‘Bless you.’ Manigan had found what he was looking for and was unwrapping from a stinking cloth a round, sticky object. He pulled on a thick glove, took the ball in his hand, and brought it close to Rian’s fire. It sputtered and the flame licked up it appreciatively, flickering over the surface. Manigan rolled it lightly across his gloved palm. It was about the size of his clenched fist. A foul, resinous smell came off it, as well as black smoke, but the flames danced over it and there was the smell of leather charring from his glove.
He turned, steadied himself, looked over to Ròn, then lobbed the ball towards it, just catching the prow. It tumbled into the boat. There was a shout from Toma, scuffling from the oarsmen and a lot of smoke. But the rowing continued and the boat advanced.
Now Manigan was sliding another, smaller ball onto a light spear and squashing it into a sausage shape along the shaft. He handed it to Badger
‘Go for the sail, throw high.’ He reached for another ball like the first.
Badger lit his spear and threw. It dipped steeply, just catching the edge of the sail but failing to pierce it, then fell onto the boat. More smoke belched from it.
Another ball from Manigan caught one of the oarsmen and rolled into the middle of the boat. Ussa had moved from her viewpoint on the prow. The rowing stopped and there was chaotic shouting. Another spear thrown by Badger hit its target and pierced the sail, and fire guttered down it as the oily substance melted, flaming. But a well-aimed bucket of water soon put it out again.
Rian’s fire was dwindling. ‘Badger, more sticks!’
He kicked his bundle towards her and she fed the flames.
Manigan tossed another fireball among their pursuers and Badger attempted a second hit on the sail. It fell short, hissing into the sea, so he reached for another and this time it hit its mark and the big sail began to burn.
Rian kept feeding her fire, carefully containing it in the dish at the stern, but worrying that the wood under it was smouldering.
‘Wind, damn it, come on,’ Manigan muttered. ‘Rian, cast another wind spell. Badger, if you don’t take the freaking sweep now I’ll throw you overboard.’
‘No need,’ Badger calmly gestured east where the water was ruffling.
The breeze reached them, the main sail tensioned and Manigan leapt for the sheet to let the sail take its fill of the motion.
Badger brought the boat round to allow more wind to push at the sails and Manigan darted about, loosening and tugging at ropes as if feeding them with the invisible food of air. There was that comforting trickle under the keel and the distance to Ròn lengthened. Her crew were still too busy with buckets of water, staunching flames, to take advantage of the wind. If anything the breeze was making their job harder as it encouraged the blaze in the sail.
‘Fly Bradan, fly my darling.’ Manigan stood looking back. ‘If this breeze keeps up we’ll leave them well behind.’
Rian wasn’t sure if he was addressing the boat or the crew in general.
Badger said, ‘They might catch us in a calm but that old tub is no match for Bradan with a wind. Any wind at all.’
Manigan nodded.
Kino was slumped against his chest, whimpering.
Rian captured some glowing embers in the fire pan, then Manigan grabbed a bucket and doused the smoking mast step with an excessive splash that left Rian wet all down one side. She only just managed to keep the pan dry.
‘Sorry!’ He laughed, as gleeful as his sails.
She took the smoking embers back to the shelter at the bow where they might be coaxed back to life later, then she turned her attention to Kino.
He was shivering and sweating. Rian touched his shoulder and he flinched. ‘A drink,’ he murmured, then, rousing himself, hurled a string of abuse at Manigan. ‘If I don’t get a drink I’m going to die.’ He seemed to be oblivious to the hole in his back where the spear had lodged.
Rian thought of Drost. How often had she heard the same from him?
Manigan shrugged and pointed to the chest behind the mast. She opened it. Inside, among a clutter of ropes and tools, were some bladders and flasks. She took out a wooden jug with a narrow spout, uncorked it and sniffed. It was rough, but it would do to calm Kino while she examined his wound. She handed it to him and watched him glug, then took it back. He shuddered as the brew hit his stomach, demanded more. She gave him a second slug and asked to see his shoulder.
‘Ach, it’s nothing.’
