Cakes apart, she found that Mirren's daily visits were no loss either. Her mind was already made up that gossiping would be forever snuffed out. Sorcha had never taken delight in the misfortune of others, and her spirit felt much improved by Hilde and Cecily's company.
Wisewomen never spoke ill of anyone. They explained the concept very thoroughly – whatever ill you did to another would go forth in an arc to the cosmos. Every tiny word or deed was recorded in the stars, and the circle completed by its return to you manyfold. Thus, the stars in the heavens sent much good to you in reward for your own goodness. A bad deed caused you much harm, for it would also came back to you manyfold and cruelly... or 'bite ye hard on yer arse', as Hilde had phrased it, giving many examples in the form of fables.
Past thoughts and deeds were also recorded in the lines on folks' faces, Cecily explained. As time passed they could not hide their true nature from others, for it was written there plain as ink in the lines around their mouths and eyes and noses and between their brows. This was a good lesson for the wife of the chieftain, said Cecily, for Sorcha was often beheld by thousands at a time – and up close by influential people, even by the king himself on occasion.
"Ye can read faces, then," said Sorcha.
"Like an open book," said Cecily. A feat in itself, for few women could read or write, and a Wisewoman must do both.
"Can ye read mine? Or am I sending a thought of vanity to the cosmos just by the asking?"
Cecily smiled at her, etching the best of lines around her own mouth and eyes as always. "It is not yer vanity asks me. Yer face already tells me the reason for yer request. It is for the benefit of others who depend on ye now, and will all the more depend on ye when Niall becomes Chief."
Sorcha took her place on the floorcloth in the constellation of Pisces. "Well…" she said, "I had not thought of it like that."
"Ye had, milady. As I have said, it's written in yer face. For the past four and twenty moons or so, ye had been growing the lines of worry that ye were letting folks down. And the day that Hilde and myself were sent to ye, there were new lines added to say ye were affeared of yer future. It was fair chilling to behold."
It seemed such a long time ago, as if Hilde and Cecily had always been her maids. As if the rules of life and the power of the stars had been known to her always, and she had just needed reminding.
"And has my face changed since then?"
"Oh aye, milady. Yer fear o' the future is gone and ye have stopped being affeared of the Wisewomen. Ye have seen who we are, and what we do, and ye have learned much. And now ye have seen that we could no' cause harm without the stars sending harm back on us, yer lines of resistance are disappeared as swiftly as they came. Trust makes a good, good face to look upon."
"Well…that is grand to hear! I thank ye, Cecily."
Sorcha made to rise from the floormat, for she seemed unable to sit still today, but Cecily motioned her to remain. "…There is more to tell me?"
"Hush, if ye please, milady."
There was plenty more to see, but hardly any of it could be told. Cecily was a Chime Child, born at the midnight bell, and thus had the gift of The Sight. It came sometimes, when she looked at faces, and Sorcha's face was wide open and singing its place in the cosmos now. Cecily had seen the past and the present effortlessly. The Sight was now showing the future and it was as if the room around them all was renewed… ahh! The Chamber of the Green Man would work great magic.
The vision melted away. Cecily again beheld Sorcha's face as it was right now. And she came to realise that she'd been so busy faffing about with the esoteric that she'd missed the blindingly obvious.
"Thinking on yer husband, are ye?"
"Cecily, I must confide… I have thought of little else since late this morn. Yer face-reading has been a welcome distraction from my pining."
"It is all yer feminine parts making ye think on him?"
Sorcha sat up. "It is as if they shout at the world without my bidding," she said, quite surprised at the perceptiveness of the question – though not at its intimacy, for the Wisewomen had been bolder than this in their speech. "And I cannot seem to find cool air, even at the window's breeze."
"Hilde! Come quick!" Cecily called over her shoulder.
From the far side of the bedchamber, Hilde ran to the floorcloth and followed Cecily's pointing to their mistress's face.
"Ye are ready," said Hilde, beaming ear to ear.
"More than ready," said Sorcha. "Niall and I have been parted long now. I miss him."
"Milady, this is a different kind o' ready. Come, we maun make preparation."
Hilde rose to guddle in her baggage for the three ceremonial gowns she had brought.
Cecily rose to guddle in her baggage for the green pennant. She unfurled it and threaded it through the waiting cord on the far window, the one which overlooked the cottage of the Bard and the Grandam Wisewoman. She could see Oona bent over to lift dry laundry off the grass so she concentrated on the back of her neck, the place of alert where she'd feel the wee hairs prickle, and the Grandam Wisewoman turned obediently and looked up to the bedchamber window. And the message was this:
The green pennant flies. The Chamber of the Green Man is come again.
When Oona ascended the stairs in her fresh-laundered ceremonial gown she had with her a hamper filled with several baskets, and a vast retinue of servants carrying buckets of water, and the mistress's husband Niall, and his brother Ruaridh. The husband she delivered to his own bedchamber nearby, and told him to undress, for attendants would shortly be visiting to cleanse him. His brother Ruaridh she delivered to his own bedchamber in the other wing of the castle, and told him the same, handing him a ceremonial gown as she left.
