The Lyre Dancers

by Mandy Haggith

  ‘Think how good the dance will be after all this separation,’ he whispers. ‘And afterwards I will never let you go again.’ He touches me so delicately, a feather-light stroke across the back of my neck. His thumb brushes my chin as he lifts my lips up to kiss them so gently I could melt. I swear no woman has ever burned for a man the way I do for him.

  So, we women all trudge along, trying to keep the pace slow enough so the old ones don’t feel bad, until The Wren tells us to get up there and make sure the fire is ready to light. Mother hurries ahead. That’s her role, of course. That and cooking. She and Soyea have left plenty of food for when people return to the broch later.

  I scamper up with Mother and pace about at the top, double-checking how much space we will need.

  It’s so slow to get dark at this time of year. The sun has sunk down into a layer of cloud to the west, which is still glowing rich pink, almost foxglove. The air is mauve and the rocks have taken on a red, blushing glow. You can tell magic will happen tonight. The sky spirits have dressed the world specially for it.

  Mother has a small fire burning. There’s a gorgeous smell of heather smoke.

  Donnag has been making torches. They smell of resin and look impressive; stout sticks with a clay bowl on top. I don’t know how she carried them up here, she is so skinny, but they arrived somehow and are in a neat stack. As other women start arriving, I find myself handing out the torches and placing people in a ring, leaving space for the dance and pointing out the sheer edge down to the sea. There are dozens of people, women and children mostly, I don’t know where they have come from, and they are all very co-operative. There is a tangible atmosphere of excitement. Everyone knows there is going to be a spectacle.

  The three priestesses are last. Soyea and Ishbel have brought stools for the older women. I place them where they’ll have a good view.

  The Wren refuses to sit and asks for a torch. Of course. She will light the pyre. It may be her last ceremony, by the look of her.

  When we can see the men’s procession, Mother starts lining up the torches.

  I kept one back for Soyea, but she shakes her head. She has that wretched stone head clutched to her chest in its filthy bag. She and Father had an argument about it earlier. He wanted her to leave it with the body, but she insisted she was going to carry it. He kept saying it had a hold on her, and it was using its power to make her its greedy keeper and enslave her. He was really horrible about it.

  But she was adamant that she knows what she’s doing. She has a plan, she says, and the Master might not like it, but he will have to put up with it. ‘The Sage and Boy are stronger together than he is,’ she kept saying. ‘His time is over. Trust me.’ Father doesn’t trust her with anything. Eventually Mother intervened and told him to let her do what she wanted. ‘She’s the keeper of it now, Manigan. You have to let it go. Please?’ It was the way she said that ‘Please’ that did it, as if she were asking him the biggest favour possible. You could see him struggle, as if he were having to let go of something more precious than life. The stone has a bigger hold on him than on anyone, I think.

  When she pulls the stone out of its bag, it has a cloth wrapped around it, like a blindfold.

  I hand an unlit torch to Ishbel and she steps forward to the fire to light it. The local wise woman, Eilidh, also has one, and three other local women whose names I don’t know. As the torches are lit, the sky seems to become darker, as if it is preparing for the ceremony too.

  Then the men arrive. Alasdair, along with an even bigger but younger man who looks just like him, is at the front end of the stretcher, carrying the body. Two others are at the back. These must be the brothers I’ve heard Soyea talk about. Indeed, you would not want to get on the wrong side of them. They take great care down the stone slope to the grass platform where we’re waiting, and then heave the body up onto the rock. Alasdair and one of the brothers climb up first, then the other two lift up the corpse while the upper two pull from above. They eventually get the body up onto the pyre, with a bit of difficulty it has to be said. It’s such a precarious place.

  While they’re struggling, Eadha slips to my side. As he takes my hand it is like the keystone slips into place in some inner wall. I didn’t realise until then how nervous I’ve been feeling. But with him here, I am suddenly strong. We are going to be magnificent.

