Foxmask (50 page)

“Now,” he said. “Open your eyes. Is not this the loveliest sight in the world? We stand here at the end of man's journeying; we look back from the edge of his farthest voyaging. I love this place, Creidhe. It is the meeting of earth and sky, the resting point of oceans. From where we stand, all stretches out. If I had a song such as Small One carries within him, I would sing it here for the winds to carry to the corners of the earth.”

Creidhe nodded; she had no words. They looked east toward the Lost Isles; the tall, stark shapes of the islands seemed to drift in swathes of mist today, like places that existed only in legend or in ancient memory. The sea washed about them, silver, slate-gray, fierce deep green, changeable as a living creature, with more moods than there were pebbles on the shore. Above them the sun shone, bathing the bare rocks of the hilltop in pale light, touching Creidhe's hair to glittering gold. Westward, the other way, they could see the long slope down, the last, wave-struck holm where puffin and gannet crossed and crossed again on the wind, and beyond, the wild ocean path to the end of the world. That way lay realms of ice, pods of great whales, monsters and maelstroms. That would be an adventure such as only a madman or a visionary might essay.

It may have been a long time they stood and gazed, or not so long. Deep inside her Creidhe felt that strange sense of rightness, the deep certainty of time and place that comes but seldom in man's cluttered existence. But she was not unaware of the more immediate situation, which perhaps she should have taken steps to avoid: the fact that Keeper's arms had crept around her from behind and now crossed themselves firmly over her chest, holding her close; the fact that she was leaning back, so that the whole length of her body touched his. His mouth was against her hair; her hands rested over his as if they belonged nowhere but there. This closeness filled her with sensations both wondrous and heady; this was no dream, no vision or imagining, but real and strong, awakening every corner of her body to vibrant life. She did not move; he stood still as stone. Each sensed, perhaps, that for them there would not be many such moments of utter content.

Eventually Keeper said, “The boats—look over toward Council Fjord. They have gathered the boats near the western end, ready to sail at dawn on the day the water stills. Can you see?”

She narrowed her eyes; the sea was bright in the high summer sunlight, and it was a long way.

“Seven, eight . . . I count nine of their small craft,” Keeper said. “And another: a boat I have not seen before. It is larger and sturdier than theirs.”

Creidhe could not see a single one; perhaps living wild sharpened the senses. Nonetheless, her heart sank. Some things, one did not need to see to understand. “Sam's boat,” she said. “The
Sea Dove
. What else could it be?”

Keeper's arms disengaged themselves; he stepped away from her, shading his eyes with his hand, gazing across the Fool's Tide. “A fishing vessel, I would guess,” he said. “This could carry many men. Asgrim has seized it, perhaps, to aid his venture.”

Creidhe said nothing; the conflict of feelings within her made words impossible.

“You think not?” Keeper's tone was sharp. “You think your companions fight alongside the Ruler, willing participants in the hunt? Did you not say these men were not warriors?”

“I don't know what to think. Sam would not easily give up the
Sea Dove
. I hope no ill has befallen them. Why would they come here? That would be so wrong. Even Thorvald would not do such a foolish thing, surely.”

Keeper looked at her, eyes shadowed, jaw tight. “They come for you,” he said.

It had been in the back of her own mind, though she would not speak it; the very thought aroused such delight and pain, such elation and horror, she thought she could not encompass it without running mad.
Common sense
, she told herself.
Apply common sense
. “I don't think so,” she managed. “How could Thorvald know I am here? Surely they believe I drowned; there was one of Asgrim's men watching from the shore when I overturned the boat. They should have gone home. I thought they would go home.” Her voice was shaking. Thorvald still here, so close, just over the water and about to sail for this very shore: what could possibly compel him to make such a choice? And Keeper was here beside her, Keeper with his strong hands and his lean, fine body; Keeper with his shy words and his wonderful smile; Keeper with his traps and his tricks and his formidable array of weapons, about to face up to all of them, to all of the warriors that eight, nine, ten fine boats could carry . . . Thorvald and Keeper . . . Somewhere in her thoughts, the Journey unfolded, and she could see what must be next, and her very spirit shrank from it.

