The Lyre Dancers

by Mandy Haggith

  Aonghas is up next, and he throws himself into the rhythm with gusto, arms flailing like gybing booms and legs kicking so wide I’m really scared he’ll go over the edge or push one of us off. Half way through he invites up a pretty local girl, to whistles of appreciation.

  Next up is an older local couple who dance formally and with perfect command of the steps. They know some of the variations too, and the crowd falls quiet as we work hard at it. For the first time, perhaps it is clear that this is a ceremonial act. They take it so seriously, I start to feel tingles up my spine as the spirit world gapes wide open and our reverent bodies entice frail souls into expression. They complete thirteen sets and bow out, and we bow back deeply, then rest our upper bodies for a set, although our feet never miss a beat.

  I can feel it in my calves now and I know it will involve varying levels of pain from here on in, unless something extraordinary happens. The headdress is getting heavier with every set.

  No one wants to follow that couple, they were so perfect, and I’m left wondering who they were. But then two old ladies come forward and we dance a stately and simple four sets with each of them, and then the four of us together. We reduce our steps and move ourselves more gently to accommodate them. Their frail old legs can barely cope, but they hold themselves with such gravitas that it is plain to all that anyone and everyone can do this.

  After them a mother gets up with her little boy, and after them two bigger girls come to take their turn. A vivacious young woman, and then an older man, two giggling teenage boys, trying to lower the tone, and then Alasdair himself, with a young, startlingly beautiful red-headed woman. Together they return the dance to sober ritual.

  We dance on and on, keeping pace with each of Alasdair’s brothers in turn, then Father’s crew. The brothers together, one fit and one shambolic, both adding their sailor’s steps and gestures to their sets. In one flourish with them the strap of one of my slippers gives way, and I tear it off my foot without missing more than two steps. Then I carry on, knowing my feet are blistering on the grass as it wears down to the soil under the pounding dance steps. The pain in my thighs is brutal, the headdress digs in above my ears, and my hands are sore with clapping. But we must dance on.

  I can see Eadha forcing his smile over a grimace, sweat pouring down his face. For a while after the sailors it is just us, keeping the border open, and I want to stop. Maybe they were the last dancers. But the lyre plays on and as long as the strings are singing our feet must follow their rhythm.

  We begin the ghost variations: that’s what the Lyre signals us to do, replacing the claps with silent arm movements, the stamps with heel taps that stretch the legs in a different way. It is a huge relief. And in the fourth, strangest variation, which I think of as close to a swimming movement, I see we are being joined by my sister and Fin. I would never have expected anyone to actually want to dance in such a strange section, but when they begin it is oddly exotic, almost other worldly.

  My sister hates to dance. I’ve cringed so often watching her ungainly performances when people have insisted she joins in. But here, with the pale, lanky youth beside her, she makes mere gestures towards the dance’s movements. She sways, elegant and minimal, and he jerks and twists beside her and around her. Yet somehow, they look like light playing on ripples, or the flicker of the Northern Lights. There is such grief and passion in their postures, they barely need to move to express the spirits speaking through them. Perhaps our brother is here, Cleat, her twin. Eadha and I soak up their power, wafting around them like breezes. They are wonderful. And after they stop, the pain in my legs has gone.

  The dance goes on.

  More strangers come. Then at last, Donnag from the broch gets up and dances manically, alone, ignoring both us and the rhythm of the drum and lyre, stamping out some inner fury. Even Buia the mad woman comes and flails about. She is the only one I have to physically stop from going over the edge, as she channels some crazy spirit, but after a while it leaves her, and she calms and finds the musical patterns with her feet. A childlike smile settles onto her face as we lead her through the weaving sets of steps.