‘You’re bleeding,’ she insisted.
He let her help him off with his leather coat. It was massively thick and heavy.
‘Auroch,’ he said, proudly. The spear had buried through, but the coat had absorbed most of the power of the weapon. ‘As good as armour.’
Inside the coat, all there was to Kino was a scrawny, wasted body. The thick gansey and woollen undershirt had clearly never left his body in recent memory. Rian rolled the fabric up his back, asked him to take his right arm out of the sleeve and examined the wound. It wasn’t deep.
‘You’ll not die of this. But you look to me like you need to eat more, if you can.’
‘I just need to drink more.’ He reached for the flask. She stopped him.
She dipped a cloth overboard and washed the wound with seawater, then dried it and smeared a little yarrow butter into the cut. ‘Do you have a clean shirt?’
He laughed at her and shouted to Manigan, ‘Did you hear that, Man? Do I have a clean shirt?’ Finding this a hilarious idea, he chuckled away while she contrived a bandage of wool pulled from the fleece she had stuffed into her boots and a bit of rope tied around his chest to keep it in place.
‘If you can keep that clean it’ll heal no problem,’ she said. ‘Your right shoulder will be stiff, but you’re lucky, your coat saved your life.’
‘Proper little healer, aren’t you?’ Kino grabbed the flask and took a third, glugging swallow.
‘That’s enough,’ Manigan shouted. ‘If you let him he’ll drink the boat dry.’
She couldn’t imagine how he could pour so much of the drink down his throat. His eyes were already glazed, and before long his head was drooping with sleep.
Fair Isle
The sun was dipping into a bank of cloud on the western horizon, a glowing fireball turning a stripe of sea the colour of blood and scattering fish scales of pink across the sky. A fresh breeze blew now and the boat coursed over the swell. A group of dolphins emerged abreast and ahead of them, leaping from the sea in graceful curves.
Ròn shrank further and further into the distance behind them as Manigan and Badger gave Bradan full sail and let her fly. Badger handed around some bread. Manigan was watching the sky and scanning the horizon.
‘See that.’ He pointed to the uppermost pink streaks across the sky. ‘They’re travelling north, fast. Some big weather out there is my guess. I’d rather not get caught up in it. Once we’re out of sight of Queen Bitch we’ll bear south a bit while we’ve got the chance, try to make landfall before the big one hits.’
‘You can read the sky.’ Rian had heard stories about great seafarers who could find their way across oceans by understanding stars and clouds.
‘None better than Manigan.’ Badger offered some more bread. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘It’s obvious if you know what you’re looking for, and I’ve been looking all my life. The sea is home to me. I know her moods and I know how to tell if she is building up to a tantrum. My grandfather taught me well.’
‘He was the Walrus Mutterer before him. Do you remember I told you? Eat man, I’ll take the tiller.’ Badger pushed Manigan off his perch at the stern.
‘You told me about Great Aunty Onn. I don’t remember a grandfather.’
Manigan smiled. ‘She was the one who taught my grandfather, her little brother, the muttering. And if you’ve heard her story you know everything there is to know
about me.’ He shuffled Rian along the chest and sat beside her. ‘But I still don’t know nearly enough about you.’
To steer his curiosity away, Rian said, ‘Ussa told me you are her cousin. So is she granddaughter of the Mutterer?’
‘No.’ Manigan settled himself, hands on thighs, right shin touching her left shin. She felt the intimacy of his body as if they were magnets drawn together. ‘Ussa is the bastard daughter of the bastard son of Don Sevenheads, so called because of how he ringed his house with the skulls of his seven most recent murders. Except he didn’t call them murders. He called them honour killings, though there was never any honour in them. He was a legendary monster and she has his ruthlessness in her blood. No. We’re kin through our grandmother, Amoa, the daughter of a druid in Belerion. Do you know where that is? I should take you there, deep south, loads of places to hide out. Anyway, he was appointed Merlin, chief druid, and he was always out and about, so my granny was raised and educated by the Keepers. You know who they are? The women who keep the spirits. I guess her mother was one of them, though she said she felt she had many mothers and they were all in service to the One Mother. More mothers than she knew what to do with. What were you asking? Oh yes, Ussa.
