The Walrus Mutterer

by Mandy Haggith

  Rian stood apart from the throng, her bag at her feet. She wanted to sit down but the ground was slushy and she had no desire to enter the broch.

  Fraoch spotted her, ran over to her and spoke with a strange foreign-sounding accent. She was pretty, despite her strange leather attire, with rounded features and smiling brown eyes. Like Rian, she was slight-framed, and her hair hung in a plait down her back. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you. I am bleeding.’ She pointed to her groin. ‘I need something…’ She gave a conspiratorial grin. ‘You are Rian? I heard that Ussa… I’m sorry.’

  The earnest frown of concern on her face was too much for Rian, who felt tears welling up. She turned, rubbing her eyes. ‘Come. I can give you some moss.’ She led Fraoch to the byre and found a box to stand on to reach up to where a roll of dried sphagnum moss was strung from the rafters. She tugged some from the bundle and rolled and smoothed it into a pad.

  ‘There. I’ll make you some more for later.’

  Fraoch took it and began loosening her clothes. ‘Thank you. If I can help you, ask me. Ussa is tough. You must be strong. Inside here.’ She touched her chest, then her head. ‘And here. She will try to break you in here. I don’t know why she does it. Don’t let her in. And be careful what you say. It is always better to be silent than to make her angry with words. She uses words against people. She makes weapons with them, sharper than my father’s blades.’ As she spoke she stuffed the moss down between her legs and fastened her leather trousers. ‘Thanks. It’s comfortable. You’re a medicine woman too, like Danuta?’

  Rian handed her half a dozen more of the swabs. ‘I know some herbs.’

  ‘Make sure Ussa finds out. But keep some secrets from her too. She’ll hurt you less. Can you bring some healing stuff along with you when we go?’

  ‘What do you mean, when we go?’

  ‘We’ll leave as soon as the forging work is done, before the embers cool, it’s Ussa’s way. You’ll be coming too. You’re one of us now.’

  Rian had not thought about this consequence of what had happened. She said nothing.

  ‘The day after tomorrow is my guess. It depends on the weather.’

  Rian could not find any words to speak her feelings. Tears rose and she clenched them inside her. She turned away to the cow and stroked her.

  ‘She is a lovely cow.’

  Rian looked round at Fraoch. What did she know about cows?

  ‘How old are you?’

  Rian wanted to resist the question. Distrust was rushing through her veins. She did not want to be one of them. She was not like this girl. But ‘fifteen’ came out of her lips before she could stop it.

  ‘Me too,’ said Fraoch. ‘I’ll be sixteen at Beltane. And you?’

  ‘Winter solstice,’ Rian whispered. The few months that separated them in age seemed like an aeon that nothing would ever bridge. She looked back at Beithe, stroking the cow between its ears, wishing the girl would go away.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Fraoch said.

  Rian nodded.

  ‘Thanks for the moss. You know, in a way, I’m pleased you’re coming. We can be friends.’

  Rian hated her. Why didn’t she leave?

  ‘There’s never been another girl on the boat.’

  Rian wasn’t listening. She just wanted her out of the byre. Now.

  ‘Just leave me alone.’ She turned to Fraoch, arms chopping. ‘Get out. Get out.’

  The cow, startled by her shouting, jostled in her stall. One hoof came down on her toe. Her voice rose to a wail. ‘Oh just go!’

  Fraoch’s face crumpled into a pained frown. ‘I’m sorry.’ She retreated out of the doorway of the byre.

  Rian buried herself in the hay behind the cows and wept. Once she began she wanted to cry for hours but the tears dried up and no more would come. She knew if she stayed there long enough Danuta would seek her out, but how long would that have to be? In the end, hunger drove her back out into the dusk.

  A crowd had gathered around the forge and flames were dancing. Gruach was a huge silhouette, skin gleaming in the firelight. He had the crowd chanting an invocation. Normally Rian would have been mesmerised but nothing about today was normal. She stayed in the shadows, took the long way round the back of the broch and was about to enter. There were raised voices inside.

