Fire Arrow

by Edith Pattou

  "Do you know anything of fishing?" asked Ferg.

  "No."

  "We leave at dawn, Biri," said Jacan. "You are welcome."

  ***

  And so it was that Brie found herself on the Storm Petrel at dawn the following morning. As Jacan, Ferg, and Lom instructed her in the ways of a Dungalan fishing boat, she had an odd sense of familiarity. She learned quickly; in truth, it was almost not like learning at all, more like remembering. She got her sea legs at once. Both Jacan and Ferg were impressed with her adaptability and asked several times if she was sure she had never been on a fishing boat before.

  Indeed, it felt as if she had done this all her life—scratchy hemp in her hand, bare feet on sun-warmed wooden slats, the wind in her face, the dancing blue of sea waves all around her.

  Fara came along. At first the Dungalans were leery of the faol. And they gaped when the wolf-cat dived gracefully into the water, surfacing some distance ahead, her sleek wet head skimming the surface like some kind-of seal. Fara then dived down and reappeared with a flapping fish in her mouth.

  Lom gave a hearty laugh.

  "The creature is a better fisherman than I," said Jacan in amazement. They soon got used to the faol, who alternated between playing in the waves and basking on the foredeck.

  The fishing turned out to be good that day, and Ferg called Brie and Fara good-luck charms. They went out on the Storm Petrel the next day and the next.

  Brie found that as she grew increasingly at ease on board the boat, so grew her ease with the Dungalan language. And she quickly picked up the language of the sea asi well—the words for the parts of the boat, for the different kinds of fish they hauled in with their nets, and for the seabirds circling overhead. She learned of dowsing a sail (lowering it), and of craffing a net (mending it), and that a brusker was an energetic fisherman not easily deterred by bad weather. All of the fishermen on the Storm Petrel were bruskers, Ferg told Brie with great certainty.

  As the days passed, Brie eagerly drank in everything they taught her. She learned to set the nets and to haul them in; to hoist the sail and make fast the ropes. She became familiar with the many knots used by sailors and how to splice, coil, and throw rope. She discovered that a good sailor knew his position on the water at all times, and that when the captain gave an order it must be repeated and obeyed at once. She began to understand the moods of the sea, from friendly and playful to dull and unresponsive to an outright and cruel indifference. Jacan introduced her to the cross-stave, an instrument of wood and iron used to navigate by measuring the altitude of the sun and stars. She pored over Jacan's charts, one in particular called the table of the airts, which showed the different names for the directions of the wind. She started to get a feel for reading the weather and what different cloud patterns portended; and she learned of the tides and how the moon cycle affected them.

  After almost a week of going out on the Storm Petrel, Jacan invited Brie to join them in their evening meal. Hyslin greeted her kindly, though Brie saw the grief still in her face. That night Brie learned Hyslin was betrothed to a fisherman named Gwil, and would be wed the following spring. To celebrate the good catches of the past few days, Hyslin donated a bottle of homemade lemongrass-and-rose wine from the cache she had already begun to stockpile for her wedding feast. They ate a delicious meal of fresh fish, roasted red potatoes, and tender white corn. Hyslin politely filled a plate with fish and a bowl of sweet cream for Fara, who gave it a careful inspection then set to with regal pleasure.

  When Brie returned to Farmer Garmon's barn that night, she found Hanna smoking her pipe and reading one of Lotte's books by oil lamp. The older woman gazed on Brie then smiled.

  "What?" Brie asked, curious.

  "You have come back," said Hanna.

  "Of course," responded the girl with a puzzled look.

  "No. From Bog Maglu. I was not sure you would." Hanna blew a smoke ring, then added, "One day perhaps you will tell me of the bog."

  Brie curled up in the hay, drowsy, content, Fara nestled at her side.

  "Harvest day is the next full moon," Hanna's voice came. Less than a fortnight away, Brie thought. Hard to imagine that the summer was almost over. Something nagged at her, something she ought to remember, but she was too tired and was soon asleep.

  ***

  The fortnight passed quickly. There were good days of fishing and bad. On the bad days Brie learned how to weave and craff the nets.

