The Walrus Mutterer

by Mandy Haggith

  ‘I need to hear what you saw. Please.’

  ‘Green light,’ she found herself saying. ‘Beautiful but sad.’

  ‘Shhh…’

  She felt breath on her neck. It stank of seal blubber. Could it be him?

  A sound of footsteps: the hurried tramping of a single person going up the alley. Then nothing. The distant hubbub from the broch. A sound of music and voices raised in a chorus. Darkness and cold damp soaking into her buttocks, shoulder, thigh, where something clamped her to the ground. It shifted when she tried to push at it.

  ‘The green lights are the lost souls, the spirits of all those people who didn’t try, who failed to struggle.’ The voice was like the fur of an animal. Was it inside her head? She gathered herself and writhed out of its grasp, but it seemed to be many-tentacled and only pinned her more firmly by both calves and one shoulder to the ground.

  ‘Good. You struggle. You’ll not wither in the sky like them, will you? Now tell me what you saw. Who did you see stealing something earlier on?’

  Nothing would have induced her to speak. Nothing. What if it wasn’t him?

  ‘You are frightened. Of course you are. It’s not surprising. But I don’t intend to hurt you, unless…’ The voice stopped. ‘Just tell me what you saw and I’ll let you go, probably. Ah. Too honest for my own good. I may not promise something I cannot be sure of. It’s my curse, and some say my greatest virtue, this incorrigible honesty. I’ll make a story of this yet, I can see that already. I know you must think I’m a brute and a cur holding you here like this. It’s a terrible thing to do to a kitten like you, like putting a fox cub into a seal fat barrel, pretty little thing in a smelly hole like this. If only you knew I’m not half, not even one tenth, of the demon they say I am. They make out I’m a pirate. But I’m just a hunter with a boatload of stories, and on a good day some ivory to swap for iron, and enough skin to mend my ship and shields, blubber in the lamps and fresh meat in the pan.’

  His voice wound on. She was drawn along it like a rope held out in the darkness. It was soft but firm, flexible but strong. It had the rhythm of the sea in it and the texture of years.

  ‘This ground is wet. You’ll be getting cold. I’m sorry. But if you tell me what you saw, then maybe we can move somewhere a little less uncomfortable.’

  She wondered if she should cry out for help but there was little point and she didn’t seem to have a voice of her own any more. This dark voice beside her was more than enough of a voice for the whole world.

  ‘You’re a brave one, I see. I can feel your courage. You’re frightened, but you’re like a bear cub. You don’t show your fear. You’re waiting for your moment to escape, which is good. Do you know who I am? Of course you do. What do you know of me, I wonder? More than I know of you, I’m sure. All I know of you is that you’re a beautiful slave girl and that you speak the tongue of the west of Alba and you have sea eyes, and for some reason you told me you saw one of Ussa’s other slaves stealing something from my quarters. That was what you said, wasn’t it?’

  Of course it was Manigan. Yet she couldn’t begin to tell him what she knew of him. She couldn’t speak at all. But something in her body must have seemed to reply to his question with assent, because he continued.

  ‘Each time I’ve met you, you belong to someone different. I can’t pretend to imagine what that’s like, to belong to someone, to be a slave. And Ussa always seems to be close by when I see you so although it’s men who buy you I guess it’s Ussa who is at the heart of your enslavement, so either you hate her and want to help me because of that, or you’re her spy, her tool. How do I tell which? If you’re acting for her, trying to trick me, I shall have to kill you. Unfortunately even if you hate her, which I think you do…’ He had loosened his grip on her slightly. Did her body give so much away? ‘Even then, she may still be using you. I know Ussa. I know her tricks. I wouldn’t trust her not to play tricks with her own daughter, let alone a slave.’

  His voice was just a murmur, a whisper. ‘Can I trust you, even though you are a slave? I want to. You are as beautiful as a flower and I want to believe you are as true. The primrose never lies about the springtime but sometimes snow comes, even after the first flowers have led us to believe we were safe from winter. Even the most innocent things cannot protect us from the treachery of people like Ussa.’