  She crouched in one of the rooms off the entrance in the cavity between the two walls. Drost was sitting on a stool facing the fire. Across it, Danuta stood, her arm jabbing, finger pointed, shouting. Rian had never seen her shout like this. Her old face was red, veins stood out on her neck. She looked as if she might burst. A stream of insults flowed from her like some kind of song, not so very different from the invocation outside, but calling not on the fire spirits but on the spirits of mud, of bog, of mire and midden, the force of the sea bed, of sinking sand, the deepest powers of the ground. Danuta was calling on the earth to open up a pit and swallow him up and to fill the pit with venomous snakes, with cockroaches and fleas, with worms.

  ‘You vowed to treat her as a daughter, you selfish boar. You’ll rot in the belly of the Mother.’

  With a jolt Rian realised this was about her.

  ‘She’s no flesh of mine and she’s grown now, my obligation’s done.’ Drost was sitting firm on his stool but his voice betrayed him. He was close to whining. ‘She’s a burden. You’ll see the difference when she’s gone, how much more food there will be, how much less moaning.’

  Danuta returned to the onslaught and Rian swallowed hard as the old woman reeled off the chores she did, a litany of work, season by season, hour by hour. She had never heard herself so appreciated and she sat back on her heels glowing with pride, her troubles forgotten, the brands suddenly soothed by the balm of Danuta’s voice ranting a paeon of praise.

  The cuff to her head sent her flying, face into the muddy floor, and before she could lift herself from the sprawl she was tugged up by her hair and a slap landed on her right cheek, twisting her head round, her lip burning. Her howl was cut short by another slap. ‘So here’s my workshy slave, sneaking and spying, not where it’s wanted and not wanted where it loiters. This way.’ The voices inside had stopped. Rian was spun and lurched forwards away out towards the forge, poked along by the bronze tip at the end of Ussa’s staff.

  ‘Wood,’ Ussa pointed to the stack of logs behind Gruach. ‘You know where it is. Get more.’

  Rian turned but Ussa’s talons in her shoulder stopped her. ‘You take them with you.’ Ussa was prising two of the slaves out of the crowd with her staff. ‘And don’t loiter.’ The hand on her collarbone loosened. Ussa barked an instruction in the southern dialect. The two men nodded at Rian in acknowledgement of their joint mission. One was a burly, flat-faced fellow. The other was shorter and more slender, with a pointed nose like a marten cat and slightly crossed eyes.

  ‘Li.’ The bigger man pointed to his chest, then at his companion. ‘Faradh.’

  Rian felt she was expected to say her name, but these men had held her while she was branded. She would not speak to them.

  They set off to the woodstack behind the byre. Away from the forge it was dark and the ice made the ground slippery underfoot.

  ‘You were born here?’ Li touched Rian on the elbow.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Drost not family?’ he pursued.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m sorry. My home is Lusitania, south.’

  She didn’t know where this was and said nothing.

  ‘Faradh’s home is Pou Kernou.’

  She didn’t know where Pou Kernou was either, although she had heard the name. The world was too big and too full of strangers.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How? How don’t you know?’ He grabbed her arm, b
ut she shook it free.

  What did it matter? Why did he want to know?

  ‘I was found as a baby. Danuta found me, brought me here. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Of course. You’re a fairy child, maybe!’ he said. ‘Faradh, Rian’s a fairy child.’ He said something in his own tongue or perhaps in Faradh’s and they both laughed.

  ‘Wood,’ Rian said, picking up three big branches. Li took them from her, passed them to Faradh, then picked up two smaller pieces and laid them in her arms.

  ‘Don’t work so hard. Of course, work, yes, or Ussa…’ He growled in imitation of some fierce animal. ‘But work little, work gentle, or life is short.’ Again he spoke in another language and shared a laugh with Faradh.