‘The way she came to exist is a story of violence from start to finish. Our granny was raped by Sevenheads when she was thirteen and she was so ashamed she ran away and had the child alone in hiding. But when the Spirit Keepers found her it all came out about the rape, and when Sevenheads discovered it was a boy he took the child and raised him in his own household, though from what I ever knew of him my uncle Donnie had a brutal childhood. I never saw him smile and I never knew a greedier person, except for Ussa herself, who was Donnal’s only child, by Sevenhead’s housekeeper.’
‘And your grandmother?’
‘She stayed with the Spirit Keepers, and the next son she bore was fathered by the Walrus Mutterer, my grandfather. He was a mild man, and must have been young and handsome then. I think they loved each other but she trusted no man after what Sevenheads had done and he was mostly away on the northern ocean. I think they were handfasted, but she never left the Spirit Keepers and my father and his younger sister Fraoch were brought up among them, as was I, until my grandfather took me to sea.’
‘So your mother was a Spirit Keeper too?’
‘No. My mother was from the Island of Wings.’ He noted her surprise. ‘That’s how I know your language. I have kin there and on some of the small islands south of there. My father went to sea with my grandfather and one time when they were sheltering from bad weather, he met a beautiful blue-eyed island girl. Well, he was smitten and she was smitten back and when they set off back to sea she joined them in the boat and sailed with them. They had a couple of winters on her island home. My father adored her people and we were always made welcome by them. I never knew her but she was as tough as any man they say, though not tough enough to survive giving birth to me. I was taken to the Spirit Keepers and Fraoch brought me up alongside her son, Gruach, who you’ve met, and his wee girl.’
There was pain in his face, a tightening around his eyes, though he seemed to be trying to contain it.
‘Gruach the smith?’
‘Aye. His daughter was named after her grandmother, my aunt, blessings be on her.’
‘Fraoch is your niece, then? Nearly. Your cousin’s daughter.’
‘Aye. She’s a bonny lass, a bundle of fun if you catch her right, though she’s too much under her aunty Ussa’s influence for my liking.’
Rian reflected on all this information. It made sense of a lot, not least why Gruach travelled with Ussa so readily. They were all part of one family. And it helped her see why Fraoch had betrayed her to Ussa, although she didn’t want to think about that. Besides, she wanted Manigan to keep talking.
‘What was it like to be brought up by the Spirit Keepers?’
‘Awful. I ran away. You see, I know how you feel. I took off on my Grandfather’s boat after…’ He stalled and turned his face away but not before she had seen pain in his eyes. ‘It wasn’t a safe place. I mean, it was supposed to be safe, but nothing can stop a greed like Ussa’s.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You must remember that.’ He turned to her and his blue eyes bored into hers. ‘One day maybe I can tell you everything. I trust you, I don’t know why. Bronze and amber, and now me. It feels portentous.’
She frowned. He wasn’t making any sense all of a sudden, after having drawn her into his story. Badger had warned her about him. Was this how he spellbound people, carrying them along with lucid words, then bamboozling them in a fog of phrases that didn’t make sense? She didn’t know which question to pursue, and the moment to ask was gone.
He pointed off to the south west ahead of them. ‘Land, thank the Goddess. We’ll reach the Fair Isle by night time.’
She could only make out clouds, but they were careering along, the wake of the boat hissing behind them.
‘See the birds?’ He pointed to the south. Sure enough, there were more birds than before, especially ahead of the boat. Guillemots in rafts of four or five birds were floating in the water. As a gannet soared across the bow, its eggy eye caught Rian’s and she followed its flight. Its black-tipped wings tilted, and she wished that she could stretch out her arms and glide with it, up and away. It stalled, tilted towards the sea, tucked its wings into its body and plummeted like a spear, hitting the water with a splash and emerging with a fish in its mouth.
