Soaked to the bone, Julitta huddled against the wine casks and endured the fury of the storm. In its early stages it had been exhilarating, but now she was becoming frightened by its fury. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a wild darkness, and it roared so loudly that it left no room for any other sound. It filled the world to bursting and threatened to rend its very fabric. Even the terrified screams of the black stallion were overridden by the bellowing of the storm.
Julitta searched her mind for the best saint to invoke for protection, but it was impossible to think. Gisele would have known, or Arlette, but both were dead. Perhaps she was going to join them.
Julitta sternly curtailed her over-active imagination. Beltran said that it was an ordinary storm, that the Draca had weathered worse, and would doubtless do so again, and when he spoke, his eyes had been calm.
Beside Julitta, Mauger lay doubled up and groaning, oblivious to anything but his own suffering. His stomach was empty and produced nothing but a watery bile. Julitta had begun to feel queasy too, but she knew that a part of it was fear. She could swim – her father had insisted she learn after she had strayed near the dew ponds as a child, but it was a long time ago, and she had been taught in shallow water where her feet touched the bottom, not in a rough, black sea. Her imagination ran riot again. She squeezed her lids tightly shut and prayed. And the name she sobbed was Benedict's. For he was the only rescuer she had ever known.
The Draca rode out the storm and with the coming of dawn, battered and bruised, but still intact, rolled at anchor on the swell of an iron-hued, sullen sea. Over their heads the clouds still churned, driven like the gulls by the directionless, boisterous wind. Feeling as stiff as an old woman, Julitta clambered in ungainly fashion to her feet and went in search of a cup of water and a crust of bread to calm her quailing stomach. Beltran was sitting on a rowing bench near the steersman and chewing on bread and smoked herring. His eyes were pouched with weariness and there was a troubled frown between his brows.
'Good morrow, my lady,' he greeted Julitta and offered her a share of his breakfast. She declined the herring, but accepted the bread and a cup of watered wine.
'Have we seen out the worst of it now?' she asked as she made to return to Mauger.
'I hope so, my lady. We took a fair battering last night. Sail's stretched beyond good use. It'll be slower progress from now on.' He sucked his teeth and shook his head. 'I'm sorry it could not have been a smoother passage.'
Julitta managed a weak smile. 'So am I.'
Mauger sat up groggily and with a groan, took the cup that Julitta handed to him, having sipped her share. He drank thirstily, his body in desperate need of moisture after the terrible purging of yesterday. Red-eyed, rumpled, stained, he looked at Julitta over the rim of the cup. She had bound up her hair in a tightly knotted kerchief, her cheeks were scarlet, her lips salt-dried. Her shoes and the hem of her gown were sea-stained too. She looked like a fishwife. It was in her blood, a product of her tough, Norse heritage. Thus the women of her forefathers who had crossed the seas in open boats must have looked. Mauger acknowledged to himself that he would have been one of the farmers who stayed at home and never went a-viking.
Cynwulf was a sea-raider, a pirate, whose home for the past twenty years had been the deck of a longship and the high seas between Dublin and Ushant. He was an English exile, a huscarl who had survived to flee the battle of Hastings, and found sanctuary in the Norse pirate port of Dublin. Robbed of his homeland, he now robbed the Normans who had stolen it from him, exacting his revenge on their traders and merchant vessels.
His ship, the Fenrir, had seen better days, so had its crew, and the recent storm had done little to make them any more presentable. They had sailed out from Dublin on a promising wind together with three other raiders, but the squalls of the last two days had scattered the longships and each had now to make his own way. Cynwulf was irritated. Prey was easier when hunting in a pack. One to one could be dangerous, and although he had never shrunk from peril, he was aware of his encroaching years and the slowing of his body.
Cynwulf scanned the horizon with weather-creased eyes. The jagged coastline of Brittany rose out of the mist on the Fenrifs larboard bow. A sailor dropped a knotted sounding line and drawing it back up, shouted the depth to the steersman. Gulls screamed overhead and a watery sun pierced the clouds. Cynwulf had contemplated putting about and returning to Dublin, but now he squared his shoulders and took the decision to remain at sea. Storm-battered they might be, but there would be other vessels in similar case, probably up from Biscay, and if he chose carefully, the Fenrir could yet earn her keep with a hold full of booty to replace her ballast of common rock.