Ruaridh held it up, letting it unfold to its length.
"A bit on the wee side for me, no?"
"But the right size for Mirren, yer wife."
"Bathed by you two?" said Niall, and would have said more but for the faraway look in Hilde and Cecily's eyes as they filled his tub. In some sort of trance, they were, swaying to and fro in a dance and muttering their incantations with every bucketload.
This must be it, then. The Fertility Tradition. He was desperate to see Sorcha. His dreamings asleep and awake had been ravaged with images of their early days… he was running her fair locks through his fingers as they kissed, and she was sitting on him as she was wont to do, and he was watching her shimmer as she rode him senseless, and he was flipping her onto her back and watching her shimmer all over again... the times they'd had before her spirit broke. And before he neglected her hurts and sought out a wench, fool that he was.
And although he would have preferred to love her now without witnesses, his need for repentance bade him think a more public loving of her would do the better good. The Bard's ways were manyfold beneficial. A Wise Man indeed to mark his chieftain's passage from past to future with a period of abstinence and start him afresh with a Tradition.
A strange humming noise filled the chieftain's ears as he becalmed himself and clambered into the big oaken tub. Ach, he was imagining it. Far too much honeyed mead and springwater and no' a drop of ale or wine since his banishment from Sorcha's presence.
The bathwater was neither hot nor cold, but seemed as an extension of his own blood.
"Trust us, chieftain," said Hilde behind him, taking hold of his hands and raising them above his head.
He saw why the instruction was necessary when Cecily placed three wee willow baskets to float on the water between his open knees, for each basket contained a flaming candle.
Hilde's grasp would be no match for the famed strength of the clan's chieftain, but he nonetheless left his hands in hers. Trust was all, no matter how perilously close the candles now floated to the parts he should really keep in working order if an heir was ever to be sired.
"Ye could have told me to shut my eyes and I would have been none the wiser," he said, when Hilde finally freed his hands.
"As ye say,
milord, ye would have been none the wiser. Seeing things for yerself is part o' this Tradition. And a lesson in trust is seldom wasted."
A strange energy filled his groin and flowed to fill the entirety of his body as the candles flamed their vibrancies and sweet aroma.
The scent identified the candles as Oona's, and he supposed the acorns and pine cones bobbing beside them had come from her too. And he discovered the continuous humming sounds came from Hilde and Cecily or one of them at a time as they leaned in to run their cloths over his body, working in tandem on each side like a swarm of two bees and speaking their curious mantras. Surprisingly, he was roused none by their chests so close to his head nor by their attentions further to the south. His purification had begun long before this cleansing ritual. Since his Summons to the Vault, only thought of Sorcha could rise him.
The humming of the Wisewomen had a quietening effect on his spirit and brought his fragmented thoughts into order. He submitted to the cleansing more readily now, for these lassies were only doing their work, and he prepared himself as he would for battle by focussing his mind on strategies and images of victory under his leadership. In his mind's eye the victory was his vision of his Sorcha's smile as she crooned to their babe, and the babe holding a single eagle feather in his tiny fist. A healthy son who would grow to command the clan.
Niall's face was serious as he left the oak tub and stood to his height, arms outstretched for the Wisewomen's drying. They left only his siring equipment untouched with their drying cloths, placing him instead near the open window with his legs apart for the breeze.
The Fertility Tradition had begun, just as the sky tinged red for the sunset. The Wisewomen took turns at muttering an incantation over each piece o' the clean clothing handed to him, and the humming of the bees' song continued unbroken until the chieftain was delivered to the Vault.
Hilde and Cecily did not speak on their long return journey through the castle, for their next cleansing would be a challenging one.
The door was opened by Mirren, a sure sign of her intention to dominate the situation. That could not be allowed.
"Where have ye been? My husband in naught but a cloth all this time and the water barely lukewarm!" Mirren dipped her hand in a bucket to prove her point. The drips already around only this bucket spoke of several impatient samplings during her wait.
"Aye, milady, it is as it should be," said Hilde. And she started humming the bees' song in unison with Cecily to drown out the harmful black noises from Mirren's words and thoughts.
Cecily took the chance to say, "And if ye please, milady, there must be silence while the cleansing is done."
Luck that the Grandam Wisewoman had foreseen the requirement for a very small flagon of her mead.
Ruaridh was already quiet, saving his mind's strength for bonding with the spirits of his ancestors during the forthcoming ritual, and he made no protest as Hilde and Cecily did their work.
The mild sedation of the mead and the scent from the three beeswax candles placed on a table was just sufficient and no more to keep Mirren quiet while her husband was washed so intimately by two women not of the servant class. It was unlike her to care, but there was something ritualistic about their ablutions that made Mirren protective of her property, and she hovered close when they attended to his nether regions.
Her tongue got the better of her during Ruaridh's drying, although the honeymead made her words softer spoken.
"See, the water is cold now. Ye need not think I am getting into that."
Cecily doubled the volume of the bees' song while Hilde dealt with the intrusion.
"Nay, milady. The Grandam Wisewoman has cleansed ye herself all the days needed. If ye could remain silent, and put on the robe given ye, we are near ready to go now."
