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"Ready, Skipper," one of the trebuchet crew said to him, teeth flashing in his olive face.
Isketerol made his own estimate of time and distance. Moving target… "Up one on the stayrope," he said. "And… now."
The two-hundred-pound boulder whipped into the air as the machine crashed and creaked and thumped. It turned into a tumbling dot, seemed to pause at the height of its curve and then arching down. He used his binoculars again; a hundred yards behind the enemy ship the rock dropped nearly into its wake. Isketerol hid his surprise at how close they'd come. Just then his cousin's emplacement fired; they were loaded with a large barrel of tallow and pine pitch and turpentine. The barrel-even then Isketerol found himself thinking how sheerly useful barrels were, and wondering why nobody in this age had thought of them-landed farther from the schooner than his rock had. The deliberately weakened hoops burst as it hit the waves, scattering the contents. The patch of burning oil floating on the water was probably more intimidating than the splash of the boulder, though, and so was the trail of smoke through the air. Nobody on a wooden ship took fire lightly unless the Jester had eaten their wits.
Evidently the Eagle People commander wasn't mad. The schooner whipped around, heeling far over, and let the booms of her fore-and-aft sails swing far out, wheeling and ru
"Good shooting," Isketerol said to his cousin.
"Now shall we head home?" Miskelefol said. "We can sail with the evening tide-"
"And meet the Eagle out on the open sea?" Isketerol said, gri
"Maybe she's not here."
"But probably she is. I don't think I'm ready to go to the Hungry One just yet, son of my uncle."
"Shall we wait for Eagle here, then?"
"Why not? She can't come close to shore. This camp is strong and we can call warriors from inland if they try to send men ashore. If we run here the Amurrukan may well come for us in Tartessos. Walker is right; we have to teach them that it's too costly to interfere with us, or we'll never be safe anywhere near salt water. Besides, I gave him my oath."
The other Tartessian sighed. "As you will."
"Indeed," Isketerol said.
His glance went inland. What was it Walker was fond of saying? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Swindapa leaped over the side of the longboat as its keel grated on the shingle and ran up the beach with the quiet water cold on her shins. Then she went to her knees and took a double handful of the dirt there, grass and weeds and soil tight between her fingers. Her chest felt tight too, and tears prickled at her eyes as the nettles did at her skin. They didn't drop free to land on her native earth, though. If she'd felt this way a year ago, they would have. But the Eagle People wept seldom; they kept their thoughts and their joys and their sorrows more within themselves. Part of them had entered into her, she knew, in the time she had spent among them, and in Marian's arms. She would not weep, nor dance her joy along the seashore. Instead she let the bittersweet happiness fill her, like something growing behind her breastbone. A rose, with beauty and with thorns.
I am not what I was, she thought, standing and looking around. That was both bad and good; more good, perhaps. The Earth Folk would have to become other than they had been, or they would cease to be at all. Moon Woman has turned time itself to give us this.
The land lay green and bright about her, beneath a hazed-blue sky empty of all but a few high clouds and swirls of wings as birds took flight from the reeds to the southwest. There was a hamlet not far away, several compounds, one quite large. She'd been here before; it was an important place, boats from the Summer Isle-Ireland-came here, and people from inland to trade. Long ago the blue-stones for the Great Wisdom had been brought this way, from far in the Dark Mountain Land-what the Eagle People called Wales. The soil was firm right down to the water's edge here, not like the tidal flats and marsh to either side; and not far north two rivers met, the long Hillwater and the shorter Glimmerfish. There were beaten tracks through this pasture, and between the square fields of the settlement. Young wheat and barley cast bluish-green waves over those; farther away were cattle with red-and-white hides and long horns, and youngsters watching over them. Between the grainfields came others hurrying toward the strangers-light blinked off metal, spearheads, and the bronze rivets of shields.
Marian came up beside her. "Hostile?" she said.
Swindapa shook her head, touching the other's arm briefly for reassurance. "No, making sure of us," she said.
They were talking the Fiernan Bohulugi tongue; Marian worked doggedly at it even though the sounds were hard for one of the Eagle People.
"There must be war in the land, or they wouldn't turn out in arms without sending a scout first." She looked around at the Eagle, lying at her anchors well out on the broad waters. The Douglass spread her white wings beyond it, cruising inland cautiously. "Or, well, the ship may have frightened them."
Crewfolk were forming up around them as they spoke; the Earth Folk party slowed and then halted as they saw so many spears. A cadet trotted up with a green branch, and the Eagle's emissaries moved forward, waving it in sign of peace. Light twinkled as the Fiernan spoke among themselves, waving arms and spears; then some of them trotted back to the huts. The sun beat down, warm enough to make you sweat under armor. More of her people came from the settlement, hesitated, then came closer once more, and halted in speaking distance. One of them bore a branch as well, and several young men carried a wicker chair padded with blankets, holding an aged woman in a long patterned cloak. The rest were men in their prime, some with the Spear Mark on bare chests, others in tunics and leggings; one with gray in his beard wore a sword and a belt with gold studs, and a necklace of bear teeth and gold and amber. They flinched back at the strangeness when Marian took off her helmet and showed her black face and alien features, then visibly nerved themselves to come on again. Sweat shone on their faces. Their eyes flickered over the foreigners, and then out over the water to the great ship and its smaller consort.
"Greetings, if you come in peace," the sword-bearing man said in the charioteers' tongue.
"A fortunate star rule our meeting," Swindapa replied in Fiernan. "Moon Woman send it so."
A gasp went up from the little group, and an excited babbling.
"You speak like one of ours!"
"Like one of those turn-up-the-nose snobs from the downland country," someone muttered toward the back of the group.
"I am Swindapa of the Star Blood line of Kurlelo," she said.
The old woman exclaimed, then hobbled close. Swindapa bent her ear to the other's whisper, and whispered in her turn, exchanging certain words.
"She is as she says," the Grandmother said to the men, probably her son and grandsons. "The Kurlelo line who dwell by the Great Wisdom."
"Don't you know my face, Pelanatorn?" Swindapa said. Not really fair, she'd been four years younger the last time they'd met, and that had been brief. Who paid attention to one youngster among many?
As far as the Grandmother was concerned the Words settled matters, since Swindapa was obviously not a captive. No line was wiser or older than the Kurlelo. Her son looked dubiously at the twoscore or so foreigners already ashore.
"Who are these?" he said to her. "Yes, I am Pelanatorn son of Kaddapal," he added, remembering his ma