The Lyre Dancers

by Mandy Haggith

  A shout from inside takes me back to the fireside, where Fin has boiled water. ‘Did you mention food?’ he says. ‘I can help you make something. You’ll be hungry, and they’ll have a harder sail back over there, and if Rian comes back with the priestess…’ He tails off.

  ‘We should cook a meal.’ My heart sinks. ‘I can make bannocks. Can you cook?’

  He points up at the rafters where some herring are hanging. ‘Fish soup?’

  I dip into the almost empty barley barrel and sit down beside the quern to start my bannock ritual. Perhaps the grinding will comfort me, although I’m not in the mood to sing as I usually do.

  Instead, I answer Fin’s questions. Between asking practical things, like where we keep our implements, he makes a long series of enquiries into my childhood, my mother, my father, even Soyea. He is particularly interested in my sister, although I do my best to put him off.

  I am halfway through telling him about the way her father went off to wherever he was from with her twin brother, never to be seen again, when Cuilc makes a strange gasping sound. We both turn to her and I know immediately she is dead. Her face has gone slack. My steps to her bed feel like wading through ever-deeper water in which I am sure to drown. Her body is lifeless, frozen. I hold her hand and my head sinks down onto her chest.

  Then there’s the sound of someone approaching. I hope it’s Ishbel but it is Badger who bursts in, panting, in a total lather of sweat, bleeding down one side of his face. ‘Where’s Manigan?’

  He is here, at the door. ‘What’s the matter man?’

  Badger catches his breath. ‘A gang of Ussa’s slaves has got Rian.’

  Cuilc is dead. Mother is gone. Now we will never, ever know the truth.

  Father is strangely calm, sitting Badger down, tending the cut on his face and asking him to explain in detail what happened. I can’t understand why he isn’t chasing straight after Mother, after all he is supposed to love her above everything. But he doesn’t go anywhere. He just sits there, his chin on his clenched fist, elbow on his knee.

  ‘What are you doing? You have to rescue her,’ I demand.

  But he just says, ‘She’ll be back.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I am shouting. ‘She might be killed!’

  ‘No, she won’t.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I just am. This…’ He gestures at Cuilc. ‘This….’

  Everyone around me is going mad

  RIAN

  CAPTURE

  Rian and Badger followed the instructions they were given by Cuilc’s neighbour to find Ishbel the priestess. As they came down to a stony bay the path divided, one leading away up to Brigid’s Cave, the other continuing along the shore. It was here that two men jumped out from behind boulders and muscled them to the ground.

  Rian heard Badger giving as good as he got but she was unable to put up much resistance to her assailant. He was young, dark-haired, bearded and strong. He carried her at a run along the shore. She fought back, kicking and biting, then he threw her to the ground. Kneeling on her back in such a way she felt sure she would never walk again, he immobilised her completely with rope around her ankles, thighs, wrists and chest. She tried to talk to him but he slapped her face.

  She was trussed like a pig. He heaved her across his back and set off at a jog down the coastal track. At a substantial stream, with a noisy waterfall, he tossed her across and she lay winded in the heather on the other side. The ropes were agony; the only way to tolerate them was not to move. He picked her up again, slung her over his shoulder, and continued to jolt her along. Once she stopped struggling, she noticed that he had brands the same as hers.

  Eventually, around a headland, they came to some huts. Smoke was coming from two of them. At the shore there was a familiar clang of metal: a smith at work.

  It was no surprise when she was unceremoniously dumped at the feet of Ussa. What she had long feared had finally happened. She looked up at the jowls of the trader, seeing her for the first time in more than eighteen years.

  Ussa’s body bulged out of a belted robe and flabby chins hung below her pasty face. Gold was slung from everywhere possible; earrings tugged her lobes down, a fat necklace with a red gem filled her cleavage. Even her black leather eye patch was embossed with silver. She stood over Rian’s contorted frame, hands on hips.

  ‘Well if it isn’t the green-eyed witch of Clachtoll.’ The big woman kicked Rian idly with a heavy boot. Her movement was ungainly and Rian could tell that her ankles were swollen and uncomfortable. ‘I have you at last.’