But Mirren would not be hushed, for her robe was far too like the ones the Wisewomen were wearing, but for the color, and should she not have something much fancier? And she had a headache and a toothache and an earache all at once and what could they do to relieve her afflictions?
The Wisewomen feared every incantation was ruined with her interruptions during the dressing of the chieftain's brother.
Ruaridh MacKrannan would know who to blame if he messed up his part in the Tradition, and they took the Bard aside to say exactly that after delivering the couple to the Vault.
Hilde and Cecily's last stop on their cleansing round was a big cottage seldom occupied, although the reek from the chimney now declared its owner in residence. This time the Wisewomen carried a large bundle of drying cloths, for an especially pervasive kind of cleansing was needed for a man who dwelled amongst the sullying auras of the royal court. Hilde deliberately lagged behind so that it was Cecily who knocked on the door, sure that her heart's thudding was as loud as her knuckles.
Cecily was surprised she had to knock at all. A man didn't get to be Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard by letting anyone sneak up on him, and especially no' when the sun was nearing its set. She shuffled from foot to foot, waiting on the door to open. He couldn't be out. The Bard had told him to expect the Wisewomen.
She was about to knock again when Hilde's hand came by her ear to hit the door in a patterned series of loud and soft taps.
"For pity's sake, Cecily… if ye want to impress Hector, get yer entry codes right," she whispered, giving her a playful nudge just as the door opened and the man himself came out.
The two girls had just begun their curtsies when he raised his hand and said, "None o' that, lassies. Let us get this done."
He gathered every bit of their supplies into his own arms and strode so far ahead on the path that Hilde called for him to slow down. He stilled without turning round until they'd nearly caught him up, then began striding out again.
"Hector, wait, if ye please!" Hilde called again.
This time he turned to face them. "What is it?"
The girls glanced at each other and then back at him, more than a bit wary of his tetchiness.
"Ye canna start without us," said Hilde. "It is more than washing."
With an impatient sigh, he motioned for them to walk ahead of him. And he kept his gaze on the far distance as both passed.
At the waterfall the girls busied themselves gathering wood, refusing his help even with the lighting of the three small fires around the pool.
Hector sat on a rock watching them light candles and scatter acorns and leaves and god- knows-what in the pool. His suspicions were aroused. Keeping his senses alert was ingrained, and all knew that, so when the Bard had been far too eager for him to drink Oona's honeymead he'd left it untouched and took the springwater only. Her bees had as much to do with the water as the mead, and his misgivings had mounted even then.
The Bard would say only that the Wisewomen must give him a cleansing – and aye, he would need to strip, or did he usually bathe with his clothes on? And it had to be Cecily and Hilde. And of course his attendance was compulsory for the Tradition – or did he think a Summons would be sent across Scotland to fetch him home for his supper?
The Bard was on the defensive about the whole thing, whatever it was, and that was well out of character. In fact, he had divulged very little under close questioning. Either Hector was losing his touch, which was doubtful, or the Bard had something very big to hide. Hector had watched his face all through. There was no guile. Just a withholding, and an embarrassed one at that. Whatever the Tradition was that required Hector's presence, the Bard believed himself justified in keeping the detail quiet until the last minute. The odd bit was that he would no' just come out and say that's what he was doing.
"Hector? All is ready for ye now."
He knew the pool to be a lot colder than it looked, and for once he was thankful for it. Keeping his back firmly to the lassies, he stripped himself of his garments and jumped in to full immersion. And he stayed under a while until his body's reaction to seeing Cecily again had cooled itself down enough to abide being viewed when he climbed out to stand naked under the wat
erfall.
The cascading water from this MacKrannan mountain had its intended effect. Hector had been fretting about work left undone – guard rotas, wagonloads of arrows for the archers, security for the queen's visit to Edinburgh and all manner of things he knew his Lieutenant could manage fine well. He let the torrent thrash him with its icy needles until none of that mattered, and emerged from the waterfall as the man instead of his job.
Cecily and Hilde thought his teeth were chattering as they dried him thoroughly, one on each side, doing their chantings and invocations as they worked in tandem from his mop of black hair down and along his outstretched arms to his fingertips. But Hector was saying his own form of incantation, hoping Cecily would no' dry his front, and beseeching the stars in the heavens above to keep his cock unrisen until his kilt was safely back on to cover it.
By the time he reached the Vault, accompanied by the lassies in the light of the rising moon, all to do with his work at court was well and truly forgot.
Sorcha thought the floating candles in her steaming hot bath a particularly delightful idea. The acorns and pine cones were not too much of a nuisance, as long as ye didna sit on one that had gotten waterlogged and sunk, and the unidentifiable mess of fresh leaves filling the spaces kept the water's heat in. Closing her eyes, she felt as if Mother Nature herself had come a-visiting to renew her vitality. Oona's singing and chanting and humming were as soothing as the clarsach. The sounds seemed to go beyond her normal hearing to make her spirit dance.
The Chieftain Needs an Heir - a Highland ménage novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions) Page 3