  When Buia finishes she goes to Ussa and pulls her hand. There is resistance at first and then the big woman gets to her feet, and as she approaches there is a rhythm to her steps. She knows how to dance. Buia lets go of her and returns to sitting while Ussa comes on. By the time she has joined us she is jigging. It is like dancing with a bear. Somewhere within her is a memory of music, an impulse in her feet and hips that her old, overweight physique is no longer capable of fulfilling. Only her arms can still perform properly. At first she lets them lead, hardly moving her feet, but it is as if the beat takes over more and more. She wants to do the turns with us. She is determined to stay for the variations. There is a dancing spirit inside her who is desperate for this, which takes over and demands that she dance and dance, jerking her panting, sweating body like a puppet. She is possessed. Her eyes are staring ahead. We try to bring her to a gentle halt but at each return of the main tune, each skip of the drum, she kicks again, her breath rasping and wheezing.

  She dances on and on, twice as long as anyone else. She seems incapable of stopping. Perhaps the spirit that is dancing through her will not allow her to cease. Her breath is going like bellows. Her face contorts and sweat is pouring from her. She is staggering and I’m sure she’s going to topple over the edge into the sea.

  All of a sudden, she stops. She sways to one side, her eyes closed. Her legs buckle. She slumps to the ground, her neck flopping.

  Alasdair and others rush forward and carry her off. The Wren and Ishbel don’t miss a beat. Trying not to let horror show on my face, I turn wide-eyed to Eadha and he urges me on. The world is open to all the mad and desperate spirits and we must dance to keep it open.

  The gaps get longer between the dancers now, only the most reluctant or incapable people are left. They stumble down and jerk a few token steps, then stagger back. I cease to notice unless they are in the dance, and when they’re not it’s us alone, Eadha and I, fulfilling the role we found each other for. We are keeping the gateway between worlds open, allowing the spirits to express themselves.

  We dance the agony of our separation. We dance the eternity of our love. We dance the power and purity of sex. We dance our life’s blood at death’s precipice. We dance the world open.

  We dance the borderline of sense and madness.

  We dance to the edge of frenzy and beyond.

  We dance the pyre to embers.

  We dance and dance and dance.

  Until at last the lyre’s song is ended.

  AFTER THE DANCE

  I stare into flames and see how alive they are. I learn from them how dancing began.

  Mother does a lovely thing. As the pyre dies down to a glow, she builds up the little fire she made earlier, nestled in from the edge in a safe place for lighting the torches. Then she sits beside it with her whistle, playing simple melodies from time to time. It becomes a kind of shrine to the life to come, and as people ebb away they pass by it, adding the handles of their burnt-out torches, or some twigs dropped by the pyre builders earlier. Eadha and I gravitate towards her.

  Mother has the art of fire. This one is small, gentle and soothing. People speak beside it, weep again, and are invited to go back to the broch for food and drink. I think many have gone. Soyea went there early, immediately after the dance finished, with The Wren and Donnag, and I imagine they’re all handing out bowls and beakers right now. I have no desire to go there.

  Buia stands with her arm wrapped around Mother for what seems like ages. They seem to find comfort in each other. Something from very long ago is being healed tonight. Then Alasdair stands there with Mother and afterwards she retreats into shadow. I suspect she is crying. It is so like her not to want us to see her expressing her feelings.

  Ishbel stops at the fire for a while and congratulates us. We talk about all the dancers, and Mother tries to explain who all those are who Is
hbel, Eadha and I don’t know.

  Ishbel hands Mother a belt. ‘I spoke with Ussa.’

  Mother strokes the buckle as if it’s alive. ‘She’s impossible.’ She shakes her head.

  ‘She said to tell you she was sorry and gave me this for you. She was saying a lot that I couldn’t make any sense of. I told her she should take more care when dancing and she said it was her freedom dance.’

  ‘Her freedom dance.’ Mother repeats. ‘Good.’ She passes me the belt. Its buckle is engraved with a beautiful pattern of ivy and a bird.

  ‘She said she wants to learn to play the lyre, and asked if I would teach her.’ Ishbel laughs. ‘Perhaps I should take her back to Brigid’s Cave.’

  ‘Would you?’ Mother looks up at her.

  Ishbel shifts her lyre and gives a little strum. ‘Yes. I might. I quite like the idea.’

  ‘It was more than Bael that crossed a threshhold tonight.’

