The Winter Isles Read online

  The serpent whirled him round and spun him about, so he could not tell which way was sea and which mountain. Another man, coming at him. A stupid, careless man, with a raised arm and a pit begging to be skewered. Somerled, trained, looked for the trick, the feint. No, he was that stupid, and he died quickly.

  A new something now, tugging at his mind. What? He couldn’t concentrate, not for a second. Little Ruaridh, pinned back, howling. Somerled bunched small and pounced large, knocking Ruaridh’s man down, stepping on his face as the rush carried him forward, grinding his heel as best he could and feeling something snap. ‘Finish him,’ he screamed at his friend, who, wiping the blood and tears from his face, could only nod and stumble forward with his too-large sword.

  ‘To me! To me! Men of Lorne! To me!’ screamed Somerled, and the serpent seemed to coil back, its scales in the darkness glinting less, and quiet now. Suddenly he could concentrate on the new something, and as they flocked to him, he recognized it. Burning.

  Turning, he saw the brushwood piled against the sides of the hall. He saw the flames dancing towards the roof and heard the cackle and spit of damp sticks. And there, staggering through the open doorway, like a crazed and fiery offering to the old gods, was his burning father.

  ~~~

  Dawn came slowly to the beach. The sun rose, he supposed, but it was hidden behind a thick tapestry of grey and black clouds. As the sky brightened, he watched the grasses on the sand that grew perpetually sideways, buffeted by the wind. He saw how they did not even try to stand tall, but hugged the earth as if wary of growing upright.

  As it grew lighter still, he could see the faces of his people; their poor, soot-grimed, defeated, tear-tracked faces. Some slept, curled in the sand. Others watched the sea, as if the rhythm of the retreating waves held a clue, a portent. His sister, Brigte, twelve years old and resilient as a scallop shell, skipped along the top of a far dune, as if this were an adventure fresh for the taking.

  His father slept now. His cries had echoed over the strand, his sobs and curses rising to the stars. It was as if he was waking himself, Sigrdrifa had whispered to her son. One side of Gillebrigte’s body seemed to have melted, the skin scoured and crusted with melted wool. Father Padeen had cleaned him by the light of the fire that burned him, and kept him topped up with whisky to muffle the pain. Until, at last, as light glimmered fitfully on the horizon, he had slept. Or slipped into unconsciousness. Either way, it was a guilty relief when he stopped screaming.

  Somerled and the Otter sat side by side, holding hands. Her father, Fhearghais, watched them with narrowed eyes. But the night was too raw, too exceptional, to hold them to normal rules. When death came so close, thought Somerled, life seemed like an affectation. A succession of small rules that didn’t really matter.

  He faced away from the hall, towards the sea. He could smell it smouldering, and the ash floated down upon their heads like a charcoal rain. The heat of it reached across the sand, and his back was hot.

  ‘At least we didn’t need a fire,’ he whispered to the Otter.

  She gripped his hand a little tighter, and leaned into him, avoiding her father’s eyes.

  At last, when it was light enough, Somerled let go of her hand and stood up, shaking the sand from his clothes and hair.

  ‘We had better go and look,’ he said. Bleak faces tilted to look at him. His mother and the Otter were already standing. A handful of warriors lumbered to their feet, and in that he knew the best of them. Aed, of course. And little Ruaridh, who barely reached past the giant’s waist. Domnall, just thirteen, with his father Oengus; the two of them standing, dark-haired and grimy, side by side. Thorfinn the Catcher, who grumbled as he rose, but rose nonetheless. Sigurd Horse-face, who looked nothing like a horse; and Alfric the Bard. He might be rotten on the harp, thought Somerled, but he had heart.

  The rest, eyes darting to Gillebrigte’s sleeping body, set their shoulders away from Somerled. Iehmarc spat into the sand. His face and clothes were blood-soaked from the cradling of his brother’s corpse. He looked away. Who would be led by a fifteen-year-old boy? They had lost enough without that final absurdity.

