Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"When will we leave for Britain?"

"Soon now, before winter sets in." I was gazing at the suckling boy. "Athol will tell us when."

She opened her eyes again and looked up at me, cupping one hand protectively over the child's head. "The boy would do well here, with Athol's folk. Children are welcome here, and loved. Will he fare equally in this place you come from, this Camulod?"

I nodded, feeling a smile tugging at me. "Aye, he will, and better. . . So will you, Turga."

She nodded, her face expressionless. "So be it, then. We'll go. But bear one thing in mind, always. He may be yours, and may inherit all you have, but he is mine, as well, as I am his, and harm will come to him only after I am dead, for I'll kill, or die trying to kill, any who threaten him."

"Then I'll lie dead beside you, Turga, for I have sworn the same oath."

She looked at me, and for the first time, her lips twitched in what might have been the beginnings of a smile. "Good," she said. "That's good. You do your part for him, and I will do mine, and he'll be well protected. And perhaps he will live to become the king you wish him to be."

I stooped and took her free hand, raising it to my lips, and she watched me quizzically, making no move to withdraw it. "I promise you, Turga, no matter what may transpire in the future, no matter where young Arthur's road may lead, you will go with him, under my protection, for as long as he and you may wish." She stared at me a moment longer, then nodded her head very slightly, accepting my promise, and returned her attention to the child at her breast. I turned and left quietly.

XVIII

I have a vision stamped into my mind, a memory that fills me even now with anxious helplessness, in which I see myself standing on the foredeck of what I came to know as Shelagh's Galley, my hands clutching the rail tightly as I look back to watch the distant shores of Athol's kingdom shrink into a narrow line of grey, like clouds edging the horizon. Behind me, I know without looking, Shelagh herself stands beside Donuil, sheltered in the bend of his arm beneath his cloak, while the others of my party stand, sit or lie here and there wherever they have found space. To my right, in the wide, middle part of the vessel, our horses are secured, tethered by headstalls to stout wooden rails that cross the deck from side to side. But in the thinking of these things, in the act of recalling them, they are eclipsed from my mind by the looming vision of the hawklike eyes of Shelagh, filling up my mind.

The wind had been fair and steady that day. Above my head, a great square sail bellied from the central mast, and at prow and stern on either side, four teams of Eirish oarsmen swept their oars, their efforts carefully timed to marry with the mighty, sweeping strokes of the vessel that towed us, Feargus's great galley. Astern of us, riding easily in our wake, Logan's galley breasted the waves, making easy progress, awaiting the moment when it would take up the strain of towing us, relieving Feargus and his crew. We seemed to fly over the water, which was calm beneath blue skies dotted with scattered clouds.

I kept my eyes fixed on the distant hills of Eire, grasping the handrail even more tightly as a shapeless dread that filled my chest sought to overwhelm me.

Angered at my own senseless feelings of foreboding, I jerked my gaze away and looked around to where Feargus's galley pointed its nose to sea. Feargus, I knew, had more valid cause for deep concern than I had; my fears were obscure and formless, his sharp and crisply limned. Feargus misliked to head straight out into the unknown sea, for once beyond sight of land he would have no way of knowing where he was, or whither he was moving. His galley was overmanned, as was its consort, crowded with half again as many rowers as either craft would need in the normal scheme of things, and depriving Athol's forces of much-needed strength at home.

Feargus was gambling heavily on speed and strength, and fortune, hoping to exploit to maximum advantage the unusually mild break we were enjoying from the normal weather patterns at this time of year. If the wind held and the seas stayed calm, and if his crews, aided by the extra men aboard, could maintain the astounding pace he would set both day and night, he hoped to bring us safely across the narrowest part of the open sea between his land and mine in two days and nights, despite the terrors of losing sight of land by which to steer.

Beyond Feargus's sail, lighting it brightly from behind so that the shapes of sail and mast were thrown into silhouette, the morning sun climbed steadily into the sky. The last of the gulls that had followed us from the river's mouth broke away, swooping low over the waves and turning towards the distant land, rapidly diminishing until it vanished. The sail above me shifted with a loud crack as the wind veered slightly and once more the eyes of Shelagh filled my mind.

A large crowd had assembled on the pier along the bank of the river estuary immediately before our departure. Athol was there, and Connor and another ten or so in the king's own party gathered to bid us farewell and a safe journey. The horses were aboard and secured, and our possessions stowed away beneath the temporary decking installed to hold our horses. My men had said their good-byes and filed aboard, four of them handling Quintus with great care, keeping his stretcher level as they transferred it aboard, lest he reinjure his fast-healing leg. The tide was high, and about to turn. I had bidden my last farewell to Athol and to Connor, and then climbed aboard, leaving Donuil and Shelagh and her father to make their parting with the king in their own way.

Once aboard, I made a swift inspection of our status and found it satisfactory. A pair of massive, solid-wooden thwarts had been mounted on the foredeck, hard by the pointed prow. Solidly braced and bolted at their base to the structural beams inside the ship, down near the waterline, they were well buttressed by two flanking beams braced against the prow. There was but one purpose for these new thwarts, added by Athol's shipbuilders in recent days: to hold the end of the cable tow that would join our vessel to our larger, faster escorts.

A sudden swell of noise attracted me to the side and I saw people running towards the king and his party from the shipyards that lined the edges of the riverbank. A crowd of people, all of them men. Curious, I scanned what I could see of the shipyards, searching for a reason for the exodus, but there was nothing to see. The shipyards, which we had not seen until the time arrived for us to leave, seemed peaceful, dotted along the water's edge with galleys in all stages of construction, most of them new-looking, of bright, unpainted wood. On our arrival from the south, we had emerged from the forest upstream from these yards, turning away from them to Athol's stronghold without ever suspecting their existence. I watched as the first runners swarmed onto the pier, thronging around the king. Something was wrong, I knew, but I felt no desire to leave the deck to find out what it was. And now the king and Donuil were arguing, the one peremptory, the other expostulating fiercely; their voices, raised, came to me muffled by distance and by other noises so that I could make out no words. Shelagh pulled Donuil's arm, tugging at him, willing him to go with her, and the king waved his arms in turn at Liam, bidding him depart quickly. The three turned and made their way towards the plank that led up to the deck, Donuil unwilling and with many a backward glance. The king hurried away, his retinue in train, and abruptly the wharf lay empty save for two hurrying figures who cast off the ropes that bound our galley to the land. Distant movement atop the walls of dirt and logs that surrounded the shipyards drew my eyes. There was great activity there now, and the smoke of fires being lit.