Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Well? Are we close?"

I considered how to respond. "We must be," I said eventually. "Or we ought to be. Can't see a thing from here." I cleared my throat, forcing myself to speak with an authority I did not possess in my present circumstances.

"They'll have a fire, a beacon light to guide us in, but we can't hope to see it from here, with all those dunes between us and the sea." I gestured upward with my chin to where the moonlit hillside reared above us in the southwest. "I'll ride up there and take a look. Wait for me here."

I swung my horse around and rode off at a canter, following the rim of the broken land adjacent to the beach. My horse Germanicus, the eighth of his name, moved with confidence now, far more secure than he had been before the moon had emerged to light his world, and I glanced up at the sky as I went, pleased to see that the clouds were clearing rapidly and that stars were now visible almost everywhere I looked.

Soon the ground began to shelve upward and we were on the hillside proper, above the invisible line that held back the scrubby whins and bushes, and moments later I saw the moonlight reflecting in a silver band across the waters beyond the dunes that now lay below and to my left. Higher we mounted, and with every stride, it seemed, my horse laid ever widening, moonlit vistas open to my gaze. We had almost reached the summit, however, before I saw the glow of distant firelight on the beach, miles to the east. I knew the fire must be a large one, but to my eyes it seemed the merest spark, so distant was it from my present perch, but it was a spark ignited and fed by an enemy, the brother of a friend, and he had in his keeping something more precious to me than life itself. When last I saw him, he had held my honour and my duty, carelessly but unknowingly, in the crook of his bent elbow.

A pounding in my chest told me I had been holding my breath, and I released it in a sibilant gust, sniffing thereafter and shaking my head briefly to clear it of unwelcome thoughts, before reining my mount around again and retracing my path downward to where my escort waited with the woman.

I found it in no way strange that they should have permitted me to ride off thus, alone. Mine was the only mount, and yet they had no fear I might attempt to flee. They knew—at least their leader knew—that I would do what I had set out to do. They had good reason to know how greatly I valued what they held of mine.

They could never have imagined how short of the truth their knowledge fell.

The moon held, lighting our way for the remainder of our journey, but it took us almost three more hours to make our way through the dunes and along the narrow strand to where the fire blazed, and Tearlach strode ahead of me for the last half mile, making better progress over the loose sand than my mount. The tide was far out when we arrived, and the great galley lay high and dry on the beach not far beyond the firelight, lolling on its side, for all the world like some giant sea beast.

One of the men on guard heard or saw our approach while we were still far distant and raised the alarm, but big Tearlach pulled a bull's horn from inside his scrip and blew a long, winding note that informed them who we were. When we arrived at the firelight's edge some time later, I dismounted and walked the last short distance with the others, dropping the ends of my horse's reins on the ground, confident in the training that would keep him standing there until I returned to him.

The galley's entire crew stood silent in the leaping light of the enormous fire, watching our arrival with great interest, ranged in a broad arc behind their commander. He stood alone, slightly ahead of his lieutenants, shadowed by the flickering of the flames beyond his left shoulder, bareheaded and with his arms crossed on his chest beneath his great, ground-sweeping cloak. Only the sound of our feet in the sand, the roaring of the pyre and the thin, incongruous wailing of a child broke the hush that lasted until Connor and I stood face to face beside the great fire. He gazed at me for long moments, his lips pursed beneath the swooping lines of his full moustache, and then his eyes moved to where the woman stood unmoving between two of his men, each of them holding her loosely by one elbow.

"So," he grunted eventually. "You found her. Did you have difficulty?"

"No, none at all. She had hardly moved from where I saw her last."

"Hmm. What tongue does she speak?" His gaze remained fixed on the woman.

I shook my head. "None that I know of. She has made no sound since we picked her up."

He looked at me then, surprise showing in the speed with which his eyes sought mine. "Is she mute?"

"I doubt it. She is demented, unhinged by grief."

"Aye." His eyes swung back to the woman. "Well, we may be able to cure that." He nodded his head in a brief, sideways jerk, and one of his lieutenants, who had been watching him more closely than the others, moved forward immediately and signalled to the men holding the woman's arms. He strode off and they followed him, leading the woman between them. Connor looked back to me.

"Well, Caius Merlyn," he said. "It would appear you have some truthfulness in you, at least. My tent is yonder, and I have some mead. Come you."

I ignored the implied insult and hesitated, torn by a strong desire to follow the woman and her escort, but resigned myself to following him to a smaller fire that burned outside the only tent on the beach, wondering as I went at the easy confidence of his swaying gait as he swung the carved wooden peg that had replaced his right leg. By the fire he waved me towards a wooden stool and disappeared into the tent to reappear moments later carrying a stoppered flask and two horn cups. He seated himself on a second stool and stretched his real leg out towards the fire, then pulled the stopper from the flask and filled a cup, passing it to me before pouring his own.

I sat without speaking, waiting until he had finished, gripping the flask securely between his knees and stoppering it one-handed before allowing it to fall by his feet. He gazed at me then with a trace of ironic amusement, then he raised his cup to his lips. I drank with him, feeling the fiery sweetness of the honeyed mead fill my mouth with a sudden, flowering burst of warmth and flavour, starting the saliva flowing strongly before sliding down my gullet to spread its liquid, energizing heat through my body, which I only now realized was deep chilled by the cold night air.

I shuddered with pleasure, feeling the fire's warmth reach out, as though suddenly to caress me. He drank more deeply than had I, and when he lowered his cup with a satisfied sigh I knew it was empty. And then he was standing again, looming above me.

"Stay here," he said. "Enjoy the fire. I'll be back presently."

I watched him walk away, his ungainly yet strangely graceful gait silhouetted briefly against the larger fire close by, and then I was alone. A few moments longer I sat there, staring into the flames beside me until my eyes teared, and then I swung myself around to face the sea, allowing the flames to heat my back. I was fire-blind at first, and the darkness before me was total, but as my eyes adjusted to the night again, the looming shape of the galley's hull came into focus, its outline leaping up high above me to blot out the star-pricked sky. I leaned backward, craning my neck to see the top of it and remembering how enormous it had seemed the last time I had seen it thus, from beneath, as I floundered helplessly in the waters that bore it so easily.

The sounds of Connor returning brought me back from my recollection and I turned to face him where he stood by the fire, eyeing me with that same, strange expression I had marked before.

"Where did you find the horse?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Where I left him."