  THE PYRE

  And we are magnificent.

  But not before the Wren has spoken and some of the men have been given torches. And not until Soyea has done her strange and mystifying performance with the stone.

  She makes Father remove one cloth to reveal the Master’s face. Then ghostly Fin pulls the second off the Boy’s face. Finally, she takes the last bit and walks around the ring, showing us all the old, sad visage of the Sage. Everyone is sitting down. It’s so exposed here, you feel safer at ground level, yet Soyea walks across the steeply-sloping outcrop as if it’s level, even lifting the stone up above her head. People are gasping at her bravado. She picks her way past the pyre onto the extreme edge of the pinnacle rock. We all hold our breath. I can’t believe what she’s doing and for a moment I think that the guilt has got to her and she is going to throw herself into the sea or dash herself onto the rocks as some crazy penance.

  She raises the stone above her head. She is going to pitch it into the ocean. I can see her mouth moving but I don’t know what she is saying. The breeze is snatching her voice away.

  There is a shriek. Out of the darkness looms a fat woman with an eyepatch. She’s wearing a long wide skirt and far too much jewellery. She is making for the rock and waving at Soyea.

  ‘Do it. Do it!’ she shouts.

  I don’t know if she means for Soyea to jump or throw the stone in the sea or what. I realise this must be Ussa and that she is not a fiction of my mother and father’s imaginations after all. She is far stranger than I ever expected. Suddenly Fin is right up against Ussa, his face in her face, talking in a furious whisper, holding both her hands and making her walk backwards, down to the flatter ground, then away round to the edge of the crowd. She moans, but whatever he is saying to her is effective, because she quietens down.

  I look back at Soyea and she’s lowering her arms. She plonks the stone down right at the edge, the face of the Sage facing us, and shuffles back past the pyre and down the rocks. It’s a bit of a let-down, really. I wanted her to chuck the damned stone into the sea. It has caused nothing but trouble. But I can see Father is pleased. He gives her a formal bow as if she’s a real priestess, which I suppose she is, even though she’s still only Soyea really. Mother is wiping tears away. Relief, I guess, that she didn’t do anything stupid.

  The fire in the sky has almost completely gone, there’s just the purple glow and a small smudge of bronze on the horizon. The rock looms above us.

  Once Soyea returns to her place, the three priestesses are in a line, chanting, and they get the whole crowd chanting along with a slow hand clap. Then they set off, The Wren at the front with her torch, then Ishbel and Soyea behind her. They are tiny, medium and huge. It’s almost funny, but the chant they have going doesn’t make anyone smile. It’s weird, almost painful. They step their way in time, slowly, out beyond the edge of the crowd, and then back towards the pyre. We turn as they pass us, and watch The Wren.

  She brings us all to silence with a single gesture. Then Soyea and Ishbel help her up the rock. She places her torch on the body and the shroud begins to burn.

  Once she is back down in relative safety, the three of them turn as one and retrace their steps, singing loudly, ‘The fire and the sky and the earth and the water’. Everyone joins in again, and this time it’s a proper song. It is ages since I heard so many voices together. Some of the men are belting it out, it’s magnificent. Those four brothers, Alasdair and his lot, have huge deep voices. I can’t let myself go, although I try to sing along. I’m too nervous. It must be us soon. I can’t even remember the words, although my mouth seems to know how to follow along.


  The song goes on, verse after verse, until they get to the point where only the priestesses know the words for the verses. I’ve never heard these before, but we can all do the chorus, and there are harmonies growing as younger voices learn the shape of alternative lines. It’s like musical petals opening. I find myself following an inner line, not as high as I usually sing, and it is lovely to be here, in the middle layer of the music.

  Now here come the four brothers. The fire is high, its journey begun. The flames are up and billowing like sails.

  The two younger brothers have a sack between them.

  It’s the bronze.

