The Amber Seeker

by Mandy Haggith

  ‘So what’s your interest in chasing after Manigan?’ she said.

  ‘I’ve no interest in him at all, except possibly for the ivory I’ve heard he gathers when he hunts the big horned sea beast.’

  ‘Walrus. Horse of the sea. It has great tusks.’ Seonag imitated their curved shape as if coming out of her own face.

  ‘And why does Ussa pursue the Mutterer?’ Cuilc asked.

  ‘He has a three-faced head and she covets it.’

  ‘A head?’ I said. ‘She told me it’s a stone.’

  ‘It is. It’s known as the Death Stone. She’s reckless if you want my view. It’s dangerous enough. Riddled with curses.’

  ‘She told me it is magical and can answer any question you ask it.’

  Seonag snorted. ‘At what cost? Did she tell you that? A life for every question. Manigan gets some hunting prowess from it but I wouldn’t want it.’

  Cuilc looked impressed. She turned to me.

  ‘What’s the most interesting thing you’ve found on your travels?’

  Without really thinking, I told her it was edges. ‘I feel myself skirting the margin of the known world and finding treasure everywhere here. It is almost magical.’

  ‘No.’ Seonag was sitting on a low stool by her fire, stirring a simmering pot on a flat stone. With her voluminous skirt and long grey hair she seemed to flow out of the floor, as if the rug was an extension of her or she of it. ‘It is not magic. Everything valuable, significant and rare is found at the edge of the world. What is the purpose of your journey?’

  ‘I am seeking amber,’ I said, ‘and tin. I found tin at the edge of the land, further south.’

  ‘And you shall find amber on the coastal fringe as well. It is of the liminal world, as am I.’

  ‘Liminal.’ It was my turn to echo her.

  ‘The crossing of boundaries is dangerous enough, but you know this already if you have come this far.’

  I tilted my head. ‘I enjoy it. There are such interesting things to discover. Between languages, for example.’

  ‘You shift between them easily enough.’

  I explained my childhood in the Greek colony, surrounded by Gauls, my nurse a speaker of Keltic, my teacher a Roman who taught me the mathematics I love to this day. He introduced me to Euclid’s ideas, which have served me well in understanding the measurements I need to make to clarify the shape and extent of the world.

  ‘Your nurse?’ She picked the nugget that related to her. ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Danu.’

  ‘A slave?’

  I nodded. ‘Perhaps that’s why I don’t see the boundary between freedom and slavery as clearly as some do.’ I was thinking of Ussa, who always liked this distinction to be so clear.

  ‘All these borders can be crossed.’

  ‘They must be. I like to remain open.’

  ‘Have you crossed between life and death?’ She looked at me hard, waiting for me to answer.

  ‘No, but it is a boundary I know I shall breach one day, probably too soon for my liking.’

  ‘There are places where it is thin enough.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to go too soon, as I may not come back.’

  ‘Of course. But no edge is single-sided. You sail, so you know the ocean might drown you, but more often she returns you to shore. Death is no different, really.’

  ‘You sail on the water of Lethe?’

  ‘Lethe? I do not know it. No, I do not sail. I go down into the underworld.’

  ‘Lethe is the river to the underworld.’

  ‘Ah, then I know it well. The blood of our earth mother is pure and clear. I follow it down, certainly, though not by sail, just by foot, and by strength of will and spirit. And perhaps a little magic. Just enough.’

  I was enthralled, but wanted to be sure I did not overstep myself. ‘And you return,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Of course. I guide, shall we say. There, and back if necessary.’

  ‘Will you guide me?’

  ‘Why do you want to go there?’

  ‘I am Pytheas. I am exploring the edges of the world.’

  ‘Then I am Seonag, your guide to the passage to the underworld.’

  Was it arrogant of me to think of myself as Odysseus, embarking on his journey underground, seeking to appease the gods of the ocean and acquire advice on how to get home safely?

  BRIGID’S LAND

  As if it was completely matter-of-fact, Seonag began to make a plan to show me the sacred portal to the underworld. I could not really believe what I was hearing.

