The Walrus Mutterer

by Mandy Haggith

  She twisted Rian round with a pincerlike hand on her shoulder and poked at the wounds, then went away again without saying anything.

  Rian folded the blanket and, groping around in the dark, identified the flattest bit of floor in the section she had been allocated. She was about to put on the jerkin when Maadu reappeared with her lamp. She brusquely smeared something fatty with a resinous smell onto her wounds. It stung so much Rian struggled not to cry out.

  ‘That’ll do.’ The woman took in where Rian had put her blanket and nodded, then stomped away down the stairs.

  Rian dressed. The clothes smelled of mice. Then she lay down, curled up on her side and allowed the tears to flow.

  She woke often in the night, when other people came and took up their sleeping places, and after that, startled by the scuffles of bats or mice in the roof. It was like trying to sleep in a rickety basket. The hazel and willow sticks were hard and knobbly and uncomfortable, but she was tired and somehow the night passed.

  When she woke to greyness, she got up, took her blanket and crept downstairs, hoping to go all the way out to see the dawn and maybe get away. But on the ground floor she was stopped by the grey steward who gave her a succession of tasks: sweeping up, clearing and washing dishes and feeding the scraps to the Chieftain’s scary dogs. Eventually, when she confessed to needing the toilet, he shackled her ankles, attached a chain, made her pick up a bucket of slops and showed her out and round the back of the building to a filthy latrine next to the midden. When she came out and tried to wipe her feet, he grabbed the bucket, filled it from a horse trough and sloshed it in the direction of her legs, soaking her skirt and the bottom half of the blanket she had wrapped around herself against the morning cold. He laughed, tugged the chain and led her back inside. She was hungry and thirsty but did not dare ask for any sustenance.

  When Maadu came downstairs there was a frenzy of activity culminating in a rowdy departure. The boys were staying with their father to go whaling, while Maadu would manage the farmwork at Mousa. The biggest son and two other young men headed off down to the harbour and Maadu supervised the packing of baskets and bundles. Rian became a pack animal, chained to two other women and marched with heavy loads repeatedly down to the shore and back, until eventually Maadu seemed to be ready to go. She and her daughter, who everyone called Cuckoo, as well as the three slaves, clambered aboard a sturdy, hide-hulled open fishing boat, not quite as big as Ròn. Maadu’s son and his two friends set sail.

  Once they were under way, Maadu handed water and oatcakes out to the slaves. Rian was so thirsty and hungry she could easily have consumed the whole ration for the three of them. Her portion was the smallest. As she chewed she watched the other two women, one grey-haired and wrinkled as a dried apple, the other dark and haggard and perhaps in her mid-twenties. Both had dull eyes and a total lack of interest in everything around them. They did not speak unless directly asked a question that a grunt or a gesture could not answer.

  On arrival at Mousa, Rian began to understand why. Their work regime was brutal.

  The broch was perched on the shore at the south side of a bay, looking out across the sea to the mainland far beyond. Behind it, the farm stretched across the island, with fields sheltered by a hill where cattle grazed. It was a beautiful place but there was little chance to appreciate it.

  The three women were put immediately to work, carrying the baggage from the boat, which set off back to the mainland as soon as it was unloaded. The older woman, Gurda, was given cleaning tasks inside the broch, while the dark woman, Fi, was sent to catch and milk a cow. Maadu led Rian round the back of the broch, pointed out the latrine, the midden and the tool store and told her to dig out the pit and make it clean and ready for use. For the second time that day, Rian was barefoot in filth and there she remained until the work was done, last summer’s rotten effluent dug out and deposited in the midden. By the time the sun was low in the sky she was caked in mud. She stank, and although she managed to rinse her arms and legs in the sea, it was too cold to wash her clothes. They would have to stay dirty until another day.

  At least there was plentiful water here; a stream chuckled down into the sea nearby. However the only food the slaves were given was a meagre, watery porridge. The cows were half wild and protective of their calves and Fi had failed to catch one, so there was no milk and Maadu was in a filthy temper, even though she and Cuckoo had fish to eat with a heap of bread and something else to follow that smelled of honey. The porridge didn’t satisfy Rian’s hunger.