  They tip it out onto the grass with a great clattering that makes the song stumble. I can’t think of anything but whether it’s cutting up the surface we’ll have to dance on. I need that grass under my feet. How else will I endure it?

  Alasdair dismisses his brothers after the sack is emptied. The song’s chorus repeats, so we all know it has reached its end. Maybe others were following the words. I am just watching where I’ll have to put my feet later.

  At the end of the song there is a pause.

  ‘I greet the spirits.’ Alasdair’s voice is huge. ‘Accept this small change, this modest token of our sorrow at the disturbance we have caused. We mean no harm. We ask forgiveness.’

  He speaks few words, yet they are powerful in their simplicity and directness. They say so much about this man. I can’t believe anyone can feel anything but fondness for him. He is straight and true and big in every way. Big boned. Big hearted.

  Then he starts picking up the pieces of metal and throwing them off the cliff, southwards into the broiling waves, battering off the rocks on the way down. He is chanting as he throws.

  ‘Here’s an end to greed.

  Here’s an end to badness.

  Here’s an end to hunger.

  Here’s an end to drunkenness.

  Here’s an end to a life.’

  A cup, a plate, a bowl, a pan, chain links, a sharp unidentifiable piece of blade, broken strips of metal from who knows where; over the cliff edge they go.

  We are mesmerised. I see that to some of the people here – Eilidh among them, Donnag too – these pieces of metal are shards of the man who gathered them. They weep openly as each gleaming item flies out, catching the firelight, carrying Bael’s soul out to sea. It hadn’t occurred to me until now that anyone might actually mourn his passing, but of course they will. I didn’t know him, other than by reputation as a brute and a tyrant-child from Mother’s childhood and Father has told me something of how horrid and inhospitable he was to Mother. And of course he tried to rape Soyea, so I can only think of him as a monster. But even tyrants are loved, sometimes even by those they tyrannise. He grew up here, he was part of the fabric, and threads are torn by his unravelling. Even I, who didn’t know him at all, am moved by the event and stirred by this coming together to make amends for the violence, to say a final goodbye and open the way to what will follow.

  There is no shying from the truth of what has happened, even with all its difficulties. Even big men, like Alasdair’s brothers, have wet cheeks and sweep their sleeves across their faces.

  And then there’s nothing left except a sword, which Alasdair raises into the air above him. It is beautiful, catching the light of the flames, gleaming and glinting.

  ‘Here’s an end to the sale of our people as slaves.’

  He is looking at Mother, and there is a wind of affirmative murmuring from the congregation. Something momentous is happening. I’m not sure I understand what it is.

  And then the sword is spinning in an arc, out, out, up and over and away. It is such a beautiful thing to give to the spirits. Ussa lets out a long howl as it flies. The ocean eats it in one gulp.

  As if in answer, my mother sings a strange song, one I have never heard before. It is in a language I do not know. I have never heard a more haunting melody. Father joins in, adding a deep harmony. After they stop, I realise Ussa was singing it also, and she goes on with the melody, alone, her voice cracked and weak and eerie. It is a spirit singing.

  When she finally ceases, there is a stunned silence.

  It is time.

  DANCE

  The fire crackles and spits above us and the sea roars below. The body is burning, the evil is roaming, everyone knows this is the hour of danger when the space between the worlds is open, when the spirits will decide what to do with the dead man and with those, living, who are attached to him. And we’re all linked to him, in one way or another. That’s why we’re here.

  So we have to hold the space open. That’s our job, Eadha’s and mine.

  And when the lyre begins to play it’s actually a relief. The waiting has ended. We can begin.

  We lift the headdresses; Eadha has antlers, and I have cow horns. We help each other with the leather strapping. It’s heavy, but once it’s on my head I stand taller and straighter. I am ready.

  Ishbel walks down the slope, plucking a single note on her lyre repeatedly, and takes a seat on a stone at the foot of the split rock. Once she’s settled, she begins the tune that sets the pattern for our feet, the sixteen-beat motif that is the basic step-set, which we will vary and return to endlessly, or at least until the world is ready to settle back into stillness.

