Forged in Blood Read online

  ‘I think the wind has turned warm,’ returns Hakon. ‘Stay where you are, Baldr. But try your luck, scanning across steer-board bow. No, not you, lass, I want you to keep your eyes on larboard.’

  Paperkali has his head down, asleep beside the hives. He has stretched his sodden brown robe over the thwarts in a vain attempt to drain it dry. Kru hasn’t noticed what has been going on; he has his back to the stem; he is occupied re-coiling a rope. Fjak stands rigid. He might be asleep. He has one elbow propped on the gunnels, both legs jammed against the thwarts.

  ‘Can’t see a thing on either beam,’ says Halp.

  ‘No wonder, old friend,’ says Dantzk smartly. ‘Your eyes have been on the blink for years.’

  *

  ‘There!’ M’lym’s shout is weakened by fatigue. ‘There! I was right.’ She points to a streak of light widening distant over the line. This time there is no mistaking the glimmer of dawn over a gloomy sea. All eyes of the crew are on the horizon, to our left, looking east over larboard bow.

  ‘South wind, Skip?’ Dantzk shouts, questioning.

  ‘We are heading south-east,’ yells Halp.

  ‘Does it mean we are off-course?’ M’lym asks feebly.

  ‘How were we to know, Skip?’ says Baldr. ‘The wind has turned on its head.’

  ‘Turned, yeah,’ adds Dantzk, ‘but for how long?’

  ‘Since it started to blow warm, man,’ mutters Hakon irritably. ‘That’s how long.’

  Paperkali awakens to the uproar. He shivers and reaches for his wet robe.

  ‘Stand by, all hands,’ shouts Hakon. ‘Stand by to turn about!’

  Skipper turns to Kru and mimes his orders.

  ‘Flames!’ shrieks Fjak. ‘Flames in the water. No, Skip, here on my side! Off steer-board beam!’

  Rising from the sea — westward of the ship — what looks like two tongues of flame leap out of the water. One flame twists around the other, as when two candle-wicks flare side by side in a basin of tallow. The flames cast twin reflections on the waves. They cut a watery pathway towards the ship as if two blades of light divided the dark sea.

  While we look, the wind throws up a gust from the south. Wind tosses the flames to a low flicker and threatens to snuff them out like a candle. We lose the brightly reflected pathway on the water. The flames stall for a moment, and then ignite higher into the night sky, casting light on rocks below a headland and turbulent waves battering the rocks. The flames come from blazing fires — from on land, not on water. The beacon-fires are built on black, shining rocks. They overlook a treacherous shoreline.

  ‘Kildobhan Point,’ shouts Hakon. ‘Stand by, all hands, and be sharp! We turn east — away from the rocks — and then we will loop north to find a beaching leeward. Cheer up, young Paperkali. Daylight soon, you will break bread with the monks of Kildobhan.’

  Without reply, the monk drops to his knees amidships and prays. A loud cheer from the crewmen. They jump to Skipper’s orders. A whooping cry from M’lym at the prow, almost lost in the wind. For once Kru looks confused. He is not slack on the ropes — he is prompt as ever — but he keeps stealing a glance across at the beacons of Kildobhan and then back at the grinning faces of his shipmates.

  On command from Skip, I turn the nose of the Meuris in almost a full circle to face northward. Sail changes — several in quick succession — Halp and Fjak lagging behind the swift rope-work of Dantzk and Baldr on larboard. Our canvas widens into a beam reach.

  A shower of rain from the south — off steer-board beam — chases over us, beats across my brow. The chill shower slackens to a warm drizzle. A taste of smoke in the rain, wood-smoke from the beacons. The southerly carries the reek of burning wood off the land. It hangs low in the air.

  For a moment I am a child again in Thwartdale. I am with Helga under an ancient birch tree once hit by lightning. The smell of scorched bark is in our noses. Helga grips my hand. Kol the hound splashes in the beck.

  I come to my senses; check sail and yard; check sheet-rope aft, aware of Fjak staring at me. I nod at him with a cold smile, grateful for drizzle pouring down my cheeks. Wouldn’t do for a shipmate to see his tiller-man weeping.

  Chapter 14

  ‘No,’ cries M’lym wilfully. ‘No, Baldr, please don’t leave me behind. Why can’t I stay on the Meuris? I want to sail with you and the others. If I am stuck in Kildobhan, the monks will have me drudging at their call day and night — it will be worse than being a slave!’

