea. The three I saw were . . . not in good condition. I hope Liadan gets here soon.” A shiver ran through him. “Sibeal, that place is just as it was in my dreams. It makes me wonder who, or what, had the power to bring those dreams to Inis Eala. That’s a remarkable gift, if gift it can be called. Someone has drawn us into the shadow of his own nightmares. Or hers.”

  I considered this awhile. “Do you still think Mac Dara could be involved?” I asked eventually. “It would be a convoluted way of exposing you to danger.”

  “He cannot exert his influence within the borders of Inis Eala,” Cathal said, staring out across the ocean. “He must draw me out. My father is completely unscrupulous. He cares nothing at all for lives lost by the wayside. And he’s easily bored. A sea monster is precisely the sort of detail that would amuse him.”

  “There’s no certainty, is there?” I mused. “You can’t know whether your father is involved unless you leave Inis Eala, and even then you might not be able to tell. He might be manipulating this from far away.”

  “Correct, Sibeal. All of this, everything that has happened, might be entirely unrelated to his struggle with me. I will not summon him to the scrying bowl. To do so would imperil all I hold dear.” He drew a deep breath. “Your friend will be relieved to hear that some, at l
east, of his comrades still live. He interests me. So weakened by his experiences, clearly no warrior, yet full of courage where this mission is concerned. I misjudged him badly. I believed him an agent of my father. But even my father is not subtle enough to use an agent such as this. Unless he does so without Felix’s knowledge.”

  “Cathal,” I said, not sure if he would listen or snap at me for interfering, “you’re doing what Felix was doing; you’re thinking too much. The mission will go ahead, whether what happened is Mac Dara’s doing or not. Every person on the ship will be there of his own free will. Except for Knut, I suppose, but he brought this on himself. As for your father, he doesn’t want Felix or Svala or me, he wants you. Or your son. You know you can protect Clodagh and the baby. All you need do is stay on Inis Eala.”

  And then there drew out a terrible silence, a silence in which I was the one who was thinking too much, and cringing from what Cathal was not saying.

  “You wouldn’t go,” I said in a horrified whisper. “With Clodagh’s child coming so soon, you wouldn’t even think of being part of this.” But I saw it clearly: the waves, the tide, the monster and Cathal’s particular skill in water magic. His presence on this particular mission might be the difference between success and bitter failure. Between life and death.

  “Go back to the settlement, Sibeal.” Cathal used his most forbidding tone, the one that said with perfect clarity, Leave me alone. “Johnny wants to talk to you.”

  And, since only Clodagh was prepared to stand up to him when he was in this particular mood, I obeyed. I walked back oblivious to my surroundings. How could he consider being part of this? How could he leave, when it almost certainly meant he would not be here for the birth of his first child? I knew some men placed little importance on such things, but Cathal was no ordinary man. He loved my sister with heart and soul. And the child . . . this was the child Mac Dara wanted, the child Cathal’s father would do anything to take for his own. If Cathal left the island he put himself straight into Mac Dara’s path. If he was killed Clodagh and her baby would be all alone. For Cathal to go away was . . .

  Stop it, Sibeal. Do not judge him. If I were choosing the crew for the voyage, whom would I select, a young woman with no sailing skills at all, or a proven warrior, a leader, a superb fighter? A fainting, weeping girl who was starting to lose sight of the druid she purported to be, or a practitioner of powerful water magic? I must not let my emotions get the better of my common sense. Above all, I must banish the feeling of guilt that was rising in me as I imagined first one, then another of my family hurt or killed because I had believed this voyage was the gods’ will. I could not allow myself to be crippled by doubt, for if I lost my faith in this mission, I could not help Felix hold on to his.

  I had been rehearsing what I would say to Johnny, thinking how best to convince him that the will of the gods must overrule his feelings of responsibility toward a young female cousin in his care. I found him in the garden outside the back door of the infirmary, sitting on the bench waiting for me. The sun was dipping down to the west; it touched Johnny’s tired features with a soft gold light. Not that there was much softness about this man. He could be both kind and compassionate. But he was a warrior and a leader, and when it came to difficult choices, he would not waste time. He would make his decision and stand by it.

  Perhaps that was why he did not wait to hear the arguments I had carefully assembled, but spoke before I could even begin.

  “A question for you, Sibeal. Would you agree that if I allow you to go on this voyage, and you are hurt or killed, a wedge will be driven between me and your father that will remain for the rest of our lives?”

  No trivial question, this. Not only were there strong bonds of kinship between us, but Johnny was my father’s heir. If they fell out, the succession at Sevenwaters might once more become fuel for territorial conflict. The next in line, my brother, Finbar, was only four years old.

  “The situation contains sufficient cause for guilt,” I said, “to cripple every one of us. Did you know Cathal was going to the seer’s cave today?”

  “He went of his own choice, not at my bidding. Have you seen him?”

  “He says there are three men still alive on the serpent island. And . . . ” No, I would not say more. Let Cathal tell Johnny what he intended, if my suspicions were proven correct. Let no whisper of it reach Clodagh before Cathal could tell her. “As for your first question,” I said, “before we leave I will write a letter to my mother and father, a letter which I will place in your keeping. I will explain that this is my choice, and that I know it is right.” I imagined my father reading such a letter after being told that I had perished far from home, perhaps devoured by a sea monster, perhaps fallen victim to cold and hunger. “I should think it would cause some bitterness, yes,” I felt obliged to say. “Perhaps not lifelong. My father is a wise and balanced man. In many ways he resembles you. But you have no children, and I think children change a man’s attitudes.”

