Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

I heard shouting from behind, and from on board, and the deck beneath my feet heeled slightly as the tow rope tightened, water squirting from its straightening length, and our craft began to move out from the wharf, dragged by the nose so that it turned almost within its own short length. As soon as we had left the land, our Eirish oarsmen lowered their sweeps and there was a rush of feet and the creak of more ropes as the spar that supported the sail was hoisted to the masthead and secured. In the space of mere heartbeats, it appeared, we were progressing at great speed, the river mouth already far distant behind us. I saw a seaman leap up to the rail and gesture northward and as I looked where he was pointing, I was unsurprised to note the other sails that dotted the skyline. Brander had come home.

Donuil, Shelagh and Liam had remained apart from the rest of us after boarding, talking urgently among themselves, and only now did Donuil step away from them and come to stand close by my side.

"What was that about?" I asked. "You looked for a time there as though you would remain behind."

"Aye, and I still think that was my place, in spite of what my father and the others say."

"What has happened?" I knew, before he answered, what his words would be.

"We were attacked, in heavy force, at dawn. From the south, as we expected. Finn was in place, and met them before they could build up momentum. He was hard-set, but holding them before the stronghold. He will not retreat inside the walls as long as he has strength to keep them back from the gates." Donuil gestured now to where his brother's fleet grew closer in the north. "Now that Brander is here, his men should make the difference and may enable Finn to turn the marauders back."

"And what of Brian? Any news of him?"

"No, nothing yet. But Kerry's dead."

The day went dark about me and the shapeless fear leapt, sudden, newborn, to my throat.

"Kerry? How?" But deep within my entrails I knew how.

Donuil was shaking his head. "No one knows, but he was killed before the attack began, slain after he left the post where he and Finn had spent the night."

My guts were roiling and black shadows danced across my vision, for all at once I knew why Kerry's face had seemed familiar. My stomach heaved and I lurched to the side to vomit. Below my hanging head I watched the water surge along the planks that kept the ship dry and afloat. Donuil was close beside me, but I asked him to leave, and he rejoined Shelagh, behind me.

That remembrance, as I have said, fills me again with sharp anxiety and fear each time I think of it, to this day, despite the fact that I have long since come to terms with what it was that ailed me. It was another of my accursed dreams, of course, but it was the first to which I had opened myself completely, prepared to accept the strangeness of it all and to attempt some form of understanding of the experience.

That I could not initially accept it, however, that I constrained it uselessly and searingly within my soul for such a length of time before I faced it, was due to the shock of having seen Lord Caerlyle, the smiling Kerry, face to face without recalling anything at all, save an annoying sense of having met the man before. There had been no sign, no suspicion that I might have dreamed of him. The thought had occurred to me on one occasion, but I had searched my mind and dismissed the possibility. My memory had been blank.

I turned my back to the sea and watched Donuil and Shelagh murmuring together, and, my mind open now, the memory of my dream returned to me. For the first time in my life, I recalled a dream in detail, even though long months had passed since I had dreamed it. I felt the prickles of superstition as the flesh on my upper arms rose into gooseflesh. Determined, I stepped towards them, noting that Liam had moved to where Dedalus and Rufio lounged against the opposite rail. Donuil looked up as I approached.

"It didn't thunder last night, did it? There was no storm?"

He shook his head, his eyes widening in surprise that I should ask. He and I had spent much of the night together, preparing for departure.

I looked at Shelagh, who was watching me, half smiling. "Shelagh, I must talk with you. It is important." I glanced at Donuil. "Would you permit us to speak alone for a moment?"

Mystified, he shrugged his huge shoulders and moved away to join Liam and the others. I took Shelagh by the elbow, leading her to a space close by the prow, beside the tow rope, where we might speak without being overheard. Without demur or question she seated herself on a coil of rope, beneath the shelter of the vessel's side. I crouched beside her.

"Have you said anything to Donuil of what you and I discussed the night I came to your father's house?"

"You mean about the dreams? No, I have not. There has been no time even to think of that since then."

"You mean you would have, had you had the time?"

She brought her brows together, puzzled, but not frowning. "I might have, I think. He has the right to know the kind of woman he will wed. Why do you ask that now? You said this was important. Does it have to do with this curse?"

"Aye, Shelagh, it's important. I have had another dream. This time a dream of Kerry's death, and I believe I know the truth of it. But you are the only one who might believe me."

"Tell me," she said at once, her eyes level with mine. "Last night? You dreamed of this last night?"

"No, months ago. Do you recall my telling you how I often fail to recognise my dreams until they have come to pass?" She nodded. "Well, I saw Kerry killed in a dream I had long months ago, before I ever met or heard of him. I only recalled it this morning, moments ago."

"Dia! But you have met him since then! Why did you not speak before?"

"Because I didn't know him! Didn't recognise him. I had forgotten the dream, if I ever recalled it at all. I knew only that he looked familiar, but I could not think why and so I passed it off, thinking he resembled someone else from long ago . . . Until Donuil told me of his death, and then I knew at once."

"Dial" She said the word again, an incantation to some Eirish god. "Tell me about your dream. Why did you ask Donuil if it stormed last night? Did it storm in your dream?"

"Aye, thunder and flaring lightning of the kind to terrify, and a great wind, but no rain. I was in a forest, among great trees, and it was pitch dark, save when the lightning flared, as it did almost without respite. I stood in a glade, beneath a tree, and a man approached me, outlined moment to moment by the flickering glare so that he seemed to leap to where I waited. He smiled at me and I knew him . . . and I hated him. As he approached, his smile grew wider and he came right to my side, as though to greet me, and then the dagger in my hand knocked him backwards as it stabbed up, beneath his ribs. He fell against a tree root, striking his head against the huge bole, and his mouth was filled with blood, black in the lightning's glare as I bent over him to wipe my blade clean on his cloak. He tried to speak to me, but died as I stood up again . . ."

She hissed at me, impatient with my lengthy pause. "What are you saying? You killed him? You killed Lord Kerry?"

"No, Shelagh, I dreamed it! This was my dream, no more. Last night I worked with Donuil far into the night, and then we slept together, side by side on the same cot, among the others. I do not even know where Kerry was last night, or when he died."

She pulled her head back as though she had been slapped. "Then . . . what is this, this dream? It makes no sense!"

"They never do, I told you that. . ." I drew a short, deep breath. "But this one did, or does. This one was different. . . I have not told you everything." I paused, thinking, then continued. "As I stood there, above the body, the lightning flared again, throwing my shadow on the tree where he lay dead." I stopped, then spoke again before she could interrupt. "It was not my shadow."