  ‘We shall go later. It is half-moon, which is a good time of balance, a safe-enough time when most of the restless spirits are sleeping. You must prepare yourself. I will find you something to wear and gather firewood. It is a fair ride from here.’

  ‘Where do we go to?’

  ‘A gateway. You’ll see soon enough.’

  She handed me a bundle of soft woollen fabric dyed the colour of a summer sky, deep blue flecked with white. It was a shapeless robe like a long shirt. Then she gave me a soft, plaited rope, coloured pale green. I had no idea what to expect, but her swift purposefulness intrigued me. Now she had decided I must see this place, she was clearly following a familiar set of preparations. She had a big leather bag into which she placed my clothes and a bewildering array of vessels and powders. I was pleased to see fresh bannocks going in along with nuts and dried berries and a decidedly unappetising dried fish. Twice she went outside and yelled, ‘Ishbel!’ and eventually a dark-haired girl with shy eyes appeared with a boy, no more than a toddler. He ran up to the neighbour, Cuilc, clearly his mother, who gathered him to her in a hug. He was a beautiful child, dark-eyed and round-faced. I was introduced to him as Eadha, which I was told is the name of the round-leaved poplar, the aspen, which always quivers in the wind. I tried to engage him but he was at the age where almost everything except his mother is too strange and more than a bit frightening.

  Ishbel seemed at a loss without the child but she brightened up when Seonag told her we were going to Brigid’s Land and set about her own gathering of objects. I saw a flute go into a pocket, and a lamp. We were introduced to each other, but at first she seemed too shy to talk to me, although I caught her eyeing me curiously at one point and she returned my encouraging smile. She was perhaps eighteen years old.

  ‘Ishbel will follow me as priestess,’ said Seonag. ‘I had no daughter. Perhaps Brigid was angry with us for something. But fortunately I have Ishbel to pass on what I know. She’ll lead the ceremonies there soon enough.’

  Behind her calm voice there was a tension. I sensed that some deeper conflict had gone on that she was not willing to talk to me about, and that she was making light of something grave. But she was keen to be off, and led us out to where two white ponies were grazing.

  There was a shout from behind us and a man appeared on a knoll towards the shore.

  ‘We’re off to Brigid’s Land,’ Seonag called. ‘Cuilc says she’ll cook for the guests.’

  He nodded and went back into the barn.

  ‘She’s a good friend and always keen to talk to people from other parts,’ she said to me.

  We rode the two ponies, Seonag and Ishbel on one and me on the other. I’m no horseman but these were biddable and remarkably strong and sure-footed, so it was easy going. There were thickets of contorted birches and hazels with drooping catkins on the low slopes. A leafless bush made russet patches on the bog among green moss hummocks. The cores of the blond rush tussocks were greening too, but between them the peaty ground lay black and menacing. The hill was a pattern of a pale grass and heather, two shades of dull brown, and an amber scatter of bracken completed the atmosphere of brittle decay.

  Seonag pointed out the odd landmark along the way, but mostly we plodded quietly. I looked out for spring flowers, but they were sparse. The weather was disgusting, as it is so often in that part of the world. I was tired and wet when we reached a long valley where our paths divided. Ishbel a
nd I were sent with a bag down to a beach to gather stones, while Seonag went ahead.

  The beach was a clutter of gneiss and sandstone pebbles of all possible sizes and shapes. Ishbel had an air about her that belied her age and she instructed me with gravity through the ritual gathering, step by step. We walked down to the sea. She made me take off my boots and put them in the bag, then stand in the freezing water. The stones were slippery underfoot and the waves unsteadied me. Ishbel chanted something and I thought about what Seonag had said to me about liminal places. This was one. This was the same shoreline I was following all the way up north. Although I had made libations to Apollo for each sea voyage I made, I had not thought to honour directly the boundary of sea and land. My feet ached with cold when I came out, but stepping on dry land was hardly a relief as it was almost as wet out of the sea as in it.

  ‘Is there a god or a goddess for the shore?’ I asked Ishbel.

  She looked at me blankly.

  ‘Who were you chanting to?’