  He fell silent and Rian felt a shiver shudder through her and something in him tautened.

  ‘So. Nothing. I need to know what you saw but… Ach I’m going. This is pointless.’

  The grip on her leg was suddenly lifted and she heard him roll away from her. She was free to move. Like a bird freed from the clutch of a hawk, she scrabbled out from the hollow and broke into a run down the alley towards the well.

  But as she reached it, she no longer knew why she was there. The knowledge of where Li had gone was in her, and she had to follow this knowledge. It was her only chance. She resumed the same hell-for-leather running pace down to the shore, slithering where it was wet, but her balance was good and she didn’t fall. It was strangely quiet, presumably as so many people were at the feast.

  Now to find Ròn. It wasn’t hard. Out in the open it didn’t seem so dark. The green and white lights in the sky reflected on the water. The beamy trading currach stood out among the narrow boats the sailors here preferred, like a bull among a field of ponies.

  Having spotted the boat, Rian ground to a halt. What now? There was no option but to continue now she was this near, so she edged her way down to the pier. Some boats stood high and dry where the tide had abandoned them. Ròn was in the water, rafted off another vessel roped to the end of the jetty.

  Toma was sitting silhouetted at the bow, looking out to sea. He turned and saw her, waved as if he was expecting her, then got up and gestured in greeting, sweeping his hand towards him to show she should cross the boat hanging off the pier. She stepped down into it, clinging to a stay, then Toma handed her in with one hand on her lower arm, her own hand grabbing his sleeve as she jumped into the vessel. He seemed to be excited to see her. He spoke rapidly to her in his own tongue, which she had never understood, holding his head in a mime of agony but then the next minute smiling widely at her and stroking her hair. She had no clue what he was so animatedly communicating to her, but he was clearly the only person on board.

  ‘Li?’ she asked. She needed to know if he had brought the stolen article here.

  He tugged her to Ussa’s side of the shelter at the bow and pointed inside to a mound of boxes and packages, ushering her to go in. She hesitated. It was all shadows and hard to make much out. He bent down and pointed with one poking finger at a bundle on the top of the heap in the far corner, then holding his head in both hands and shaking it, rolling his eyes as if in pain, whining. Once more he gestured to her, pushing her into the shelter, clearly indicating she should go in and get whatever it was. ‘Take it away,’ he moaned, in Keltic. At least this she understood.

  The bundle did look as if it could be what Li had been carrying. She took a breath as if diving underwater, stepped into the cabin, reached for the bag and retreated with it. It was extraordinarily heavy.

  Toma backed away from her as if she was now capable of inflicting a poisonous bite and pointed back off the boat. ‘Go.’

  She gestured with the bundle as if to throw it overboard and the look of panic on his face and terrified shaking of his head made clear what he thought of that idea.

  She paused. She had to ask him. ‘Can you help me escape?’

  He shook his head, sadly. Then he spoke again. He seemed to have forgotten that she didn’t understand his language, but then he pointed to the bag. ‘Manigan.’

  ‘Manigan?’

  He raised his eyebrows and held his hand out, palm up, seeking confirmation of something.

  ‘Manigan,’ she murmured, nodding.

  He closed his hand into a fist and kn
ocked on something invisible to signal he was satisfied.

  She wasn’t exactly sure she knew what deal she had made. Did he simply mean that the stolen property was to be returned to its owner? Or was he suggesting that Manigan might help her? She clambered out of the boat and onto the vessel it was tied to.

  As she hit the deck, encumbered by the bundle, Toma said her name.

  She turned.

  He was leaning over the side of his boat. He mimed opening the bag up, and looking at it, then he slid his flat hand under his chin and across his neck in a slicing motion. His meaning was clear: looking inside meant death. Once again he held his hand out in a question of comprehension, and when she nodded, raised his fist to denote their pact. Then he winked at her and gave a sly smile. ‘Bless you.’

