Winterfire

Chapter Eight

Lif

Soon I was farther away from home than I had ever been before. I was so frightened I couldn’t take a deep breath. Low, gray clouds hung above us, and the sea churned purple beneath. When at last Lucan’s ship was not even a speck on the horizon, I started to cry, and I didn’t stop until hours later, when I fell asleep.

I woke up when I felt someone touch my wrists. The Danes were untying our bonds. People were standing and stretching, rubbing their wrists and even talking. Someone passed me a skin of water and I drank. I knew all of the other captives, of course. They were either people from my village or monks from Lindisfarne. Mr. Hayden, the man I had seen struck with the shield, was also on the ship, but he slept for two days.

I spent most of my first few days on the ship standing in the stern, my eyes trained, first on the receding shore, and then, on the horizon, looking for help to come. Where were my parents? Why didn’t they come for me? Perhaps they had to travel up the coast to borrow a ship large enough to come for the open sea, I thought. Every night, when I huddled down with the other captives to sleep, I was wracked with disappointment that no one had rescued me that day. Every morning, when I awoke, cramped and cold from another wretched night’s sleep, I couldn’t believe another day was dawning, and no one had come during the night. It didn’t even occur to me to try and help myself; I just kept watching and waiting for help.

My wish for rescue gradually gave way to grief. I missed my mother and father and hoped they had found a safe place to hide, but I have to admit, most of my concerns were for myself. The fact that they might not know what had become of me troubled me constantly. I entertained myself by making up elaborate fantasies, first about my rescue, but eventually, about me overpowering my captors to save myself and all the rest of us.

And Lucan. I couldn’t bear to think about him, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him. A cold, icy hand closed around my heart and squeezed  whenever I pictured his face. Was he hurt? Was he cold? If only we were on the same ship. I could deal with the separation from my parents; I simply refused to believe they were dead. I hadn’t actually seen them dead, but I had seen Lucan board the other ship and sail away from me. I couldn’t pretend he wasn’t in danger.

I spent so many days and nights on the ship that I lost count. Eventually, I stopped looking for rescue and began to adjust to my life on the ship. I learned to eat and drink whenever I could. I got used to feeling the sun blister my face during the day. At night, I curled my cold, wet self beside the other captives to sleep. The Danes were not all mean; most of the time, they ignored us, and though they had been brutal during the initial attack on Beal and Lindisfarne, for the duration of the voyage, they were, if not gentle, at least not cruel. They rarely spoke to us, but neither did they yell at us or torment us. They actually tended to the injuries they had inflicted on the us during the initial attack. One of them who passed out our food spoke some English. “You no worry,” he said, and “No kill,” as he handed me a piece of the dried fish that served as our main food.

Many times a day, some of the other captives and I begged the Danes for information as to our fate and begged them to take us back to Beal.

“Do you mean to dump us over the edge of the earth?” said Mr. Hayden, when at last, he awoke to find himself completely surrounded by the sea. “How do you even know where we’re going?”

“My father will reward you handsomely for my return,” said Mary, a friend of mine, though I knew Mary’s father had been dead and gone for years.

“Please, sir,” I said to the Dane I’d heard speak English . “My mother and father don’t know what’s become of me; they’ll be so worried. And they need me! Surely they need me more than you do. Please take us back.”