“Why, you could have died down there and never been found till the water went rotten … and where would that have got anyone?”
Niav had succeeded in getting herself almost walking up the well wall, finding her footing in the wattle, when, unnervingly, her foot snagged itself through some slimy loop of root. It was exhausting trying to pull herself out, as the rain pelted harder and stung her eyes. She leaned down and managed to haul the root loose from the well wall, but it stayed clinging to her foot. She simply couldn’t shake it off. As she swung there in the semi-darkness, it seemed not to want to let her go. It was not a root at all, but a longish, flexible wand of wood – partly snapped, but encased in what seemed to be plaited strips of snakeskin that had twisted themselves most successfully round her ankle.
“Would this be what I think it is?” challenged Niav, as she finally hauled herself over the lip of the well and waved her unexpected trophy in the face of an equally furious Aunty Grizzel. “Something else you should have saved for me?” It had to be her mother’s missing sacred barra.
***
The rain beat down on the roof-turf during a long night of recriminations, but the next day, as Niav and her aunt were enjoying their bread and honey in the freshness of reconciliation and a sun-and-birdsong morning, a raging Kyle came crashing his way up from the river.
“Where is that arsehole Fearn?” he roared at his bewildered relatives. “He has killed Father!”
***
Grizzel and Niav were still completely bewildered as they fought to row their coracle across the swollen river, Niav with her newly mended barra at her belt.
“It must have been an accident. That thing is sharp and Uncle Lurgan had no right to have taken it.”
“Calm down. We will see exactly what has happened when we get there,” panted Aunt Grizzel, looking at the new patch of dark cloud moving in from the north. “That could be another downpour – I don’t fancy getting trapped on the east side if we turn out to be unpopular.”
“They might not even let us in – there isn’t much reason why they should.”
“Interesting that it was hidden in Helygen’s ‘Dangerous Herbs’ basket all this time. I wonder how Fearn found out?”
“I told you – when he came to say his goodbyes yesterday, he seemed to know where the blade was, and he intended to get it. But I just don’t see how it would have been hidden in there. I know the basket was kept well out of our reach in the roof beams – but it’s not as though she didn’t winch it down often when she was teaching us; all those neat little jars securely sealed. We have used it lots of times. I never got a hint of anything concealed in it.”
“Poor Kyle – he is shattered. He may have got that bit wrong. They have had a long night.”
“I hope he doesn’t find him.”
They beached the coracle and headed up the hillside. Lurgan’s hut – the ancient home of Niav’s family – was a large, thatched, almost square building with the significant feature these days of having more than one room. It stood slightly set apart from the other buildings – a venerable place. Today it was in turmoil, or as near to turmoil as the east side ever got. Several of the assembled lady mourners gave a slight gasp as Grizzel and Niav arrived in the doorway.
Estra seemed to be the one in charge. After a moment’s hesitation, she hurried over to greet them, gliding effortlessly through the milling crowd of well-wishers in an impressively dignified way. She ushered them over to where her mother was sitting, placed formally before the dresser, hunched among a huddle of her cooing and sobbing neighbours next to the wattle bier, suitably draped in his second best cloak, where a very clean Uncle Lurgan had been laid out in his finest kilt and cape in the light from the door. His dead fingers had been bent around his hard-won greenstone axe, and they had even given him his hat. Niav had always seen Uncle Lurgan’s hat as the symbol of his pomposity; now it somehow seemed fitting and almost stately. His hound lay sleeping, slumped beside the bier, as if he knew his master would never wake.
Poor Aunty Helygen looked up at them as they came in. Niav could have sworn she saw her eyes flicker at the sight of the barra at her waist, but she didn’t say a word. Grizzel didn’t seem to register this at all and ran over and folded her in a warm embrace. Helygen clung to her, sobbing fiercely.
Estra left them to it and drew Niav over to the comparative privacy of the woman’s section of the hut. “I am so glad you’ve got here,” she whispered. “However did you find out? The river seems to be running very high – who managed to tell you?”
