The Lyre Dancers

by Mandy Haggith

  It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The fire’s damped down. The only light is a little tallow lamp beside the corpse. Beside it, glittering, is the metal-dressed woman: bangles on arms and legs, necklaces, earrings, even the eye-patch is jewelled. She is like a trinket stand at a macabre fair, crouched beside the cadaver and his loot, draped in gold and silver. She must rattle where ever she walks.

  She turns slowly towards us and I see her eyes are hungry. I thought I had destroyed myself by killing Bael, every vow I’ve taken for the Sisterhood and every fibre of my body despoiled, but in Ussa I see what being broken really looks like. Even I am not like this. I am whole compared to her. She is utterly riven. She must be starving to be healed.

  ‘Big bird,’ Buia whispers.

  Ussa turns her gaze on Buia. She looks scared. How can anyone be frightened of poor old Buia? But I remember how, earlier in the year, her strangeness had alarmed me too. Now I just feel sorry for her when she’s having a sad day and love her for her crazy wisdom.

  I say, ‘Shhh,’ and Buia makes a growling sound.

  ‘Let’s light some lamps,’ I say. I have an instinct that there’s something I can do here. ‘Let’s make the shadows dance.’

  Ussa is staring at me as I pick two lamps from the shelf and light them from the embers of the fire with a taper. It would be easier to use her lamp but my light won’t work if it’s contaminated by hers.

  ‘You’re a real pair of witches, aren’t you?’ I guess it’s supposed to be sarcastic but there is something in the way she says it that confirms she is fearful that I may have power like Buia’s.

  ‘Don’t be frightened,’ I say. I pick up her fear like it is rope through a ring in a bull’s nose and lead her with it. ‘I think I can help you.’ It’s as if I’m tugging gently on the string. ‘You can trust me.’

  I sit down with my back to the wall so she has to turn away from the corpse to face me. Her face falls into shadow as she puts her back to her lamp. I move mine forward so now her jewels gleam with clean light.

  ‘Tell me,’ I say, amazed by how honey-smooth my voice is, ‘what’s the matter?’

  It’s obvious what the matter is: her friend is laid out before her with a stab wound in his throat that I made. No wonder she is frightened.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ I ask. If I were in her position the last thing I would be doing is lingering with the corpse. Yet she is here in vigil, allowing its stench to penetrate her.

  She half turns back to the body and then looks back to me and I am amazed to see tears in her eyes. What’s more unlikely, that anyone would love Bael or that this woman cares enough about anyone to cry? So I understand that these tears are for herself. Nonetheless they are a way into her. The rest will be easy.

  I reach for a cloth, kneel forwards towards her, touch her gently on her forearm and offer the rag. ‘Are you crying for him?’

  She looks startled, as if I’ve pricked her with something sharp, but all she manages to say, through her weeping, is a strangled, ‘No.’

  She blows her nose noisily and Buia makes a little bird squawk in reply. She is plucking mint leaves off a dried bunch into a bowl. I catch their scent, a waft of freshness.

  Ussa snuffles again and this time Buia emits a loud crow’s croak in response. It is enough to flick Ussa into anger. She pokes a finger out towards me, her voice tart. ‘I know who you are, you know. You’re the Greek’s child. And this is your handiwork.’ Her finger wavers towards Bael’s body. ‘Killing even without the Stone.’

  ‘What do you mean, even without the Stone?’

  ‘The Stone of Telling. Until this I thought you were the one in the prophecy but you can’t be, can you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tell me.’

  Ussa blows her nose again and wipes her face. Her voice is broken but it strengthens as she gets into the telling of the tale.

  ‘The stone has three faces and all made prophecies. The first is the Sage, and it prophesied that the first man who owned it would kill his son, and he did. The second is the Master, who said all the owners would kill and go on killing and we all have. The third is the Boy and he said…’ Her voice changes to a squeaky sing-song, mocking a child’s, ‘“My Master is wicked and I am only a little child. I can’t undo his curse, but I can promise you this. We will cease to do this evil when we are in the hands of the first free child of three generations of slaves.”’