“There is no doubt in my mind,” Keeper said flatly. “He comes to fetch you home. What else? He knows that you still live. He need not see the proof; he knows it in his heart.” His tone was bleak, the voice of a man who is accustomed to loneliness.

“I shouldn't think so,” Creidhe told him. The brightness and beauty of time and place had turned to shadows around her. “Thorvald tends to act according to the intellect; he disregards feelings usually.” Still, he had come to the Lost Isles. What had that been if not a desperate quest to mend a broken heart?

Keeper had his back to her, studying the distant boats that she could not see.

“If your friend comes for Small One,” he said, “I will kill him.”

There was no answer to that. The doglike creature stood by Keeper's side now, small, untidy, its pointed ears scarcely level with his knees, it was such a little, scrawny thing. Beyond the two of them sky and sea and glittering brightness stretched away and away, a wondrous swathe of light and shadow, a picture of eternity. Surely the ancestors had laid a special hand on this place, marking it out, keeping it safe; surely that hand stretched, too, over the man she saw before her and the child he loved so fiercely. Surely, surely they must be safe. Creidhe would not believe the images she saw in her mind, the images that clamored to be put into wool and linen, to be woven into the Journey: the pictures she would not let herself create. As for Thorvald, he had always made his own decisions, and he must take his chances.

“Come,” Keeper said abruptly. “We will go back. Can you walk down?”

“Of course.”

He did not take her hand now, but went ahead without offering to help her. Something in the set of his shoulders and the look on his face kept her silent all the way down to the shelter. It was only when they were back inside that she asked him, “Weren't you going to show me the hiding place? I'd better know where it is, hadn't I? It can't be very long now.”

Keeper was not even attempting his usual routine, raking out the coals, setting water to heat. He stood leaning against the rock wall, staring ahead of him, mouth set in a line. It was Creidhe who moved the pot onto the fire and tended to the child.

“I hope,” she said carefully, “that you haven't suddenly decided you can't trust me. I won't deny that I am upset about what you saw, and about what you said. I fear very much for Thorvald. For Thorvald and Sam. They are old friends, and I don't want them hurt. I miss my family; I did not sail all the way to the Lost Isles thinking I might never go home again. Those things are true, and you need to understand that.” She sat back on her heels by the fire, looking up at him. He had not moved; he would not meet her eyes. “But despite those things, I meant what I said before. All of it. And I give you my solemn promise that I will hide with Small One during the hunt, and make
no noise, and guard him as best I can. If Thorvald comes here looking for me while the hunt is on, then I suppose he will sail away again without me. That's just the way it is. I would not give Small One up to Asgrim's men, Keeper, not now I know what the Unspoken intend for him. I am deeply hurt that you would believe that of me, even for a moment.”

There was a long silence. Then he said, very quietly, “Your hurt is my hurt, Creidhe.”

She nodded; a lump came to her throat.

“And yours mine, as I have told you,” she said. “Your joy my joy, if ever we get the chance to find it. I will look after him for you.”

“Creidhe?” The tone had changed again; now it was fierce, urgent. He moved to squat down by her, very close.

“Yes?” Her hands continued their practical work, putting fuel on the fire, pouring water.

“I have told you I will not be defeated. It is true. All the same, if—if such a thing should happen, I want you to take him. Take him away safe, right away, take him home to your own island, where they cannot reach him—”

She could hear the unsteadiness in his voice, and that alarmed her far more than his words. “Of course I will,” she said. “I give you my promise. I swear by—what was the vow you made, it was a lovely and solemn one—by wind and wing . . .”

“By stone and star.” He finished it for her. “Thank you, Creidhe.”

“It will not be needed,” she told him firmly. “You will be safe. The ancestors hold you in loving hands; the Isle of Clouds protects you. Keeper, you had better show me this hiding place today. We don't have a lot of time.”