“Kyle came storming over to us – whatever happened?”
“You haven’t seen Fearn?”
“Not since late yesterday afternoon. If someone stabbed your dad, Fearn hadn’t got the blade then – so when on earth did this happen? Kyle was pretty difficult to get any sense out of.”
“Kyle wasn’t here. He came home just as Father breathed his last. The rest of us were, though. We heard them shouting outside and then Dad came staggering in. It was definitely Fearn, I’m afraid. Whatever came over him?”
Niav gave Estra a brief account of yesterday’s revelations.
“Fearn’s your brother!” Estra almost shouted, her mask of composure cracking for a moment. “And your barra – it seems it’s found you too,” she observed with unconvincing brightness, resuming the whisper.
Niav felt a distinct chill at the odd, widening sparkle in her cousin’s eyes – just as she used to look when she put on her creepy voice and told them all some fearful story. “Oh, your barra will be making itself known to you any day now, I am sure,” said Niav hurriedly. She had no intention of divulging anything about her journey down the well to Estra, who would no doubt construct some completely unwelcome significance from it. Niav did not want yesterday’s simple recovery of two misplaced items to become some esoteric legend of questing for her heritage in the deep.
“Fearn’s your brother!” This time it was Canya, who had stumbled in from the curtained room at the back.
“Oh do go back and lie down, Canya,” said Estra, all concern. “She really isn’t well at all,” she whispered, turning to Niav. “You know the way traumas always go right to her stomach.”
At this point, one of the east-bank ladies came hovering, for Estra’s guidance over something. Probably Grizzel wanted to look more closely at Lurgan’s body. “Your mother says it’s all right dear but …”
Estra swept off with her without a second’s hesitation.
***
Canya was very pale, and she had clearly been crying her eyes out. Niav suspected it wasn’t simply her father’s death that had brought her to this state. Niav had no recollection of traumas going to Canya’s stomach at all. She was the most equable person she had ever met, and she had been amazed not to find her there bustling about and looking after everyone.
“Whatever’s the matter Canya?” she said, holding back the curtain to the inner room and settling her down on the nearest stool in there, while she drew up another. “Now tell me all about it.”
She could not help noticing that Aunt Helygen’s herb basket stood open at the table’s end – the long pulley-rope leading up towards the gloomy ceiling.
At first, Canya simply cried, holding her head in her hands. Then at last she looked up at Niav. “I do keep being sick,” she said, ruefully.
Niav made a huge leap of reasoning. “Did you tell Fearn?” she asked.
Canya burst into tears again. “No,” she said quietly.
“Well?”
“I didn’t think Fearn would want to know. He could have anyone. I decided to try giving myself something to help things along a bit. So I winched down Mother’s herb basket.”
“What? The Penny Royal?”
Canya nodded, “It’s what Mother always seems to recommend.”
“For heaven’s sake! How often have you been doing this sort of thing?”
“Only ever Fearn.”
“How long has that been going on?”
> “No, no, you don’t understand. It was only the once!”
Well that explained a lot – it could be that she, personally, had had a lucky escape the day before if he was that fertile! “And?”
“Everyone was out. I winched the basket down; Mother is always so careful, but I am afraid I was so nervous, I let it down in such a rush that it hit the table with a huge crash. I was sure I must have broken something, but it was all all right – only the matting she uses to pad the bottom had come dislodged …”
“And you found Fearn’s blade.”
“That made me change my mind; I thought that when I told Fearn about the sword, we ought to have a proper discussion about what to do. It wasn’t just my baby after all. He had a right to know. So I tidied everything in the basket, and winched it back to the roof.
“I was just trying to decide where to hide the blade, when I heard Father and the boys coming home down the hill. I rammed the blade up into the reed roof-lining – near the door as a temporary hiding place – just as they came in with the hound bounding all over the place. But I managed to whisper to Fearn about finding his blade. He wasn’t able to pull it out of the thatch again with Father and Kyle there, so he said he would come round and collect it yesterday evening – I had thought there might be a quiet moment then.”