  She grabs me by the wrist. ‘“A slave woman and a high-born free man, then a slave man and a high-born free woman, then a slave girl and a stranger.”’ Her voice reverts to her own. ‘Your mother was the girl, your father the stranger. Uill Tabar told me Rian had a slave for a father whose mother was a slave as well and both bred with chieftain families. We should have had you strangled at birth. It’s a good job the stone is with someone else who likes pretty things, and who doesn’t know its worth.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ I ask, interested to see where she thinks it is but shuddering inside at the implication of what she has just told me.

  ‘Fin has it now. He’s a sweet boy and it’ll make a hunter of him. Now he’s got a taste for blood, he’ll make sure it’s safe from the likes of you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I loosen Ussa’s hand from my wrist and get to my feet. I’m reeling. Was it the stone that made me kill Bael? Almost as an afterthought I say, ‘Why were you crying?’

  Ussa just shakes her head. It’s as if her angry outburst has exhausted her ability to speak. Then, in a tiny voice, she says, ‘Because what Buia said was right. I’m the slave. Rian’s the one who’s free. Nobody understands how horrible he was to me.’

  This is what it is all about. ‘Who?’ I say, in my softest voice, crouching back down again.

  ‘Sevenheads. Him. My so-called father.’ And then she is crying again, a bitter weeping, and in amongst the tears words pour from her and all I have to do is sit and listen.

  ‘Rian asked me if I’ve ever been happy. How can I answer that? I have always scorned those ideas: happiness, love, home. They are all things for children to dream about, no more real than the gods your fool father Pytheas made libations to. Imagine a god that appreciates you pouring good wine into the sea? It’s almost as stupid an idea as his navigation by shadows. Yet he believed in them. I’m coming to envy the people who have the certainty of their convictions. I have nothing.

  ‘Buia is right. My true north has been gold and it has not satisfied me. She’s not the first to call me greedy and I’ve never cared. Greedy is just what poor people call rich people.

  ‘But Rian was the first to call me a slave. How did she work out that my relationship with Sevenheads is no different from how I wanted her to behave with me? And that he succeeded where I failed? I should be able to overpower her with my mind so she feels like my slave, but I can’t. I don’t understand it. She resists. No, it’s more than that. She makes me cease to believe it myself, that’s the uncanny thing. She has overpowered my mind, made me question fundamental things. Just like he did. I don’t know how.

  ‘Is this why I was chasing her all along? So she could show me how not to be a slave? She never saw herself as belonging to anyone else. She never behaved like a slave. Whatever fear she may have felt, that’s not real slavery. As long as she felt fear that still meant she had something to lose. Slavery is when you feel safe and know your role and go along with it, no matter how awful it is.

  ‘But even when I had her bound and gagged I could see in her eyes she hadn’t lost her freedom, that there was no possibility at all of me breaking her. And I suppose something had to break.’

  She clutches her hands together and twists her face into a knot, taking a huge breath and letting it out. She looks into my face, as if searching for something. ‘I’ve played the role of Ussa for a long time. A big, brave, fierce woman. And I want to be free now, not trapped by all my history.’ Her voice becomes a whine. ‘I’ve been so lonely. Nobody understands me. That boy Fin, he’s come close but even he doesn’
t know a fraction of it. The nights of horror, remembering.’ She peters out but I sit quietly. I don’t think she has finished.

  When she speaks again her voice is croaky. ‘It’s not natural for a father to use their child as bait for other children, to lure them in so he can torture them, is it?’

  I shake my head, trying to keep any look of judgement from my face and then she rants about her father, a string of abuses that are so foul I don’t ever want to think of them again. When she starts on what her grandmother used to do I am speechless with disgust. She has every reason to feel sorry for herself. It is all I can do to keep my expression neutral.

  When she pauses, I say, ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I give up. I’ll send my boat away. I don’t care. I’m not doing it anymore.’

  I let her words sink into the floor, then say, ‘Good.’ I hope I say it with conviction. With finality. Something needs to happen now to help Ussa keep this window inside herself open.