  Johnny smiled. “It is difficult for any man to send a loved one on such a mission, Sibeal. In this community everyone has learned that lesson over and over. It becomes no easier with time. Despite that, you’ll be interested to hear that I have sufficient volunteers to go ahead with the mission.”

  “Already!” On the same day. In a heartbeat, men had thrown their lives into the balance.

  “They did not need the time I offered them. It’s not unexpected. They were captured by Felix’s tale. They see themselves or their friends in the shoes of those men, clutching onto the last scrap of courage in the face of the impossible. It is the stuff of legend. So . . . ” He gave me a very straight look. “It would seem this is going ahead, provided Liadan is back in time.”

  “She will be.”

  “How can you speak with such certainty?”

  “I feel it, Johnny. I know it. The gods want Felix to accomplish this. They will not let him fail for the lack of a ship.”

  “Your faith impresses me, Sibeal. While I have not quite the same degree of certainty, I feel in my bones that this will happen.”

  “Do you have a leader among your volunteers?”

  “Yes. Gareth.”

  There seemed nothing to say. I’m sorry was not appropriate. Gareth was a seasoned warrior. He was the kind of man who could lead an expedition with calm confidence. Whether or not Johnny wanted him to go, and whether or not Gareth had offered himself because he knew Johnny could not go, was none of my business. “He’ll do a fine job,” I said eventually.

  “Yes.”

  “Johnny, I—”

  “I have a favor to ask of you, Sibeal.”

  I had expected him to tell me, next, that I should leave this crew of professionals to do the job and stay here where I would be safe. “What favor?”

  “I want you to cast the runes again, in my presence. You can have anyone you want there, or just the two of us if you prefer.” When I did not reply, he added, “I don’t doubt that first divination, Sibeal. I know you will always give us the truth. I don’t doubt Cathal’s dreams or his scrying vision or what Svala has communicated to you. I’m asking this because I’m hoping it may shed more light on the situation.”

  “Very well,” I said. “Is there a particular question you would have me pose?”

  “You might ask which weighs heavier in the balance of this venture, salvation or sacrifice.”

  A solemn question indeed. “And if the answer was sacrifice, would you refuse to let me go?” I asked. “You know my first divination suggested the mission could not succeed unless both Felix and I were there.”

  “At the very least,” said Johnny, “the divination will provide some clarity. We’re in sore need of that.”

  Instinct told me Svala should be present when I cast the runes, since these matters affected her so closely. When it was time, I went down to the fisherman’s hut to fetch her. She was sitting not far from her open doorway, on the shore in the fading light, humming to herself and setting out shel
ls in a long, snaking line on the ground. When I gestured that I wanted her to come, she got up and followed me quite willingly.

  All of those I had asked for were there when we reached the garden: Johnny and Gareth, Cathal and Clodagh, Muirrin and Evan, Gull and Biddy. And Felix, whose eyes were on me the moment Svala and I came into the garden. I tried not to look at him. His presence made my heart race. My well-governed thoughts threatened to become a jumble of raw emotion. I must not allow this. A runic divination required calm, control, detachment.

  Johnny had stationed Kalev and Niall further down toward the dining hall, out of earshot but close enough to intercept anyone who might think to interrupt us. I had prepared the ritual area earlier. It was simple: a circle of swept ground, a folded blanket to kneel on, an oil lamp. Gull and Biddy sat on one bench, Clodagh and Muirrin on the other. Evan and Felix were on the back steps; the other men were standing. When she saw how many were gathered, Svala stopped in her tracks.

  “Come,” I said, beckoning. “You are among friends.”

  She came a certain distance but no further. Just beyond the circle of light cast by the lamp, she halted and squatted down, waiting.

  “Good,” I said, giving her a reassuring smile. I hoped she would stay. Perhaps she was already familiar with the runes. Before she found herself on that lonely island she had most likely lived in a Norse community. That race was generally fair of coloring and robust of build, as she was, though Svala’s beauty was something exceptional.

  I had warned everyone that I must take time for preparation. They sat in silence as I knelt down on my blanket and spread out the ritual cloth on the ground. I closed my eyes and moved step by step toward the state in which my mind would be receptive to the gods’ wisdom. There was no rushing this. I slowed my breathing. With a great deal of effort I banished wayward thoughts, making my mind calm. Time passed. In the darkness behind closed lids, I could not disregard what was creeping in from my silent audience. Someone’s mind was working hard, planning, thinking ahead. Someone was edgy, uneasy, wanting a particular answer from the runes. Someone was wracked with indecision. Someone was walking with me down the path, every step of the way; I knew who that was. And someone was suffering an anxiety so strong I could almost touch it. Who was that? Who sat on the edge of the seat, every part tensed in fearful anticipation of the runes’ message? I did not open my eyes. I breathed more slowly still, letting it all pass, and when I was ready I picked up the bag and loosened the tie. For the benefit of the others I posed Johnny’s question aloud.