It was midday when the sail was sighted on the horizon. The muscles stood rigid in Cynwulf's jaw. He strode to the raised deck on the prow and followed the sailor's pointing finger to the tiny red and yellow patch off the starboard gunwale. It was almost beyond vision, but in the fullness of time, unless it altered direction and sailed out to sea, it would cross their path… or they would cross its path.
'Break out the oars,' Cynwulf commanded. 'Let's take a closer look.'
'Sail to port!' bellowed the Draw's lookout. 'Coming up fast!' Beltran cupped his eyes and squinted across the glittering heave of the sea. He saw a rig similar to the Draca's own, the sail a plain, cream-coloured canvas. She was using both wind and oar power. He counted the number of rowing ports — a dozen either side, dipping and rising in smooth, powerful motion. Beltran cursed under his breath and began shouting rapid commands.
'What's wrong, what's happening?' Mauger came to Beltran's side and narrowed his lids in the direction of the captain's scrutiny.
Beltran shook his head. 'I may be wrong, but I'm not about to wait around and find out. Yonder vessel, she's bearing down on us too fast to be friendly.'
'You mean she's a raider?' Mauger looked appalled. His recovering complexion turned green again.
'We're in the right waters. They usually hunt in packs, but there are always lone wolves out on their own.' He glanced at Mauger from beneath his brows as he went to help trim the sail. 'Best look to that beast of yours; make sure he's well tied. There's some spears stacked at the side of the rowing benches. Arm yourself… and Lady Julitta too.'
'We can outrun them, surely,' Mauger said, a swallow in his voice.
'I hope so. Depends how much ballast she's carrying against the weight of our cargo.'
Mauger took two spears and retreated to the hold. Julitta was leaning over the painted gunwale, staring at the oncoming vessel. Red strands of hair had escaped her kerchief and were whipping against her face. 'Beltran says they could be raiders. You've to arm yourself,' he said.
She turned round. Her eyes had widened at his words, but she nodded sensibly, and took the weapon from him as if it was something that she did every day. 'What will they do if they are raiders and they catch us?'
Mauger thought of all the tales he had heard about the viciousness of Dublin pirates. 'I don't know,' he answered. 'Ransom us, I hope.'
Julitta hefted the spear the way she had seen the soldiers do at battle practices. She wondered whether it should be thrown, used as a stabbing weapon, or as a stave to keep the other vessel from grinding up sufficiently close for a boarding party. Like Beltran, she had counted twenty-four oars. Their own crew numbered a dozen, plus themselves. Odds of two to one at least.
It quickly became clear that the pursuing vessel had far from friendly intentions. As she approached, tacking to meet the Draca, Julitta saw the glint of sunlight on spear tips and shield bosses. She was a low-slung dragon- ship, built for speed, otter-sleek in pursuit.
Beltran ran the Draca as close to the wind as he dared, her sail trimmed as best could be managed after the stretching of the storm, and the heaviest members of the crew leaning out on her windward gunwale. She cut through the ocean swell with a smooth, hissing force, the waves parting beneath her knife-blade hull. But despite her surging progress, the sea-raider closed in, grapnels and spears at the ready.
Julitta could see the men on the longship now – salt-bearded warriors, some in armour, some in plain tunics, all of them bearing weapons. She could hear their shouts too. In a mingling of Anglo—Saxon and Irish— Norse, they bellowed their intentions across the diminishing gap of sea between themselves and the Draca, none of them remotely honourable.
A spear curved through the air. Its sharp iron tip ripped its way down the Draca's sail and rested, embedded in the cloth. Another flew, shaving past Beltran and thrumming into a wine barrel in the hold. Red liquid spouted like a slashed artery. Mauger's stallion struggled against his restraints, and whinnied. Despite the cold sea breeze, sweat creamed his dark hide.
A grapnel struck the Draca's straking and splashed back into the sea. A second and third were thrown, both