  There’s a sound of trickling and both Ussa and I look round to see Buia pouring water from a height into the bowl of mint leaves. I realise she must have had a pot warming in the embers. The mint-steam rises, scenting, and Buia carries it over ceremoniously and puts it down in front of Ussa. She makes another bird noise but this is gentle, a raven’s ‘croo’, an offering.

  I catch Buia’s eye and she winks.

  ‘Splash your face, Ussa,’ I say in a voice for a child.

  She reaches meekly for the bowl. Buia and I make eye contact again. I stand up as if trying not to wake a sleeping baby and we back out of the broch.

  Our work in there is done.

  Outside the evening is grey and blustery and Mother is walking with Alasdair back from wherever they have been. At the sight of her I feel myself going weak. All that self-control in there with Ussa, I don’t know where it came from and now it evaporates. Great shuddering gasps of tears engulf me as the horror of it all sinks in: the corpse, my victim; the slaver-woman’s gruesome past; the madness and cruelty we are all steeped in; this endlessly repeating cycle of killing; and at its heart, the stone going round and round, wreaking its damage. So when Mother reaches the broch I just want to hug her and bury my face in her skirt like a little girl and listen to the crooning of her strange songs. I need her to tell me everything will be all right even though I know inside it cannot possibly be true.

  RIAN

  STONE

  Rian hadn’t held Soyea like that since she was a little girl. Buia led them into her hut and then retreated. Soyea curled up on the nest of fleeces and Rian sat by her, stroking her hair, murmering, explaining how sorry she was for not understanding how difficult it was for Soyea, apologising for running away with Manigan, saying how unsettled she had felt being back in this place after so much time.

  After Soyea’s tears eased she told Rian what had happened with Ussa. ‘Do you know about the third prophecy of the Stone?’ she asked.

  Rian shook her head and Soyea repeated what Ussa had said.

  ‘So am I the one who has to stop the stone from doing evil?’ Soyea held her head in both hands. ‘How am I supposed to do that?’

  ‘Forget the stone,’ said Rian. ‘I’m so tired of our lives being dominated by that thing.’

  ‘What if I can’t just forget about it?’ Soyea said.

  ‘I don’t know. Just ignore it. Fin has it now. Let him keep it. It’s his problem now.’

  There was an awkward silence, then Soyea said, ‘Perhaps sometimes things can be safer if they are out in the open, not hidden away, not secret.’

  Rian nodded. Her life seemed to be a long struggle to unlock the secrets about herself.

  ‘It’s like you not knowing who you really are. It has eaten you away for years.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry, Soyea. I try to be calm on the surface.’

  ‘What Danuta said about being stone makes sense, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Do I seem like a stone?’

  ‘We’re both stones. It’s all right.’

  ‘I’m not unfeeling really.’

  ‘I know. Manigan is water. Rona too. But we’re stone.’

  ‘And fire, sometimes.’ She stroked Soyea’s forehead. ‘The odd blaze of passion.’

  Soyea winced and frowned. ‘He was…’

  Rian shushed her. ‘You don’t need to explain, or go back over it, little bird. What happened was coming. I’ll defend your right to protect yourself to the end of my life. Now you try to get some sleep, little bird. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.’

  ‘Will you sing me a song?’

  Rian smiled. She hadn’t known how much she loved her daughters until the clouds of shame had gathered. They could call it murder. They could talk of incest. But no wrong could stop her instinct to protect her children.

  She thought for a while, but the only tune that presented itself was the old one she had learned from Toma in the northern ocean, the song of freedom. She sang it softly, her fingers becoming lighter and lighter on Soyea’s head, until she saw the girl’s eyelids flicker and her breath settle into the rhythm of sleep. She sat for a while, then crept away to her own bed in the broch, tiptoeing past Ussa, who was slumped, sleeping, in the corner, and Alasdair, nodding by the fire.

  Next morning, Rian looked up from chopping vegetables and shredding fish into a big pot to see Soyea standing at the door. ‘Hello Mother, Alasdair.’ Her voice was monotone, her face white.

  Alasdair muttered a greeting.