  ‘The sea.’ She pointed to the stones. ‘You have to gather three dozen bigger than your fist.’

  I started to get my boots out but she shook her head. ‘You have to go barefoot.’

  Once filled with stones, the bag was heavy. I hoisted it on my back and we set off uphill. It was a steep stumble following a stream. My feet were soft after weeks in boots. I have spent more pleasant afternoons. I wondered if Ishbel was secretly laughing at me, going along with all her demands, and I was reminded of the Bunnies in Belerion, where I had had similar doubts about Og’s uncle until he took me underground.

  The horse was not allowed to take my burden, Ishbel said. She led it while I toiled up the slope. The stream petered out into a bog where I slithered about in my bare feet. The hills all around were covered with the scrubby birches that are all they can muster for woods in this part of the world. They were still leafless and a strange, if rather marvellous, wine-colour.

  Springs trickled together into another stream which flowed out of the mire. We followed it down. It was a bright chuckle and I noticed that the stone in its bed was different from the rock I had just walked through, and from the stones I was carrying. It was a grey limestone, smooth-surfaced, unlike the gritty gneiss and red sandstone.

  We smelled the smoke first, then suddenly we were on a soft green sward, despite the early season. It was a threshold to a new world: a gentle pasture, with two huge, hairy, black cows grazing on it.

  Seonag walked towards us and bowed to me as if we were meeting for the first time. Her face was painted, her hair tied back and wrapped in a blue cloth, and she was wearing a splendid, voluminous black robe with a huge sunburst embroidered on it. She led me to a crescent-shaped mound and indicated I should put down the bag of stones beside a strange dome. I felt light and childlike once relieved of my burden.

  Then she gave me a wooden bucket and led me back towards a pool where the stream gathered before literally disappearing into the ground. Beside it was a splendid clump of primroses.

  ‘Fill your bucket,’ she said, so I bent down in the channel and angled the pail so water flowed into it. It was the clearest looking water I have ever seen, so clear you can’t see it.

  ‘May I drink it?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  It was delicious, like drinking pure crystal. I said so, and she laughed in appreciation.

  ‘You’ll need three buckets full.’ She beckoned me to follow her.

  I splashed water on my legs from the bucket as I walked but my feet were so numb I barely felt anything. She led me to the dome. It was a hide tent. She lifted a flap and bowed in through the low doorway. A fire was burning inside. There was a stone tank sunk in the floor and she told me to pour the water into it, then go for more.

  *

  When I had filled and emptied the bucket three times, Seonag said, ‘Now fetch your stones. They go here beside the fire.’

  Ishbel was nowhere to be seen.

  I did as instructed.

  ‘Remove your cloak and come in. You can put it there.’ There was a peg to the left of the doorway. She told me to sit and bustled around me, sealing the flap, bringing the fire to a blaze, showing me how to arrange the stones to heat up, laying out bowls of dried petals and leaves. I felt myself settle into the dim space, enjoying the warmth. The dancing firelight and rain pattering on the hide roof were mesmerising.

  Seonag sprinkled something onto the fire and the tent filled with a sweet, pungent smoke. She lowered herself onto a rug beside me and reached for a small drum. Then she paused and closed her eyes. The ceremony had begun.

  As she chanted, she made a running patter on the skin that sounded like the raindrops on the roof. Weaving through the smoke, Seonag’s song told of the birth of the first people out of the earth. She had a sweet voice but I felt as if I was an imposter in a private ritual, or that I was being led into something deeper than I had bargained for. I had a tickle in my throat but managed to stop myself from coughing until she had finished. I don’t know if it was because of my cough or not, but she offered me a drink of herbs and something alcoholic. I really have no idea what she gave me, but as I supped, it burned deep in my belly. Had it not been for my need to suppress the cough I should have been more tentative with it.

  After several gulps, she took it gently from me with a raised eyebrow. ‘That’s probably enough, if you’re not used to it.’

  I’ll never forget the wry look on her face, the way an indulgent parent watches a child. ‘It’ll take you over the border, that’s for sure.’ She winked, and took a healthy slug of it herself.