“Soon, yes. Do not be afraid. Soon over. Then there will be time for us. Now I must go again for fish, enough for your days alone. We do not make fire while they are here.”

He moved to the entry, then turned back to look at her; the chill was gone from his eyes. “I ask too much of you,” he said. “This man, Thorvald, I hear the softness in your voice when you speak his name. I see the change in your face. You made a long journey for him. Father and mother, sisters and homeland, all of this you left behind to follow him. Because of him you were taken and you nearly drowned. Now he comes for you at last, and you must hide from him. How can I ask this? When the sea brought you to my island, I did not understand these things. How can you be silent when your man comes here and calls to you?”

“I don't know.” Now it was Creidhe's voice that was shaking. She looked across the fire at Small One; the child had her comb in his hand and was
making an attempt to pull it through his wind-tangled hair. It was no simple task; he was cross-eyed with concentration. “I don't know how I will do it; I just know I will do it, because I must. Now you should go if you have to catch enough fish for several days. I suppose we'll have to make it into some sort of a soup.”

By firelight, later, they sat quietly as the child fell asleep, tucked small and neat in his nest of warm cloaks and blankets. All that could be seen of him was a tuft of dark hair.

“You did not show the web tonight,” Keeper said. “No story.”

“Today I hadn't the heart for it. Neither the sewing nor the telling.”

“What you see troubles you? Alarms you?” He had an uncanny knack of picking up what she had chosen to leave unspoken.

“Something like that. I did not want to frighten Small One, so close to the hunt. Sometimes images come that seem dark and foreboding. They are best not given form.”

Keeper was finishing the binding on his knife, tucking the ends of the cord beneath, biting a loose thread off with sharp, white teeth. “My brother is in the web,” he commented. “Does that mean all will be well with him, that he will survive?”

Creidhe shivered. “Fashioning the Journey does not make the future,” she told him. “I am not a goddess or spirit, whose needle maps out the lives of men and women, whose tapestry has the power to change what is to come.”

There was a little silence.

“Are you sure?” Keeper asked.

“I am an ordinary woman. I am not a seer like my mother, nor a priestess like my sister, nor even particularly good or brave. I assure you, I have no such powers. The Journey is just my way of setting down what I feel, and sometimes my feelings are very strong. My voyage to the Lost Isles shows how ordinary I am, how lacking in deep wisdom. I thought I could help Thorvald. I thought he needed me. It seemed terribly important to be with him, to stand by him; indeed, I had thought of little but him for some time past.” She considered this, finding herself somewhat reluctant to look back at the Creidhe of last spring, a Creidhe in whose mind the prospect of marriage and settling down had loomed very large. “When I stowed away on Sam's boat, I behaved like a silly girl,” she said.

“Silly?” Keeper's hands stilled; he regarded her solemnly, considering this. “I do not think you could be silly, Creidhe. If you are not yourself a goddess,
then the hand of a goddess touches you; I have seen this since you first came into sight, floating to the shore of my island. You have so many deep things within you—wisdom, and kindness, and love.”

“All the same,” she struggled on, twisting her hands together, “it was foolish of me. I thought Thorvald would see—I thought it would become apparent to him, that he and I—I thought he would change. That I could change him. But that's not how it works. Either a man learns, and changes by himself, or he never changes at all. Thorvald is like his father, driven by some kind of darkness inside. If he ever grows beyond that, it will not be because of me.”

Keeper did not comment. The knife was finished; he sat now with knees drawn up, arms around them, and stared into the fire.

“I'm sorry, I'm babbling on again,” Creidhe said. “This can be of no interest to you.”

“It is of interest. He is like his father? His father changed. He told me what he had been.”

Creidhe was astonished. “Thorvald's father spoke to you of his past? Of why he was exiled? When?” Keeper could have been no more than a boy.

“I was unhappy. They befriended me: the two hermits, and the boy with them. I would have stayed there but for Sula. Asgrim forbade me their house. Niall challenged him; the Ruler did not like that. When I got home, there were beatings. I wished, then, that Niall was my father. He is a good man.”