One in the Same

Chapter Five

   Cat looked down into the yard beneath her window with a heavy heart. The flames of the torches danced across the ground. The shadows they revealed. It was almost as if they were calling to her. Taunting her in a way. Come and play. She growled deep in her chest and pulled away. A stray strand of her hair brushed across her brow. Immediately she reached up and pulled so violently, the strands came away in her hand. A sharp pain raced through her hairline. She went to her vanity, undid the bun and began furiously pinning it back up. It had been near a fortnight since she had felt the mass of curls brush her back or even caress her face in the wind. Her hair had been her undoing that day. Her weakness, the advantage that rud needed. The motion replied in her head again. The crowd screaming, the pain searing through her scalp. Never again, she vowed to herself. Never again will someone get the advantage.
   A soft knock came to her door. Are you awake? Her mother's words filled her mind. The smell of her filled her nose through the oak.
   "Come in," Cat replied gruffer than she meant to.
   Clodagh walked in slowly and closed the door firmly behind her.
   "Where is he," Cat demanded, looking at her mother in the mirror.
   "Arguing with your father about you coming down." She sat a small washing bowl on the table in the middle of the chamber. "He knows you've healed."
   Cat growled furiously. "Two months it's been o'course he fucking knows. For all he is he has brains. I don't think we can hold this charade for much longer."
   "Aye, I agree."
   The tone in Clodagh's voice gave Cat pause. This was new anger that she hadn't shown before. This was the mother she had heard stories of. Slowly Cat turned to face her. Clodagh didn't move from the table. Mam?
   Ah've been thinking.
   A dangerous past time.
   Clodagh chuckled, but there was no hummer there. No joy.
   He can't marry a corpse, cat beat.
   Cat tilted her head and studied her mother.
   He can't marry a corpse...and he can't become Ri without a Banphrionsa. Clodagh continued slowly looking up and into her daughter's eyes.
   What are you getting at? Cat asked slowly.
   You're right. We can't keep this charade forever. Eventually, everyone will know that you've regained strength...unless... She didn't say another word. Just stared into the eyes she created. The eyes of the daughter she brought into this world what seemed like just last night.
   Unless they were wrong. Unless I couldn't heal from my wounds. Ma he knows now. He has to.
   Clodagh slowly shook her head. "He knows you're resting," she said out loud now. "He knows there is a chance you have regained your strength to an extant. He does not know you could have survived. And gods grant us, the measters haven't revealed anything...anything I haven't told them to anyway."
   Let me in! Cat demanded. Enough riddles! What are you getting at?!
   A ship sails for England at dawn. Clodagh announced slowly. A mortal merchant barge. It only stops on our shores very two to three years. And each time its a different crew.
   Aye, Cat replied slowly beginning to understand. Am I to be on that ship come the morn?
   Clodagh smiled darkly. It's not what I want to do. But at this time...for this time...I will not see you married to him, Caitlin. Ah won't have it. Until you can be safe again I have made arrangements. You will be safe. You will be provided for. In six months time you will come home. I will know where you are. I will keep contact with my daughter. And in six months time a new ship will come. And you will return to us.
   Cat stood and the two women ran to each other and held on to each with a strength that could shatter a person from head to toe. Tears filled Cat's eyes for the first time in her life. Ah don't want to go.
   Ah know, cat beag. But you will come home. And this will all just be a memory. A bad memory that will soon be forgotten. Ah wouldn't ask this of you if  ah didn't think there was another way.
   Cat clinged to her mother as she nodded. "Can ah ask somethin' of ya?"
   "Anything," Clodagh replied pulling back and looking into Cat's eyes. She was crying just as hard.
   "Cut m'hair off."

   Cat kept her hood pulled down tight. The dress she had on she had worn nearly a hundred times. Every time she went to the village. Every time she had talked with her people. Now it clung to her. No matter what she did, she couldn't get dry. The boards of the ship beneath her feet felt like it just wanted to knock her on her arse. Her ears and neck where either too cold or the kinks her curls had become tickled and made her itch. In short...Caitlin Ó Catháin was fucking miserable.
   And just when she thought it couldn't get any worse...thunder...rumbled in the distance.
   She kept her hand tight on her cloak, just beneath her chin as she made her way up to the bow of the ship. She could smell the storm coming closer. The clouds were dark as pitch on the horizon. A bruise fresh from...she turned her head away.
   "Ah'd get down below, lass," a sailor warned her as he tightened the rope in his hand. "Bow's no place for a women. Le'alone when a storm gathers."
   She watched him silently.
   "Yer a strange one. Ne'er met a women who don't talk. Ne'er met one tha' doesn't shut up really."
   Cat looked back to the storm. "Moving fast," she replied gruffly.
   "Aye. Be on us be'fo' nigh' fall ah'd 'magine. No place fo' a lass."
   She tilted her head. "No place indeed."

   The storm came faster than any of them thought it would. There was little to no time to prepare for it. But Cat didn't hide as so many of them had warned her. Most swore it was her that brought the storm. Even as she tried to hold the ropes. Even as she listened to every order the capitan and first mate screamed out. Even as her cloak billowed around her. As the salt burned her eyes and not a single piece of her was dry. Her ears were filled with the sounds of men yelling, waves crashing, wood creaking and groan even braking and splintering off in different places. It was a madness that wasn't much different from the wars she had fought. The floorboards beneath her gave way and threw her into the air. She screamed out as she reached for something, anything to hold on to. She reached up and her hand slipped off the rain-slicked rope. She met the floorboards so hard she damn near bit her own tongue off. That didn't stop her. In half a heartbeat she was right back up and fighting against nature right along with the others. Cat found herself screaming right along with the captain and first mate. She found herself screaming back at the gods as the waves rose and fell. She pulled the ropes tighter. Kept her feet beneath her.
   "We'll see the morning yet lads! Just you wait! We'll see the morning!" The captain called out.
   "Behind you!" Cat screamed as she saw the mass brake loose. She ran for the captain and pushed him out of the way just in time for the mass to catch her full in the face and knocked her back over the bow and into the waves.
   Saltwater filled her lungs. The current swept her around as if she were a child's rag doll. She fought and kicked for the surface. Her claws digging into nothingness as she pushed herself up, or down or for all she knew to the left. It hurt to open her eyes. And even if Cat was able to open a lid there was no difference than the darkness of when they were closed. Her chest and nose felt like it was on fire. Cat's body felt like it was slowly becoming a ton of bricks. She could hear the men of the ship yelling and screaming from somewhere, everywhere and all at once nowhere. Her fighting became slower. Her arms and legs began to feel heavy. The sounds of waves crashing over and around her. Water suddenly...felt like her own bed, in her own chamber, in her own keep. It rocked her much like her mother once had. It sang to her as she did. And she was warm. So blissfully warm.