  When she was told she would sleep up on the top floor she was so weary she did not hesitate. The floor was even more makeshift than the one in the Chieftain’s broch. It was made mostly of willow, not like the sturdy hazel hurdles they used at home, but she was too tired to care and sank rapidly away into sleep.

  She dreamed of Pytheas cutting off her toes, frying and eating them. She woke in a sweat. It was dark. She had no idea where she was. She slept again. This time Pytheas was not only chewing on her toe, he was trying to make her eat one too, forcing her mouth open and shoving it between her teeth. She tried and failed to resist. Then, worse still, he was separating her legs and probing her with her own big toe.

  She woke wailing and struggling. The old woman, Gurda, was bent over her, ugly as a gargoyle, whiskery and wrinkled. ‘Be quiet.’ There was no sympathy in her face. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  Too soon, far too soon, she was woken again by Gurda and told to empty chamber pots then carry in buckets of water. After more watery porridge, Maadu sent the three of them to weed the fields of bere and oats that had been sown earlier in the year.

  Gurda made it plain that, as the newest slave, it was Rian’s job to cart the baskets of weeds to the heap, so at the shout of ‘basket’ or ‘full’, she must stop her own work and go to them, strap the burden across her forehead and lug it up to the corner of the field, then back again, empty.

  The second time she returned Gurda’s basket, she said, ‘Can you call me before it’s so full, so it’s not so heavy?’

  Gurda did not even raise her head in acknowledgement of the request. It was drizzling and as noon came and passed, it got wetter. The baskets of weeds dribbled mud all down her back as she carried them and they didn’t get any less full despite her pleading. Her legs were smeared with the peaty soil and her hands soon stung with its acid. The wounds on her back smarted. The day was long.

  Summer

  As the summer wore on, the days grew longer.

  One calm day, the midges were driving Rian almost demented in the field. Gurda shouted ‘Basket,’ from where she was weeding and Rian stood, wearily, slapping her neck where an insect was biting. A weird pulsing tone made her pause and look up. She couldn’t see the bird but knew what it was: a snipe, drumming. For some reason it reminded her of Buia, and that made her think of the times they had spent out on the hills together collecting herbs. Many of the weeds they were pulling up from the field were useful. It was a shame simply to dump them. They should be drying them, or at least letting the cattle have the benefit, not just tossing them out in the corner of the field to rot.

  She lifted her head and took Gurda’s basket, replacing it with her own. ‘I’m going to give some of these to the cows. They’re good for milk.’

  ‘That’s not our job.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  She heaved the basket onto her back. It was always awkward to do it without someone helping, but neither Gurda nor Fi were willing to offer a hand. Holding the strap with both hands, one on each side of her forehead to take the strain, she lugged it up to the weed heap. There, instead of simply tipping it out, she separated out the palatable herbs. The docks and thistles and bracken could stay but the sweet grass and tender herbs, like dandelion, tormentil, violets and skullcap, would be appreciated by a suckling cow, so she tore the roots of them and knocked the earth off. Did they like creeping buttercup? She would find
out. The groundsel was so useful it was a shame to waste it even on cattle. As for sorrel, well, she’d eat it herself, right there and then. She chewed a tangy mouthful and set off with the lighter basket to befriend a cow.

  It didn’t take her long. She had watched Fi do everything wrong: getting too close too quickly, so they took off at a run, then waving her arms and shouting, frightening them with her own fear. Rian liked cows. She knew how to be with them. She wandered up to the nearest cow, a black, hairy creature with a calf in tow. As she got close the cow stopped grazing to stare at her. The calf was curious. She talked to them in simple language and a low voice.

  ‘Hello cow. I’ve got some tasty green stuff. You might like it.’

  She put the basket down and lifted a handful of grass out. It was longer and lusher than the thin blades growing among the heather. The cow was interested. Rian guessed she had probably been fed from a basket in previous years. If she wasn’t made afraid she might be biddable.