  He picked up a third, small branch and balanced it with the others on Rian’s arms. ‘Fairy girl wood.’

  He was being kind but she didn’t want the sympathy of slaves. She threw the branches down, reached into the stack, pulled out two huge logs, and stomped away back to the fireplace. Li and Faradh’s laughter scorched her back.

  Her arms were burning with the strain by the time she reached the fireside and, pushing her way through the crowd to the woodpile, she felt people’s eyes on her. Their scorn was worse than the pain in her muscles. She turned to leave but found her way blocked by Pytheas, who reached for her hand and lifted her arm, feeling the tension in her forearm. He spoke to Og, who said to Rian, ‘He says you must carry smaller wood. Your arms will break if you take such big logs.’

  She shook her arm free and ran headlong out of the crush of people and back to the woodstack, bumping Faradh as she passed him and swerving past Li, who tried to stop her. She would show them what she could do. She picked two more logs, even bigger this time, and trudged with them back to the fire. They needed all her body strength and she had to stop and shift their weight a couple of times, but she got them there. It was Danuta who stopped her this time.

  ‘Rian, I need you.’

  Rian glanced at Ussa, who was standing beside Pytheas, leaning in towards him as he gestured towards the forge, beating his finger in time with Gruach’s hammer. Ussa lifted her nose, saw Rian and thrust a scornful finger in Danuta’s direction. ‘Go and cook with her.’

  Rian let herself be led away by Danuta into the broch, arms trembling.

  Inside it was dim, lit only by the central fire’s glow. Danuta busied herself with sticks to keep it alive. Rian stood just inside the door. She had no momentum of her own. From high, high up she noticed her legs begin to sway.

  Danuta blew a rush taper into flame and lit a lamp. ‘Sit, sit. Look at you, oh just look at you, little bird.’

  Rian let herself be pulled into motion again and wobbled past the hearth. Danuta steered her into her own sleeping area and sat her on the bed, then tugged the rigged up curtain between hers and Buia’s spaces. She pulled the drape separating her cubicle from the rest of the house, leaving only a gap big enough to allow her to watch the door. They were alone, in a cocoon of cloth. The seal oil lamp’s flame licked, its dance slowing, then stood. The shadows stilled. Danuta stroked Rian’s head, then sat beside her. Rian let her arms rest on the bed, her fingers worked into the sheepskin, rummaging up to her knuckles in its softness.

  The old woman tilted her head towards Rian’s until they touched. Rian leaned into her shoulder and listened to her quiet sobs, feeling them shudder her frail body.

  Danuta took a deep breath, pulled herself away and, taking Rian’s face in both hands, she held her gaze. ‘You’re as dear to me as any child could be,’ she began. ‘You know I always wanted you to think of yourself as one of my family, and I can’t tell you how angry I am at that brute son of mine. I don’t know what I’ve done to make him that way. But you know yourself you’re not his daughter and he’s never really gone along with treating you like one. Anyway, one day you will know who you are and when you and all the rest find out where you came from I’ll not be surprised if you charge them dear who’ve hurt you today. Drost included, even though he’s my son. I make no secret he deserves it.’

  ‘So who am I?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, little bird.’

  ‘But you know?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve always known, but I vowed I’d not tell a soul.’

  ‘Not even me?’

  ‘Especially not you.’

  ‘Why can’t you tell me?’

  ‘I can’t tell you yet, and the reason is part of the secret, which is why I’ve always made out I don’t know anything and found you on the moor. But you might as well know that bit isn’t true. I know fine who you are and you’re no foundling.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘No. You’ll find out when the day is right for you to know.’

  ‘But what if anything should happen to you? They’re taking me away. What if I never see you again?’ Rian’s voice rose to a wail.

  ‘Shush little bird. Nothing’s going to happen to me. And there’s another one who knows, so if it did, no harm’s done.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A stranger to you, but a good man. Uill Tabar is his name. He is younger than me, and I’ve not seen him for a long time. He knows many secrets.’

