The Walrus Mutterer

by Mandy Haggith

  “We see what the world was like…for the Iron Age peoples, particularly the women. The few historical accounts we have of that time seldom feature women… Rian is a compelling heroine. Life for her is often harsh, uncompromising and dangerous, and yet she has insights and wisdom that we moderns may well envy.” Margaret Elphinstone

  “The Walrus Mutterer transported me to an extraordinary Iron Age world that resonated long after the final page – vivid, memorable, and utterly compelling.” Helen Sedgwick

  Praise for Mandy Haggith's previous writing:

  Winner of the Robin Jenkins Literary Award

  ‘Moving, intelligent and quietly passionate.’ A L Kennedy

  ‘Takes you deep into thickets where policy, science and environmental activism collide with one woman’s passion. A “what if?” with an emotional heart.’ Linda Cracknell

  ‘The prose is lyrical and poetic … skilful and precise. [Haggith] balances these moments of quiet with a plot that races with the pace of a romantic thriller.’ Galen O’Hanlon, The Skinny

  ‘A fascinating novel of radical ideas and what-if scenarios.’ Laura Marney

  ‘Lyrical and vivid, with a poet’s eye for detail … This ambitious, visionary novel … will make a significant contribution to the debate about the future of Scotland’s wilderness.’ Linda Gillard

  ‘A passionate and subversive book, written with a poet’s touch.’ Jason Donald

  ‘A wonderful storyteller... Science, politics, romance and nature observation combine as [Haggith] explores re-wilding of both individual and land. This is a book with bite, relevant to contemporary debate about large predators but also a source of many other pleasures and surprises.’ Kenny Taylor

  Also by Mandy Haggith

  Fiction

  Bear Witness

  The Last Bear

  Poetry

  Castings

  letting light in

  Non-fiction

  Paper Trails: From Trees to Trash, the True Cost of Paper

  Published by Saraband,

  Suite 202, 98 Woodlands Road,

  Glasgow, G3 6HB

  and

  Digital World Centre, 1 Lowry Plaza

  The Quays, Salford, M50 3UB

  www.saraband.net

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © Mandy Haggith, 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without first obtaining the written permission of the copyright owner.

  ISBN: 9781912235087

  ISBNe: 9781912235223

  Mandy Haggith is the author of several works of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, having gained a Masters in creative writing with distinction from the University of Glasgow. Her first novel, The Last Bear, was set 1000 years ago and won the Robin Jenkins Literary Award. An eco-activist and former scientist and academic, Mandy is Co-ordinator of the Environmental Paper Network and has lobbied at the United Nations. She lives in the northwest Scottish Highlands and teaches at the University of the Highlands and Islands.

  ENSLAVEMENT

  Assynt

  Rian emerged from the broch, blinking. The light was almost too bright but she found it impossible not to stretch into the morning sunshine. It was cold, but beautiful. Hardly a breath of wind. Snow had fallen four days before and still hadn’t thawed much. For a couple of hours in the middle of the day it had softened, then re-crystalised. Moisture had oozed out among rocks and frozen into icicles and sheets of sun-glint.

  She crossed the frozen yard to the midden and emptied out the contents of the pail: a slop of rinds and discards, soil washed off vegetables, scrapings and bones boiled white, the detritus of a winter night. A stink of rotting splashed up from the pile. A drake plumped down off the roof of the byre onto the heap, eyed Rian with its jet bead of suspicion, then guddled in her offering. She envied its bright colours, its effortless splendour.

  Back to the broch. Back to the sweat-stench of people, bleary-eyed hangovers and the mental stains of yesterday evening’s arguments.

  Before she went in, she paused to savour the morning. At sea, a ship, sails limp, oars out, was creeping in from the south and making for their harbour.

  She pulled back the door, pinning it to let some light and air in, and shouted. ‘A boat! A boat coming into the loch. Red sail.’

  Drost snapped out of his hangover into life and strode out. Danuta, his mother, followed, leaning on a stick. Other people started appearing from nearby huts, streaming out to get a vantage over the loch. All of Seonaig’s children tumbled out, shouting and excited, and even their elderly neighbour Eilidh made her stately way out towards the headland to get a view.