  She also visited Lom and helped him with his boat. She liked Lom, as Hanna had predicted. In him she found a willing audience for her newfound love of the sea. He listened to her indulgently, as one who has been through the same early throes of passion.

  From Lom, Brie learned of designing and constructing a boat. Proudly he showed her a model he had whittled, the size of his open hand; he would talk on and on, childlike in his enthusiasm.

  The boat was a living creature to Lom, a bairn to which he was slowly and surely giving birth. Indeed it had the anatomy of a person, Brie thought, with a backbone and ribs; the rigging was its muscles and the planking its skin. Lom had yet to name the boat, though there was no question as to its sex. All boats, he said, were female. Incongruously, though, there were few fisherwomen in Dungal, a tradition that a handful of the younger women were trying to change.

  Then it was harvest day. Brie had been hearing much about Cynheafu, the day the harvesting was finished. Even the most industrious fishermen left their boats in the harbor to participate in the festivities. Hyslin had been busy baking the borrog, large, round, moon-shaped cakes, in honor of the moon's influence over crops and harvests, and on the days when the fishing was poor and they came back early, Brie would help Hyslin with the baking. They grew to be friends.

  The night before Cynheafu, Hyslin gave Brie a bright yellow dress and told her she must wear it the next day. "No one is allowed to wear anything drab or dark on harvest day," she said, eyeing Brie's gray tunic and leggings meaningfully.

  "But I will be helping with Farmer Garmon's harvest," objected Brie. "I cannot be wearing a dress."

  "We all help with the harvest, and all the women wear dresses," responded Hyslin. "You will stick out like a pilchard in a basket of cod if you do not." So Brie took the dress, thinking to hide it under a bale of hay back at Farmer Garmon's barn, but Hanna caught sight of it and nodded her approval. She showed Brie the brightly covered vest and long skirt she herself planned to wear. "Lotte loaned them to me. 'Twould be an insult not to wear them," she said.

  As she took her place alongside the other reapers in the field the next morning, Brie felt so irritable in her yellow dress that she didn't notice the admiring glances cast her way. The last time she had worn a dress was in Tir a Ceol, and that had been a simple white shift that fell straight to the floor. This dress was cinched at the waist, with flaring skirts made even wider by the red flannel petticoat Hyslin had insisted she wear. It was the custom, she assured Brie.

  Brie quickly forgot about the dress as she worked. Harvesting went quickly with so many hands gathered. Farmer Garmon was a particularly popular farmer, known to be generous, and so had no shortage of able-bodied workers. Even the elders and children of Ardara participated, following behind and tying the harvested grain into sheaves. Everyone was indeed dressed in their most colorful clothing, and it was a splendid sight—bright bursts of color weaving in and out among the rows of barley and, later, in the fields of golden wheat.

  The day went quickly and it wasn't long before the shout went up. "We've got the grainne!"

  "The grainne, the grainne!" Other voices echoed and a knot of women rushed forward and busied themselves; Brie could not see with what. Finally they stepped aside, to cries of "the grainne maiden, the grainne maiden," revealing the last sheaf of wheat dressed in a white flowing gown, belted with a criosanna and colored ribbons.

  The effigy was attached to a pole and the tallest and strongest of the reapers hoisted the grainne maiden high. Meanwhile, a gaily decorated wagon, pulled b
y horses with flowers and ribbons plaited through their manes, was filled to the top with sheaves of wheat. Then a procession formed, led by the men carrying the grainne maiden, followed by the decorated wagon, which was in turn followed by the brightly dressed harvesters.

  The procession made its way into town and was met by many such processions. Then all the wagons and grainne maidens converged on a large grassy bluff overlooking the sea. The grainne maidens were set up along the bluff looking like a promenade of finely dressed, highborn ladies, their ribbons blowing in the sea wind. Tables were swiftly set up and almost as swiftly covered with food.

  After all had gorged on the harvest bounty, the dancing began. It started with the drol, a traditional Dungalan dance in which a human chain is formed by linking hands and the dancers weave in and out in complicated patterns, never breaking the chain. It was led by Sago, the Sea Dyak sorcerer, his paper-thin legs following the ancient patterns easily and surely. Gradually, though, as more mead was consumed and twilight fell, the group of dancers split into pairs.