  ‘Uill Tabar? Who is he?’

  ‘He lives far, far away from here.’

  ‘But who is he?’

  ‘He lives close to the southernmost tip of the land.’

  ‘Will he tell me who I am?’

  ‘He called the place Pou Kernou. I’ve never been there.’

  That name again. She didn’t mention the slave. Something, she wasn’t sure what, made her hold back.

  ‘More importantly, little bird, I need to check on those wounds she gave you, and make sure you’ve herbs so you can take care of yourself.’ Danuta wrapped in seal bladder a patty of the yarrow butter ointment she had used to treat the slave’s rowing sores.

  Then she lifted the lamp off her medicine chest, opened it, and they began a ritual they had done a thousand times, Danuta laying out a package of herb, Rian undoing its fastening and sniffing then telling Danuta what it contained and how it was used. But this time Danuta had taken an old cloth, ripped it into small pieces, and from each package she took a sample and wrapped it up. The pile of little knotted rags mounted until Danuta said, ‘There. Wrap them tight in something waterproof. No, here.’ She rummaged in a box, produced a sealskin pouch and tipped its contents onto her bed. On any other day they could have spent a happy time now, sorting through the collection of amulets, bracelets and beads, but not today.

  ‘For luck. Now, bundle all the herbs in there and tuck it away safely. We’d better look busy at the cooking.’ Danuta swept all the other contents of the pouch into the deerskin bag she used every day, which hung on a peg above her bed, then pulled open the drapes and returned to the hearth.

  Rian stuffed the pouch with all the herbs. When she emerged, Danuta had busied herself with making a broth of leftover meat from the previous night’s roasted deer. She set Rian to chopping up wild carrot and silverweed roots and began on a dumpling mix. There was always plenty of seal blubber and the barley barrel still had enough to be generous. Danuta prided herself on never needing to rely on the success of a hunt to feed people.

  Once the food preparation was well under way, Danuta sent Rian out to find out what was happening around the forge and when they might be likely to eat. She slipped out into the dark, creeping in the shadows, not wanting to be noticed. It was futile. Bael spotted her almost immediately and pointed at her. ‘She’s there.’ He was standing beside Ussa, who had her hand conspiratorially in the crook of Pytheas’ elbow.

  ‘Come here.’ She pulled the hand free and crooked her finger towards Rian with a smug smile on her face. ‘I have news for you.’ In her other hand she was rolling a ball of gleaming, flame-coloured jewel.

  Rian approached, hoping to be able to stay out o
f arm’s reach, but Ussa’s hand swept her close. ‘Here.’ She pulled her in by sheer force of will. Once in reach, Ussa’s fingers took purchase on her head, and swivelled her to look at Pytheas.

  He bent down and said something to her in Greek. His eyebrows were lifted, eyes wide, and his grin pouched up his cheeks. Rian would have laughed at his expression were it not for the talons in her hair. He was ridiculous.

  ‘Pytheas is your owner now, girl. He has paid me handsomely for you.’ She rolled the ball in her hand. ‘Look at this. Do you know what it is? Amber. He says it’s the colour of your hair. Isn’t that sweet?’

  She spoke to Pytheas in some tongue and Rian looked from one face to the other. He nodded and lifted Ussa’s hand off Rian’s head, then replaced it with his own flat palm. He patted her like a dog and beamed. It was clear he expected her to smile back. She moved her face into some grimace that involved her mouth elongating sideways and bending up at the sides, feeling her cheeks stretch. She belonged to the clown. What did that mean?

  ‘Pytheas.’ He put his hand on his chest. As if she didn’t know.

  She complied and responded. ‘Rian.’

  He patted her on the head again. She was at a loss, so she gestured eating with her mouth and fingers. He nodded vigorously and, pulling Ussa’s arm, indicated she should lead them into the broch. But Ussa shook him off, said something to him, and turned back to the forge to continue watching the sword being born.