  It was a sizeable vessel, under oars, the red sail being furled. Drost raised his arm and a figure on the boat raised a staff in response, its tip catching the sun.

  Drost’s son Bael was running down towards the shore, slipping on icy stones, picking himself up and slithering on. Drost strolled towards the sheltered inlet where the rocks had been cleared so boats could pull up. Shouts and gestures were exchanged with the crew about the safe channel. The boat glided in.

  Rian joined Danuta at the viewpoint just a few paces out from the doorway.

  First off was the wielder of the staff. It was Ussa the trader.

  ‘The women had better look to their menfolk,’ Danuta said, as the merchant stepped over the bow of the boat onto the rocks in her high sealskin boots and long white coat.

  It was a couple of years since Ussa had visited and Rian thought she looked rounder in the face than the last time. Under the polar bear pelt, she would no doubt be wearing enough gold and bronze jewellery to sink a coracle.

  Behind her was a stranger, a slender man wearing tight-fitting fine leather clothes and a cloak made of thick grey fur. He had a short-cropped beard and hair tied back into a neat plait. After stepping ashore he was passed a wooden chest, which he carried under his arm, and a pole slightly longer than he was tall.

  Ussa strode up the shore ahead of him, tucking her hand under Drost’s elbow, and with a sweep of the other arm conjuring a blushing grin onto Bael’s face. From the vantage point beside the broch, Danuta looked on, her eyes like stones.

  A murmur of recognition from the villagers greeted the next to clamber off the boat: a thickset, dark-haired man, who helped a slight girl to follow him onto the shore.

  ‘The smith’s come,’ said Danuta. ‘Thank the stars, at long last. Do you remember him?’

  ‘Is it Gruach and Fraoch?’ Rian said.

  ‘That’s them. You remember them then?’

  ‘Oh yes. He’s the dragon man and she’s the dwarf.’

  Danuta’s laugh was like a tumble of water. She turned to the house, pushing Rian ahead of her. ‘Come on lass, we really have got baking to do now.’

  Ussa continued to stride towards the broch, Drost and Bael scampering to keep up. ‘Danuta!’ she called.

  The old woman stopped at the doorway and turned to face the new arrival. ‘So, Ussa. Welcome to Assynt. What brings you?’

  ‘Trade, Sister, what else?’

  ‘Who’s the eunuch?’ Danuta gestured towards the slim man picking his way up the icy rocks from the shore, his box clutched to his body, not putting his weight on his staff.

  Ussa turned to him and shouted. ‘Pytheas!’

  He looked up, smiling at his name, and waved the pole. His face was full of rapture.

  ‘He’s my passenger,’ said U
ssa. ‘He’s Greek. Part child and part god and part, I don’t know what. He’s rich and charming and curious as a bear cub. You’ll love him. Everyone loves Pytheas.’

  ‘How long are you here?’ Danuta watched Pytheas approaching, not giving Ussa the respect of eye contact. ‘We’ve hardly enough food for ourselves. I don’t know what you imagine we’ll feed your crew.’

  The crew of four men and a boy were hauling the boat up towards the line of nousts, hollows in the grass beyond the high tide mark.

  ‘Just until there’s a decent wind.’ Ussa pulled her coat up around her chin. ‘We’ll hunt, no doubt.’

  Drost stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Ussa’s back which she leaned into. He ushered her past Danuta into the broch, with Bael close behind him. ‘Come away in and get warm,’ he said.

  Danuta raised her eyebrows, then nodded towards Pytheas who had stopped several yards away, put down his box and knelt, lowering his head in an elaborate bow. He said something incomprehensible but his smile was wide and brilliant. He opened his box, took something out, then closed it. Danuta nodded at him again and failed to suppress an answering twitch of her lips.