  As we begin to dance I hear the drum. I had not expected it. It is The Wren. She has a little leather instrument across her chest and a stick that she is playing it with. It helps my feet, and I am glad of it.

  Eadha and I make the first few sequences as simple as we can, adjusting to the lumpy, uneven ground, getting used to how far left and right and back and forward we can afford to go. This is a terrifying place to dance. One step too far to either side and there are precipitous drops onto waves and rocks. Behind us is the crag and pyre with its smoke belching and billowing, and in front of us that stone incline, which makes a good place for everyone to watch us from. I lift my head and look out at them. They are all ranged up the slope, crouching and sitting, tapping feet or moving hands and heads in time to the rhythm that Ishbel and The Wren are weaving with us. We have our little patch of grass to dance on, our green stage, and as our feet grow more confident we begin the variations we have been taught. Ishbel starts her incantation and her invitation to the people to ready themselves to come forwards and join the dance.

  We dance the worlds open.

  Our hands are together, his touch as sure as the waves on the shore. My skirt swishes against my legs as he spins me. His smile is as pure as the moon.

  Once through all the variations, we return to the basic steps. They feel so easy now. We’ve warmed up and we’re loose and smiling to each other as we do the double clap on the eighth beat and the double stamp on the twelfth. This is the best part. I feel so alive. I could dance all night if I have to.

  We dance the next round side by side, beckoning to the crowd. Ishbel raises her voice, exhorting them to come forward, take a turn at the dance, to keep the space between the worlds open, to help the spirits to travel. She tells them that the spirits of people who have died in recent times will be waiting for them, to dance with them. She invokes Cuilc and Danuta, who was Mother’s foster mother, who I never met, and I dance some dainty steps in the way an old woman might dance.

  I try not to let my smile fade with my dismay. Nobody is willing. They have even reduced their toe-tapping. They look intimidated. I try to make it look easy, fun, and I see that Eadha is doing the same. Nobody comes.

  Then, to my amazement, Mother gets to her feet. She never dances! Yet there she is, teetering down the slope, clinging onto hands, until she is down here with us on our patch of grass and joining in. She may never normally dance, but she can! Her feet do the crosses in perfect time, and she looks at me when we clap together and gives a little lift of her eyebrows. When we stamp our feet in synchrony the crowd is alive. There’s a whoop and hands are slapping thighs.

  I don’t need to force a smile anymore. My mother’s up here in the Lyre
Dance and she’s good at it. I offer her my arm and turn her before the next clap, and then Eadha does the same before the stamp. She doesn’t miss a beat and she has a sweet grin on her face. She looks younger than I’ve ever seen her. Some blithe child spirit is here in her.

  Then there’s a cheer from the men. Father has handed his torch to Fin and is on his feet, making his way to join us. Of course, he dances like a warrior and the energy lifts immediately. He does big high claps and he jumps with each stamp down. He swings Mother round so she shrieks with fear and delight. Now we’re in pairs we can do the full weaving pattern as the partners cross, then cross back again. I’ve never known my parents to dance like this, it’s as if I’m seeing them for the first time. And they have channelled such warm spirits that all the watchers are lively now. Surely others will want to dance after this?

  Ishbel has responded to the injection of enthusiasm with laughing, skipping grace notes, and The Wren is augmenting her beat with pattering hops that lift my feet. I can feel the sweat starting on my back and my chest, and my breath is fast and strong. This is what we trained for. All we have to do is keep the rhythm and help others in.

  Mother is panting and at the end of the next section she stops and steps back. Father falls in behind her and, still holding her hand, leads her up the slope of nodding, appreciative faces.

  Now a young couple scramble forwards and take a turn with us, and although they don’t dance as well as my parents, they’re full of verve. They’re clearly popular in the area because there’s lots of clapping and whooping to support them.