Manigan twisted around and swivelled off the seat, tugging at a rope as he went, calling to Badger to adjust the course to the still invisible landmass. The boat turned towards the cloudbank and Manigan and Kino took in the two extra sails, then swung the yard so it was on the other side of the boat. As they hauled the sail taut, Bradan heeled over with the force of the wind. Rian clung to her seat, staring ahead into the distance, watching as the wheeling bird throngs gradually materialised into the shadows of a solid mass and before long, into discernable cliffs.
‘The Fair Isle.’ Manigan was standing with his back to the mast, scrutinising the approaching island. ‘We’ll get a safe anchorage here and let the storm go through.’
‘But what if Ussa lands here too?’ Rian asked.
‘I’ll worry about that if and when.’
There was no opportunity to worry anyway. At this moment, Kino sprawled across his wooden chest and vomited over the side of the boat.
‘Thanks for getting it overboard,’ Manigan called cheerfully. ‘You’re learning.’
Rian rushed over to him, ready to help if she could, but he shook his head and demanded to be left in peace to die.
‘You’ll not die on my boat, Kino,’ Manigan said. ‘We’ll hit land soon, then you’ll be fine.’
He was true to his word. Bradan cruised into a geo between rocky cliffs. Badger jumped off and pulled her into the shore. A smaller boat was moored just off a stony beach on a running mooring.
Manigan threw Badger another rope and they made the boat secure, then set about rolling the sails into neat bundles and coiling ropes, discussing the tide. They concluded that it would soon be on its way out and would leave them high and dry until the morning.
An old man appeared as if from nowhere and Manigan jumped ashore. Rian watched from the boat as they exchanged a few slow phrases with the occasional nod and hand gesture. Then the man turned and headed away up towards the cliff and soon seemed to disappear into it.
Manigan returned. ‘The old boy’s happy for us to be here overnight and reckons we’ll be sheltered enough. It’s a slack tide just now, so it’s not going to give us too much trouble.’
‘Will he give us a roof over our head?’ Rian asked.
‘Aye, if you want. I’d as soon pitch up on that patch of grass and keep an eye on Bradan but if you’re wanting a night with the cows he says we’re welcome. I’ll go up there and see what
the craic is once we’re done here.’
Kino heaved himself ashore and began hobbling away in pursuit of the old man. Badger said he would stay with the boat, tilting his head at the cliff with a wry smile.
‘Are you coming?’ Manigan offered Rian a hand out of the boat. She was still wearing the bulky man’s coat and it was awkward. She followed him across the slippery rocks. There was not really a path but worn stones and the occasional built step made the clamber up the side of the geo relatively easy.
Before long they were strolling on springy grass, rich in bedstraw and knapweed, much like the machair of home. Rian felt as if goodness was flowing up out of the ground beneath her with every bouncing step. She stopped, knelt, and put her cheek against a tuft of thrift. Some of the flowers were still pink, mostly dried out. She breathed in the sweet breath of the island, and wanted never to leave.
‘Look!’ Manigan pointed out holes at the edge of the grass at the top of the cliff.
‘Puffin burrows!’ Rian was delighted,
‘The whole island is riddled. Have you seen them?’
‘Yes, we have them at home.’ She grinned. ‘They make me laugh. They waddle like chubby little people.’
‘They are. They’re the wisest sea birds. They hold all the knowledge of how to subdue a wicked sea spirit called Drøgha. When you kill them, so the northern folks say, you have to suffer a winter storm in penance.’ They walked on. ‘Of course, they’re tasty and plenty of folk are hungry enough to eat them and so that’s why the sea sends Drøgha to kick up trouble for all of us.’
‘Just for eating puffins?’ Rian was incredulous. Eating puffins couldn’t possibly cause a storm.
‘I don’t know. It’s a good story though, isn’t it?’
They caught Kino up, and the three of them soon arrived at a little hovel that was the old man’s home. They dipped inside and crouched among the wet straw and cow dung. Fish hung drying from the rafters and a peat fire smoked in the centre of the hut floor, in a ring of stones barely functioning as a hearth.
The Walrus Mutterer Page 20