  Rian was right beside her, wondering at the elegant figure. His boots were of red leather, elaborately patterned, like nothing she had ever seen. Straightening up with his box, Pytheas gestured to her to come towards him. She looked up at Danuta, who tilted her chin up in assent. Rian took a pace forwards and saw that he had something blue in his hand, the colour of the sky on a carefree day. She loved that colour: darker than forget-me-nots, almost as deep as a milkwort flower.

  ‘Pytheas,’ he announced, touching the blue fabric towards his chest. Then he said something else in his own tongue and with his hand like a question he offered her the blue ribbon – for she could see this was what it was now that he let it unravel – hanging from his fingers, shining.

  ‘Rian,’ she said, and turned to check with Danuta that she could take the gift. The old woman gave permission with a simple wave of her hand and Rian realised she should ensure the strange man knew he was in the presence of someone important.

  ‘Danuta,’ she said, touching her arm. ‘Our head woman.’

  Pytheas pointed at them and repeated their names.

  Rian giggled. His voice made their names sound funny, and he laughed too, gesturing to his own chest.

  ‘Pytheas.’ She liked letting her lips and tongue shape the strange sounds.

  His delight at her use of his name was so excessive she thought he might be crazy. He put his box down again. What a nuisance that box was to him. He was still holding out the ribbon but now stepping towards her, saying something and reaching for her head. Before she knew how to defend herself he had reached behind her and pulled her hair into a bunch. His hands were strong but not unpleasant on her head as he smoothed her hair and tied the ribbon. Looking down she saw his red leather boots were inscribed with a fancy pattern of leaves. Then he had stepped back and was looking at her.

  ‘Bóidheach,’ he said. Then he said another word, which she didn’t recognise.

  ‘Rian Bhóidheach,’ Beautiful Rian, he repeated, as if it was her name. She blushed and laughed at how ridiculous it was of this man to have picked her out for such attention. But now he was handing Danuta a piece of something small and gesturing her to put it in her mouth, as he put a similar piece in his, and she was eating the thing he offered and beaming back at him as if he were an old friend.

  ‘It’s sweet,’ she said.

  ‘Mhilis,’ he repeated. ‘Danuta Mhilis.’

  They all laughed. Rian could see that what Ussa had said was true. They were all going to love Pytheas.

  *

  While the visitors were busy with unloading the boat, inside the broch it was a morning like any other.

  Ducking back in through the narrow entrance to the broch, Rian tripped. The empty slop bucket span away from her across the room. Bael pulled his foot back and laughed.

  Danuta reached from her stool by the hearth and stood the pail upright. ‘What’s all this? Leave her alone Bael.’

  Bael took no notice, poking at Rian with a wooden spike as if she were a pig. She edged away around the central fireplace until she was out of reach.

  The fire was sleeping. It was Rian’s job to wake it. She stirred the peat ash, snapped some willow twigs and heaped them into a conical pile, then prodded a birch bark strip in amongst them and crouched down, out of range of Bael’s stick. She breathed into the embers. They glowed and the kindling began to smoke. She blew again, and the birchbark flamed. With a crackle, the dry twigs caught and she reached for some bigger sticks to feed them, singing the morning waking song.

  ‘Wake, wake breath of sun, sing the morning flame song.

  Wake, wake limbs of sun, stretch the morning blessing.

  Wake, wake soul of sun, warm our morning hearth.’

  With each line, she reached her arms towards first the floor, then the walls and lastly the roof, encompassing all of the house in her greeting to the fire. Danuta nodded from her stool, then handed her a bowl of milk. She took it and laid it at Bael’s feet. The boy sneered at her then picked it up and began to slurp. Rian retreated and Danuta passed her a smaller, but fuller, bowl and an oatcake to dip in it. She turned her back and hunkered down with it. Danuta patted her on her shoulder and Rian rested her head for a moment against her thick wool skirt.

  ‘The fire is cheerful this morning,’ Danuta said. ‘We’ll need to bake plenty today, so build up its strength.’

  Rian nodded.

  ‘Then you can come and help us with the cows.’

  ‘Can I milk?’

