LothinSaga by Allan Harper

Author:Allan Harper [Harper, Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-21T20:00:00+00:00

Isle of the Protected Women.

Lothin hooked his legs over the spar and his arms around the mast. Down below his feet the rest of them were rowing to Guttorm’s slow chant through green water pockmarked with dark outlines of rocks and seaweed. Beow seemed to be finding the channel without his help. The wind that had caused near disaster had fled, leaving the ocean flat. The sail was useless. Grim had decided it not worth unfurling so rowing gave him complete control of the ship, but he sent him aloft anyway.

She glided, neither rolling nor leaning. It was an odd sensation, but he liked it. He felt safe. He thought back to the bowel loosening fear when Black Hawk began taking on water, growing sluggish and fighting her way to the shore. The noise of the rocks tearing along the hull was something he knew he would never forget. Deep down he knew they were all lucky to be alive. Perhaps it was the wind that drove her ashore, outstripping the grasping black hands trying to pull her under. He shivered. But he had not been the only one. There had been white faces and unmanlike sounds from a few in the party.

Guttorm was still below the deck boards keeping watch on the patch, nursing it with his eyes. Black Hawk would skirt the shore for as long as it took to persuade Grim it was safe to risk deeper water; and for the small matter of the wind to return. They all understood the coast could not be hugged all the way home. At some point they would have to risk the open sea and the stresses it would bring to the hull. He tried not to imagine how badly that could go. His lookout point was becoming his favourite spot on the ship, safe and out of reach of the verbal barbs of the others. ‘Lothin Strongarm’ was proving to be a divisive nick name in the smallness of the deck below and he was in no rush for the wind to return him back down there. Perhaps they would find another ship. Perhaps the Picts built good ships too?

*

Holy Mother Eithne saw the dozen men leave in their boat and waved farewell and thanks for the extra food supplies they had brought. She turned, looking towards the small settlement on the low island. A small spit of sand separated them from the smaller isle, lying like a pup by its mother, where the sisters prayed in the chapel. She looked at the openness of their community, considering the words the men had brought, ‘we cannot protect you out here, would you not be better to build a new chapel across the water where we are? You would be welcomed, and we would not bother you.’ and knew they were all in God’s hands. If, the rumour was true. She watched until the boat had almost vanished into the blueness and the backdrop of the shoreline.

Their offer was kind but misplaced.

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