Éire’s Captive Moon (23 page)

“But his eyes!” the older, demanding man reminded him. “What about his eyes!”

“The damage will not be permanent. Eir, I need you to take the herb out and rub it into my face.”

“Cowan? It was only thyme! It won’t hurt you.”

He sighed and offered her a small smile before replying in their tongue. “
Isea
, lass, it will. Thyme makes my skin turn to fire. But this way, they will see that it was not a curse, but just bad luck.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Tell them that, Healer. Tell them now!” he insisted.

He saw her throw her shoulders back and meet Agnarr’s now-curious gaze. “I don’t want to hurt Cowan. But I must, to show you. Will you believe me then?” She sounded so sincere, and Cowan wondered briefly if her antagonism toward her captor was undergoing a significant change.

Agnarr nodded once. “Yes, and you will use this herb on me as well.”

She bit her lip. “I will, but it is just an herb, Agnarr.”

“If you did not curse him, then it will not hurt me,” the man declared, as if he knew what he was talking about.

Charis turned to Cowan again, and he was surprised to see the worry in her pale gray eyes. “Come, then, Cowan.”

He approached her, his burden still on his back because he knew he would not wish to put it on again after having the thyme rubbed onto his skin. “Where was Bran touched with it?” he asked.

“His eyes.”

“Then do my face. Not my eyes,” he added, with a smile meant to relax her if possible, “but my cheeks.”

She hesitated but pulled out a package from her apron. The men nearby, except Agnarr and Tuirgeis, drew back, making signs against evil spirits with their hands. Cowan had seen many variations of such things in his travels with Tuirgeis. Charis whispered, “I don’t know why you want me to do this.”

“Because I want to help you,” he told her, also in a whisper.

She took a deep breath, sprinkled the thyme into her palm and rubbed his cheek with it.

Cowan clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut. Fire. Agony. Hot knives. He hissed involuntarily against the pain, waiting for it to subside. He was
not
going to claw at that burning cheek. It would only spread the herb and make it worse. But the pain was dreadful.

He finally conquered it enough that he could open his eyes again and try to breathe more normally. “I am not cursed,” he rasped, meeting the eyes of all the men there. “I am unlucky with this herb, but you all eat it in your meats and stews and you are not cursed, are you? The monk is unlucky as well.”

Agnarr peered closely at his face. “This has happened to you before, Kingson.” It was a statement, and Cowan nodded. “So you knew it would do this to you and it will go away?” Again Cowan nodded. Agnarr turned to Charis. “Eir, do this to me. On my arm, here,” he said, indicating the skin of his inner left forearm. “I would see if I, too, am unlucky.”

“If you are,” the healer cautioned, “I want you to know it is not because I wish to hurt you.”

Agnarr laughed—a dry, hard sound. “Eir, you do wish me ill, I know that. You would not do so now. My warriors surround you. But go ahead. I am holding judgment until we know if Bran’s eyes are damaged permanently.”

Charis shook her head but she rubbed the thyme on Agnarr’s arm. Cowan saw this, and prayed to the One True God that Agnarr was not unlucky, too.

The men all moved closer to see that Agnarr’s arm was unaffected. “See! It is not the herb, it is the man who is the problem,” Agnarr announced in a loud voice. “The healer spoke in her own tongue—which I now forbid her to do in company of the
Ostmen
—but she did not cause the damage reported, I judge. If he is not better in a week, we will take it to the elders for judgment.”

The warriors relaxed, shuffled their feet on the earth, and made agreeable noises among themselves.

Then Tuirgeis gathered their attention with an upraised arm. “Enough! We have wasted time here when an army is on the way.”

“Vigaldr?” Agnarr asked. It was merely a confirmation, for it was plain to see that the news did not surprise anyone. Even Charis nodded in understanding.

“
Ja
. So come. Tell me of the plans for defense and I will tell you why I have come overland. I have been asking other villages and have discovered that Vigaldr must be stopped here, in Balestrand, lest he take over the land around the whole
fjørd
.”

Agnarr straightened and drew his sword from his back-sheath. “He shall be stopped, Tuirgeis. I swear it.”
 

Chapter 17

Cowan insinuated himself next to the healer for the walk back to Balestrand. Ignoring the pain on his face, he walked steadily. “So, lass, I don’t suppose you have anything to make this feel better?” he asked, gesturing to his inflamed cheek.

She slowed to match his pace, and the Northmen moved ahead of them. Agnarr glanced back once over his shoulder, but since he didn’t indicate his healer should join them, Cowan felt that their “visit” was acceptable to the blond warrior.

Charis had noted the same thing. “Lord Tuirgeis doesn’t mind that you are hurt?”

“
Na
,” he said, speaking in
Gaeilge
. “He is pleased with me.”

The healer paused to eye the injury sustained on her behalf. “I have something soothing, yes, but I’d need to boil it in water before placing it on your face. Then you’d have to lie still for a time, Cowan.” Her steps resumed, but more slowly.

“Ah,” he said, letting out an exaggerated, but quiet, sigh. “Well, then, I don’t suppose it’ll feel better any time soon.”

“No. Lord Tuirgeis said that a battle is coming?”

“Yes.” Cowan thought for a moment and then asked, “Do you plan on being in the middle of it?”

The healer cocked her head, but her steps never faltered. “I’m a healer. I must be there. I’ve been trained,” she went on, sounding rebellious. “I can fight.”

Cowan hastened to respond. “I am sure you can. But—I’ll worry about you.”