  ‘Of course. Beithe likes it when you do.’ Danuta stroked her hair, then got to her feet, levering her stiff back upright with her staff. She stomped up the stairs between the two circular walls of the stone tower and rattled the door of her daughter Buia’s sleeping room, one of several partitioned spaces on the first floor of the building. ‘Buia. Wake up.’

  A ragged woman with a sleepy, pockmarked face followed Danuta downstairs. She bowed to the fire, whispered, ‘Morning,’ to Rian, and limped to the water tank beside the hearth. She dipped the wooden cup and drank, then dipped again, groaning slightly, before downing another cupful. Bael edged away, keeping out of arm’s reach.

  ‘We need fresh water,’ Buia said to him.

  ‘Why can’t she do it?’ Bael poked his stick towards Rian.

  ‘Rian is feeding the fire,’ said Danuta, ‘then milking with us. Go on.’

  ‘The stream’ll be frozen.’

  ‘The Mother’s blood never stops flowing.’

  ‘But it’ll have iced over.’

  Buia turned and cuffed Bael. ‘You impudent pup. You dare to contradict what she tells you about the Mother?’

  ‘Sorry.’ But Bael didn’t look abashed.

  Danuta stood with her staff raised, unmoving. Bael took the waterskin from behind the water tank and turned to go.

  ‘Put something warm on you stupid brat, you’ll freeze,’ Buia said.

  He turned back red-faced, glowering, and she tossed him a leather cloak with stoat pelt around the hood, an utter contrast to her own bedraggled skins. He took the coat and left, and Buia and Danuta chuckled to each other.

  ‘That boy,’ Buia said. ‘Like father like son.’

  Danuta nodded, following the younger woman out. Rian was left alone for a moment, building the fire to a crackling blaze.

  A shadow fell across her as Drost barged in, blocking the light from the door. He headed straight for the water tank, without bothering to honour the fire. He reached in and splashed water onto his face, spluttering as he doused his head and beard. Dripping into the stone-lined pool in the floor, he ran his fingers through his hair, preening himself. Rian proffered an oatcake, which he took, barely registering her presence. He stood munching th
en gulped down a cup of water as she fed the fire and arranged the cooking stones around the hearth to heat up.

  He ducked into his room and emerged wearing his newest jerkin and boots. ‘You’d better find enough to feed the visitors. They’re used to better fare than this rubbish.’ Drost stuffed the rest of the oatcake in his mouth, turned his back and swaggered back out.

  *

  By the afternoon, the air was bitter. The new arrivals had eaten the meagre food that could be lain before them immediately – oatcakes and porridge – and were hungry and tired enough to be grateful for it. Ussa explained they had been sailing for four days, ice preventing them from making landfall and most of the time too little wind to enable them to make progress, powerless against the tidal streams, struggling to make headway northwards. And they had been cold, so cold they had feared that their fingers and toes and noses would freeze.

  Gruach the smith and his daughter Fraoch went off to call on people they knew, Big Donnal and his four boys, who always loved to have visitors, over in the crannog at Clashmore. The skipper of the boat Toma, a wiry old character, and his apprentice Callum, ten years old, small for his age but wise-eyed and silent, had gone with them. Ussa insisted her three slaves sat outside, but Danuta took pity on them. Ushering them into the broch, she asked them their names.

  ‘Og, Li, Faradh,’ the tallest one said, pointing to himself, and the other two, in order of size.

  ‘We can clear one of the rooms to make space for you,’ Danuta said.

  Buia reluctantly dragged her bedding to the chamber at the foot of the stairs, in beside Danuta’s bed, and cleared her scraps of possessions from her own room.

  Danuta produced a beaded bag of cowhide. ‘Use this for them,’ she said, pointing at the collection of shells and dried herbs, and the sticks Buia had been carving as part of her training in the arts of the Mother. It was recognition that Buia had achieved the status of a ‘woman with a medicine bag’ and typical of Danuta to make such a move without ceremony.

  Buia took the bag, and bowed with it to the fire, then began to stash her herbs and amulets away. Rian smiled at her in congratulation, but Buia pretended to ignore the girl. Rian reached out to stroke the bag, intending only admiration, but Buia clutched it to her chest and turned her back.