“We were attacked. Branna is dead and Deorsa and many others. Near half our numbers. How they found their way into Neul Carraig, I do not know.” His voice was strained.
“Who did this?” she asked as Mairi and Donnan joined them.
Naru shrugged. “They were organised, well trained fighters.”
“But whose?”
He shook his head. “There was nothing to identify them. They were,” he paused, “as shadows. Stealing into our hall, our home.”
“I hope your people killed plenty of them,” she said.
He sighed. “Enough died tonight.”
“So, now you’re going downriver, like us?” said Donnan. “Did you know about the king’s decree?”
Naru hadn’t heard so they informed him of what they’d found out in Nuckelavee.
“If you didn’t know about the decree,” said Mairi, “why did you decide to head downriver?”
“Before Meraud disappeared, she spoke to me, although Branna had commanded that she return to her silence. She warned me that the water had shown her a danger approaching. She said that leaving the mountains was the only way we would find safety.”
“Branna dismissed her vision as a fabrication but, when the attack came, I realised she was telling the truth. So, rather than rebuilding our defences, I led the survivors here. With what you tell me of the king’s decree, the safety Meraud spoke of becomes clear.”
“So it seems,” said Kaetha, surprised that Meraud would show concern for the Order. She turned to face the rafts along the riverside. “I don’t suppose you have room for three more?”
Despite all he had gone through that night, Naru slipped into his accustomed grin. “Seeing as it’s you.”
Steadying herself on the back of a raft, Kahina at her side, Donnan and Mairi ahead of them, she took up a paddle and tried to keep as close as possible to the precise, rhythmic strokes of her silent companions.
Water swirled black and silver with every dip of her oar and she found herself thinking once again about Princess Rhona and the night she escaped assassination, sailing away on the ship Aedan had found for her. The picture of the princess’s half brother, Svelrik, which she had built up in her head, did not tally with this new decree – this act of mercy. She’d positioned him as the ambitious usurper, willing to have Rhona and their father murdered, as well as anyone who got in the way. But what if others orchestrated the coup that night? Perhaps he hadn’t intended to be king at all. Maybe others manipulated him to make harsher laws against healers and users of magic and this new decree represented a more tolerant attitude towards people like her. He now showed compassion, allowing for mercy within the framework of the law. Might such a king show clemency to her father? ‘Hold onto hope’ had been her mother’s message to her before she died. Could she afford to hope that her father was, even now, a free man?
Her paddle hit against the one in front, so she focussed again on the steady motion of paddling, on the resistance of the water which reflected the darkening sky and the awakening of stars as they floated downriver.
Woodsmoke curled through the air, a comforting fragrance in a strange, remote place. Chattering died down as more fell asleep by the fire or under shelters made with the rafts but Kaetha and Kahina were awake, sitting together by the river. The water was blacker than ink, with threads of cold white moonlight skittering across it.
“Will you look into the water for me?” Kaetha asked. “Will you try to see where he is?”
“If the Water wishes for me to see.” Kahina’s cool hand softly clasped hers as they sat there quietly.
“Kahina,” she whispered, hoping to hear her thoughts, to glimpse what came to her mind. For a while, all she heard was rustling tendrils of willow trees on the bank.
“I see darkness,” said Kahina.
Kaetha held her breath. Was it the darkness of night she saw . . . or of death? “Now a flicker of torchlight,” said Kahina.
She tightened her grip on Kahina’s hand. She saw it too. The light was dim and distant, falling on stone, bars blocking out strips of it.
“There are chains on the floor,” said Kahina. The smooth shine of metal in link after link, a clasp around a wrist, an ankle. “I’m sorry, Kaetha. I know that’s not what you wanted me to see.”
“It’s alright. He’s alive,” she said. “He’s alive.”
She asked Kahina to seek others too. She saw Jean Moray waking to nurse baby Kitty, Dermid stirring beside her. Elspet and Cailean slept by the fire, Baird between them, resting his head on his paws. Nannie sat in her room at the monastery, moonlight through the window catching on the wool she was spinning, Kintail curled up on her lap. Rorie was sleeping on Cannasay beach, a blanket of stars above him. Finola lay in his arms. This shocked Kaetha like a slap around the face. “Thank you, Kahina,” she said, making sure her voice sounded steady. Alone, she walked over to the fire and lay down. She closed her eyes but that didn’t stop tears from escaping. A crushing pain spread within her chest.
She wished her father was safe at home, that none of this had happened.
She wished that she was lying where Finola was, that Rorie had wanted her.
“I said, anyone would mistake you for a silent one,” said Donnan a while after they’d set off the next morning.
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you,” said Kaetha.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Fine,” she replied. “I could have slept better.”