  ‘For your own good, lass,’ says Hakon. ‘You are not coming to Vadrar-fiord. It is no place for a girl of your age. Too many drunken lubbers. Soon as seafarers are off ship, they are on lookout for sport!’

  ‘And they are not fussy whom they find it with,’ adds Halp ungraciously.

  ‘The crew will be busy over winter.’ Baldr’s tone is gentler than Halpin’s. ‘There’s man’s work to be done, M’lym! The Meuris must be shipshape in time for spring. We can’t do that and take care of you!’

  ‘Who says I need to be taken care of?’ M’lym replies in disgust. ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘You can,’ says I, ‘but you are a child. You need a family. Paperkali will be like a brother to you. You can help him with his bees and honey-making.’

  ‘I have a brother,’ replies M’lym angrily, ‘a father too. Have you forgotten, Ostman? Da and Ardmath were stolen from me — taken on a slave-ship.’

  ‘Forget it, child,’ says Halpin. ‘Take it from me, if the slave-traders took them, you will never set eyes on them again.’ Our midshipman turns on his heels and slinks off to join Dantzk on the shore.

  ‘Halp shouldn’t have spoken like that,’ says Baldr. ‘Why be so such hurtful?’

  ‘If you leave me here,’ says M’lym, ‘I won’t stay. First chance I get, I will be off!’

  ‘Where will you go?’ I ask.

  ‘Where?’ M’lym looks at me accusingly. ‘To find my father and brother, of course — where else? It won’t be right away — I’m not stupid — but when I’m older I will find a skipper to take me across the water — I have no fear of the sea.’

  ‘You have no idea where to look for them.’

  ‘I have a tongue in my head, haven’t I?’ returns M’lym pluckily. ‘I will go to that place of the mines — the place with the strange name. Da and poor Ardmath will be there.’ She barely stops to catch breath. ‘I will search and search and search. I will not rest till I find them.’ She sees me grinning and shakes her fist. ‘Don’t mock me, Ostman. I mean it.’ As if to prove that nothing will stand in her way, she aims a kick at me, catching me on the shin.

  ‘That made you jump, Thralson,’ says Baldr, laughing at her antics.

  ‘You are a brave lass,’ says Hakon. ‘I give you that!’

  ‘Don’t “brave lass” me,’ says M’lym, full of cheek. ‘I saw the bag of hack the monks gave you. When do I get my divvy? I earned my share on the prow. Did I once close my eyes on lookout?’

  Hakon returns with a chuckle. ‘Sharp eyes you have, a sharp tongue too! You’re worth your divvy. I will weigh it off and give it to Father Abban. He will hold it for you till you are old enough to use it.’

  ‘Give my share to a monk?’ says M’lym. ‘No more than a trick to keep me here! It won’t work. Won’t stop me from running away! Monks are no different to anyone else. Once Father Abban gets his hands on my hack, I will never see it again.’

  ‘Listen, M’lym,’ says Baldr quickly. ‘You know I’d never lie to you?’

  M’lym returns a nod.

  Baldr fidgets at his pigtail. ‘What if Hakon gives me your divvy for safekeeping?’

  M’lym eyes Baldr doubtfully.

  ‘I won’t touch it M’lym,’ says Baldr. ‘I promise. A year from now, I will return your share — the full amount in your hand to spend as you wish. I swear on my life — I won’t let you down.’

  M’lym stares at her feet, puzzles her answer. When she looks up, her child’s eyes melt into tears, as little Mel’s used to. ‘Wh
at do you say, Ostman? What should I do?’

  ‘Take Baldr at his word,’ I reply. ‘Trust Skip too. They won’t play tricks on you.’

  ‘And you?’ she asks.

  ‘You will need someone you can trust to take you to Brythuniog. You cannot go alone. Once I have put on flesh and recovered my strength — maybe in a year’s time — I will think about taking you there.’

  M’lym looks at me in shock and disbelief.

  ‘Beyond that, I can’t promise. If luck is with us — who knows? If your father and Ardmath were taken to the mines — we can’t be sure of it, but if they were — we will figure out a way to bring them home.’

  M’lym throws her arms about my waist and her tears run freely: she won’t let go.