He had no idea why, but suddenly, Charis’s usual composure snapped. A guttural sob escaped from her throat and Cowan stopped, though the others were getting farther ahead with almost every step. “Charis, lass, what is it?”

She shook her hair, the heavy, white-blond braid escaping from her head covering so that it snaked down in a line between her breasts. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

That was an obvious untruth, so Cowan pressed. “What is it?”

She gasped for a ragged breath. “It was my fault. I can’t really fight. I—it was my fault, Cowan! I killed them! I shouldn’t have been there.”
 

He understood. Cowan gently tilted her face up to meet his. “You said on the ship that Agnarr killed them.”

“They were worried about me and wanted me to hide, and I didn’t. I should have, because I killed them!”

“Kingson! Eir!”

Cowan hitched his pack on his shoulder and then—just because she seemed to temporarily need the support—he wrapped his free left arm around Charis’s back as they hurried to catch up to the Northmen.

“Hear me,” he murmured, with barely enough sound to reach her ears. “I will worry for you, yes, but I think that you should do whatever is right for you to do.”

“Hear
me
,” she snapped back as quickly as the gathering winds, as if she had known what he would say. “I won’t have you worrying over me. I just don’t want any more of my people to die.”

“And I’m ‘your people’?” he asked, pleased to think that might be.

She slid him a look that was naked in its total honesty.

“Cowan, son of Branieucc, you’re the only one of my people that I know for sure still lives.” Before he could respond, she sighed and picked up her pace to gain on the marching Northmen. “I have to get back to my people, Cowan. I owe them that.”

The remainder of the trek back to the village was quiet. Cowan felt Charis’s pale eyes on him, measuring him for something.

“What is it?” he finally asked as they came within shouting distance of the village gates. “My face?” It still burned, but not as strongly.

“
Na
, Cowan. I am just searching for—looking for—a sign of home. I—I’ve missed it.”

“So have I,” he confessed quietly. “And you, Healer. I’ve missed you.”

A faint color wafted under her skin for a heartbeat. “Well, don’t you go after getting yourself wounded, even so. You’d see more of me then than you’re likely to want.”

Darkness brushed over the land slowly, tempered by the dark gray clouds that preceded snowfall. Agnarr cast a wary eye to the sky and grabbed at Thor’s talisman that he always wore around his neck to a battle or on a raid. The iron hammers crossed on his chest and he felt them dig into his palm as he gripped the emblem and prayed to The Thunderer. The god of the storms would protect him. Even if he did not have his iron helm any longer.

“Yes, I hit it with my spear,” his medicine woman had reminded him. “What good did your god do you, if he couldn’t keep your head covered when you raided my village?”

Agnarr had retorted, “What good do your herbs do you if you can’t have children?” She had gone very still when he’d said so and, knowing that she couldn’t prevent his words, even if she could somehow prevent his striking her, he had pressed on. “Are you using them to keep from getting pregnant, Eir? Is that why you are childless?”

He had stalked out of his home shortly after that, but had the bleak satisfaction of knowing he’d hit close to her heart anyway. It was only fair, since she had taken his god-blessed helm from him.

Now he was preparing to defend his home against usurpers who would kick them out, enslave them, or destroy their village in an effort to control their excellent harborage here at Balestrand. He saw seasoned warriors examining their shields by firelight, their weapons sharp and ready for battle. Some would be standing watch tonight, and were already patrolling the northern edges of their fields. Some had brought the sheep inside the boundaries of the village to prevent the raiders from stealing them.

Agnarr was struck then by a totally unwelcome thought: what they had done to Eir’s village—and others—was no less than what Vigaldr and his men were planning for Balestrand. The sheer outrage he felt at the pending attack had doubtless been felt by Eir herself—and her kin—on the Green Island.
 

A strange churning began in his stomach, but Agnarr attempted to ignore it. There was a battle to fight, and he damned the dark for making him doubt himself.

Magda approached at this inauspicious moment. Her dark hair was loose over a heavy red wrap, and she was carrying a steaming mug in her hands. “For you, Agnarr. It is something to keep you warm.”

Agnarr took the wooden cup with one hand and studied her. “Thank you, Elsdottir. I appreciate the thought. It is warm. Your father is ready for the battle?”

She turned to indicate where Els was mending his shield in the orange light of a fire nearest to their longhouse. “Yes. He’s determined to uphold the family honor. I would fight if I could,” she said, her voice trailing away to invite his comments.

He refused to oblige her, for a battle was not a place to cater to a female’s pride. “You would do better to stay with the children and keep them safe,” he told her.

His betrothed bristled. “I saw that your, your
leman
is going to fight!” she snapped back. “She will not have to stay with the children! I am not a child, Agnarr Halvardson!”

The tea was cooling fast, just as the night was. Snow was starting again, in light, feathery bits that drifted over the fence and melted in the air over the fires. In the northern distance, he could see a faint light in the air as Vigaldr’s invaders approached. Agnarr finished the tea and gave his attention to Magda again, choosing his words carefully. He did not love the young woman he would marry, but he did owe her his faith and honor. “I know you’re not a child, Magda. I know. But you, I would see protected. My slave is not a freewoman and has no other value beyond her skills with herbs and surgery.”

“So she is allowed to fight and I must hide?” Impatient, Agnarr thrust the empty mug back at her.

“She will perform her function, Elsdottir. As you will perform yours. Now and once we are wed. Cease this arguing, woman. See to your father. He might permit your temper, but I tell you, I will not.”