  Contentedly munching on borrog, Brie had watched the drol, thrilled by the graceful, colorful patterns made by the dancers. Then Lom stood before her, flushed and smiling.

  "Will you dance?" he asked.

  Brie looked out at the whirling skirts and capering feet and felt a longing to join them. But she shook her head. She saw Lom soon after dancing with a tall, slender girl with coppery red hair.

  Brie suddenly remembered herself as a child watching the Midsummer bonfires, wishing to dance. She strained to spot Lom in the diminishing light. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of the indigo shirt he wore. He was still with the red-haired girl. Brie found herself trying to remember if she had ever seen Collun dance. And then for some reason she thought of Aelwyn's words of Collun's comeliness. She flushed, irritated with Aelwyn, and with herself.

  Jacan and Ferg came to sit with her. Jacan talked of the next day's fishing, but Ferg was distracted by a saucy girl named Beith, who took great delight in teasing him.

  The dancers began to disperse; Jacan drifted off to talk with some fellow fishermen, and Ferg went running after Beith, who had stolen one of his shoes. Brie could no longer see Lom. A knot of fiddlers began to play a lilting ballad about Fionna, the queen.

  Brie sat peacefully, gazing up at the three-quarter moon.

  Lom suddenly appeared, saying, "I cannot stay on my feet a moment longer," and sank down beside her on the grass.

  "You do not like to dance?" he asked.

  "I have never danced."

  He looked at her in surprise, but said nothing. Then he followed her gaze upward. "They say," Lom spoke, "that on harvest night a shower of beautiful flowers falls from the moon."

  Brie smiled. "I can almost believe it will," she replied dreamily.

  Suddenly Lom lifted his hand into the sky, and when he brought it down, he unclosed his fingers to reveal the delicate blossom of a sea pink in the palm of his hand. Brie laughed, and with a grin Lom reached over and carefully plaited the stem into Brie's yellow hair. Brie felt an odd stirring. She flushed again, unsmiling, and looked down at her hands.

  Then Ferg ran up, his shoe restored, and Jacan returned with Hyslin, as well as Hanna. Jacan asked if Brie would be joining them on the Storm Petrel the next morning.

  "Of course," she replied, standing.

  Lom spotted his mother and father and went to join them, giving Brie a quick salute as he left.

  As she walked along in the darkness with Hanna, Brie reached up to touch the pink flower plaited into her hair. She thought of Collun, sitting by the fire, drinking chicory with Kled, but his face wavered and she had trouble summoning it back again.

  ***

  That night Brie dreamed of Collun. She was running toward him. He stood on a rise, his back to her, and although she was running very fast, with each step he seemed farther away instead of closer. She pushed herself until she was almost flying over the ground. Finally she reached him and put out her hand to touch him. But where her hand brushed against his skin, red appeared, dripping red, and she realized it was blood. She looked down at her own hands and they were covered with blood.

  Brie woke. Shaking, she lit a candle. Closely she inspected her hands. They were clean; nonetheless she crossed to a bucket of water and scrubbed and scrubbed with honey lye soap until her skin was raw.

  TWELVE

  Sumog

  A week after the harvest festival, Jacan told Brie he had decided to take the Storm Petrel out to the deep water. He was beginning to worry that there would not be enough fish to hold them through the winter when bad weather and storms kept them ashore for weeks at a time. There was also Hyslin's wedding celebration to think of; it would take place on the first fine day after the dark months.

  Sometimes, he said, when the catches had been poor nearer in, they had more luck on the deep water, far out to sea. It was time-consuming and dangerous, especially now as the weather became more unpredictable. He and Ferg would go, as well as Lom, Henle, and a fifth fisherman called Stulw. Brie asked to be included and Jacan agreed, though he warned her that they would stay out for at least two nights, perhaps three, with little time for sleep.

  They set out well before sunset the next day. As they headed out on the open sea, Brie noticed Jacan's lips moving. When she had occasion to pass him, she heard something that sounded like chanting or singing. She had noticed Jacan humming before, but not singing.