  She clambered across the second boat and up onto the jetty, then wondered where to go and how to find Manigan. Where would he have gone? How could she find him? More importantly, how could she hide the stone?

  She didn’t even have to begin looking. As she crept off the pier she saw him. He was standing by a wooden post, waiting for her. Within three steps she was close enough to see his white-toothed smile and disbelieving shake of the head. He was wearing a big coat made of thick leather. She momentarily doubted it was him. Was she being tricked?

  But then he spoke. ‘If you aren’t a goddess, you are the Mother’s own child, bless you if you aren’t. Give me that here before it corrupts your primrose soul.’

  That voice again, the flowing poetry of his praise of her. She bathed in it. She handed him the bag and he tucked it into his coat and clutched it under his elbow.

  ‘However will I thank you for this?’

  ‘Buy me,’ she said on impulse, surprising herself.

  She looked up at him but couldn’t make out his expression in the shadow. He said nothing. In embarrassment, she dropped her gaze and stood, not daring to move.

  Their silence became strained. She tried to listen to the creaking of timbers against floats, the lapping of water against the jetty, the sighing songs of rigging. But Manigan’s speechlessness was the loudest sound. After all his effusiveness, no words.

  She had nothing else to say and she could not look up at him. That would be too awful.

  His feet were in big boots. One turned slightly out.

  She shifted her weight onto her right leg trying to edge herself away.

  This silence was so obviously a refusal, she could hardly bear to breathe. Was there a way to escape him? He was not holding her and yet she was frozen to the spot. She didn’t know who else to ask. Perhaps she should have simply pleaded with him to help her?

  She turned her head towards the boats. Above them the green spirits still writhed in the sky, but lower towards the horizon now. She watched their struggle. Stars gleamed through them like holes in the sky. She could feel him standing beside her, his presence huge, bovine. A shudder of cold went through her, as the sweat from running drew chill air onto her body.

  And still he did not speak.

  Her own two words seemed to echo out to the livid sky-dance and back again.

  Buy.

  Me.

  The strange ghost-forms rubbed themselves against the impassive stars, their pain shimmering and streaking the sky.

  Buy me. Her request was an impossible demand. How could a hunter buy a slave? Why should he? What made her think being owned by him would be any better than being owned by Pytheas, or the Chieftain, or Ussa? Why did she think he would be kind? What did she know of kindness? What did she know of him? Nothing. And yet also everything. She knew his whole life, one long adventure on the ocean. She knew there was nothing in his life that would fit her and yet she would do anything to accustom herself to it. She could become a hunter. She could live on the ocean. She could learn the ways of the sea. She could learn to be like Toma. She could learn. Perhaps she should explain this to him, tell him that although he thought his life was not suitable for her she could adapt to it. She would find ways to be useful. But as the words tried to formulate themselves in her head, he spoke.

  What he said was worse than a slap.

  ‘I don’t pay for women.’

  Choice

  The words broke the enchantment. She looked up at Manigan and saw the face of a hunter, scarred and weather-beaten, rugged in the dimness, stubbly with unkempt hair. A whiff of fish and bilge water washed over them from the boats as a breeze picked up, and here was his own smell. It was like standing beside a seal man. Perhaps that’s what he was, one of the selkie folk.

  She had hoped he might help her. Now that she understood he wouldn’t, she had never felt so unwanted. Abject misery filled her.

  He shifted the bag to under his other arm and put the one nearest her around her shoulder, pulling her towards his chest. She resisted, but he was so much stronger than her it made no difference. He turned her to look out to sea.

  ‘Do you know Bradan, my boat?’

  She said nothing but pointed at the unmistakable vessel, its mast taller than any other, its sleek shape and long bow unlike the beamy trading boats with their big holds for cargo, or the whaling boats of the Chieftain’s fleet, or the slender little inshore fishing boats. As if it knew they were looking, the pennant at the top of the mast fluttered.

  ‘The wind’s changed.’ He released her shoulder. ‘Take this.’

  He was proffering the bag. ‘Don’t look inside it. Hide yourself and it on Bradan. Get under the sail. I’ll not be long.’

