Éire’s Captive Moon (37 page)

Bjørn groaned from his bed, tried to get up to get to her, but he, too, fell to her herbs.

“Eir . . .” Agnarr rasped, sinking pathetically to his bed bench. “I thought my
wyrd
 . . . I had hoped . . . I didn’t expect this.”

Leaving the people to what could have been their last breaths, Charis had left the house and walked away from them. Forever.

The sun had moved up in the sky before Cowan spoke to her again. Charis’s nerves had been stretched, as if on one of the Northmen’s looms, waiting for him to dare to condemn her for what she had done. He believed in the God of the monks of Bangor. That god did not approve of vengeance unless he ordered it, or so she had heard. If a monk had been with her now, Charis was sure she would have been condemned by him.

Yet Cowan had said nothing. He had only rowed and rowed and kept an eye on the sky.

When the sun was at midpoint in its journey to night, the red-bearded man stopped rowing. “So you didn’t wait for me,” he remarked, rolling his shoulders.

Startled into a smile by his wry tone, Charis turned from the great empty waters around them to look at him. “Well, now, I thought I had,” she told him. In truth, her fear had held her to the ice and not allowed her to get into the boat on her own. But . . . had it only been fear? Or had she been secretly hoping that Branieucc’s son would, in fact, follow her?

She shook off the foolish idea and snorted before turning back to look for some sign of land. “I am not sorry you did not follow Lord Tuirgeis,” she admitted. “Though I don’t know how you managed to get away this time.”

He released a weary chuckle. “I just kept walking, lass. One foot in front of the other, same as always.”

“Well, I guess we’re going home, then,” she said. “How long will it take, do you think, to cross the water?” She did not dare to gesture, afraid that such a movement would rock the boat and cause trouble.

He sounded annoyed. “How would I know? I can’t believe we’re doing this with only what we packed on our backs, Charis. This is foolishness.” But then he sighed, long and deep, and she turned carefully once again. “Yes, it is foolish, lass, but we’ll get home. It might take us a day or so to cross this water, though, before we reach the land to the south. And after that, well, we’ll go a bit farther to the warmer lands and then seek passage to Britain. I can find us lodging with monasteries, I’m thinking.”

“No!” The idea of being surrounded with versions of Bran made her gorge rise and her bones chill. “I’ll not stay with them!”

He regarded her thoughtfully and rubbed at his beard.

“Well, we’ll manage. I believe, Charis, that we are meant to go home. Together. And, by the grace of my God, we’ll make it.”

Charis wanted to argue, but remembered that he was the one doing the rowing and he would be the one to get her home. With a great effort, she bit her tongue and shifted again carefully to find some food for them in her stores.

Over the rest of the day, Cowan rowed and rested. When night fell, he was exhausted. Charis had long since ceased to worry about pursuit. She only worried about going south. Were they still doing so? Were they lost? She saw nothing, heard nothing but the sea. She could not stay here, drifting, during the dark. It was freezing, even though spring was blowing up from the southern shore. “What . . . what can I do?” she asked at last.

He had been leaning over his own thighs, resting his head and shoulders on his pack, but Cowan pushed himself up to answer. She could see the effort it cost him, though the moon had not yet risen to offer her light. “See the constellation there?” he said, turning and pointing to one in the northern sky. “The Northmen call that one Store Bjørn, the Béar Mór. The brightest star, the North Star, will guide you south if you want to row straight back with your eye fixed upon it.”

Though she never thought to be doing such a thing, Charis remembered Achan’s words and the children of Ragor. If they lived, they would need her to do just what Cowan was telling her to do.

Nodding, Charis took the oars, put her eye on the bright star in Béar Mór, and rowed.

Chapter 27

The morning brought a wind that Cowan felt could actually be used for their escape. The day before, there had only been winds blowing from the south, which were against them. Today was, apparently, a new day.

“Wake up, lass,” he told the pale-skinned healer. She stirred, slowly uncurling her body from around the pouch of herbs that had been nestled against her stomach. “You worked hard all the night but it’s time to be working again.” He nudged her gently. “Charis? Healer?”

At her title, she jerked upright. “I’m here! What? Who needs me?”

“Be easy,” Cowan said, chuckling. “It’s only me. We’re not home yet. You must have been dreaming.”

She blinked and pushed hair out of her face with one hand. With the other, she balanced herself on the wooden rim of the boat. “Dreaming, yes. I was that.” She shivered with the cold. “Are we there, then?”

No mists had remained, but ahead he could see only more sky and water. “Not yet, but I’m hoping that with this wind, we’ll be there before nightfall.”

He untied the sail and pulled it up the mast. With a popping sound, it billowed and the small boat seemed to skip in anticipation of a quick voyage south. Cowan inhaled deeply of the salty air, a smile coming to his face. Freedom. Homecoming. The feelings swelled in his heart and he began to sing one of the Blessed Patrick’s songs.

“So where is it you’re sailing us to, Cowan?” Charis interrupted with an impatient look on her face. “The wind’s a fine one, and I am glad you can sail, but where is it that we’re going?”

Annoyed to have been interrupted and incredulous that the woman would have left without having a sure idea of her first destination, Cowan just stared at her. “You didn’t know where you were going when you set off with the boat on the ice?”

She sniffed. “I just knew I had to go south, to the last place we’d landed last summer. Don’t go giving me that look, son of Branieucc. At least I was leaving those barbarians and going home. Not going off with another Northman to meet his family. How could you even think it? What did you think you were doing?”

