He had traveled in Moslem lands in Africa and Spain, and brought to our house not only their rich fabrics but their way of living and their love of hot baths.
Shackled to my oar, I looked about me with distaste. How long I could endure this I had no idea, yet a time would come when I would learn how much a man can endure and yet survive. The condition of these galley slaves was abject, and I pitied them, and myself as well. Their backs bore evidence of what happened when their overseer walked along the benches with his whip.
Our craft demanded two men to each oar, and shackled beside me was a burly, red-haired ruffian. “You fought little,” he said with contempt. “Have the Celts grown so weak?”
I spat blood. “The ship goes to Sicily, where I wish to go. Besides,” I added, “death awaits me ashore.”
His hard laugh told me that, whatever the whip had done to the others, he still possessed spirit and strength. “If they get there!” he said cynically. “This lot knows little of fighting and less of seafaring. It will be a God’s wonder if they do not drown all of us.”
Red Mark he was called. “Have a care,” he warned. “That brute on the runway is quick with the lash. Bend to your work, or he will have the hide off.”
“My name is Kerbouchard,” I said, and the saying of it made me sit a little straighter.
“It is a name with a sound to it,” he admitted.
A little pompously, for I was young, I told him who my father was. “Men of my family were captains among the Veneti when they fought Caesar, and it is said there was a Kerbouchard among the monks who welcomed the Vikings when they first came to Iceland.”
“A ship does not sail with yesterday’s wind,” Red Mark replied. “I know what Breton corsairing men have done, but what of you?”
“Ask me that question five years from now. I shall have an answer for you then.”
Four years had gone since my father set forth on his voyage of trading and raiding, for piracy was a business of all ships when opportunity offered. The men of Brittany had been corsairs as long as ships had sailed on the deep waters.
As for myself, I had but returned from a voyage with the men of Brehat to the fishing grounds in the far west. Those months at sea had put muscles in my arms and shoulders and taught me how to live and work with men.
Returning home, I found our horses stolen, our flocks driven off, and that two of my father’s oldest retainers had been set upon and murdered near Brignogan.
When my father was at home Tournemine trembled in his castle, for my father would have hung Tournemine by his heels from his own battlements. Yet try as I might, I could raise no men against him. Frightened they were, and cautioned, “Wait until your father returns.”
When next Tournemine came, my mother and I met him at our gate with four strong men beside us, and two with arrows ready. We were too eager for his taste, so he threatened only, demanding tribute and promising to burn our place about our ears.
“Come when you will,” my mother spoke proudly. “Soon Kerbouchard will be here to greet you.”
His was a taunting laugh. “Think you I have not heard? He was killed fighting the Moors off the shores of Cyprus!”
This I repeated to Red Mark in whispers, and told how one day I had returned to find my mother murdered and my home in flames.
Mad with grief, I had sprung from behind a hedge and flung myself at Tournemine; only a quick move had saved his life. As it was, my blade laid open his cheek, showering him with blood. Astonished by the suddenness of my attack, his men failed to react, and I escaped, although my freedom proved to be short-lived.
Our galley sailed south, and over the next weeks I saw what Red Mark spoke was truth. These were not seamen. They blundered and wasted the wind. Fearful of losing sight of the shore they endangered themselves needlessly. Avoiding large ships, they preyed upon fishing boats and small villages, even murdering shepherds to steal sheep from the hill pastures.
The captain was called Walther, but of the crew we saw only Mesha, the brute who walked the runway with his lash.
On my mother’s side, I descended from a long line of Druids, and I myself had received the training. From my earliest days I had been instructed in the ritual, so secret it was never written. All was learned by rote, for Druids were known for their fantastic memories, trained from birth.
Among the Celts a Druid took precedence over kings. The Druids were priests of a sort, but wise men, magicians and advisers to kings, keepers of the sacred knowledge. During my long days at the oar, I drowned my misery by repeating in my mind the ancient runes, the ritual and the sagas of our people, remembering as well our knowledge of wind, water, and the flight of birds.
Each pull upon the oar brought me nearer to Sicily and my father—if he lived. If he was indeed dead, I must know, and if it was aid he needed, I must be strong to help him.
Outside, the hull rustled the waters, scant inches from our naked bodies. Red Mark and I teamed well, each learning to spare the other.
Our captors were a mixed bag of ruffians, none of them men of the sea. Each night they anchored, lying often a whole day through, loafing and drinking. The fishermen of Brehat with whom I sailed the cold outer seas were daring men, not such petty rascals as these. With those fishermen I had followed the gray geese from Malin Head in Scotia beyond the green land to unknown shores.
Navigation I knew well, and not only by stars but by the sea’s currents, the blowing of winds, the flight of birds, and the fish. These things I kept to myself and bided my time.
“Together,” Red Mark said one day, “we might be free.”
For days we edged along the coasts of France and then of Spain. Off the coast of Africa we attacked and captured a small Arab merchantman.
Red Mark was contemptuous. “Cowards! They attack nothing that is not helpless! Even Walther, for all his big shoulders and loud mouth, is a coward.”
An Arab prisoner from the captured ship was put at an oar ahead of me, and the man beside him was a Moor also. Knowing a few words of the language, I exchanged greetings, and thinking to learn their tongue, I began to listen and to practice. The few words learned before had come from an escaped prisoner of the Moors, a seaman on my father’s vessel.
A night came when we turned back along the coast of Spain. One of the crew was a renegade, a thief driven from his village, and he offered to guide Walther to it. The galley was short of bread and meat, and the village sparsely armed. Leaving guards, the crew took their weapons and went ashore.
An hour before dawn they staggered back drunk, dragging behind them a few miserable women and girls, leaving the village to hold the torch of its burning against the sky.
Red Mark ground his teeth and swore, memory lying cold upon him. His own village had been taken in just this way while he lay in a drunken sleep.
The crew no sooner staggered aboard than they cast off, fearful of reprisal. The sail was partly lifted, and the galley made slight headway upon the dark water, but with the rising sun, an offshore breeze filled the sail. With the wheel lashed the crew lay about in a drunken stupor while we rested on our oars, whispering among ourselves.
The wind freshened, and the vessel moved out upon the sea. Red Mark grinned at me. “This will put water into their knees! The lousy bunch of coasters!”
They sprawled on the deck like dead men, their bodies moving slightly with the roll of the galley.
There was a slight movement as one of the village women worked herself from under a man’s heavy arm. She moved with infinite caution, and we, who could see but little of the deck, held our breath in hope for her. We who were in chains watched her who was free, wondering what she would do and hoping she would do something.
Her face was bruised and swollen from blows. She got to her feet, then drew his knife ever so gently from its scabbard, then she knelt beside the man and drew back the sheepskin jacket.
Ah, but this one knew where a man’s heart lay! She lifted the knife high, then plunged it down.