  She took the hessian bundle which seemed even heavier than before. She almost staggered with it.

  He must have seen her confusion. ‘Are you ready? Do you need anything for the journey?’

  ‘Journey?’

  He laughed and his face crumpled and stretched like clouds opening to let the moon shine through. She saw his eyes gleaming. He seemed more demon than human. ‘I am going to steal you.’

  She grinned.

  ‘Are you still the Greek’s?’

  She shook her head. ‘Ussa’s.’

  ‘Good. She owes me plenty.’

  ‘She bought me back off the Chieftain tonight.’

  ‘Off the Chieftain? Even better, he owes me more.’ He patted her on the shoulder. ‘Away and hide.’

  She should ask a thousand questions. What she was about to do was more dangerous than anything that she had ever done. She was on a precipitous ridge. To turn back, to return to the feast, undoubtedly meant punishment for her absence, and worse: Pytheas’ bed, most likely, or Ussa’s whip. To go on, to do as Manigan said, was madness.

  But to go back was slavery. There was no real choice. Madness was the only option.

  Rian put one foot forward and stepped into the future. Another step, the bag heavy in her arms. A third. She looked back and Manigan was standing watching her. He inclined his head and though she couldn’t see it she knew he was smiling at her and all the demon had evaporated. ‘Hide like a mouse.’ His soft voice followed her and it was warm and she trusted it, even though she had no reason to. She took another step, and another, and adjusted her hold on the hessian bundle and set off down the soggy bank towards the jetty, her eye on Bradan, its mast-top signal flag beckoning her. The lights in the sky were green again, a great rippling curtain across the north. In the west, two columns of white rose up and wavered and sank again. Under such heavens anything was possible. If the very star spirits could dance this way, there was nothing that might not be dreamed and yet come true.

  There seemed to be nobody on any of the boats as she stepped carefully along the slippery wooden jetty, although there must have been some, presumably sleeping or spellbound. She crept along past Ròn. There was no sign of Toma now. Bradan was out off the other side where the boats were tied three deep. She clambered carefully down into the first. It was awkward with the stone. On the second boat a bundled figure was snoring, r
olled up under a hide shelter between the mast and the prow. Rian held her breath, motionless, but the snoring was deep and even. She tiptoed across the open deck and then heaved the bag over onto Bradan, at the point where she was lashed on. It was more difficult to climb aboard this time, as the boats were so different in shape. Bradan stood higher in the water, so she had to reach up and pull herself up and over the gunnel. But once she was over and into the vessel she was hidden from view. She made a space between two rolls of sail and tucked herself in, pulling it over her. Inside was dry and dark. She thought of what it was like to be a mouse and made herself smaller, snuggling deeper in.

  Water lapped against the keel, the boat’s struts and sheets and sinews replied to every touch and the stone seemed to magnify the murmur, as if it too was involved in a conversation with the ocean depth. Perhaps this was what made Toma’s head hurt. She had never been able to understand the sea’s words, try as she might to listen to its babble.

  ESCAPE

  Chase

  The next morning, Manigan stood at the helm, glancing behind him northwards towards Ròn. They still had a good lead but could not shake their pursuer. Rian knew exactly what it would be like on that boat, oars going, the slaves driven on by oaths and goading, their fur-clad mistress chanting the rhythm of ‘pull and thrust and pull and thrust’ at them like a sorceress, so that even the wooden spars would bend in frenzy to impress the waves and defy the currents and winds that should have been resisting them. She was a crazy-woman and when she wanted something she could overcome any other force of nature. Rian knew it to be true. She still felt it, branded into her shoulder and thigh.

  Anyone seeing Manigan’s boat in harbour would have said it could not survive the ocean, it was so narrow and slight. Yet on the sea it flowed with the waves, it flew rather than ploughed. It seemed a little puffin of a thing pursued by a skua. The hulking trading boat with its great powering sails took advantage of every wind, and when the breeze dropped, the oars carried it on and it bore down on them.