Page 6

"Is Fiona with you? Did they harm her? Are you well?"

"We are fine, " confirmed Quinn, "considering. And Fiona too. She is still on the quayside."

"Bastards," muttered Taranc under his breath. Mairead had to concur.

"Women, make a line," commanded a small, pugnacious individual.

He managed a form of broken Gaelic, sufficient to make himself understood.

Should his words fail to make his point Mairead supposed the vicious-looking switch he carried in his hand and was happy to swipe in every direction would assist him.

Resigned to the inevitable they shuffled obediently into a ragged queue, only to recoil in horror when, as one, they realised what was intended.

The enclosure bordered a small forge, where a smith was busily engaged in securing a shackle around the left ankle of each captive.

On closer inspection Mairead realised that the men had already been shackled, and they were chained together in rows three deep.

Presumably the women were to be similarly hobbled.

It was all she could do not to sob when her turn came and the heavy iron band was wrapped around her ankle, then secured with a metal pin which the smith drove into place with a huge mallet.

The vibrations of the hammer blows rattled her very bones and she cried out as the bruising strokes fell.

The anklet was a dragging weight when she tried to walk, rubbing painfully against her skin above her leather sandal.

It was even worse when she was pushed into her position in the line, chained between Quinn and another woman who she had learnt was called Fingula. Each looked as miserable as she felt.

Mairead started when she glanced across the enclosure and caught sight of the dark Viking once more.

In contrast to the dejected prisoners he looked clean, rested, well fed.

Fiona walked by his side. Mairead shrank into her place, unwilling to attract the Viking's attention, but she could not miss the flash of angry resentment in Fiona's expression as she, too, was shackled and forced to join their wretched group.

The Viking chief paused to peruse the assembled captives, his dark gaze falling at last on Mairead.

His lip lifted in the start of a smile as their eyes met, and she thought for a moment that he intended to speak to her.

She scowled at him, heedless of the consequences for once.

Resentment, bitterness and rage churned within Mairead, emotions she could barely recognise.

Normally mild tempered and placid, compliance had been bred into her and nurtured her entire life.

Servitude was a way of life to her, obedience deeply ingrained.

But slavery was not and she boiled with unaccustomed anger.

Most of all she feared for her innocent, defenceless child who had been thrown at the mercy of these brutes, savages who would put her people in chains like animals.

Let that Viking bastard even try to speak with her…

she would spit in his dark, cruel eye. She met his hooded gaze again and this time made no attempt to conceal her fury.

He saw, he understood. His brow furrowed and the hint of a smile evaporated.

Something twisted in the pit of Mairead's stomach.

She did not think, this time, that her baby could be blamed.

As her tormentor turned and marched off the switch-wielding Viking took over command.

"You, listen all," he began. "You walk now, two days.

No slow down, no stop. All must work, all will walk, yes.

" Was she mistaken or did the vile little man allow his gaze to fall on her distended abdomen, as though challenging her to request some sort of special treatment?

Mairead resolved not to, though the prospect of a two-day forced march, in chains and dragging the weight of her shackle reduced her almost to tears.

But she would manage, she had no choice.

"Mairead, look." Quinn murmured in her ear, and pointed to a group of men closer to the front of the line. "Is that your boy?"

"What? No, surely it cannot be..." Mairead strained her neck to see, and her heart sank.

There, chained between two men she did not even recognise, was the diminutive form of her little boy.

Donald was dwarfed by the men on either side, his narrow shoulders slumped and his sandy-haired head bowed.

Already he looked exhausted and her heart wept for him.

He should not be here, he was of no use to these Viking brutes.

"Donald! Donald, it is me. Donald..." She called out, anxious to let him know that she was there, that she was close even if she couldn't reach him yet.

Perhaps if they were taken to the same place, the same village, the same Viking master, they would be reunited.

As long as they were together, they would survive, she knew it. She had to believe that.

The boy turned, his pinched face betraying his fatigue. His eyes lit up though when he saw her. He reached across the yards separating them as though to take her hand. Mairead extended her hand to him, and smiled her encouragement, the best she could offer him at this point.

"Take care, do as you are told and we will be all right." It was a foolish promise to make, but she could do no other. Her boy had to have hope, it was all that remained.