  So be it. ‘Fhearghais,’ said Somerled. The Otter’s red-haired father looked up, casually. ‘Will you and Sigurd here relieve the lookouts?’

  ‘What are we watching for? They are long gone,’ said Fhearghais. ‘They did what they came for.’

  ‘And if they are not? What if they want slaves, hey? How much do you think Eimhear would fetch in Dublin?’

  ‘A sight more than you could pay, boy,’ said Fhearghais, looking towards the Otter and beyond her to the rising smoke. But he climbed to his feet and picked up his spear, and walked off slowly towards the high bluff.

  Somerled left the others to sulk, and walked towards the hall. Over the brow of the dune behind the beach they saw the flat land where the cattle should have been. The pasture was empty. Had they taken them, or just driven them away? The sheep pen was pulled open. Empty.

  The hall was charred and twisted, beyond redemption. The heart of it still burned in red embers; the rest smoked and hissed.

  Sigrdrifa, beside him, was muttering: ‘The dogs, the fucking dogs. All the work. All the work. Oh great Thor, bring thunder on their heads. Carve them up. Strike them down. All the work. And how shall we feed the children?’

  She moved through the blackened ruin where she could, picking up fragments, lamenting each one. She had been working all through the spring and summer to get ready for winter: pickling and smoking and curing; piling up food and wool against the lean times. And now it was all gone.

  Aed came up from behind him. ‘The fishing curraghs are sound, Somerled. Four of them. The big galley …’ He shrugged. His father’s war galley. Gone.

  ‘He should have posted lookouts, Aed. You know it. Why didn’t you tell him?’

  ‘Because, little lord, I was worried he would make me do it, if I spoke. And I wanted a fire, and a bucket full of mead, and to see my woman.’

  Disarmed by the big man’s bitter honesty, Somerled just nodded. He imagined Father Padeen’s voice. What have you learned? To be wary of the easy road. What will you do? Weep on the inside. What will they see you do? Stand tall.

  There was the priest himself, kneeling, praying. Somerled walked over to him. In his hands, Father Padeen cradled his dearest possession, a wrought-iron cross with the Lord’s body twisted on it. The iron had melted in the heat, fusing body and cross, scorching the Lord’s face. Padeen wept.

  Behind him, the Otter shouted. She held up some pots, blackened but intact. ‘Food,’ she said.

  Sigrdrifa crossed to her and rootled about, pushing her hair back with charcoaled fingers. Somerled joined them, picking his way past the ruin of what had been his parents’ sleeping area. She smiled at him. ‘We have some left,’ she said. ‘How I hate to face a winter unprepared.’

  ‘Is it worth such a smile?’ he asked.

  ‘Tsk, boy. Look at Padeen there, weeping away over his little statue. That’s the problem with your God. You expect him to be kind and loving, then you’re disappointed when he’s not. Fools. The old gods, they showed us to expect nothing. Nothing. Then,’ she said, waving a slice of smoked herring at him, ‘you can be surprised when they throw you a nugget of mercy. Here. Breakfast.’

  She glanced sideways at the Otter, then looked back at Somerled with a curious tilt to her head. He stared back, saying nothing. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Why not?

  ‘Eimhear!’ she shouted, though the girl was close by. ‘Breakfast.’ She handed her a piece of the fish. The Otter took it reverently, glancing up at Somerled.

  Before he had time to understand what was happening, he heard shouting. Aed’s head shot up, and he looked over at Somerled. They ran down to the beach, their feet sticky in the ash-covered sand. There, by the high-tide mark, stood Sigurd, his back to the beached curraghs, his sword in hand. Circling him were five of the band, led by Fhearghais, or so it seemed. Iehmarc sat apart, watching. Smiling.<
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  ‘Stop!’ Somerled shouted. They turned to look at him, and he realized that he did not quite know what to do next. So he walked forward. Swords bristled at him. Fhearghais’ face above his shield was set and ugly. Somerled was caught off guard by his inverse resemblance to his daughter: the same red hair, the same cool, white skin. He stopped, uncertain suddenly.

