When they had finished their meal, Oatie began to gather the pots and leavings from their meal, but Lugh took them from her hands.  “You did the cooking, the least I can do is wash up afterward.”  He was rewarded with a lovely smile and felt good about it as he washed the pots and spoons with water and sand from the little stream.

The fire had died down to almost nothing.  Camp was laid, with Oatie already in her bed and another bed, on the other side of the fire, laid out for him.  It had been a long day, but Lugh didn’t quite feel like sleep.  After stowing the gear, he took some firewood from the pile and added it to their camp fire, stirring up the flames in the process.  Lugh laid down and looked over at Oatie where she lay.  He was surprised to see her eyes shining in the dancing fire light, he’d thought she was already asleep.

“I’m sorry if I woke you by stirring up the fire.  I thought maybe you were already asleep.”

“No,” she said, Lugh thought a bit sadly, “I was thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

“Everything and nothing,” she said.  Oatie rolled on her back and looked up at the stars. ”Thanks for cleaning the pots, by the by.  That was good of you.”

“Thanks for cooking and making camp.  Was thanks for cleaning the pots what you were thinking?  Because I find that hard to believe.”

Oatie pondered the question and said nothing at first, but Lugh could she was now looking at him, her eyes, bright and avid, in the fire-light’s glow. “I suppose I was thinking you were not what I expected is all,” she finally said after a long silence.

“Why would you expect anything? Did you know I was coming?”

“Not really, I was surprised to find you sitting on my giant, but I knew you, Lugh of the Long Journeys.  What Norfolk would not?”

“Really? It has been a long time since I’ve been with your folk, and still you know me?”

“Hard not to remember. . .” Oatie’s voice trailed off in the night.

Lugh was annoyed by what seemed a riddle.   Oatie was hinting around something and it angered him for a reason on which he could not put his finger.  “And why is that?” he prodded. “It seems you have a bad image of me and are surprised, as bad as I am, that I’m not worse.”

“I meant no offense, only thanks for the help.”

“. . .because I’m such an ogre that no Norfolk would expect common decency from me?” Lugh sat up, too agitated now to calmly lie beside the fire. “What is all this?”

“We need to sleep, Lugh, please.” Oatie snuggled deeper in her bed roll, but her eyes still shone through her long eye-lashes.

“Then tell me and have done.”

“I don’t think this is the time to talk of such things.  We should sleep.”

“Should we, truly?  Then put my mind at ease and answer, what are we even talking about?  It seems I’ve done some wrong that every Norfolk knows.  It can’t be a great secret, tell me then what I’ve done or how could I possibly sleep?”

“How could you not know it?”

“How could I if you don’t tell me?  I swear I have no idea what it is you are saying so much not to say.”

“It is a hard thing.” She seemed about to say something important but instead she began in a rush, “This is not the time to speak of it.  Honestly, I don’t know why I would believe anything my people say.  We are both outcast and I prefer it so.  It is nothing, idle chatter from a tired head.  Go to sleep Lugh, we will need our strength for the morrow.”  Oatie turned her back and disappeared into her bedding roll.

Lugh had had enough deflection.  He threw off blankets, moved to Oatie’s side, and, reaching out, pulled her shoulder to turn her back toward him, “Tell me this hard thing.  You must. . .”

“Don’t touch me!” Oatie shrieked and flinched away.

Lugh had no intention of harming her and Oatie’s reaction, seeming to suggest that he could, enraged him.  Lugh grabbed her shoulders and shook her, “Tell me! Is this about Von?”  The terror in her eyes made him know that it was. “What about Von? She warned me of my brother and I fled. What happened to Von?”

“You’re hurting me,” she cried.

“Tell me what happened to Von.” He hissed and shook her again, more violently than he intended.  Cloth tore, but Lugh did not release her.

“They killed her,” Oatie managed and Lugh froze, stunned. Oatie’s eyes were wide with terror, “Are you going to kill me Lugh?” she asked, but Lugh had already dropped her and wandered into the lonely night.

Smoke was pleasantly surprised by the fare.  The monk’s table was bountiful it seemed the brotherhood was much more generous with its guests than it was with its brethren.  Gospels ate too, but Smoke noted his restraint despite having learned that he had been fasting while they were on the rock.  These men thought nothing of self-sacrifice, indeed that seemed to be the point of it all.