  She was. She came close, snuffling at the grass in this stranger’s hand, then accepting it. Her big grey tongue rasped Rian’s fingers. The calf explored the intoxicating smells in the basket, then allowed itself to be scratched between the ears. Rian took care not to get between the mother and her child. The cow butted its offspring aside to stick her own, basket-filling head in among the treats Rian had brought her. She lifted out with a big clump of groundsell in her mouth, and Rian, having let her understand what delicacies were inside the creel, hoisted it on her shoulder and turned towards the broch.

  ‘Come on.’ She started to step away, glancing over her shoulder. ‘Come along.’

  The cow followed the basket and the calf followed its mother.

  ‘Good girl. Come along.’ Rian strolled and the cow paced along behind. They stopped every now and again so that the big animal could enjoy a reward for her co-operation, chewing into the grass and herbs in the basket.

  They were soon at the broch. It took Rian a bit more effort to persuade the cow to pass through the gate into the walled yard behind the building but she persisted and eventually the big beast was trusting enough to cross the threshold.

  Rian shut the gate behind her and wondered what to do next.

  The broch door was half open. She stood beside it and coughed. ‘Maadu? I’ve brought the cow.’

  The woman filled the doorway. She was chewing. ‘Who said you could leave the field? Get back to work.’ She pointed out to the bent backs of Gurda and Fi, virtue being shown to the sinner.

  Rian retreated. As she passed the gate to the yard, she gave the remainder of the basket’s contents to the cow, who was standing waiting to be milked, her calf suckling.

  Maadu called after her. ‘Bring some more grass when you come in.’

  Was there a hint of approval in her tone of voice?

  No approval whatsoever was forthcoming from Fi and Gurda, who treated Rian as a traitor. Porridge was ‘not good enough’ for her on account of her eating ‘grass’. Her small portion was withheld. Slops were her duty. All dirty jobs fell to her. Her blanket was no longer in her sleeping place. The water butt was out of bounds. ‘Keep your filthy hands out of there,’ Gurda said. She must drink direct from the peaty stream, trying not to disturb the sediment where creatures squirmed and wriggled in the mud.

  For the first few nights, Maadu made her strip and smeared more fat on her welts but after they began to heal there was no further attention paid to her. Both Cuckoo and her mother wrinkled their noses when she was in their proximity and Gurda gave her no opportunity to sneak away to wash her ragged clothes. Sometimes Rian caught a whiff of her own stench. She often felt sick, and found it hard to hold down the meagre food they let her have.

  So be it. If she must be dirty, she would be dirty. Her hands were rough and sore from weeding in the acid soil. It didn’t matter. She retreated to the high-up place she had discovered when Ussa beat her.

  One evening, feeding the cow from the basket of weeds she had brought, which was the closest she felt to having a friend, Rian noticed among the herbs some scallop-shaped leaves and a delicate spray of lady’s mantle flowers. It occurred to her that she had not needed it since the Seal Isles. Normally it was what eased her period pains, but she had not bled for how long now? Weeks and weeks. Being thin and hungry could make your bleeding stop. She should try to eat more somehow, despite Gurda and Fi’s desire to starve her into submission. She took to devouring the pig nuts, silverweed roots and anything else edible she dug up while weeding, munching with her back turned.

  But still she didn’t bleed.

  Weeks went by.

  She made herself think back to what Pytheas had done to her.

  It wasn’t just hunger.

  She was carrying a child.

  His child.

  She tried to push the thought away but it was a burden she could not put down once it had occurred to her. She had to lug it around while she worked in the field or carried water or scrubbed floors. It made everything heavier. At night it lay on her chest while she tried to sleep, smothering her.

  The nights were so light, it had been ages since she had seen the moon. It was impossible to keep track of time. Days blurred into one another.

  When the mornings were fine, warm and breezy, Maadu would want to go outside, so she would set Rian and sometimes either Fi or Gurda, to cleaning duties indoors. On wet days, or times when it was still and midges were biting, Maadu would stay in and the slaves were given work outside in the fields or yard.