  ‘Indeed. And I’m hungry as a result.’ Ishbel leans in to kiss each of us in turn, then leaves us to the fire.

  Now it is only us: Mother, Eadha and I. I don’t want to go to the broch, back into the crowd.

  Eadha produces a flask of mead as if by magic, and it helps to ease my aching muscles and blistered feet. We sit on rocks within poking distance of the embers of Mother’s fire. It is dying away, leaving only a glow and flicker, an echo of the great pyre of death, which is still glowering on the split rock.

  Mother flips a half-burned fragment of wood, bringing a flame to life again. Her little blaze feels like renewal. I get up and gather some more sticks so she can keep it going, then tuck in beside Eadha again. He passes me the flask and I sip, then offer it to Mother. She shifts her poker to her other hand and takes the mead.

  ‘What did Alasdair say?’ I ask.

  She swallows.

  ‘A lot of things I didn’t know I needed to hear.’

  ‘Like what?’

  She looks as if she won’t tell me. She swallows again. Perhaps she might cry. I’ve never seen my mother cry.

  ‘He said he hoped I had never doubted I was worth more than the sword. He said Drost should never have exchanged me for it.’

  ‘The sword that went in the sea today?’ Eadha asks.

  She nods. ‘Bael’s father sold me for it. He put me up as the stake in a gambling game.’

  Eadha shakes his head.

  She takes a deep breath. ‘He said something even more important than that. He said they’re glad that I’ve come home. That’s what means the most. The rest is in the past.’

  ‘Does this place feel like home?’ I ask.

  She nods. ‘Until I was nearly your age it was all I knew.’

  ‘I don’t know that feeling,’ I say. ‘Ictis never felt like home.’

  Eadha reaches over and cradles my hand in his.

  ‘You can share mine,’ he says. ‘Rian, do you think that feeling can grow for a place even if you’ve not spent your childhood there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just know mine is here. But I don’t think I ever really believed it until today. I have spent so long being unable to come here.’

  ‘Will your home still be the same to you now you know Cuilc is not your mother?’ I ask him. I am thinking about that stone tower. Ishbel has said it will still be his.

  ‘It’s the place I love,’ he nods. After a pause, he says, ‘I always knew Ishbel was special.’

  ‘For a while there, I thought you were my brother,’ Mother says. ‘I have to apologise for what I thought. It was not kind.’

  ‘Forget it,’ he says. ‘It was never true.’

  We all stare into the embers. Mother prods a stick in from the edge and we watch it blaze.

  ‘You each have new mothers. I have a new grandmother. It should be a song.’

  ‘I’m happy to have lost a sister and got back my wife’s mother. And my wife.’ Eadha strokes my hand.

  ‘I’m happy about that too,’ Mother says. ‘Greatly relieved.’

  ‘What is it like to finally know who your mother is?’ I ask her. ‘I can’t imagine not knowing something so basic. It must be strange.’

  ‘Well I’ll never know her now, other than through you.’

  We’ve all been changed by this.

  ‘How is Soyea, do you think?’ I can’t get her pale, agonized face out of my mind.

  ‘She’s strong,’ Mother says.

  ‘She and Fin love each other,’ I say.

  ‘They danced like flames,’ Eadha replies.

  ‘Do you like him, Mother?’

  She doesn’t answer at first, then she says, ‘I don’t know yet. He is close to Ussa. But I have feared she would never love a man, ever since Cleat was taken.’

  She never mentions his name. I hold my breath. The islands are invisible but she gestures out towards the dark sea.

  ‘Do you know they were named after the two islands out there, Soyea and her twin brother, Cleat?’ She is asking Eadha, I suppose, because of course I know. His absence has been an unspoken presence in our family my whole life. He was never spoken about with Mother, but Soyea carried him around throughout our childhood, left him gifts, made space for him in our dens.

  ‘When did he die?’ Eadha asks.

  ‘Die? Cleat’s father took him to his home when he was almost three. He never came back.’

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘A place called Massalia. Far, far to the south.’

