When I finally did come out into the open even the final phase of dusk seemed almost dazzling. It was no man-made clearing, or if it had been so started it bore no traces then. It stretched into the woods and out of sight behind a hillock which in turn slanted down to a stream running at right angles to the road. I dismounted and drank, noting how my long face and long, fair hair were caricatured in the slightly rippled water, then rose to look the situation over.
I had to rest sometime, and the meadow’s thick heather offered the best bedding I was apt to find. But the place had a feeling about it that made me somewhat uneasy. I was half minded to go on, but the foolishness of riding in weary aimlessness through the dark was apparent. Oh well, I thought, it wouldn’t be so bad with wine for company. I had a pull at the skin, felt immediately better, and started following the stream in search of a likely place to camp.
I skirted the base of the first hill, and it was then that I saw it. A dolmen stood on the second hill, two tall upright stones capped by a large slab, within a ring of smaller standing stones. I had known there was something queer about that meadow. Not that it was the first one I’d seen. I had run across them in Ireland, among the Scots, in Pictland and England as well as in France itself on previous trips; but the sight of one never failed to get under my skin and crawl.
Some say it was giants that built them, and some that it was done by magic. The Church claims there is no magic, but I notice it believes in it right enough if a saint is the performer. Of course, all those things—dolmens, cromlechs and standing stones—are very old, and maybe there’s not much power connected with them any more. But I wouldn’t want to bet on it, especially as they invariably instill the feeling that unseen eyes are all about, watching without friendliness.
Then, too, though some forests look peaceful at night that one didn’t. The trees, dim, and merging one with the other, seemed to be waiting for something to happen. And the heather stirred restlessly before little gusts of wind.
It wasn’t good there at all, but though I myself could bed down anywhere, the chances were against soon finding a place where there was as good forage for the horse. So letting him amble where he would, I set about making a fire. Then with my back turned carefully to the thing up on the hill, I proceeded to encourage my drowsiness with long draughts of wine. It didn’t take very long in my weary condition. I soon wrapped my cloak around me and hunkered down in the heather.
Chapter
Two
MY fire had gone out when I was awakened by the howling of wolves—not just moon-baying but the cry of the pack on the trail of something. A wolf’s call is fine to hear when a man’s safe in a house, just as the sound of wind-driven rain increases the coziness of lounging sheltered and warm; but it carried no cheer then. I felt as chill and naked as a worm with a hen’s eye fixed on it. Not that they might be even after me, but if I waited to make sure it would be too late.
There were stars but no moon as yet to help me locate the horse, so I gave that up. The cry came again, seeming surely to come from the road I’d been on, and I peered around wildly. The trees by the stream were small, easy to shin up but offering no perch on which to wait out a siege; and among the great trees of the forest I might look in vain on a dark night for one I could climb. There was the dolmen, however, a dark bulk against the sky. I caught up my sword and wine and sprinted for it.
All along I’d had the fatalistic feeling that I couldn’t avoid that thing. I hoped that any powers that still watched over it wouldn’t mind. I thought of crossing myself but decided it was too risky. Well, they had no particular reason for picking on me. I wasn’t much of a Christian and had respect for old things.
Tossing my weapon and the skin up to the cross rock, I got a toe-hold where a stone was weathered, reached up and pulled myself on top. I was just about in time, too. I had hardly stopped panting enough to have a drink when the lead wolf ran out of the night. About fifteen others followed.
Switching from the horse’s scent to my fresher tracks was something I had been afraid they would do, but it was all to the good once I was in haven. I put the wine down and laughed. “No wolves served,” I told them.
The pack leader looked up, growled, and jumped. But that was just swank, of course. He was three feet short. They all yapped a bit and nosed vainly around, then sat whining expectantly, as if they thought the next move was mine. “I’m not coming down,” I remarked.
After a while they saw that I meant it and went off, sniffing for signs of other game. Had it been in the winter they doubtless would have been uncomfortably persistent, but food wasn’t all that scarce then. Nevertheless, I stayed where I was. They had given me a nasty minute, and I was taking no more chances in that vicinity. For a while I was fearful that they would pick up the bay’s scent, but when I again heard them give the hunting call they were deep in the forest. If, therefore, they hadn’t frightened the horse away by their howling, all should be well. It was chilly on that stone without my cloak, so I didn’t try to sleep. Instead I worked on the wine, speculating as to how far out of my way the road I’d chosen would take me and into what sort of community it would first lead. All places were upset and lawless and all roads perilous, but not for me as a rule. Except when, as in the case of Chilbert, I had offered special grounds for enmity, my harp and my poems gave me a general passport of good will. That was natural enough, too. With everything from empires to ethics being fed to the hogs, poetry was the one sound thing left. Even the Danes, who systematically destroyed most things, made and liked good poetry, though their taste was limited.
I could make poems with varying degrees of skill in four languages and recite them in seven, so I could go almost anywhere and find an audience. Irish I was born to, and Danish I had learned nearly as early from Norse who’d settled on the Irish coast. Latin had been the only language permitted at the monastery school, and French I had worked at enough to be handy with in the course of two previous sojourns among the Franks. The others, English, Welsh, and Pictish I had acquired for recitative purposes as needed.
