Raven Warrior The Tales of Guinevere

CHAPTER ONE AS I SUSPECTED, STEALING FROM PROFESSIONAL thieves takes some skill and a lot of hard work. We took shifts at the oars once we were out of the territory of the Painted People and didn't, as was more usual among peaceful mariners, go ashore to sleep. Shethe shipwas decked only lightly, boards nailed over her ribs and hide bottom. We were drenched by squalls and frozen by the icy spring seas breaking over our bows. But, Lord, she was fast! Small and light, propelled by ten at the oars by day and six by night. We all took rowing duty, as I said, the ones not pulling at the sweeps eating, then sleeping on the narrow deck between the rowing benches. Or we slept when we could. At times we would row into an icy rain squall. Then the sleepers had to rouse themselves and bail like mad, not to keep her from sinking but so as not to slow those of us plying the oars. She wouldn't sink, but if her forward progress were slowed, heavy seas might break her up. Whereas, more or less empty of water, she was able to ride the combers like a floating cork, and in calmer waters, skim along as might a bird. We had no sail, since we wished to announce neither our passage nor arrival to any watching coastal people. And watch they do, being as they are used to trouble coming by sea. I don't like to remember the start of our voyage or our first few days aboard. We were all seasick and none too sure of ourselves at the oars. But Dugald, who is my Druid, gave me medicine for seasickness. True, it tasted like the floor of a town midden pit and stank worse than a herd of goats, but withalit worked. And most of us recovered well enough to devote ourselves to the oars within a day or two. I'm not sure Dugald considers himself my Druid. Once he was my guardian, then my teacher. But when I became a woman and a queen, I felt he should be my Druid. He couldn't agree less. He says I'm a child and only an honorary ruler, and not to be so presumptuous as to drape a mantle of authority over my shoulders. I wished I had something to drape over my shoulders. Gods above and below, it was cold in that boat. But I knew if I could pull this off, I would be rich and a real queen. So I must make the attempt, no matter how great the hardships involved. Four days out of port, I understood I had good companions. Our flotillathere were three small shipsheld seventeen men each. "Men" not always being actual men; some were women. But there was a man at the tiller of each boat; Maeniel, my foster father, on one; Gray, an oath man of mine on another; and aboard this one, Ure, a relative of Gray's, an experienced man of the sea. Ours was the lead ship; the rest followed us. Ure knew the coast and its hazards: rocks, reefs, sand spitsthough with our shallow-draft, those weren't a problemcurrents, and, last but not least, pirate nests. He told us he would undertake to keep us clear of them all. In return, we didn't ask him how he knew so much and promised to devote ourselves to the work of the oars. When I asked him if we shouldn't have some dry land practice first, he fixed me with an eye cold and green as a breaking winter sea and said, "One learns best by doing. And when you do a thing day to day on a regular basis, you will eventually learn all there is to know about it. Sometimes more than you want to know." He was right; by now, eight days into our voyage, I knew a lot more about rowing than I ever wanted to. About blisters that broke and bled, scabbed over, then broke open again the next day and bled. About excruciating pain in the arms, back, and neck. About the discomfort of perpetually wet clothing that chafed and itched, or sleeping on a hard, wet, stinking plank amonBorchardt, Alice is the author of 'Raven Warrior The Tales of Guinevere', published 2004 under ISBN 9780345444028 and ISBN 0345444027.