wind their own vessel seemingly lost with the collective gasp of surprise echoing round the deck.
Deirdre stood riveted by the sight, one word too loathsome to utter coming to mind …
Saxons!
T WO
T he sides of the vessel were barren of the shields of a war ship, yet it was too lightly fitted, in Deirdre’s admittedly limited estimation, to be a merchant vessel. It rode much higher in the water than the one beneath her feet, which was laden with goods bound for Albion’s western coast. Unlike the leather-wrapped Irish
curraghs
, this vessel was enclosed with narrow strakes, gracefully tapered down from the carved wolf’s head of its sharp prow and up to its equally high and narrow stern stem. Painted a dark shade of blue-green, it blended well with the sea that had hidden it to the last. Now, as though the good Lord’s wind was not sufficient to speed it along, a long row of oars worked in concert from each side, like the spindly legs of a giant insect, propelling it closer at a startling rate.
“Is it unfriendly?” Deirdre whispered to Father Scanlan. It was a question she’d not have posed before the Saxon invasion. Incursions against Erin were scarcely heard of, isolated as it was from the continent.
“I’m not likin’ the looks o’ them oars poking out both sides of er, Cap’n,” a seaman called down from his lofty perch above, preempting the priest.
“There’s no markings on the sail,” Scanlan observed to no one in particular.
“Stand ready, lads. Friend or foe, we’ll not outrun ’em with our cargo aboard!” At the captain’s roar, the helmsman shifted the wheel hard to the leeward, struggling to remove their vulnerable side as a potential ramming target.
The
Mell
shuddered in resistance, groaning sails lashing at the lines in protest as the bow dipped into a trough. Holding to the rail for balance, Deirdre stood fast as the gaping mouth of the sea opened before her very eyes. Her heartbeat outpaced the seeming eternity the ship took to level off again. Much to her astonishment, weapons of all manner,hitherto concealed, appeared in the hands of the more nimble-footed seamen. In the rigging above was a veritable hornet’s nest of men waiting with ready sting.
“You’d best get below, milady,” Father Scanlan said, prying Deirdre from the rail. He ushered her toward the open hatch leading below. “And take Orna with you.”
As one of the only two women aboard, it made sense, but Deirdre stopped abruptly. “I can fight if I must.” She’d been indulged in training by the men of her clan.
Scanlan smiled. “I remember. But these may be pirates, not a doting uncle or your father’s men.”
“They’d as soon cut us in half as look at us,” Orna said. “Think of those poor nuns.” She crossed herself hurriedly for their sisters, who had not just been robbed and violated but viciously mutilated on the grounds of heresy against the Roman-established order of worship.
Deirdre shuddered that the Saxon King Ecfrith used the excuse of faith to feed his hatred of his mother’s people. She wanted to fillet this vermin with Kieran’s sword of righteousness, but that was not her place. Hers was a conciliatory mission to save her brother, not nearly as blood stirring as it was pride bending. Besides, a female on deck might distract the captain and his men.
“Come, then.” She stepped back so that Orna might descend the ladder first.
As Deirdre descended into the hold, she saw Scanlan kneel by the grate cover. After offering a short prayer, he closed them up in the hold. It took a moment for Deirdre to adjust to the eerie darkness broken only by checkered shafts of sun leaking through the latticed grate. Neither the air allowed in by the grate nor the leathery presence of the cattle skins or wooden casks filled with salted meats and wine could override the fetid breath of mold.
Inhaling only because she must, Deirdre settled on Gleannmara’s gold- and jewel-embossed ransom chest.