My only good work was in Gaelic, and most of that wasn’t for the casual commercial market. The traveling bard, if he is fond of eating, cannot waste time trying to improve the taste of his hearers. He must give them something they’re in the mood for at the moment, and only the simple, old things like bawdiness washed down with a sip of moral justice are sure fire.
But every man must pay his tax to Hell in some manner; and he can still do good work if it is within his power. I wasn’t certain of the reach of my capabilities; but I had hopes, and I loved the work.
Then, as at many other times, I turned to my craft for life when nothing else was vouchsafed. Starting with the thought of the languages I had mastered, I began considering how interesting was the relation between the habits of a people and the nature of their prosody. But before I’d got very far with that thesis my hair stood on end. I heard voices, although it seemed absurd to think that any group of people would be abroad in that waste at such an hour—or it would have seemed absurd had I not been on a dolmen.
Staring anxiously at the part of the forest the sounds appeared to come from, I saw flickering lights moving toward me. Fiends making a night raid was the first and only explanation that occurred to my startled mind. I wanted to run, but if they really were fiends they could catch me anyhow; if not I was as safe where I was as anywhere. Stretching out on the rock, in hopes I might not be observed, I watched them in fearful wonder.
In a moment or two the lights emerged into the meadow and began weaving more or less directly toward the dolmen. I groaned and sneaked my sword out of its sheath. I might accomplish nothing, but at least I would make the effort. There were, I could by that time count, a dozen torches, and the bearers were chanting to a rhythm that was not quite music. It had something of the quality of plain song, though it was divided into shorter phrases.
Straining my eyes to see what kind of thing was doing all ‘ that, I saw that the leadin
g figure, their chief or priest, had no torch. He carried a wand and nothing more; but the rest, little, hairy varmints dressed in skins, all had either a spear or a club. They could have been gnomes, but if they weren’t that I was damned if I knew. I held my breath, expecting to be discovered, but a torch, though it gives good light, also casts black shadows; and none of the creatures came very near the dolmen.
Instead they started to weave in and out among the circle of standing stones. I had just been flattering myself that I knew all languages spoken thereabouts, but, whether gnome-speech or not, I could make nothing of their words. They continued repeating their chant, and as nothing ill was happening to me I got interested and started to analyze the verse form.
It didn’t have much form in the strictest sense. The lines, which apparently could be of any length, were tied together merely by a recurrent phrase. It reminded me of certain Pictish poems, and at the thought I almost snapped my fingers. Trim one of those ratty elves up a little and put a trifle more clothes on him and you’d have a Pict, if you wanted one.
I began going over the poem, which I then knew by heart, and found that though some of the words were strange quite a few closely resembled Pictish words. If I was right the gist of the chant was that it was dark and they wanted light, although why they didn’t go to sleep and wait for dawn was more than I could figure.
Suddenly the leader left the circle, marching up to the dolmen to stand right beneath me, and as he did so the others ground out their torches. In the abrupt want of light after the glare I could see little, but I could hear him intoning urgently in a high, sweet voice. He hadn’t spoken ten words, either, before his feet glowed like phosphorus.
For an instant I was stunned, then I turned to look behind me. The moon had just peaked above the horizon and was striking directly between the upright stones that supported the rock I was on to light up the little man before anything else in the world that we could see.
It rose swiftly then, a full moon, picking his body more and more strongly out of the dark and making his shaggy white head wondrously bright and shining. How he had timed it I didn’t know, but the effect was as if he had called the moon up over the edge of the world. It was the most impressive single thing I had ever seen, and I had once been present when a murdering, usurious louse of a king was withered to a sniveling suppliant by a bishop who turned him over to Hell with no hope of pardon, knelling him to everlasting punishment with bell, book, and candle. That was very good, too, except that it made my stomach crawl. This was clean, heartening beauty.
Just as I anticipated being discovered, however, and was trying to calculate how they would react, the ceremony was over. They turned away and made silently for the forest through the now coldly smoldering heather. But relief had had scarcely time to set in before I heard a slight scratching sound. The next moment the old man’s head popped up over the rim of the slab.
Seeing me, he almost fell backward in his fright and amazement, but I collared him, held a hand over his mouth and dragged him up. If I let him yell I’d probably have Picts throwing spears at me for the rest of the night. “It’s all right,” I told him, hoping he knew enough of the words I was using to get the general sense. “I was chased up here by wolves, and I’m going away in the morning?” I repeated the assurance for luck, then as his friends had disappeared I let him go.
He had recovered his poise and sat up, giving me a slow and careful examination. “You’re not one of us,” he finally observed, “but the speech you used was ours, though there were a couple of words you said twistedly.”
Notwithstanding the dialectical differences he had observed, we weren’t going to have trouble in conversing. “I learned it from a people,” I looked at the moon to make sure of my direction and pointed northwest, “who live on an island off there.” Now that the excitement was over I felt cold again. “Have some wine?”