“And it all went wrong?”
Canya started crying again. “I keep being sick. Obviously Mother and Estra started asking me questions – well, they are professionals and needed to check I hadn’t eaten something bad. But you can’t hide much from them. I didn’t expect them to be quite so angry when I told them it was Fearn’s. I really had no idea they intended Estra to marry him – did you?”
“Aunty Grizzel did.”
“But Estra doesn’t like boys – I didn’t think she felt like that about Fearn.”
Niav laughed. “She doesn’t understand what ‘like that’ means. No, it’s all about her mystic power being fused with his.”
“I am starting to see that now. I had no idea she was so serious about it, or that Father and even Mother were too. It seems completely mad. Mother was determined that I get rid of the baby, she didn’t want me to tell Fearn, and she particularly didn’t want Father to know.
“At that point someone else called at the door and Mother had to go and see to them. She told Estra to winch down the herb basket and mix up the dose. She was horribly firm, not like she was my mother at all.
“Then things got even worse, because Fearn arrived. He had some bee stings – I see why he hadn’t come to you and Aunty Grizzel about that now! He wasn’t like my Fearn at all either.
“I treated the stings for him and then he told us, by way of thanks, that he was going. Just going! I couldn’t say anything to him about our baby, and Estra was standing there, calmly mixing the Penny Royal to kill it.”
“But how did your dad get stabbed in all this?”
Canya put her head in her hands again as she tried to get it straight. “Mother came through from talking to her visitor and, while she had her back to the door, I tried to make sure she and Estra were looking my way – I said something about bee stings; Fearn took the moment to slip past Mother and grab his blade from by the door – it was the least I could do.
“But Father came in through the door and saw what Fearn had in his hand. It was just terrible – Father tried to grab the blade, but there was a scuffle and Fearn got away. There seemed to be a deal of blood, but the wounds did not seem much to me – it was mainly his hands. Mother and Estra rushed about trying to see to it all. You know the way Dad liked to be fussed over. In the end they had him lying back. He said all the stress had gone to his stomach and then spotted the drink standing on the table.
“‘What’s that for?’ he said.
“‘It’s mint tea, dearest,’ Mother said. ‘Poor Canya has been feeling a trifle bilious.’ Then he said that that was just what he needed, and poor Mother reached over and gave it to him to drink down.”
Niav was starting to get even more frightened and confused. “Well I suppose Penny Royal could be called that – it is a sort of mint, after all.”
“There is no way it should have killed him. I don’t think those wounds should have killed him either. I don’t understand anything any more.”
The two girls sat in the back room listening to all the ritual moanings and comings and goings in the rest of the hut.
“I think Aunty Grizzel will be trying to get a look at the wounds,” said Niav quietly. “We don’t want to believe Fearn killed him any more than you do. Let’s try and go through exactly how he died – as though we were in one of Aunty’s lessons, shall we?”
“He complained of the bitter taste – well, Penny Royal would taste bitter. But then he said there was a burning in his mouth, and a numbness; that’s when Mother wrapped him in a blanket – she thought it was the loss of blood, but it got worse, it was spreading all over. He said he couldn’t see. Then he started to have terrible stomach pain and he vomited everywhere.”
“That would be when Kyle came in.”
“Yes, and Mother started screaming about the blade having been in the herb basket. She thought that Fearn must have spotted it while his bee stings were being seen to. I could see Estra was furious – she looked at me as though she would like me to turn to ash. She must have realized that it was probably me that gave Fearn the blade.”
“But that doesn’t sound like Penny Royal poisoning. We both know what that sounds like – both Aunties have described it often enough – Wolfsbane! Oh Canya!” cried Niav leaping up to hold her. “You must be terrified. It must have been in the drink Estra mixed for you!”