  Rian, having taken in all she wanted of Ussa, closed her eyes. There was nothing the woman could do to her to make things any worse than they were already. The shame of a daughter’s incest was an all-encompassing pain beside which a rope was mere discomfort. She became aware that Ussa smelt of stale sweat and rotten teeth. She felt disgust for the woman, yet also, she was surprised to discover, curiosity. She opened her eyes again.

  ‘I’ve waited for this moment for years.’ Ussa’s voice was unchanged but her body seemed ravaged. This was no longer the glamorous tyrant Rian remembered. The person she looked up at had twice the weight and a fraction of the power. She was a spent force, or worse, a travesty, a physical wreck. Yet in her one remaining eye there persisted that cruel fixity. The bonxie stared back down at Rian, the gaze of a raptor considering its prey. Ussa may be old and unfit, but she was still dangerous. Potentially lethal.

  ‘I wonder what I’ll do with you? That was a good guess on my part, wasn’t it? Once I’d heard you were here, that you’d want to go to Brigid’s Cave. What do you think? Cunning, aren’t I?’ Her voice poured like blood from a wound, smooth and deep, though with a tinge of rust to it now. Or had it always had that edge?

  Ussa had found a seat and dragged it over so she could sit, watching her prize, nudging Rian’s body with her foot from time to time. The exertion made her breath rasp.

  With each movement, the ropes cut, but Rian didn’t care.

  ‘You never did say anything, you little clam. I remember now. Silent as a stone and about as interesting. What the hell Manigan ever saw in you I never understood, yet you still managed to weasel your way into my family. Imposter.’ Ussa poked Rian’s belly with her boot, but Rian made no response; she just watched.

  ‘Have you still got my brand on you?’ Ussa leaned down, dragged up Rian’s skirt. ‘Yes. Not much meat on you is there? You’d not give the dogs much nourishment.’

  Rian was unmoved. Ussa could put her on a spit, roast her alive and eat her, it would be no worse than knowing her daughter was in the mire of incest and she’d been unable to prevent it. She wondered if Manigan had managed to track Rona down, or whether she had found Eadha and they had escaped together. She closed her eyes as the full horror of that prospect bit into her. She had been feeling sick ever since Buia had told her about Cuilc, but still these sudden realisations would fill her with fresh shame, nausea rising at the image of her daughter being intimate with the handsome man who was her brother.

  Ussa mistook her wince for fear and returned to her gloating tirade. Rian opened her eyes again and faced her tormentor with an expression of pure scorn. Nothing the woman could do would touch her. She felt herself rising to the high, safe place she had taken herself to all those times when Ussa tried to conquer her in the past.

  Poking her again with her toe, Ussa said, ‘I’ll have to think how best to handle you. I’ll not make the mistake of damaging my goods this time. You think I can’t break you, don’t you? Well just wait until you’re lying there in your own shit begging me for something to drink. Then we’ll see how brave you are.’

  A girl came out of one of the huts. ‘Hey you,’ Ussa shouted. ‘What food and drink do you have?’

  A woman from the nearest hut took it upon herself to wait on her, supplying a plate of fish and bread and fetching her a cup of ale, but it seemed to Rian that the rest of the people of the hamlet were keen to give Ussa a wide berth.
Ussa drank the ale, then shouted until the big slave who had captured Rian produced a flask of something stronger. As far as Rian could see given her limited vantage, most of the other people had made their way to the shore to watch the smith’s performance.

  The day was dimming and a strong smell of sulphur wafted across from the forge. Rian could imagine that pyrotechnics would be under way and thought about asking Ussa which smith was traveling with her.

  Ussa shouted for a lamp and the woman brought a little tallow lantern from the hut. Ussa positioned it so she could watch her prize.

  Rian continued to listen to the trader’s chuntering, a mix of threats and boasts, which became increasingly incoherent and repetitive as the flask emptied. Rian’s feet were completely numb and with her arms tied behind her back, her shoulders were a torment, but it wasn’t difficult to deflect her attention away to the worse torment of her spirit. The pain kept her alert. She tried to think of ways she might be able to escape once Ussa bored of her and left her alone.

