Andrew Offutt - The Tower of Death

That a ship and forty swords could be appallingly little on occasion, she did not consider.

“Cormac,” Clodia said hesitantly. “What-what do you mean to do with me?” She bit her lip, swallowed, and then rushed on, finding that she feared an answer.

“This land is strange to me as to you. We have been friends, Cormac. That I’d have liked to be more in the old days, you know.” Already they had become the old days to her, distant and dim. “That you ofttimes desired me, I know. Then what is it turns you so hard? You know how a woman fares with barbarian war-bands, an she lacks one single protector. Can you not bear the thought of being my protector, Cormac?” And then, her voice rising to shrillness, “Look at me!”

Cormac turned, and looked. Clodia’s strong and high-breasted body was bared to him, her skirt and bodice a crumpled heap on the alien sand. Shame, desire and desperation commingled to heat the blood that darkened her face. He was astonished to see how far from the ship they had wandered along the strand, whilst thoughts had enveloped him to no purpose.

She came swaying, smiling, seducing…

Anger seethed in him, cold and sudden and inexplicable. The last simpering resort: her body . And see the tavern-girl trying to look the temptress! She reached him then, smiling-and of a sudden he caught her hard and clasped her hard.

Clodia yelped in shock. His arms tightened and the links of his mail pressed into her skin, hurting, marking her. She arched her back and set her palms in urgency against his steel-clad chest, pushing hard and then harder. Cormac lifted her off her feet, swung her around. Her struggles grew wilder. She cried out. Her lower body stretched out at right angles to his as he swung-

Cormac let her go.

There was a wild waving of white limbs in the morning sun, and a resounding splash that drowned a high-pitched squeal. Clodia was no swimmer, as her frantic paddlings testified. Nor did Cormac mean to drown her; the water was shallow, he saw, and the strand very near. When her feet touched bottom it would occur to the wench that she might stand and wade ashore.

Cormac left her to do so. He made his way back to Raven . This is Galicia. This is now. Eirrin is the past. Eirrin is but a word. The past is dead as last year’s leaves.

“Now that was no long absence!” Wulfhere greeted him. “And where be the vine that clings to the wolf?”

“Swimming.”

Laughter rose, but the Gael’s tone and expression made short work of it. “Now tell me, what have we found?”

“We, do ye say?” Wulfhere lifted red thickets of brow. “Hmm. While yourself and the lassie strayed, Ivarr mounted yon rise for a vantage view. He has seen a great high tower that looks to be the source o’ yester-night’s beacon light.”

“Does it so?” Cormac drummed fingers on the oarloom before him, cogitating. “Sure and we can bear the risk of looking into that.”

“So think I. It’s certain we’ve naught better to do.”

They were preparing to push off when Clodia appeared. She scrambled aboard with downcast eyes. Huddled as small as she could make herself, she spoke not a word.

Raven’s crew rowed north again.

Cormac, rubbing a blackly stubbled chin that itched him, was made mindful as the brilliantly blue sunflecked water slid by that he’d not shaved in well-nigh a week. Though he was not wont to adorn himself, he was of Eirrin: he was mindful of such matters as cleanliness and his hair and aye, shaving-when circumstances allowed. Indeed he kept a razor of finest eastern steel in his belt-pouch rather than make do with a honed knife. He was little twitted, though the Danes agreed that never had they heard of a more amazing habit.

Nah, Wulfhere said; was only because the poor Gael couldn’t raise a beautiful red beard that he kept it scraped…

Without benefit of oil or grease, he kept at the miserable task. Lip and cheeks, jaw and chin and finally throat he scraped clean. He rubbed with his fingertips to ensure thoroughness. Well that his skin had weathered hard over the years. As for the facial scars that lent him a sinister aspect, he’d memorized them.

They had some time since left the tiny cove with its point of land and the rise from which Ivarr had scanned about. Now they came with abruptness to a triple bay, miles across and miles deep. At its southwestern tip rose the tower reported by the sharpest-eyed among them. Now they saw it closer, and what lay beyond: the sunwashed stones of a Roman city, falling into neglect and abandon like many another in the west.

The men of Raven stared, cursed and invoked supernatural protection, for Northerners were superstitious about the engineering feats of Rome the once-mighty.

“’Tis the work of giants!” Knud the Swift declared.

“And I’m Idun,” Cormac told him, “who has the apples of immortality.”

Back he tilted his dark head, and back, looking up. He squinted. The great white tower soared forty men high and more; there was no assessing. Its builders had reared it in several tiers, each smaller in crosswise measure than the one immediately below. The lowermost was shapen cuboid, the topmost a smooth cylindrical shaft against the pure Spanish sky. A sort of roofed cupola topped it off, around which ran a stone balcony.

“I should ha’ known,” Cormac said. “It’s the Romans raised that lighthouse here. The greatest in the western world, I’ve heard say. It’s the Pharos of Alexandria it had for a model. Yonder will be the harbour of Brigantium.”

“And a fair harbour, too,” Wulfhere said, with enthusiasm. “A fleet could lie here-nay, exercise here! Although there’s little sea traffic it looks to receive nowadays. Who be manning the lighthouse, and why?”

Ivarr narrowed his keen eyes. “No one, Captain. From here it looks deserted. An it be not-why’s nobody at the top, looking down upon us and giving alarums? Have we gone so harmless in appearance since yesterday?”

Cormac turned decisive. “It’s finding out we’d best be,” he said, staring at the immense tower as at some inscrutable foe. The Gael seemed to snuff the air like the wolf whose name he bore. “Do you see to the ship, Wulfhere. I’ll be taking three men into yon lighthouse to see what I can find. Hrut Bear-slayer, come and climb stairs with me.”

The enormous, brain-addled strong man had all but usurped the place of Cormac’s shadow. His comrades had exerted their best ribald efforts to stay him from lumbering after Cormac and Clodia when they went off together. Mightily hurt he’d have been, had Cormac ignored him now.

“You too, Hrolf,” the Gael went on, “aye, and yourself, Knud. I’m thinking we can handle any bogies we may meet.”

“Ha! Listen to him!” The protest was Wulfhere’s, uttered loud. “And ye’re not jesting so much as ye’d have us believe! I now ye, Crmac, and by the gods I know that look. Ye can sniff out battle and death and unholiness even as a ranging hound sniffs out boars in the brush, ye rangy hound of Errin!”

“Repitition. And over-stating of the truth, what’s more. It’s but that I was born suspicious and have since grown more so. We’ll be after returning ere ye know we have gone.”

“So ye will,” the Dane agreed, stubborn as a rooted tree, “for the rest of us be coming along. Who commands here, I’m asking?”

“ir and Manannan macLir!”

The oath aside, Cormac made no difficulty. When Wulfhere invoked his captaincy there was no budging him and mac Art did not fight stone walls. Thus all trooped ashore, save Clodia and those few men chosen to remain aboard ship as watch.

Slipping and sliding over weed-covered rocks, they reached the base of the lighthouse. Kittiwakes screamed at them, wheeling grey-cloaked and white-breasted about the tower. A huge bronze-bound door, closed and barred, greeted them blankly. Surely naught but a ram would be capable of gaining entry here-and handling one on the rocky shore was impossible. When Wulfhere looked of a mind to attack it with his ax, Cormac stayed him.