“That, or on the blade – could it have come into contact with it in the herb basket? Maybe it even got into the Penny Royal somehow when I let the basket crash down like that, but I did check everything very carefully. I have been sitting here trying to sort things out in my head.”
“We will have to get you out of here, whatever happened. Is there anything small you feel you have to take away with you? Be quick – they mustn’t suspect you of anything odd.”
“Just my beads and my best shawl.”
“I think they’d wonder about that shawl – it’s so big. Promise we will give you another three times as nice.”
While Canya went to the back of the room to rescue what items of jewellery she couldn’t live without and secreted them away, Niav took a judicious glance into the contents of the herb basket. All Aunty Helygen’s careful little herb jars were correctly sealed – whoever had doctored the Penny Royal with Wolfsbane must have done it deliberately.
Niav delved gently down to the matting at the basket’s base and pulled the rest of the matting up from what was left of its stitching. No root of Wolfsbane snuggling anywhere. But there were two smallish things, neatly wrapped in fine white leather. She unfurled them to reveal some water-stained bits of wood, not unlike large stoppers from a jar. One of them had a bit of string threaded through a piercing near the top.
She held them in her hand for a minute, puzzling over exactly what they might be. Then her heart almost stopped at the realization.
“Ready!” whispered Canya, and Niav frantically pushed the two bits of wood into her scrip.
“I am escorting you out to the midden because I’m a bit worried about you and we will insist that Aunty Grizzel comes too.”
Their obvious urgency convinced Aunty Grizzel that she had to do what they asked. Once outside the hut, Niav took one glance at the sky and she was even surer that what she was doing was right.
They dashed down the hillside to the river, launched the coracle and paddled desperately for the western shore. The sky opened over them as they headed up the bank. Glancing back through the downpour, they could see no sign that anyone from the other bank was looking for them yet.
***
“Would you like to explain?” asked Aunty Grizzel politely as she stoked up the fire and the rain thundered down out in the compound. “Shal
l we make a nice cup of tea whist we are drying?”
“Not mint tea for Canya, I’m afraid,” said Niav. “Any kind but that!”
“Oh poor Helygen! Let’s hope she never guesses that it must have been her hand that gave Lurgan what killed him,” gasped Grizzel, once the two girls had explained to her what must have happened. “You are right, those wounds that Fearn gave Lurgan should never have endangered his life – I simply could not understand it.”
“How terrible if she were to realize that Estra meant to kill me – Estra is mad and we have left poor Mother with her,” said Canya, starting to cry all over again.
“Yes, Fearn got it right when he said that it could ruin your life if you came in the way of anything that Estra felt she was entitled to,” Niav said. “I wish I knew if he was talking about his life or yours. He didn’t know that you were pregnant – no one knew what had happened between you. He may have felt that it was safest for you if he removed himself from endangering your life before things got really serious.
“But I’m sorry – when it comes to Aunty Helygen, I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that.” Niav delved into her scrip and produced the two mysterious bits of wood. “You might recognize one of these at least,” she said, holding them out to Aunty Grizzel.
When she saw the piece with the leather cord through it, she started to shake. “I bored that hole and threaded it through,” she whispered.
“What is it?” said Canya, mystified.
“I think you will find they are the bungs from boats. The one Aunty Grizzel is looking at is the bung from the boat that my parents made with Artin.”
“I remember now, Lurgan and Helygen putting the apple basket and the rug over where the bung-hole would have been,” said Grizzel. “Maybe the rug was shoved so firmly into the hole that it took a while for the water to start coming through – they were quite far out. There was I assuming that she dwelt somewhere in the past, but what your poor Mother was trying to say to me made solid sense … I wonder if Artin realized that all along? He would take a huge delight in their fear that he might have known. I wonder if it was just Helygen that time or if it was both of them and that’s why Lurgan changed his tune? So your father Diarma and Artin were not fighting – they were struggling to try to block the hole. Maybe my poor brother never realized he had been betrayed – I do hope so.”
The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction Page 21