  ‘We are going home, boy,’ said Fhearghais. ‘Enough of this gull crap. We all of us know that your father is done, finished. We’ll take our chances back across the sea.’

  ‘You swore an oath.’

  ‘Your father broke it, by being unworthy of it.’ Fhearghais spat the words, and they were terrible. An unspoken truth made vocal, laid bare like the bones of a beached whale. Somerled felt the awe of it ripple around the men, and when it reached Aed, the big man shook with rage and bile.

  ‘No,’ said Somerled as the champion moved forward. ‘No!’ he shouted, and Aed backed down, shaking his head as if to make the world seem still again.

  Sigurd, his face red and taut, said: ‘Gillebrigte’s son is here, Fhearghais.’

  Fhearghais looked at Somerled, and his face softened. ‘Aye, and he’s a good boy,’ he said. ‘We can all see that. But he is a boy. And I am a man alone with a daughter in tow, and I need a lord who can give me silver.’

  Somerled looked at him with a level green stare. The man paled and fidgeted, his weight shifting from boot to boot. ‘A good boy,’ he repeated in a quiet voice that tailed off a little.

  ‘Let them go,’ Somerled said.

  ‘Lord!’ protested Sigurd.

  ‘I said let them go.’

  Sigurd dropped his sword.

  ‘Listen,’ said Somerled. ‘We know we cannot stay here. With no hall, no wood, no silver, no livestock. We will have to head back to the caves at Morvern and start again.’

  Aed and Fhearghais nodded; one sadly, the other with the smug air of a man proved right.

  ‘So,’ said Somerled, ‘we will need only those who are committed. We cannot watch our arses as well as our noses. Go, Fhearghais. But know this. When I am king of all the lands my family lost, I will find you, and I will drown you in molten silver. You will choke on silver. I will give you so much silver that you will beg for your mother while it sets solid in your throat.’

  Fhearghais forced a laugh, but the boy’s face was hard and implacable, and the four men with him wilted.

  ‘Enough,’ said a voice behind him, and the Otter stepped forward.

  ‘You’re staying here,’ said Somerled.

  ‘And am I a slave that you can order me?’

  ‘No, but you must stay.’

  ‘He is my father, Somerled. I must go.’

  ‘No.’ He sounded like a petulant boy, he knew. He felt the smirks of the men at his back.

  She stepped forward, and drew him away to the side. The older men’s eyes were on them. Some were indulgent, some scornful. He knew that Iehmarc was watching. He tried to shrug off their scrutiny and concentrate on her. She put her lips to his ear and whispered low, so that her voice was like listening to the sea trapped inside a shell. ‘Let me go, and I will come back, my summer heart. I will come back.’

  EIMHEAR

  We sailed away. We left him standing there on the shore looking after us. We left him with nothing: some provisions, a handful of men. A furious mother who capered on the beach and shook her fist at us as we set off through the breakers. A melted wreck of a father.

  The boat sailed under a cloud of guilt and oath-breaking. They wrangled it endlessly. ‘Our oath was not to the boy. Our oath was to the father.’

  Nods and grunts.

  ‘He broke his oath first.’

  ‘He did. He allowed this to happen. What kind of lord sets no watch at a feast when there’s raiders around?’

  ‘Aye, and where was he in the fighting? Inside asleep, with the skin melting off him.’

  ‘Jesus, but he was a terrible sight.’

  They all fell silent at this, remembering him staggering and screaming out of the hall, his clothes still flaming. The smell of him punching through the wet, smoky air. The popping hiss of his burning skin. The stench of him, like crackling.

  The youngest, Magnus the Red, looked as if he might cry. Such an awful thing to break an oath. He stroked his auburn beard, as if to remember he was a man with man’s choices. I wanted to make him cry; I wanted the pain of his betrayal to bite.

  I said nothing; huddled into my father.

  He was quiet, too, and unusually tender. He stroked my hair back from my face. He let me be quiet and still. He said nothing as I cried, just held on to my hand and let me weep.

  I do not know what I wept for. My friend, my home? I was too young, I think, to understand that it was for Somerled and me. I was too young to know that what hurt most, as I sailed away, was the end of dreams I had not known how to dream.