  For a while, Soyea stared at Ussa, who was sitting beside Bael’s corpse, with her head bowed, twitching. Soyea raised her eyebrows, then made to leave again. Just before slipping out of the doorway, she turned to Rian. ‘There’s a boat coming.’

  Rian jumped to her feet and followed her out.

  The broch was soon full of people. Ussa moved to a stool in the corner where she sat silently and after a brief period of embarrassment everyone began to ignore her. Manigan, Rona, Donnag and the Bradan crew had returned with The Wren. Soon, they were all handing round the bread and soup, devouring in minutes what had slowly emerged during the previous day.

  Rona, calm and composed, accepted a bowl and took it away to her room. Seeing Rian’s amazement, Manigan said, ‘The Wren has performed a miracle.’

  The diminutive priestess smiled. ‘I just listened to her and told her that if her love is true, her destiny will out. We talked about dignity and choice. I suggested she save her effort for asking the spirits to help her. She’s a sweet girl. She took it on board.’

  ‘Well, I can’t thank you enough,’ said Rian, realising that what she had taken for a sulk was perhaps how she herself had always tried to act as a slave, holding her feelings in and presenting an outward air of indifference and poise.

  After Rian had eaten, she noticed Soyea loitering in the doorway clutching something wrapped in filthy cloth to her belly. She was trembling and pale. Fin was behind her, the monkey on a string. Rian had not noticed them slip away. Something about the way they were standing gradually attracted everyone’s eyes to them, even Ussa’s.

  Manigan was the first to take it in. ‘Is that the Stone? What on earth are you doing with it?’ He was on his feet, looking scared.

  ‘Fin gave it to me.’ She took the stone out of its bag. ‘I think it wants to be with the corpse.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ asked Manigan.

  ‘The Master told me in a dream.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘He told me he wanted Bael. That he was his responsibility.’

  ‘His responsibility?’

  ‘Exactly those words. And that he wanted to look at what he had done. Now I’ve heard the prophecy, I have to do something with the stone but I don’t know what.’ She was holding the stone in both hands, in front of her, as if it was an offering. Her eyes were red-rimmed, beseeching Manigan, all of them, to help her.

  Manigan looked at The Wren, and then at Rian, and then back to Soyea. He plonked himself down. ‘Do what the Master says. Don’t mess
with him, that was always my rule. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of him.’

  The Wren nodded agreement.

  Soyea put the stone on the chest of the man and pulled down the sheet. She was trembling. Everyone peered. The corpse was white and gruesome. Soyea turned the stone around so all three faces saw what there was to see in turn, then covered up the cadaver again.

  There were sighs and murmurs.

  Soyea backed away to the wall, Fin beside her, not touching her. They were both staring at the corpse.

  Drinks were refilled and an attempt made at normal conversation, something about that day’s crossing from the Long Island.

  Then Alasdair said, ‘Is it just me or is that disgusting smell fading? It was minging beforehand, really, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Aye.’ Badger nodded agreement. ‘Now it’s just like a dead body, before it was pure evil.’

  Manigan was gazing at the stone. ‘You know, I swear the expression on the faces has changed. Honestly, I spent years with it, and they’ve changed.’ He got up and looked more closely, then started pointing. ‘The Boy, see, he used to be innocent-looking and now he’s got that shocked expression. The Sage, that’s this old fellow, he used to be just peaceful, but now look how sad and sorry-looking he’s become. And the Master’s the one with the smile now. If that’s not a look of satisfaction, what is? I always used to say he had greed in his eye, but it’s gone. It’s like he has done what he’s been wanting to do.’

  As he spoke, Soyea began crying. At first a gentle weeping, then she collapsed into a storm of tears. Rian and Fin helped her away up to her room between the walls.

  When Rian returned downstairs they were discussing what to do with the corpse. ‘You’re the headman here,’ Manigan said to Alasdair. ‘Surely it’s up to you or Eilidh.’ He gestured to the old woman from Achmelvich, ‘One of you elders needs to decide what happens. All I know is I want to put that body in a fire or a hole in the ground, or chuck it in the sea, preferably before the day is out.’