Chapter 2

Finally the tempest subsided into a howling wind, which Inghen decided to chance as a quick way to reach Innis Scathach. However, in reality it only led us to the second storm of that morning. I was sitting in my accustomed place in the stern with Inghen, Bjorn and Thorir when it happened.

'How far to the island?' Bjorn had just asked. Thorir glanced at the map again.

'No more than fifty miles, assuming that we make good time.'

'But in the margin my father writes that there are strong currents and treacherous reefs between the other Hebrides and our island,' I broke in. Inghen looked at me.

'That might slow us down,' she observed quietly. 'Still, we're in no hurry.'

'We'll certainly need some superior seamanship to see us through these waters,' I said doubtfully. Would a woman be up to it?

'Sails to port!' came a call. We turned to investigate, and as we did so, the cry was repeated again and again. Inghen placed her hands on the side and stared across the rolling waves. Three longships had slid over the horizon, and as we watched, more and more began to appear. They seemed to be heading straight for us.

'Who is it?' I cried. Thorir turned to me, his face bleak.

'It's Hvirvil's fleet!' he said. 'Seems he knew enough about the island's location to anticipate the direction we would sail in.'

Inghen spun round, her icy eyes flashing.

'How can he know so much?' she demanded. She glared at me accusingly. I shook my head. I wanted to exonerate myself, but the words froze in my throat under that cold stare.

'I hope we don't have a traitor on board,' muttered Thorir slowly.

I shook my head again.

'I've told them nothing,' I spluttered, perhaps too quickly. Blank incomprehension might have better helped my cause, I told myself later. 'I hadn't even heard of Hvirvil Einhandi until I met you,' I added, my voice cracking.

'Then how can he have known where we were heading?' Inghen snarled.

I smiled helplessly, petrified. My heart was beating rapidly, booming in my ears like the surf. They moved closer to me. 'Well,' I ventured nervously, 'everyone knows the Fomorians used to dwell in the Western Isles. I imagine he made a lucky guess.'

'And I imagine you told him,' Thorir hissed viciously. He pulled out a knife and approached me with it.

'Don't kill him,' Inghen said suddenly, just as the dagger's point was pricking my Adam's apple. I threw her a grateful glance, but her face was chill. 'We'll question him after we've escaped Hvirvil. Tie him to the mast. It's time we worked out some way of escaping this situation.'

Bjorn, who had been giving me an unfriendly glare, took me by the arms and hustled me over to the mast. He proceeded to bind me to it.

'Bjorn, you don't believe I'd betray you, do you?' I gulped. He glowered at me.

'How do you explain our pursuers, then?' he barked. He checked the bonds, then turned on his heel and left me before I could think of an answer.

This was all wrong, I thought to myself miserably, as my captors prepared the ship for a hurried escape and the ominous crescent of ships closed in. Everything had been going perfectly - now it was completely, frustratingly out of my control. I didn't even know Hvirvil! I'm not trying to con my listeners into thinking that I'm one of these fools of nobles who takes the idea of honour seriously - my father was a merchant, and I've always been aware that fairness and open-dealing are nothing but hindrances to any serious venture. But I'd had no plans to betray the Red Daughter to Hvirvil, and it worried me deeply that she should mistrust me so much as to believe I would. If things continued like this, would I ever get a chance to complete my mission?

The longship sped across the blue waters that stretch from the shores of Galloway to the Hebrides, and soon the first of the islands loomed before us. Looking aft across the heaving ranks of rowers from my position against the mast, I saw the sails of Hvirvil's fleet spread out along the skyline like a swiftly encroaching forest. They were gaining on us as we made desperately for the Hebrides, and it seemed to me that our only chance of escape lay in losing them in the confusion of islands. We rowed onwards.

Then we were passing between two rugged, heather-covered headlands. I craned my neck round to see that the crew were rowing us into a narrow, mist-wreathed bay, beyond which another island loomed distantly, this one topped by a stone tower. I turned aft again, and as I did so we sailed around the nearby headland, cutting my sight off from the oncoming fleet.

Inghen was studying my father's map again, and I could hear her rapping out a string of orders to her subordinates. We turned to port, and began to hug the tree-festooned coastline. Was she hoping Hvirvil would fail to see her in the shade of the pines? I couldn't tell. I looked back.

One of the longships was now cautiously easing its way into the misty bay. The billowing sails bore an image of the Spear of Odin, and its prow was carved in the form of a snarling, fantastic beast. They had seen us, and were rowing rapidly in our direction.

Soon they were cut off from our sight once more as we passed around the northern end of the island. I could hear Inghen shouting out precise orders, and I saw her as she ran past me to the steering oar, and wrestled desperately with it to keep us on a specifically even keel. We passed through an area of fast-rushing water at the centre of the straits, then broke out into a firth between two weirdly-sculpted basalt cliffs.

Inghen's next order took me by complete surprise.

'Weigh anchor!' she yelled. I stared at her in incomprehension, as did the crew. She laughed wildly at our expressions, then snarled, 'Do as I tell you!'

'But Inghen,' called one of the rowers, who I recognised as Brodir Finsson, 'surely Hvirvil's ships will catch us up?'

Scornfully, Inghen shook her head.

'I know what I'm about,' she said harshly. 'Now, Thorir - weigh anchor, damn you!'

Shrugging fatalistically, the Dane complied.

We sat bobbing in the midst of the firth, thirty men risking their lives at the whims of a lunatic woman. I began to realise the daring escapades that had made the Red Daughter famed and feared throughout the lands surrounding the Irish Sea must merely have been the hysterical antics of a woman possessed. A madwoman is a terrible thing, still more if she is beautiful; and yet a far worse thing is to find yourself at the mercy of one. But her followers were fanatically loyal, like all Vikings, and as ever, I myself was in no position to argue.

The first of the longships appeared through the mist that hung around the entrance into the firth. Inghen waited a few seconds, before another ship swam into view, then span round to her crew.

'Thorir, heave the anchor, the rest of you - row! And Hell take you all.' She shouted out her orders, then turned to watch the entry of the longships.

The Trollwife jerked unsteadily as the rowers swung her back into movement, but we began to pick up speed as we rowed down the centre of the firth, dwarfed by the towering cliffs. We were escaping, but it seemed to me that we had lost all advantage we had previously gained from being ahead of the fleet. Soon they would catch up with us, and at the last count there were forty ships pursuing us - too many to fit into the firth we had found ourselves boxed up, but more than enough to send us to the bottom.

I stared at the two longships that followed us with trepidation. My bowels were loose and my legs seemed to have turned to water. They had seen us, and now they were heaving on their oars and pressing closer, one ship almost treading on the stern of the other. The first ship swung majestically through the straits, shreds of mist falling away from its rigging as the oars rose and fell in concert; I could see that the deck was crawling with armed men. And then....

And then an ugly sound of tearing wood split the silence of the firth. I stared in amazement as the ship tore out its keel on the hidden rocks just beneath the surface of the water. It plunged to one side, its mast almost becoming entangled with the looming pine trees on the far side of the narrow straits...

And then it was sinking.