A Walk on the Water

Stop it! Alannah just stop it! You need to control yourself! You don't know who these people are or what they want with you. They could just as easily be Father's men, who have come to take you back to to Ireland. If they meant to killl you, they would have done so by now!

In telling herself all this, she tried to take a deep breath in order to calm herself down. She tried to relax in order to accept the bump and sway of the wagon as the wheels went along the juts of the dirt road they were on. She needed to throw up, the movement was making her sick.

They kept going for what it seemed like an eternity, just when Alannah didn't think it would ever end the wagon finally stopped. The sun had reached the point in the sky to show early evening, suppertime she guessed, because her stomach was growling. The air started to grow cool once more, as the sun was making it's journey below the horizon. Soon there were sounds of people moving all around her, and she believed that she had been taken to Port Lira .

A rough pair of hands grabbed her body and then dumped her into the back of some sort of barrow, something akin to a large wheelbarrow. The person who did this was not kind at all, he covered her up with several layers of something thick and heavy. Making it even more difficult for her to breath and adding to her feeling of suffocation, and then she was moving once more. The sounds beneath her, sounded like she was on a wooden boardwalk, they they made a sharp turn, followed by a steep decline. She could hear the faint sound of boats rubbing up against the berths. Just as she was getting used to the downhill movement they once again stopped, the man holding the wheelbarrow set it down, and then she heard the sound of muffled voices. The voices began shouting as if they were having some sort of argument, because of the layers of material lying ontop of her, she could barely hear what was being said.

" . . . it doesn't matter, you can stand here and argue with me all you would like, my answer remains the same. ….. Per orders from Senor Beringer no one is to enter or leave this port from sundown until sunup. ……..It makes no difference to me who gave you authorization to leave …...I don't take orders from anyone other than the Portmaster and he get his orders directly Senor Beringer. …….Yes, I can see that you only have netting, orders are orders and no one gets in or out. So take your wheelbarrow of netting and find a place to stay for the night, now turn around and get out of my sight …... NO - again I don't care……..There is no way you are not setting foot on the docks tonight…..now go! Look mister if you protest further, you'll be spending the night in a jail cell and your netting will be confinscated!"