  But Ussa’s fascination with her seemed unquenchable. She kept returning to her statement, ‘I’ve been waiting for this for years.’ The delight would rekindle in her face for a while, but then she would talk herself round into misery and self-pity. By the time the flask was drained she managed to reduce herself to weeping, muttering about the threat of death that loomed over her from her father, Sevenheads, and complaining about the agony she still felt from her missing eye. She seemed to think Rian’s capture could somehow pay the price for this injury.

  Rian tried to make sense of what she was saying. After years of avoiding this woman, it was, much to her surprise, fascinating to see her seeming to be so poisoned by her past.

  In her drunken state, Ussa was entwined by grievance. Over and over, she returned to ranting her anguish about the Stone of Telling and the years she had wasted chasing it only to find it was a torture to her. Now she was lonely and afraid of dying. And all of this, every bit of it, was Rian’s fault. Each time she remembered this point, she kicked Rian again, until she hurt her feet doing it. Her kicks were nothing to Rian, but when one was particularly sharp, she groaned and Ussa pulled herself back.

  ‘I mustn’t damage the goods now. I’ll make a pretty fortune selling you.’ With this the cycle completed, and she was back to the smug satisfaction of having captured Rian at last.

  Her slave appeared unbidden with a second flask and didn’t even cast a glance at Rian before slouching away to the shore again. Rian guessed that the smith must be putting on a good show.

  By now Ussa was pathetic. If Rian hadn’t known how capable she was of random and irrational violence, she could have pitied her.

  Ussa’s words became slurred, her statements incoherent, and then her head slumped, eyes closing. With a jerk, she was awake again, eyes groggy. She looked at Rian and giggled. ‘I’ve got my slave back.’ But then the struggle failed and she sat back, asleep.

  Rian tried to wriggle and cursed the slave who had tied her so effectively. She was on a soft grass sward, and there wasn’t even a stone to generate some friction against to wear away her ties. In some ways it was worse to listen to Ussa’s snoring than all her evil talk.

  Perhaps this was her punishment for having wasted so much time, delaying going to Assynt for all those years, waiting for Cleat to return rather than doing what she had always known she should do to establish her own identity. And now that she knew, it was too late. Her bloodline was knotted. She must accept this curse. Yet she was not made for acceptance. As soon as she settled on it her mind rebelled. Surely the wrong could be redeemed. There must be a way to rescue Rona from the situation. She was young, and pure in heart. There must be ways to appease the spirits. She thought of her own life. She could have given up when she was defiled by Pytheas but she had not. She would never give up. She had paid a heavy price, the loss of Cleat, but she couldn’t ever give up hope entirely. It felt the same with Rona, poor girl. She must do everything she could to save her.

  Her mind made up, she wrestled and strove and tensed and relaxed but could make no impact on the ropes. All she managed was to roll a few feet away across the sward.

  Ussa’s lamp sputtered and went out. The night was dark. People were returning to their huts. The smith’s show must be over. A chill started to seep up from the ground and it brought despair with it.

  Then, through the turf beneath her, Rian felt footsteps approaching. A hand was placed briefly over her mouth, then a finger across her lips. Rian nodded, then lay still as someone worked away at the ropes that bound her wrists behind her back. The hands seemed small, and smelled strongly of woodsmoke and faintly of sulphur. Rian’s heart raced. Who was this friend? They had presumably been close to the forge.

  Once her arms were freed Rian felt the rope around her ankles being untied. She sat up and rubbed herself. The pins and needles were agony, her fingers were like wood but her rescuer grabbed her hand and tugged her away from Ussa, helping her to shuffle on her dagger-numb feet. She staggered, reaching out for balance, and realised the person helping her was dressed in leather clothes.

  ‘Don’t you recognise me?’ The voice was hushed, even though they were well out of earshot.

  It was cloudy, but Rian could just make out the profile of a woman. It was familiar. With an intake of breath she recognised her betrayer from all those years ago: the daughter of Gruach.

