[2]
Running before the wind, the Gull picked up speed until she skimmed the waves like one of her namesakes. Kate found a spot at the forward rail where she could watch the prow cut through the water. The sky was a sharp-edged blue spilling down into the sea and cutting into the gray-green depths; far off the waves sparkled like shimmering glass. She blinked against the sting of the breeze and the taste of brine on her lips. Moisture beaded on her lashes and dried almost instantly. She folded her arms and slowly relaxed into the rhythm of the ship. It was peaceful here on the open water with everyone absorbed in their own business. There were wet thumps on the deck and the hum of conversation as the nets were hauled in full of flopping silver herring.
A hole appeared in the stifling chrysalis surrounding Kate's heart as pinpricks of light pierced her sorrows. Araluen, green and verdant on the horizon, was full of promise and new beginnings. And if Araluen couldn't fill the empty spot in her heart there was always Iberia—and piracy.
Kate's smile was small and secret. Who would expect a respectable looking woman of her years to harbor aspirations of robbery on the high seas? She could take them all by storm and write her reputation in blood as she willed. Or not—some dreams existed only to dry the damp, quivering dreams of a butterfly by telling them they have the ferocity of a lion. Such plans as she had extended only to boarding a ship and now that she was here she had the feeling of limitless possibilities stretching before her.
Other small ships sailed the straits, colorful sails stark against the sky as they plied their trade between Hibernia, Celtica, and Araluen. The Gull came to rest in the harbor of Salterton, a village on the south-eastern coast of Araluen, in the early afternoon. A sailor in a dirty jacket scrambled over the side to make the smack fast, his fingers nimble on the salt-crusted ropes.
Kate picked her way with steady determination through the fishermen, sailmakers, rope-sellers, fishmongers, and sailors who conducted their business along the waterfront. She'd already had enough of the reek of fish oil and tar that permeated the wharves. On the far side of Salterton, closer to the fields and farmland which were the bread and butter of Araluen, she found a tavern underneath a faded sign with a green blob that might once have been a stylized pony. Pushing through the door, Kate picked one of the beech benches and dropped her pack on the floor next to her foot.
The room was almost empty this time of day and the tavern keeper, a rotund man with twinkling eyes that almost disappeared when he smiled, bustled over to welcome her. Kate ordered a drink and a handpie, and he nodded knowingly on hearing the lilt in her words. "Ah," he said. "We get a fair number of Hibernians thinking to try their luck this side 'o the water."
Kate returned his gaze. "It's the same on the other side," she said. "There's always someplace better than where ye started from."
"Perhaps you're seeking someone?" he guessed. He liked to talk, feeling he dispensed wisdom as well as drinks, and this woman's story would wile away the time until the evening rush.
"Perhaps," she allowed. Kate didn't like people prying into her affairs. But it was a slow day and she couldn't entirely discourage the tavern keeper's curiosity. His desire to be helpful read between the lines and extrapolated from her vague hints. She was amused to find herself cast as well-to-do and supplied with a runaway son in short order. There was just enough truth in the notion that she didn't bother correcting his impression. Kate learned there were groups of Hibernian nationals who kept in touch with one another while making their homes in Araluen.
"It's quite the little community," the tavern keeper assured her. "You'd be hard pressed to slip past their notice. You'll find your lad, I've no doubt! I wish I could say I'd seen him myself, but with one thing and another he's clean gone out of my memory." He gave her a name and address when he brought her meal, and urged her not to be shy.
Kate let the afternoon stillness settle around her like a velvet cloak while she worked her leisurely way through the meat and pastry. When the host was otherwise occupied there was a pervading quiet in the long, low, room. She'd been accustomed to bustle and glittering furor in the house she had left and the change was welcome. Even moving her hands without the chime and clink of bracelets was an unexpected freedom. She couldn't think of a time the house had been without conflict. Tension had seeped into the walls and oozed through the cracks, leaving no one untouched, not even the boy who would inherit it. Kate stumbled over the memory of her parting with Sean Marc. She knew exactly where her son was, and he wasn't breaking his mother's heart by running away and vanishing into a foreign landscape.
But years ago there had been a family story that went something like that... A boy had gone out the back door without looking back and hadn't returned. His memory lingered still, a shadow flickering in the torchlight, vanishing around a corner ahead of her, beckoning her on...
She mulled over the possibilities open to her. It wasn't like she had anything better to do. What might her brother be like, if he lived? Would he know her? Would he be glad that she'd expended effort to find him? Would they have anything in common or would they be as strangers with one another?
Enough time had passed to make finding traces unlikely. But Kate Shannon told herself she'd look. If all she found was a grave, she'd leave her regrets there.
The Hibernian recommended by the tavern keeper didn't know her brother—no surprise there—but Kate was met with warm sympathy and reasonable advice. She was even offered a position with a merchant caravan as a muleteer to help her on her way. She accepted, astonished by her reception. She'd expected a shrug of the shoulders or a reiteration of how impossible it would be to find someone who didn't want to be found.
The caravan was seventy mules divided into strings of five, each string led by a muleteer, and led by a man named Ricard. Kate met his skeptical look with her coldest stare, and he dropped his eyes to the dusty toes of his boots. "I'm sure you'll be fine," he said.
"I'm sure I will too," she said.
Ricard's wife sniffed, and Kate caught a muttered comment about "foreign folk" which sent hot prickles down her spine. Kate clenched her hands until her nails bit into her palms, but didn't retaliate. The other woman might be unfriendly but she was entitled to her own opinion. Kate's self-confidence took a second blow when she was introduced to the five mules she would wrangle. All but one were lanky animals of an indeterminate brown color with long faces and floppy ears, intelligent eyes, and an utter indifference to her presence. The last was a black mule with a wicked gleam in his eye.
Most of the caravan took little notice of Kate, except when it became clear that despite her air of self-sufficiency and fierce practicality she had never handled a mule before. The first morning's entertainment was watching her be the last to start her string and expending more effort in the process than the other drivers. She strode along next to the animals, keeping them moving with a selection of creative curses and sheer stubbornness.
The contest between mules and woman continued day after day, with the woman winning only because she was still with the caravan when it would stop for the night. Every evening she swore off mules forever, and every morning she picked up the lead rope again because she'd given her word and was drawing wages. Bandits lurked in the thick belt of oak forest which ran across much of the western Araluen fiefs and her fellow teamsters loudly wondered what would happen should she have the ill-luck to meet any of them. "Sure, and I'd be saying good riddance to these beasts!" she snarled.
It was a joke, of course, because the muleteers were honest enough to admit that the hair-raising stories they dragged out around the night fires were from years past. Under Duncan's rule, banditry had gone from a profitable business to a dangerous prospect. Individual barons were responsible for tracking down criminals and bringing them to justice in their fiefs and those they didn't get the King's Rangers tracked down; leaving the roads safe for travelers of all sorts.
Kate was not the only woman in the caravan. Some of the muleteers, like the caravan master, were accompanied by their wives. But she was the only one to manage her own string. These ladies, capable as their husbands on the road, looked askance at Kate as she fumbled. But by the end of the first week one of the other women informed Kate that she was improving with practice. "Though, mind," the Araluen added, "I'm not sure what possessed you to start learning the trade on the job."
"Mule-headed arrogance," suggested Kate, hoping this presaged a cessation in the barbed remarks whispered behind her back.