  ‘Have you been there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So do you think he is still there?’

  I can’t believe Eadha is asking these questions. I would never dare. Yet somehow the night has broken barriers.

  ‘I don’t know. No. I fear the worst. I can’t explain otherwise why he has never come back. But I hope, obviously, that one day… He’d be a young man now, almost your age. His father, Pytheas, was a writer, and there was a rumour some years ago that he had sent a document to Soyea. Manigan met an Armorican trader who said he’d seen it, said it was supposed to go to the Spirit Keepers.’

  ‘But it didn’t appear?’

  She gives a little shake of her head. Her face is forlorn. It is an expression I recognise. All my life, when caught unawares she has looked like this. All those years of waiting. Then she looks at me and smiles.

  ‘You danced well tonight, the two of you. I’m very proud of you.’ She lays her hand on my shoulder and rests it there while she flicks a stick so its unburned end is on the hottest embers. Then she lifts her hand and steps around to the far side of the fire, knocking in two other twigs. They lie neatly across each other and almost immediately flames ripple up from them, licking along their length.

  ‘Thank you,’ Eadha says. And I don’t know if it’s for the fire, or her words, but she looks up at him and nods, with that little smile she has that I have always thought came from a sad place, but which, tonight, looks more like peace.

  SOYEA

  DOCUMENT

  I am rid of the stone. It can stay where I left it, up on the split rock.

  Everyone in the area seems to have been to the broch. I could never have imagined such a feast, such a fire, such extraordinary energy.

  After everyone else has gone, Ussa lingers late into the night, slumped on a stool in the corner where Bael’s body had been. Her breaths come in shudders.

  I offer her something to eat but she shakes her head. I turn away.

  She grabs my sleeve and thrusts a package at me. ‘This is yours.’ Her voice is deep and smooth, incongruously beautiful coming from such a lumpy body, from such a blotchy face.

  I take what she’s offering. It is wrapped in a leather cloth and inside is a codex of a material far finer than any parchment I’ve ever seen. It is covered in a script I am not familiar with. As I pull it free of the cloth, a small box drops out with a clatter.

  Ussa bends to pick it up but I’m far more flexible than her. I grab it and it falls open in my hand. Inside are three little animals – a white dolphin carved out
of walrus ivory, a metal owl, maybe bronze, and something made of amber. I hold the flame-coloured gem stone to the light – it is in the form of a bear.

  ‘Your father travelled the world to find that stuff,’ Ussa says.

  I look at her in amazement. ‘What are these things?’

  ‘An Armorican trader gave me them years ago. I said I’d pass them on to Rian, but I wanted to do something more interesting with them. I was never quite sure what that would be, but I knew I’d know at the time. I don’t want them anymore.’

  She gestures with her hand that I should leave her alone. I bundle the contents of the parcel back together, carry it gingerly to the hearth and lower it into Mother’s outstretched hands.

  RIAN

  LEAVING

  The morning after the fire, Ussa was sitting beside Ishbel, with the lyre on her lap. Manigan rushed in saying Ròn had sailed away and asking Ussa to explain what was happening

  ‘I told them they were free to go.’ Ussa blinked slowly at Rian, and then at Buia, then turned back to Manigan. ‘We’re all free now. She,’ she pointed at Rian, ‘she plays the whale tune and says it means freedom. I did my freedom dance. Now I am a whale. We’re all whales now.’

  Manigan looked at Rian, who gave a little shrug.

  ‘Whales,’ he said.

  ‘Whales,’ Ussa echoed.

  Rian picked up three little objects from between her and Soyea and held out her hand to Manigan, who took them.

  ‘What are these?’

  ‘They came from Pytheas.’ Rian nodded towards Ussa. ‘She has had them for years, she says.’

  Manigan examined each one in turn, then dropped first the amber bear, then the bronze owl back into her hand.

  She stood them back on the hearth stone. ‘The bear must be Soyea’s. The owl, perhaps Rona will appreciate it.’

  He held the ivory dolphin, fingering its detail, before placing it back on her palm. ‘And this is for who?’