  ‘Fraoch?’

  Her face was older but it still had those dimples, the wide smiling mouth, the arched eyebrows. Rian didn’t trust her. She had betrayed her once, she could do it again.

  ‘I managed to get something sleepy into her drink and persuaded her thugs to turn a blind eye.’

  ‘Thank you. Why?’

  It was years ago, but she was curious about what had changed.

  Fraoch whispered, ‘Maybe for Manigan, or Fin.’ Of course. Fin was her half-brother. ‘Or just for yourself. Or for me. We could have been friends.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Rian thought about responding with something about Fin, but didn’t.

  ‘I let you down.’

  ‘You’re with Ussa.’

  ‘Not necessarily. I sometimes make myself scarce. And so should you. You’d better get going. Her slaves don’t feel the same way about you as I do. Do you know where you are?’

  Rian nodded, then realised Fraoch might not see her gesture. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Manigan explained why you hate me,’ Fraoch said. ‘I was foolish back then. I didn’t know anything about friendship.’

  Rian thought for a moment about pursuing the topic, but it seemed irrelevant. ‘You’ve made up for it now.’

  ‘You have to get away from here.’ Fraoch squeezed her hand for a moment then let it go. ‘Good luck.’

  Rian was filled with a strange sense of lightness. She was free again. At least for now. She set off, her feet finding their way down the track in the darkness, back along the coast. It was slow and painful at first but the circulation soon returned. It seemed to take an age to reach the waterfall. Eventually she was back at the stony beach. Although she never had any doubt where she was going, as the seashore made her direction obvious, her ears were focused behind her all the way. At any time she expected hands on her, a body to leap out and overpower her. But it didn’t come.

  She continued to pick her way down the track, wondering about seeking Ishbel, but she no longer knew who she could trust, so she pressed on to the top of the loch and across the salt marsh, then started down the west shore. The shelter of the woods was welcome.

  Dawn was breaking when she neared Cuilc’s cliff-top tower house. Down at the beach Manigan was in the process of launching Bradan. He rushed up, and her legs crumpled under her as he held her.

  ‘Well thank the Goddess. I thought I was going to have to break a life-time’s habit and start chasing Ussa instead of her chasing me. Badger, look! Fin, Kino. Someone tell Rona her mother’s safe and let’s get cracking. Time to put some miles between us and this forsaken p
lace.’

  BACK TO ASSYNT

  The wind was south-westerly and they had to beat down Loch Slapin away from all the wrong. It barely seemed possible, the headway they made so slow that Rian was balled up with frustration, her hand bunched in front of her mouth. It was bad enough to be leaving the body of Cuilc unburied, abandoned, without then being unable to make actual progress away from danger.

  The red mountains stood, impassive, their ochre scree pale in the morning light. Beyond them the black mountain ridge, like a huge mouthful of teeth, stretched into a mocking grimace.

  First they sailed east towards the spot where Ussa’s boat was hauled up on the shore. Rian raked the shore with her eyes but she could make out no movement. Manigan murmured for the crew to tack. Kino, Badger and Fin swung the boom around the mast and hauled the sail back up. It filled and they set off westwards and away. They seemed to be hardly any further down the loch than when they’d started, still in clear sight of Cuilc’s broch, when they tacked again. The easterly tack took them once more over to Ròn.

  ‘We’re never going to get away,’ Rian wailed, ‘we’re just going back and forth in front of her.’

  Manigan pointed to a rope at the port side quarter. ‘The breeze has plenty of south in it this time. Give me a good hard pull on that sheet and we’ll get even closer to the wind.’

  Rian tugged the rope as instructed, then sat watching for signs of pursuit. She didn’t have long to wait. There were people around Ussa’s boat now and it was being pushed towards the water.

  Still, Bradan was on a more promising course and even Rian could believe they were progressing down the loch. They trickled south east towards green slopes, then crabbed back west, close in to the cliffy shore. It was interminable, but they were gradually putting distance between themselves and Ussa.

  Rona sulked on a bench aft of the mast. Rian caught her eye, and said, ‘Are you all right?’