heated by red-hot stones. The cooking pits and all the surrounding area reeked of spoiled fat from repeated use for their big feasts. The cooks simply heaped the cracked stones to one side of the rancid pit. Boann’s nausea returned on the spot.
Dabilla nosed at a bone; she threw it and the puppy chased it. No one followed her going after him. Tossing the bone here and there, she scouted with the puppy. Anyone could come and go in the area of the cooking pits, set into a sheltered dip outside the gap in the high log walls. She ambled back to the pits, unnoticed. She told a slave, a cook, “Be sure that my food is prepared at its own covered fire,” and pointed to the rise behind the sunken troughs.
The older slave woman nodded, expressionless, busy grinding grain at a quern stone.
The camp bustled with producing supplies and feeding everyone at frequent banquets—usually with food stolen from Starwatchers, Boann saw it. She hadn’t cared so much about food until she lived inside these walls. Invaders ate huge joints of sheep or cattle and rarely ate salmon or any fish from the river, saying fish suited the slaves. The camp let extra milk go to waste, seldom producing yogurt or cheese. She craved fruits and greens, largely absent from the intruders’ diet. Scurrying about at the whims of many, Muirgen had no time to search for late produce and greens for her and she doubted the slave knew what to select.
Food was a regular topic inside the walls, with Maedb whining that no supplies would reach the Boyne in winter, and the slaves saying that crops hadn’t ripened, the heads on cereal stalks empty and only small hips and fruits on flowering plants. Boann needed to see the crops for herself, but sentries barred her way out of the camp’s gateway.
Airmid brought Boann the mixed grains for stirabout, but despite the warriors admiring Airmid’s red curls and her face and form, they did not allow her inside the camp to visit. Boann heard of it sadly, from Muirgen, and felt the more isolated.
Baffled, suffocating inside walls, Boann sent a brief message to Oghma that she hoped to see her people soon. She scratched the message on a rock beyond the cooking pits. No one but a Starwatcher would understand the symbols she used.
Will the sea ever waken
Relief from despair?
My Grief on the Sea , Douglas Hyde, from the Irish
Transportation
C onnor purloined the scarce Invader boats for his trip to the north. While Elcmar readied to voyage south to the mining camp, he discovered Bresal’s failure to guard their seagoing boats.
“Bresal! We won’t be taking you with us on this trip, sure. No trader goods for you either. Not until Connor returns those ships safe and sound.” His look bored into Bresal. “I’m leaving you at the Boyne, in charge. Do not disappoint me again.”
Elcmar rejected the skin and wicker-framed Boyne boats as too small and not seaworthy. He conscripted the largest hide-covered vessel that he could find. It came from the coastal Starwatchers living at the river’s mouth east of Bru na Elcmar . That community monitored the sun’s range between the solstices using two offshore islets as fixed horizon points. Elcmar took the Starwatchers’ only oceangoing boat without offering so much as a stone axehead for it. One man tried to stop him, asking, “Why do you take from us?”
“Why? Because I can!” Elcmar drew his knife and the man backed away.
This ovoid boat, framed of steamed oak ribs with yew bindings, was covered by tanned cattle hides joined by stitched seams and smeared with pitch. For this trip the boat must carry eight men. When the intruders packed all their gear, weapons, ropes, and food stores into it, to Cian’s eyes it looked overloaded. He told himself, my ancestors traveled using a hide boat, and he made himself climb aboard with the warriors.
The currach set forth headed south along the coast. Elcmar’s band rolled and pitched through that rough strait bounded by the
Dabilla nosed at a bone; she threw it and the puppy chased it. No one followed her going after him. Tossing the bone here and there, she scouted with the puppy. Anyone could come and go in the area of the cooking pits, set into a sheltered dip outside the gap in the high log walls. She ambled back to the pits, unnoticed. She told a slave, a cook, “Be sure that my food is prepared at its own covered fire,” and pointed to the rise behind the sunken troughs.
The older slave woman nodded, expressionless, busy grinding grain at a quern stone.
The camp bustled with producing supplies and feeding everyone at frequent banquets—usually with food stolen from Starwatchers, Boann saw it. She hadn’t cared so much about food until she lived inside these walls. Invaders ate huge joints of sheep or cattle and rarely ate salmon or any fish from the river, saying fish suited the slaves. The camp let extra milk go to waste, seldom producing yogurt or cheese. She craved fruits and greens, largely absent from the intruders’ diet. Scurrying about at the whims of many, Muirgen had no time to search for late produce and greens for her and she doubted the slave knew what to select.
Food was a regular topic inside the walls, with Maedb whining that no supplies would reach the Boyne in winter, and the slaves saying that crops hadn’t ripened, the heads on cereal stalks empty and only small hips and fruits on flowering plants. Boann needed to see the crops for herself, but sentries barred her way out of the camp’s gateway.
Airmid brought Boann the mixed grains for stirabout, but despite the warriors admiring Airmid’s red curls and her face and form, they did not allow her inside the camp to visit. Boann heard of it sadly, from Muirgen, and felt the more isolated.
Baffled, suffocating inside walls, Boann sent a brief message to Oghma that she hoped to see her people soon. She scratched the message on a rock beyond the cooking pits. No one but a Starwatcher would understand the symbols she used.
Will the sea ever waken
Relief from despair?
My Grief on the Sea , Douglas Hyde, from the Irish
Transportation
C onnor purloined the scarce Invader boats for his trip to the north. While Elcmar readied to voyage south to the mining camp, he discovered Bresal’s failure to guard their seagoing boats.
“Bresal! We won’t be taking you with us on this trip, sure. No trader goods for you either. Not until Connor returns those ships safe and sound.” His look bored into Bresal. “I’m leaving you at the Boyne, in charge. Do not disappoint me again.”
Elcmar rejected the skin and wicker-framed Boyne boats as too small and not seaworthy. He conscripted the largest hide-covered vessel that he could find. It came from the coastal Starwatchers living at the river’s mouth east of Bru na Elcmar . That community monitored the sun’s range between the solstices using two offshore islets as fixed horizon points. Elcmar took the Starwatchers’ only oceangoing boat without offering so much as a stone axehead for it. One man tried to stop him, asking, “Why do you take from us?”
“Why? Because I can!” Elcmar drew his knife and the man backed away.
This ovoid boat, framed of steamed oak ribs with yew bindings, was covered by tanned cattle hides joined by stitched seams and smeared with pitch. For this trip the boat must carry eight men. When the intruders packed all their gear, weapons, ropes, and food stores into it, to Cian’s eyes it looked overloaded. He told himself, my ancestors traveled using a hide boat, and he made himself climb aboard with the warriors.
The currach set forth headed south along the coast. Elcmar’s band rolled and pitched through that rough strait bounded by the
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