  *

  For a second night, we enjoy the monastery’s stock of sweet wine supplied by Brother Lorcan. Father Abban, senior among the monks, makes for a fine host. He is quick-witted, small and wiry, his authority unassuming. Brother Lorcan, whose nose and cheeks are as brown as his monk’s robe, has charge of the refectory keys. When wine runs dry at the board — a heap of spelt-breads, cheeses and sour butter — Lorcan is quick to fetch another keg ‘for the pleasure of our honoured guests’. He does so only after he has had a blink of approval from Abban.

  *

  Once Paperkali has finished with the bees, he and I set out in late morning. We take a path, well-trodden by monks, through woodlands of birch and beech, to the southern headland of Kildobhan — the beacon headland — a hook of land surrounded by sea. Abban and his fellow monks have gathered on the headland for fishing, feasting and prayer. According to Paperkali, this a holy day for the monks, a day to celebrate the founding of their community.

  Paperkali has installed the hives in a meadow, a furlong from the monks’ compound, close to heathlands bright with late-summer flowers. He and M’lym will be checking the swarms twice a night until the bees have settled into their new colonies. After matins — while the nectar-bees had flown into the heath to gather — he and M’lym smoked the hives. They opened the honeycombs and removed dead drones from the nests. Their tasks done, the young bee-keeper walked the girl back to the oblates’ dormitory, where Brother Lorcan has set up a place for her behind a curtain, away from prying eyes. He left M’lym asleep in her cell — exhausted from her night vigils with the bees.

  The woodlands reek with wood-smoke from the beacons that blazed two nights back. Paperkali walks beside me, head down, his hands hidden in the sleeves of his robe. No chatter: unusual for him — he appears tired and fretful. I enquire about the hives. He likes nothing better than to talk of Saint Jacobus, Saint Bartholomeus and the others. Today his answers are brief, and to the point.

  ‘And young M’lym,’ I persist. ‘Is she settling in? Doing her chores at the hives?’

  ‘A bit too willingly — if you ask me,’ he replies and again falls silent.

  *

  Once we are out of the woods, the headland opens before us, and we can look out on all sides to the sea beyond. We are on an expanse of sparse turf weathered by the southerly winds. There are cliffs above the sea to the east and west; a craggy shore of pebbles and jutting rocks to the south. From these wave-washed rocks monks are fishing with rod and line. On the shore a swirl here and there of brown robes swept by the wind — monks collecting driftwood or whelks or walking arm in arm. On the higher headland others are locked in meditation or kneeling at prayer.

  The monks have erected a wooden cross at the highest point of the headland. The cross is held upright by stones piled at its base. A fire is lit. It gives off the same reek of birch-wood that filled the woodlands below. Near the fire are two cooking-troughs, in which victuals are being boiled for the monks’ feast. On a flat stretch of rock, in the vacant space between fire, troughs and cross, are the scorch-marks of huge fires — burned-out traces of the warning beacons.

  The cooking-troughs are the length of a man. They are made from hollowed-out tree trunks, two ells wide. Paperkali and I watch, while heat-stones — smooth stones from the beach, now blackened by fire — are lowered sizzling into the steaming troughs to keep victuals on the boil. The air is seasoned with the cooking of fish and herbs, of game-meat. Salty breezes gust off the shore.

  ‘I say, Brother Oengus,’ says the bee-keeper, ‘Is that a smell of hares in the trough? How many are you boiling in there?’

  Brother Oengus courteously sets aside his stirring ladle — a wooden paddle the length of his small frame — and points mysteriously to his tongue. He makes a brisk sign of three fingers, followed by another three.

  Paperkali interprets the signs. ‘Six hares!’

  ‘Brother Oengus cannot answer.’ Brother Lorcan scratches his brown nose. ‘Not by word of mouth. Our dear brother has taken a vow of silence — a penance for God knows what, some hidden transgression only he is aware of.’

  Oengus acknowledges with a shy look.

  A stocky monk with a happy-go-lucky air lifts a paddle to help stir the game broth. He and Oengus shift the heat-stones to spread heat. They stir lengthwise, one on either side of the trough.

  ‘That’s Brother Gufa,’ mutters Paperkali. ‘He is never far away, when victuals are in the pot.’

  Gufa dips into the broth and lifts out a steaming morsel. He checks with finger and thumb, before plunging the collops back in to boil He licks his fingertips approvingly. ‘This is the only time of year that we eat hares,’ says Gufa. ‘It is a treat to have meat on Saint Dobhan’s day.’

