Swords From the Sea (17 page)

Peter eyed the youngster with dark triumph.

"Master Ralph, the mariners o' the Esperanza saw a mermaid come up out of the waters. Aye, an omen, that, as ever was. And where be they now?"

Seeing that his companion was no whit cast down by this comparison, Peter went on stubbornly.

"And now our time is come. What d'ye think on it?"

"Think? That you have guzzled the brandy overmuch."

"Now, shiver my soul else, that is ill said. Look you here, Master KnowAll: When I came down from the masthead yonder, the very beasties of the wood were up and about. Aye, they know when an ill wind is to ward. Wolves and bears, they were a-capering and a-rushing all about me, through the trees."

"There are no wolves, nor bears on this island."

"I laid my deadlights on them. They were hiding, crafty-like, a-slipping and a-"

"Nonsense-"

"On two legs, Master Ralph. A-peering at me they were."

Thorne was puzzled by Peter's statement, stoutly reiterated when he questioned the boatswain anew that he had seen bears on the path to the lookout. He reflected that Sir Hugh's men had made only a casual examination of the island, and such animals might have remained unseen in the patches of woods.

Bear's meat would add splendidly to their larder, and he decided to try his hand at hunting.

Taking up the crossbow with its winder and a few shafts-this weapon being both handier and more accurate than the harquebus-he left the palisade.

A heavy mist was blowing in, and the chill of it struck through his light cloak. It swept like smoke athwart the line of the forest, rendering him for the moment subject to the illusion that the pines and the rock gullies were moving past him while he was standing still.

Under the mesh of the wood the fog did not penetrate, and he walked hard and fast to stir up his circulation. The gale whined overhead, and the piping of curlews and croaking of gulls filled the space with tumult.

The wood opened out in time, and he passed through a labyrinth of scrub oak, all bent in one direction by the winds of countless years. Until now he had not known that he had come a full two leagues to the other end of the island. But for the moment he paid no attention to his surroundings.

High and clear and yet faintly a voice was to be heard, a human voice, dwarfed by the note of the wind. It reached him in snatches, and he could not be certain of its direction until he reflected that it must come down the wind.

As he rounded a mass of rocks, coated with moss, he heard it clearly and stopped in his tracks. The voice was a woman's, and she was singing an old ballad:

A woman's voice was the last thing he had expected to hear, and Thorne paused to wind his crossbow and fit a shaft in the slot. Where a woman was, in this island of the Ice Sea, men must be, and it behooved him to draw near with care.

He pushed between two boulders and looked out into a mist-shrouded glen. On the far side, in some high bracken and fern he made out the form of a deer, with its antlered head pointed fairly in his direction. Surprise and excitement brought his crossbow to his shoulder. He pressed the trigger when the stag moved-the eagerness of the hunter strong upon him. The shaft sped and the deer vanished, not bounding away, but sinking, as it seemed to him, into the ground.

The voice stopped on an unfinished note and there fell the familiar silence with its monotone of the gale overhead. Thorne ran forward, and sought eagerly in the ferns for the prey that he thought he had slain.

He found nothing, neither deer nor shaft. Nor, indeed, any sign of the singer, though he hunted through the broken ground until he came out on the shore and saw the line of surf an angry white under the leaden gray of the mists.

"Are you friend or foe?" he called and, after waiting a moment, "I'll harm you not."

But the only response was the impatient and mocking calling of the birds.

Taking his way home, his eye fell on a shaft half buried in the ground, and he took it up believing it was the bolt he had shot. It proved, however, to be an arrow, such as he had never seen before. It was a small shaft, feathered with black crows' feathers and bearing two small iron heads. After inspecting it, he thrust it into his belt and charged his crossbow anew.

For a while he quested along the ridges, until, the mist thickening, he knew his search vain and turned to the Wardhouse.

When he told Peter all that had taken place on the shore, the boatswain nodded indifferently.

"Aye, it were a pixie or a wood troll, or mayhap a Robin Goodfellow. Faint and clear it sung, say ye? Why, it were anhungered. Ye should have left it a bit of a sup."

"But I saw naught, Peter."

"And why should ye, Master Ralph? 'Tis sartain and sure that pixies dwell in cromlechs, which is to say hollow mounds, beneath the sod. Where rocks stand, like a circle, with linden trees, keep your weather eye out for trolls and such-like."

Thorne was far from satisfied with this. Had a ship come to the island? If so, where was it anchored? Were there natives, pagan folk, about the Wardhouse, and were they invisible? He could have sworn there were no deer on the island, which was too small for a herd; yet he had seen one.

Chapter XI

The Sea Maiden

A touch on his arm awakened him from the deep sleep of early morning. The hall was visible in the half-light that never quite left the island. Somewhere he heard Peter snoring comfortably.