  More weeks went by. Some mornings when Rian woke up she understood the blank look in Fi’s eyes, the bitterness in Gurda’s tongue. Then the realisation that this was where she was headed filled her with anger.

  She learned to cry at times and in places when nobody could see her and slap her for self-pity. She also learned opportunities for filching food and made a dry hiding place in between some stones at the bottom of a dyke behind a patch of bracken. Not that she had anything to hide in it, except for the occasional broken oatcake or piece of cheese, but she had a plan, and bringing it to fruition would require a secret place to stash things in.

  The plan began with a damselfly. Maadu had sent her up the hill to bring back some more cows. Her success with getting one of the beasts to co-operate had been noted, or perhaps Gurda and Fi had both refused the task.

  The cattle were out on the headland grazing and Rian couldn’t believe her luck to be sent to get them. This was almost freedom: an almost dry day, an almost open-ended task which could take the entire morning, the chance to walk alone and talk to cows.

  They were skittish and nervous of her, having spent a while together on the hill without people bothering them, and they took fright and galloped away when she got too close, so she waited for a while to let their curiosity bring them back to her. It was beautiful on the headland: the sea spread out to the east, the morning sun splicing through flat clouds, light spilling across the surface.

  She crouched by a pool fringed by sundews, noticing their tiny white flowers. Rubbing sweet gale between her fingers she released its fragrance, then wiped it on her exposed skin to keep the midges from the worst of their biting.

  Bog bean flowers struck frilly white poses and turquoise water lobelias jewelled the water on delicate spikes. A movement on a rush drew Rian’s attention and she watched, enthralled, a creature haul itself up the stem. She reached towards it, wanting to catch it to see what it was, but her disturbance only served to knock it off its stem, or perhaps it jumped to save itself from her. The sediments from the pond floor swirled and in the murk she couldn’t see the creature. She sat back on her heels and waited. Before long the little animal was clambering up the same stem again. This time she would leave it alone. Up and up it climbed, eventually breaking the surface, continuing up until it was entirely above the water, its eyes huge for the size of its head, staring as if astonished at this airy world ab
ove the waterline. Then it began to shrug itself out of its skin like a seedling tree emerging from soil, breaking out of a nut, discarding its shell. Lacy fronds like skeleton leaves unfurled from the grub. It clung with its new wings outstretched, drying them, its body the same iridescent blue as the lobelias, thin as the stem and as long as a little finger. Its wings, two pairs on each side, were a lattice of threads, more delicate than any person could spin, a filigree of spider yarns. Testing them, it rattled. Its body pulsed, bouncing on the stem and then without warning it flung itself into the sky and darted over the lochen, a blue spark of life. Part of Rian went with it, jinking and free, and when it alighted quivering on another rush, she was filled with a clarity of purpose as vivid as its sheen, as pure as the blue air.

  A heavy huff of breath behind her startled her, then she saw the reflection in the pool of black shaggy forms. The cows had come to her. One was nosing in her basket. She got to her feet and shoved the big animal’s head out of the herbs. There were a dozen or so of them, a mix of cows and calves, heifers and bullocks, no bull, but enough of them to need to be careful. All except the calves were horned and they were all half-wild. She started up a one-way conversation with them in a low sing-song voice and set off to cajole them back to the broch with her.

  Along the way she picked some club moss and fingered it absently, then tucked it away in her pocket. She might or might not use it; she did not know if she wanted the baby inside her to be allowed to grow. That was a decision she could make once she was free, but at least with the moss in hand the option was open to her.

  Later on, lower down towards the broch, yarrow leaves and plantain presented themselves and she gathered them in case of wounds and sores. After the cattle had been persuaded to amble and jostle into the yard, and the gate was closed behind them, she laid the herbs out to dry in her secret place in the wall behind the midden, thinking of how she might contrive a pouch for them to travel in and where the makings for fire could be acquired. Tinder was easy: cotton grass and heather stalks were everywhere and there was no difficulty in gathering them in her pocket while she walked to the field and back. But flint and blade were a different matter. She would need her wits about her to lay her hands upon such things, and the risk was high of them being missed and searched for.