  By midday they had been out of sight of Ardara for some time, farther out than Brie had been before. As she gazed at the vastness of sea and sky, Lom came to stand beside her.

  Brie gestured at Jacan, saying, "I didn't know Jacan liked to sing."

  Lom smiled. "Jacan is singing the cerdd-moru, the traditional Dungalan songs of navigation."

  "Cerdd-moru? Is it magic of some kind?"

  Lom shook his head. "They are the songs of the sea. Everything Dungalans know of the way the sea moves was put into the songs. For thousands of years we have sailed on these waters, and the songs have guided us. At night there are also the stars, but it is the song that shows us where we are on the water."

  Brie watched Jacan in wonder. His lips moved constantly, sometimes imperceptibly, but always with the rhythm of the sea. "Do you know them?"

  "I know some, but there are many. I have only begun to learn the songs for the deep water," Lom answered.

  Then Jacan gave the call to lower the nets, and after that they all worked feverishly, lowering, hauling, and hoisting nets; scooping the flipping, whirling fish into the holds. All through the day and night they worked, into the next day and even the next, with only brief breaks for sleep.

  Before dawn of the third day, Jacan's boat could hold no more fish and he turned the ship back toward Ardara. On the long journey home, they took turns sleeping, except for Fara, who made a game of racing with the Storm Petrel, and Jacan, who remained at the helm, quietly singing the cerdd-moru though his eyes were glazed with exhaustion and his throat hoarse.

  During her turn to rest, Brie lay on the bow gazing at the stars, numb with fatigue. She recognized many of the star patterns, though their places in the sky were different than they were back in Eirren.

  Lom came to sit beside her, yawning. "Do you have stories for your serennu in Eirren?"

  "Serennu?"

  "The star clusters."

  "We call them patterns or realta. And yes, we do. The bright band there"—Brie pointed—"with the two points above it, that is Amergin's Crown."

  "For us it is Sandyman's Hat. Sandyman is a Dungalan sand monster, sometimes comic, sometimes frightening. The children enjoy being scared by Sandyman."

  Brie smiled. "What do you call that one?" she asked sleepily. "There. It looks like a large cup. We call it Ea's Cup."

  "Unnla's Spoon," Lom replied.

  As the Storm Petrel skimmed over the sea waves, Brie and Lom continued comparing names for the constellations: the Wheel of Light and Bootes, the Dragon and the Ox, the Harp a
nd the Eagle, and so on. Few were the same. Brie loved hearing the Dungalan stories behind the star clusters and kept asking for more. Finally Lom threw up his hands, saying, "Enough! It is Hanna you should ask for serennu stories. She knows them all." Brie apologized and they fell silent.

  Brie was half asleep when Lom broke the silence. "Do you see that serennu, the one there in the far western corner of the sky?" Brie raised her eyelids with an effort and looked in the direction he pointed.

  She saw the star pattern called Casiope, the archer.

  "We call it Hela," said Lom, "or the Huntress. Hela was an archer; she had great prowess with bow and arrow."

  , "Ours is an archer as well."

  "Who is your archer?"

  "Casiope," Brie replied, then went on, her voice toneless. "He was a man who sought to destroy one who had wronged him, but instead he killed his own son with an arrow." Brie's eyes glittered with unshed tears as Collun's voice echoed in her ears, like Casiope ... an arrow that will surely return one day and pierce the one who shoots it.

  Lom gazed at her sideways. "Biri?"

  She swallowed hard, then smiled falsely. "Tell me of Hela."

  "There are several tales. She was brave and kind and ... beautiful." He paused, then added shyly, "You remind me of her."

  Through the haze of her sadness and exhaustion, Brie felt a wave of astonishment and looked at Lom to see if he was joking, but his face was composed. He was looking at her with a curious expression.

  "Biri, there is a sadness in you," he said, haltingly.

  Brie stared at Lom. And suddenly she found herself telling Lom of the bog and the two men she had killed. The words spilled out, unchecked, and as they came, Brie felt a sort of easing inside her, like that of a spring wound tight that was letting go at last. Lom listened closely. When she had finished, he said quietly, "You killed those men to keep from dying yourself. Choosing to live is no dishonor."

  "But I had sought their deaths."