There were some 100  or so brothers, guest brothers, and novices here at the monastery.  The weather was most likely milder, but they lived in the same beehive huts, two or three together, and spent their lives in prayer and industrious work that supplied their physical needs with enough left for guests and to procure other needful things, at least in their minds, not luxuries, or niceties, but books and scrolls and writing implements, inks, and dyes.

Smoke listened as Gospels explained how his order had its foundations over the great mountains to the East even though he himself had never seen those mountains or even met a person who had.  These monks knew things far beyond their experience.  A man, even a learned one, likely knew far less, because these monks had access to written records, books, documents they had a memory to be envied.

Smoke had wondered about the Gaels who supposedly lived on the other side of the great Eastern mountain range.  He had lived in the south, had traded with Nubia, travelled through the lands of the Great Khan, dealt with factors of the blood thirsty Corn Kings, hired guides from the tribes, and from these he had heard whispers of the Gael, of the Celts on their islands, even of stranger, more exotic places, but only whispers.  Smoke wanted to know about these places.

The old Gaellic lands ranged about great Mount na Gael across the inner sea from this magic isle.  West the mole men work the mines under the mountains, Loki is their god and their great vexation.  Far to the Northeast the Folk of Sin live atop their pinnacles and fly their sky ships against the dragons and their masters, the Darklings.  It is the Darklings, folk of the cold northern forests and mountains, who are allied against all humantiy with the Gobli who range all about the wastelands of the world.  With the Darklings they vye with the Sin and the Sea faring Fomorians, the raiders and slavers of the Disputed Lands, and the Scots of the Isthmus below those broken lands that is not far to the East or our misty home.  Then too, the brown and black folk fled the Old Gael to the south and wide they ranged to the steaming jungles of jaguars and the cruel Corn Kings, to the deserts of the great Khan, and even south of that to Nubia even to the Western sea.  North of them and West of the Western mountains of the Molemen, the Lokians are the Umircens.  These left the Gaels as ones and two’s and small families to found the many city states of the Umircen plains from mountains to the seas.  There too are Elves of the RibbonWood or so we are told.  North of all live the Iron men, the Rus, and their thralls the Inuit icemen.  If you sail west from Umircea or indeed East of this isle there are Celts among the islands of all the seas.

There are so many peoples, but in the middle of it all is a blue pool on an ice topped purple mountain above a green isle in the misty inner sea.

And so it was that we chose to expand to other isles, to seek safe havens in the seas and waterways near the coast and to treat with others from fortified hold fasts, or on the coast from ships in strength.

When we found a lonely shore we would note it and the resources there found.  We were always short of good lumber so often lumberman followed close on the heals of explorers.  With good timber we built great ships to range up and down the coast.  Other coastal people would try to compete, but we were the first and easily the best tradesmen.  We ranged north of our northerly home to trade for iron and gold with the Rus and far to the south for spices, cotton, and sugar from far to the south of the great Khan.  We are the Kings of the great Western Ocean.

We have become a great people, but we have not forgotten how we came out of the Gaels who had enslaved our fathers over the Eastern mountains.  Nor have we forgotten that our fathers came from a land beyond even the stars.  All this we, the Navigators, remember.

Are we not the true sons of Captain Bailey and his sky sailors?  We have lost the stars for now, but wide we range upon the Seas even, it is said, beyond the spine of the world.  Though none have returned from the far side of the world, one day they will.

So, in their wisdom, our great father and mother built a wall to keep out the Gaels and Slavers and Fomorians and Sinoese and the Darkling’s Goblin hordes.  The sea we leave to the war crows, on hill and cranog we live.

When raiders came ashore the clans gathered.  We would rise from the mist and annihilate our enemies until our lonely shore brought no raider.  Reavers knew to sail on.

Rarely they would come in greater numbers than we could easily crush on the beach so we let them come, bleeding them all the while.  At some point they would realize they had gained nothing and lost much.  The trip to the sea was harder still until they found their boats burned or taken and the end of the survivors was the same as the first to die.  Such was the way we dealt with invaders.

It was strange to see clans who fought and raided each other coming together against a common foe, or perhaps it had more to do with how most disputes were settled by the combat of champions and rarely involved general combat.

Our interior valleys are rich, our cattle grow fat on the hills and grain for bread and ale grows in profusion in the plains.  All our men have time to train in arms and to hunt.  But our heroes and champions train skills to levels unparalleled in the world.

It may be of interest and is ironic to think, that the mother they honor, Scota, is in truth that same creature, the Morrigan of war, that they abhor.