  ~~~

  We settled, at first, with some distant cousins in a glen too far from the sea in the land of the Ulaid. They were old, childless and bitter about it. Conchobar was the younger son of a dispossessed younger son, and was in a state of permanent half-rage at his small life. He was bent-backed from work, his face lined under a bald head that proclaimed to the world his inability to grow hair or make sons. His wife, Aine, was a silent woman. Taller than her husband, but quiet; weighed down by the viciousness of his tongue and the guilt of her barrenness.

  She would not talk to me. When I tried, she slid her eyes away from me and found a new chore. Perhaps she is shy, I thought. I tried, again and again, until at last, when she ran from me, I gave up.

  When I first understood that my father was to leave me with them, to go and fight for the local lord, I cried for a day.

  ‘I cannot take you with me, my darling. You’ll be safe here.’

  ‘Please don’t go.’

  ‘And how will we eat? I will be back soon, my treasure, you will see. Carrying silver, and jewels for your hair.’ He left, and as he went, the silence dropped like a shroud.

  My best friend was the pig.

  ‘I was loyal to him, Pig. And still he leaves me here. I could have stayed with Somerled.’

  Snort, snuffle, scrape.

  ‘I could, Pig. I know my duty is to my father, but is it his duty to leave me here, in this place? Do you know, Pig, that when we eat, there is complete silence. Scrape, scrape. You hear the bread scratch the bottom of the bowl as loud as thunder. It’s hard as a rock, this bread, anyway.’

  Her head raised at the word bread, and she lumbered forward, her massive head lolling from side to side with its great weight as she shifted from foot to foot.

  ‘Sorry, my darling. I haven’t any. I was just saying the word. I have some nuts for you. There. They’ll make you lovely and fat.’

  I rubbed the bristling, rough skin on her back as she ignored me, ploughing into the nuts.

  Of all the things I hated about that place, the distance from the sea galled the most. How could they bear it? At night, they were not lulled to sleep by the hissing rush of the waves. Instead, there was a sinister silence that kept me awake and listening for ghosts. In the first summer there, when it was so hot that the pig would not leave the shade even for the choicest stale bread, Lord, how I pined for the sea. I would lie in the stream beyond the house, but it was too shallow. It was just a cooling-down, a functional thing. There was no joy in it. I wanted to float in the bob of the sea. That was all I thought about, all I prayed about that summer. Lord, let me swim soon. Lord, let me turn a somersault in deep water. Lord, let me go home.

  But there was no home. Just a burned-out shell and a burned-out shell of a lord, and Somerled scrabbling for a life on a desolate shore.

  ‘Pig, you’re lucky. You have a home.’

  Snuffle, grunt.

  ‘They’ll mate you soon. Did you know that, Pig? You’ll have babies, and then you won’t be lonely.’

  The pig was the only being I told when I began to bleed, the second winter there. I kne
w what to do; Sigrdrifa had talked to me of it. I should have been surrounded by women, combing my hair, twirling me round, welcoming me to their ranks. Instead, the mute Aine gestured silently to the pot where I should boil the rag clean. She looked at me now with a new intensity.

  In the torrid silence of that house, I began to feel watched. Eyes were on me. I’d glance up and see Conchobar looking away. Spin round and see Aine becoming suddenly busy with a neglected task. Was there ever a woman more unfortunately named? It means splendour, brilliance, radiance. She sucked the light in and turned it dark, this Aine.

  As I get older, I can find compassion for her. She was named for the fairy wife of Fionn mac Cumhail, the best-hearted, kindest of his wives. And the fruitful one.

  Back then, I hated her.

  ~~~

  ‘Are you finished with your chores, girl?’

  Conchobar stood behind me. There was something about him that made me uneasy. Something about the way his feet were planted so wide; the drawing-up of his hunched-over back.

  ‘No. I have to gather some more nuts. We’re low.’

  The pig heard the word and grunted, scuffling up the muddy ground with her trotters.

  Conchobar came forward. The low autumn sun was behind him, and I couldn’t see his face clearly. I could not work out quite why he was making me nervous. I moved closer to the pig and put my hand out to feel the familiar rough scratch of her back.

  ‘We’ve not heard from your father for months. Since the pedlar at Easter. Seems to me he’s probably dead. We heard word of a battle.’

  ‘There’s always battles.’

  ‘Seems to me that if he’s dead, you need to start paying your way.’

  ‘I do my chores, do I not? I keep your livestock and tend your vegetables. I cook your food and wash your clothes.’