The woman who stood by his couch, whose hand had touched his arm, held her finger on her lips. She was no taller than one of the great bales of goods beside her, and she was swathed from head to foot in a heavy sea cloak. Only two braids of hair of the brightest red gold were visible.

"You may not abide in this place," she said softly. "You must get you gone from here."

Her eyes, he noticed, were dark and they glowed with excitement. Her age he could not guess, but manner and voice were youthful, and the voice was that of the singer of the day before.

"Why?" he asked briefly, watching her face.

It was characteristic of the armiger that he showed no surprise at her presence. She was here, and in due time he would know all about that.

"The Easterlings are angered, lad. They will not endure you more."

"Why are they angry?"

"You shot a shaft at one; besides, you hold the Wardhouse and they would have it for Iny comfort. What seek you here?"

Thorne rose to his feet, and she stepped back as if to ward him off.

"Nay, sir, touch me not, for that would be your death."

"Here are threats and warnings," quoth the armiger impatiently, "but no sense. Mistress, I have loosed me no shaft at any pagan, nor have I a mind to harm you. Come, we will build the fire anew and you shall rede me this riddle."

He turned to call Peter to go for more wood, but again the girl in the sea cloak checked him in his purpose.

"Nay, let the lout sleep. The Easterlings have no love for him and they would slay him out of hand if he came near me."

"Now by my faith," growled the youth, "this is ill hearing. If any man lifts hand against Peter I will put my sword through him."

The girl smiled at this, yet there was anxiety in her eyes, which traveled beyond Thorne to the far corners of the hall. And he, following her gaze, became aware of shapes that stood without the narrow windows-of heads, covered with the fur of animals, and, once, of a form that resembled a deer with spreading antlers.

These, he knew, were men wearing bear and deer skins, but men so stunted that they stood no higher than his shoulder. And each one, with bow and arrows ready in hand, stirred restlessly as if ill at ease. Fear or uneasiness in savages and animals he knew to be a portent of danger. And his sword and pistols would avail little against their arrows.

It had been Peter's watch, and, judging by his snores, these folk of the island had taken possession of the palisade with small trouble. So reflecting, he brought wood himself, laid twigs on the embers of the hearth. When flames crackled and gripped the logs his gray eyes turned to the girl questioningly.

"And now, the tale, child," he said calmly, stretching his hands to the blaze.

She had seen that he was aware of her followers, and she glanced at him with fleeting curiosity, one hand smoothing back hair from her forehead. The fire tinted her thin checks with color and made her fair indeed. Yet she was unconscious of this charm of hair and eyes and voice.

"If I tell what you would know," she whispered not to awaken Peter, "will you pledge me your word that you and the churl will leave the island so soon as may be?"

Thorne considered this and shook his head.

"I may not do that, for I have sworn an oath to abide here."

"Ah, that would avail you naught, for you would lie under the sod with a cross upon your grave."

"Like the other?"

Thorne nodded at the palisade.

In a flash he saw that he had hurt the girl; her eyes glistened with tears and she bent her head, looking into the fire, her hands clasped on her breast.

"Peace, I pray you, sir. That is my father's grave. He was not slain by Easterlings, but by pirates who have e'er now made atonement for their ill deed."

When he still kept silent, she saw fit to tell him her name.

She was Joan Andrews, daughter of Andrews the trader. He was Scotland horn, and had come in recent years to the Wardhouse by way of the Orkneys and the Norway coast, impelled to this course by sight of gold among the natives. This season he had taken Joan on the trip for the first time, and had met with misfortune, being followed to the Wardhouse by a pinnace with a dragon figurehead, manned by lawless Burgundians.

These had attacked the trader, killed him, and loaded his goods on their vessel which was anchored in the harbor. Andrews's cutter they had sunk a short distance from the island. But Joan had escaped from the Wardhouse after the death of her father, choosing to fly to some few Laps who had come to the island to trade rather than to trust to the mercies of the pirates.

The Easterlings, she explained, had a mound dwelling at the other end of the island, a hollowed-out knoll which was entered by a tunnel hidden from sight in the rocks.

The pirates might easily have escaped in their boat, but, unaware of the presence of the Easterlings, scattered over the island to search for the missing girl, and so fell victim to the arrows of the savages. The goods of the trader Andrews were brought back to the Wardhouse for safe keeping, until a large sailing skiff could be fetched to convey them to the mainland.

Before this vessel arrived, the English ship came into the harbor, and the Easterlings hid themselves with the maiden in their underground dwelling. They watched the Edward sail off and were astonished to find two men left on the island. These they had decided to kill, believing them kin to the pirates.

Joan Andrews had seen Thorne the day before, and by his bearing and voice thought him English and of gentle blood. She had begged the Laps as best she could with signs and her few words of their speech to hold their hands until she could speak with the men in the Wardhouse.

Thorne considered her story and went to the heart of the matter with a word.