He was more than willing, and when he finally took his mouth from the nozzle things were on an amiable social plane. “These men who talk like you,” I said when I had drunk in turn, “fashion a brew out of heather which tastes milder and can make a man drunker than anything I’ve ever had.”
He smiled and then grew thoughtful. “They must be of our people. Though I didn’t know there were any left except ourselves. But we used to own the world.”
“Yes?” I said politely.
“Oh yes. I remember.”
I was startled. Rome had been a long time ago, before Christ even. “How old are you?” I asked cautiously.
He put the hand on the rock. “As old as this.”
I understood then and nodded. Among the Picts the man who conserves the old knowledge and wisdom of the tribe is believed to have lived always. Well, it would be some while before day returned, and maybe I’d learn something interesting from the fellow. I passed the wine again. “You must have had quite a life.”
This remark seemed to please him. “I have. I’ve seen everything in the world come and go. First my people were here, and I had them put up the stones because there are powers that should be honored. Then, as I say, we ruled everything until men came who looked like you and talked like this—” Here he astonished me by speaking words that sounded something like Gaelic.
“Well,” he went on, “they were here a long time, and those of us they didn’t kill lived as best we could. We thought nobody could defeat them, but a new people finally did. They spoke like this—” and though the words were slurred they were in Latin—“and were great builders. But they made it harder for us than the others because they cut down the forests.” He stopped and chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Well, I’m still here, and they’re gone; or if there are any of them left they don’t know it. The language they spoke and the things they made and knew are no longer theirs.”
“Meanwhile,” I pointed out, “the Franks have come.”
“Yes, and Bretons,” he nodded. “We have been crushed as never before because of their wars on our land, but maybe they’ll kill each other off.”
“They tried hard,” I admitted. “Still you’re getting weaker all the time.” I was not drunk but had yet taken enough to push discussion solely on its merits without too delicate a regard for feelings.
He didn’t take offense but smiled pensively, fingering his great, moon-glowing beard. He looked as though he might actually have been as old as he said he was. “Perhaps I’ll die,” he spoke again finally, “but if I do everything really good will die with me. After my people are gone nobody will ever really know how dawn holds life in check when the mist rises white above the heather or how the trees move and change shapes at night. They won’t know how a friend’s eyes can look, warm over the ale, or how the beauty of one of our girls—for there are no others of any worth—can stir a man. They won’t know how fine a thing it is to be of the land or be honored in the tribe.”
I shrugged. “I suppose all peoples feel that way.”
“Do they?” he challenged. “Then why do they all come here, leaving their own lands, often leaving their tribes or, yes, even their women behind? You, for instance, who are you?”
“Finnian. An Irishman.”
That meant nothing to him, but he wasn’t interested in details. “You’re from somewheres else, too. What are you doing here?”
“I’m a bard,” I explained. “I travel around singing wherever men will pay to listen.”
“Won’t they listen in your own land?” he inquired with a suggestion of a sneer.
“Of course.” In spite of myself the thrust injured my professional pride. “I am welcome anywhere.”
“Why not stay home in that case? Isn’t the land good?”
“It’s all right,” I said, “but so are a lot of other places.” That seemed to annoy the old fellow, and he snorted. He was getting into the spirit of the thing and drank without invitation. “Do you like it where your own gods aren’t worshiped?”
“Why, as for that, they make
it easy for us these days. Word’s got around that there’s only one god for all people everywhere.”
“Drivel!” he snapped, reminding me of an Irish priest commenting on the claims to supremacy of the pope at Rome. “Do you believe that?”
“I don’t care much one way or the other.” I was trying to be disarming but achieved no such results.
“You don’t care about your land or your gods. Why don’t you at least stay and stand with your tribe?”
“Oh, the clan’s getting along all right.” I shook the skin and felt relieved as it gurgled encouragingly. “They don’t need me.”
“They’re probably better off without you,” he said bitingly.
His obvious spleen about something that was so little his concern amused me. He was all priest in his worrying about who had which gods and what other people did about life. “Maybe,” I said placidly.
“A man who lives away from his own country and people,” he stated, “doesn’t live in reality. He knows nothing that is really happening, nor is he truly a part of life. He is merely suspended in it.”
That caught my attention, for in a purely general sense I had found it so. “Possibly that’s why I like it.”
For a little old man he certainly could hold a lot. “You like nothing that’s worth anything to a man!” he scolded when he had wiped his mouth. “You travel alone, don’t you? I suppose nobody wants to be seen with you!”
“You seem to like to drink with me,” I pointed out.
“I do not like to drink with you! I just don’t hold it against the wine if the company’s bad.” He released the skin grudgingly. “What’s your woman doing while you’re running all over places you don’t belong?”
“I haven’t got one and don’t want one.”
I expected another outburst, but the statement seemed to leave him speechless. Hunched forward, staring at me, he was an eerie and angry figure swaying a little in the moonlight.
The Harp and the Blade Page 2