  From that point on I don’t think you can rely on me to tell you what happened. I do not rightly understand it. She left me to wash, after piling the hot stones into the water tank. I began to feel queasy and worried, but as I splashed I suddenly found myself marvelling at the feeling of wetness on my exposed skin. My body became oversensitive and my legs and arms felt long and gangly. I dried myself beside the fire and dressed in the blue robe and green belt. It felt delicious to be clean and I felt young again, capable of anything, although when Ishbel returned I wasn’t completely certain that I knew what was happening.

  She led me into a cave. I took amber with me and I distinctly remember giving it to the spirit who dwelled in the cave. Everything else – well, it was beyond words. It was the place of the goddess. Brigid’s land. I scribbled some notes afterwards. This is what they say. Paraphrase is beyond me. Make any sense of it you can.

  Darkness, starlight, glittering.

  A jewelled cavern.

  Golden drips.

  Black chert boulders, white marble stripes, spiky limestone. A wet rock tapestry.

  A smooth waterworn channel and a trickle underfoot.

  A pool of pure clarity. Blood of the goddess. All the wisdom of the ages.

  Rippling light on the passage walls. Drops of gold, a pool of gold, golden gleams and glitter everywhere.

  I looked deep into a channel that delved into the depths of the universe, a pillared chamber of silver and ivory.

  I drank blood. Fangs hung ready to drink my own.

  Among breasts like the teats of a sow, dripping with milk, I wept for the lack of my mother.

  Ears of goblins and elves listening to the murmur of water.

  The lyre! Strings echoing the trickling stream, the stream leading the song.

  Pure joy. Pure love.

  Spirits of the dead howling from deep within. Roaring.

  Terrifying struggles, thunder, agony.

  The other side. Darkness. Coldness.

  Only a whirling stillness and the trickle of water.

  Clammy horror. Mud. Slime.

  Emptiness.

  Shaking. Uncontrollable shaking.

  A trickle of sound through the darkness, a stream of light.

  Fingers, stroking a ripple of song, most beautiful music.

  Rippling glimmers.

  A glow.

  A hand.


  ABOVE GROUND

  I do not know when I emerged. I had passed beyond the edge and I returned to my senses back in the tent beside the fire, wrapped in a blanket, warm again. I was given a fresh, minty hot drink, sweetened with honey, and my nausea was tempered by it. Seonag was not there but Ishbel was attentive and gentle, encouraging me to stay where I was, lying down, asking me how I felt, what I had encountered. She had lovely pale skin. I wanted to touch her. It was impossible to answer her questions.

  ‘Where’s Seonag?’ I said.

  ‘Talking with the spirits.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘In the cave.’

  ‘Have I been there?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Why am I not there still?’ I really did not understand how I could be here by this fire.

  Ishbel just smiled.

  I became infuriated by her. I was confused, not really rational. I think I might have shouted at her.

  She seemed fearful and begged me to be quiet, promised me we would go to find Seonag.

  I was scared too, to be honest. I felt unhinged, as if I was losing my wits. I wanted Seonag like a child wants its mother. I let Ishbel soothe me and, still wrapped in the blanket, we emerged into the night and saw the moon seeming to chase the clouds. It was no longer raining. We trod the wet ground back to the cave mouth.

  I didn’t dare to re-enter. Proximity to it set my mind wheeling again and I had to crouch, huddled against the entrance at the top of the steps down into the world below. The lyre was playing and fragments of its melody flowed up towards me. Bathing in them I felt myself settle again. I sat on the top step, my feet tucked into the blanket, and listened to Seonag and the spirits singing to each other.

  An owl hooted in the woods nearby, but this was not Athena; I had moved beyond her realm, and had to grapple for a different kind of wisdom. The bronze owl that you have is my symbol for this moment and all that came before it on my voyage. It embodies my discovery of tin’s origins, the knowledge I found in the strange underworlds of the Bunnies and of Brigid’s land, and the preconceived ideas about the supposed ‘barbarians’ that I abandoned along the way. I discovered that, far from being ignorant savages, they could be elegant and make beautiful music, and that they had wisdom and expertise in astronomy and navigation that was truly impressive.