  ‘Why hares?’ asks Paperkali, sniffing the broth. ‘Why not a nice mutton stew?’

  ‘A sacred tradition of our order,’ says a voice from behind. Brother Abban has joined us. ‘A mark of thanksgiving. From the beginning our holy brothers have kept the custom of eating hare.’

  Paperkali smiles. ‘The custom of eating hare?’

  ‘Yes,’ returns Abban. ‘Many years ago, when Saint Dobhan landed on this neck of land, his first meal ashore was a hare. He came across a leveret mortally wounded on the edge of the woodlands. A sea eagle had attacked it moments before. Dobhan had unwittingly disturbed the eagle from its prey.’

  ‘Ah,’ says Paperkali. ‘The hare was a sign of God’s bountiful provision.’

  Abban nods approvingly. ‘I like to imagine Saint Dobhan coming ashore as a hungry seafarer after so many days at sea.’

  Gufa again tastes the broth, and smacks his lips. ‘A fat little leveret for the pot. That must have been a welcome sight: a gift from God.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Lorcan. ‘But let us remember the greater blessing: the vision of beacons that brought him safe ashore.’

  ‘And you, Ostman,’ asks Abban. ‘Do you know about Saint Dobhan and the beacons?’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ I reply. ‘The monks, who greeted us, spoke of it when we arrived. Something about it being your sacred calling on moonless nights, or in heavy fog — to light fires on the headland as a warning to ships. Over there, beside the cross, I can see scorch-marks where the beacons were lit.’

  Father Abban makes the sign of the cross. ‘Indeed, that is the eternal root of the sacred fires.’

  ‘They were a strange sight out at sea, like two long wicks burning in a tallow basin, twin flames twisting close together as if they were one flame.’

  ‘Your eyes deceived you,’ returns Abban severely. ‘We light three fires. It must always be three, because three fires appeared to Saint Dobhan.’

  ‘Sancta Trinitas, ’ says Paperkali.

  ‘It was long ago on a dark, blustery night,’ says Lorcan with the relish of a story-teller. ‘Dobhan was on a ship seeking haven on these shores. Darkness fell over the ship. No one on board could have known how close they were to land. That is when our beloved Saint beheld beacons on the headland, and their flamelight shining on treacherous rocks below. Guided by him, the ship’s crew turned away from the hazards. They sailed north and found haven on the beach at Slaidh where you came ashore.’

  ‘But, Brother Lorcan,’ I ask in confusi
on. ‘Who would come to a remote headland in the middle of the night, and build three beacons? And if, by some miracle, men happened to be here at the time, how would they know that a ship was out at sea, and in danger, and needed their warning?’

  ‘That’s the point,’ replies Lorcan. ‘No men had settled here. Before Dobhan came to these shores, no one lived this far south on the neck of land.’

  ‘But who lit the fires?’ I ask.

  ‘Fires of the Holy Trinity,’ says Abban quietly.

  ‘Don’t you understand, Ostman?’ says Lorcan. ‘There were no fires. But of course, Dobhan had no inkling of that. At first light, on the morning after he arrived, he came here. In his innocence — or in his ignorance, if you prefer — he wanted to thank those who had lit the beacons.’

  ‘Bear in mind,’ says Abban. ‘In those days no trees had been felled on the headland. The woods here were dense — no pathways as now. Dobhan reached the top after struggling through undergrowth. He stood on the very ground where we are standing now. He found no one — no blackened turf or wood-ash, no scorch-marks where beacons were lit. Instantly he was struck by the truth. The ship had escaped the rocks, Dobhan and the crewmen were saved not because of beacons lit by man, but by his vision.’

  ‘He had witnessed a miracle,’ says Paperkali, his voice shaking in awe.

  *

  Under the headland of Kildobhan, waves break against rocks on the shore. The holy day for the monks finished at sunset. Abban has led them in procession back through the woodlands to the compound. Paperkali and I sit on a rock overlooking the sea. From here, earlier in the day, monks fished for mackerel. A sea-breeze blows spray off breaking waves into our faces. One incoming wave, higher than the others, sends surf surging through a cleft of rock below our feet. Foam and suds melt away as the wave is sucked back into the darkening sea.

  ‘It wasn’t fair to make that promise to M’lym,’ says Paperkali sternly. ‘You were wrong, Ostman, wrong to fill the girl’s head with nonsense!’