He braced himself against the slender mast, angry with her all at once. “I was staying alive, woman. I was doing my best to blend in, because that’s how a man can work in the world. I’ve been to the Saxon and Frankish kingdoms, to Cordova and almost to the Holy Land. I’ve spoken with travelers from all over. I could have left the Northmen before the snows fell, but no. Escape was always just beyond me. I felt that my God had a reason for that. Did you think that I wanted to be one of them forever? Are you daft? I wanted to stay alive and to help you, if I could, in any way that was open to me. If being a free man would help you, I wanted it.” His anger had fallen from him during his diatribe, and he just stared at her, breathing heavily enough that the chill wind in the air cut into his lungs.

The healer said nothing for several heartbeats. “I never asked it of you, Cowan. I think your God is too demanding, then, to keep you away from your people.”

He checked the sail before sinking to the bottom of their fishing boat. “My God is demanding, aye,” he acknowledged. “But, Charis,” he went on, reaching his hand across the short space that separated him from the pale-eyed woman, “he loves you enough that even his own life is not too much to ask of him.”

She lowered her eyes, and Cowan decided to say nothing more.

The wind blew truly all the day, creating a fine arc in the sail and propelling them across the water. Cowan rejoiced in the relative relaxation he experienced compared to the rowing of the day before. A north wind was often harsh, but not to his mind, not today. It blew his hair about, and Charis’s as well. She eventually resorted to plaiting it into one long braid that hung straight down her back, past her belt with its assorted herbs.

That reminded him. “You haven’t asked me,” he stated, knowing somehow that she would comprehend.

She had been scanning the skyline ahead of them, able to discern the hazy mass of land that Cowan knew to be the Kingdom of the Danes. Barely moving as the sun crossed the sky, she had watched, all but leaning out of the boat in her eagerness to get out of the ocean. But now she turned to him, her face a mask of stone.

“No, I haven’t.” Bracing herself, she finally asked, “Is he dead? The barbarian that killed my men and my people?” Her voice spoke of confidence, but her eyes—Cowan studied them carefully. A shadow dwelt within them, a shadow he did not entirely understand.

“No. He was still breathing when I left him. I would have stayed to help, but I felt I needed to find you before the Northmen found him.”

“He lives?” Despair mingled with relief in those spare words.

“Aye,” Cowan said. “At least, he lived when I left him.” He studied her a moment. “So did you succeed or fail, Charis?” he asked.

The healer shifted her focus to the wake the boat left behind them. “I don’t know. Who else?”

Cowan didn’t know if he should be appalled at her surface calm or not. “Bran. He is dead.” Cowan couldn’t be sorry that the monk was dead, much though he thought he should be. “Gerda Grindesdottir lives, as do Els and Bjørn. And Agnarr.”

He watched as the healer drew in a long breath, her delicate nostrils flaring. What was she seeing in those too-pale eyes? The sail snapped as the wind changed direction and he corrected the course of their journey. The water made a smooth sound of passage against the sides of the little boat. But Charis, stiff-backed, made no sound at all.

Confused, Cowan resorted to silent prayer as he guided the ship to the approaching land.

“She has character,” Agnarr granted of his
healer. “And honor,” he added as he rested his head against the wall next to his bed. He even managed a smile at his brother’s weak-voiced curses from the other side of the longhouse. “No, she does. She waited for her revenge, like a good
Ostman
. She used her weapons well, and was effective in her vengeance.”

It had been a full week since Eir had attacked. For an attack it was, Agnarr had decided. She had struck out at those who had captured and kept her. Not immediately, no—she had waited until the best time. How could he be angry at such spirit and wisdom? He could not.

“She made our mother ill,” his brother reminded him, also lifting himself to a sitting position. Both men were so weak that they could do little more on their feet than leave the house to relieve themselves. “And our guest.” Even he did not mention Magda and her slave. Not that the storyteller was worth much to anyone. Magda’s only worth had been to her father, who was still suffering greatly from the effects of whatever it was that Eir had put in her tea.

Agnarr nodded slowly, unwilling to trigger another bout of nausea. “But Mother is up now. She will be fine. So will we all.”

Bjørn grunted. “
Ja
. Excepting for those who will not.”

Agnarr sighed a little. But even though two deaths had resulted, no blame went to the
trell
who had caused them. Tuirgeis had not sent out a party to bring back Geirmundr Kingson, the newly adopted brother. Tuirgeis had not set a price on Eir’s head. And Tuirgeis’s tacit noncondemnation was enough to keep revenge from preying on anyone’s mind—

Save Els’s. It had been his daughter who had died.

“It is because of the raven! I called the raven to me. Odin’s own!” the old man had cried, beating his breast and weeping over the body of his daughter. His own weakened state was not aided by this, but he had not seemed to care.

Els was an old man, and one who was under Thor’s Curse, spoken so by the ancient Priestess of Thor, who had said that Magda’s death was merely a confirmation that Els was in disfavor. So Agnarr could not bring himself to feel much regret over her loss.

Eir’s loss was far more important to him.

“I must get my strength back,” he told no one in particular. Bjørn shrugged. Els moaned, and Gerda, who was stirring a mild soup over the fire, only looked at her elder son. “Tuirgeis said, before he left for his own village, that he would be sailing again this summer.”

Bjørn made a weak gesture. “The riches would be welcome,” he remarked. “But do not bring us another medicine woman!”

Even Gerda laughed at that. She had recovered sooner than any of them. “Unless he’s male,” she commented to her sons. “I’m glad Eir’s gone. She was uncanny.”

That, Agnarr thought, was true enough. His healer was a woman of strange powers and influence.
Is she still mine? She ran away. Ah, but I can find her. She will be going back to her village, I know, she and the berserker. They’ll go to the green land of her people. I could farm in that land. I could send for my brother and mother and we could have easier winters, longer summers, and rich, green earth.