A MASS FOR THE DEAD (21 page)

Chapter 18

“O
ch it is a sad, sad thing it is, Muirteach, to think of that beauty laying dead and cold in the earth,” continued Tormod, after another swig of the whiskey.

“Did you ever see her again, like that?” I asked. “Sure and it is no wonder you were going there to fish.”

And it was no wonder, I thought to myself, that Eogain had shown such shame when he spoke of it as well. No doubt he had not gone down to the strand to fish but to spy on Sheena himself.

“Aye,” Tormod replied. “She did not come every day, but she did sometimes, and I would hide and watch her. Sometimes I would come in the evenings, after the work was over.”

“Aye, Alasdair Beag was saying he saw you walking there often. He even swears he saw you going that way the day Prior Crispinus was murdered. But I was thinking that was the day you fell from the scaffolding, and how could you be walking there that day?”

“Och, no my arm hurt so badly that I just lay in that small house in the mason’s village the whole afternoon, for it was not until the next day that my mother brought me home. I slept all that day, I am thinking it was the medicine they were giving me, for the pain of it, that made me sleep.”

“But you had told your brother of it, did you not?”

Tormod nodded.

“So I am thinking perhaps he borrowed your cloak that day and went down to the strand himself.”

“He was back when I woke up, fixing some broth,” insisted Tormod, and that agreed with what Eogain had told me.

Tormod’s eyes filled with tears. “How did she die, Muirteach?”

“You are not knowing, then?”

“I have heard dreadful things, Muirteach. I have heard they gutted her like a fish. It is a sad thing that, to think of that white belly—”

Either Tormod was a good dissembler or else he truly was not knowing how Sheena had died. “No, Tormod, she was not cut with a knife,” I interrupted before he could go on. “She was strangled.”

“Ah.” He sighed then, a long deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was hard, all the drink gone out of it. “Find her killer, Muirteach, find the black-hearted
nathrach
and I will cut his heart out with my own dirk. I will bleed him like the cattle are bled in the winter, and I will drink his blood.”

* * * * *

Tormod’s mother returned home shortly after that, and I soon left to ride back to Dun Evin, troubled by what I had heard. Tormod, for all his nastiness, seemed genuinely to mourn Sheena. I did not know whether of not he was speaking the truth when he said he had not lain with her, and he had said he wanted no bairns. But I did not think he had the courage in him to kill a prior, or Sheena, for all of his fine talk. I found myself satisfied, now, that it had been Eogain, not Tormod, that Alasdair Beag had seen that evening.

Which left Gillecristus, as unlikely as that seemed. Surely Maire or Sean would have known if their mother had regular visits from someone, not the Prior. So, whether Aorig liked it or no, I had to speak with them again. Perhaps the expedition to the fort of the
sìthichean
would yield a chance to speak with Sean, away from Maire. Or perhaps Maire herself would speak with me, without hysterics, now that some time had passed since her poor mother’s death.

Aorig, providentially, was away at her sister’s and had taken Maire with her when I arrived back in Scalasaig, and I found Sean out behind the byre trying to ride my dog. Somerled took it all in good humor, perhaps for the bits of old bannock which Sean was bribing him with.

“Charge,” Sean ordered his steed, which instead wriggled around to bite at his own tail, dumping his rider to the ground in the process. The noble steed then nosed his rider, licking him in the face, while Sean struggled to sit up. I whistled, and Somerled left his tormentor and came to me, followed closely by Sean.

“I was thinking,” I told Sean, “that tomorrow might be just the day to go to the faerie fort. Are you wanting to go?”

Sean beamed. “But what of my sister?” he asked at length.

“I will speak with her. Perhaps she can go along as well.”

Sean looked less pleased at this news. “She is a girl.” He scowled. “Forts are for the men.”

“Well, that may well be, but I am thinking that she will not be wanting you to come along unless she goes herself. And we can bring Somerled, too.”

Sean, mollified at this, began asking me questions about the fort, who had built it, and when, all questions I did not know the answers to. And thus, when Aorig returned in the twilight, she found me with my half-brother, a map drawn in the dirt of the yard of the island, with the fort marked on it.

“Maire,” Sean called, “He is saying he will take us to the fort tomorrow!”

Maire looked less pleased than her brother at the news but she did not protest. Aorig looked dubious. “I am just thinking, Muirteach, that I might be coming along with you when you go, just in case.” She glanced significantly at the girl. “I am thinking it would be a good idea.”

“Aye,” I agreed gratefully. “Perhaps we should all go.”

And so it was that early the next morning Aorig, Maire, Seamus, Sean and myself set out for Dun Gaillain. None knew who had lived there, the fort had been there past all memory, but it was sure enough that the Norse raiders had tried to storm it, when they took the isles, but their weapons did not work there for the fort was of the faerie. I had found there, as a child, a faerie knife blade of worked flint buried in the dirt floor. It was said that no iron could be found in the fort, as it still belonged to the faerie, and that if someone unknowing brought the iron into the Dun it would be the worse for him. And so we were all careful to have no iron on us when we went to the fort that morning, although we had fresh bannocks baked by Aorig and some fresh cheese with us.

It was a fine day, with the sky blue, with wisps of white clouds strewn across it like fleece from some giant spindle. The wind blew briskly, making it cooler than usual for the summer day. As it was some distance to the Dun I had borrowed two horses from my uncle, one for myself and one for Seamus, while Aorig had taken their one horse. Her husband had declared his intention to hunt all the day, but Seamus had wished to visit the fort and his father had not gainsaid him.

I sat Sean before me on my horse and Maire, her eyes wide with it all, sat with Aorig and held the baby. Somerled loped along beside us, and we were a merry party as we rode along, like some chief with his retainers. Aorig told the children stories of the
sìthichean
, the one of the hunter and the fairy flax, that gave his wife an easy birth, and then she told the story of the faerie husband, who had spent just one night under the hill with a beautiful faerie queen. When he returned to the world of men, he found that seven long years had passed away. Then we sang the song of the squirrels and the three little mavises, and before we well knew it the journey had passed, along with the sun climbing higher into the sky, and we were arrived at Dun Gaillain. We tethered the horses at the bottom and climbed up to the dun.

A fine fort it still is, sitting on the rocks overlooking the Western Sea. An oval wall encloses a large area, and in some parts one can see the outer wall still standing as well. I sat down to take my breath, and rest my leg a bit, for the muscles of the bad one were quivering with the climb. Sean flopped himself down on the grass like a young puppy while Maire sat quietly next to Aorig, and at length I told the children a story.

“It is said the faerie stole a giant away, in the early days of the Dal Riata, when the world was still so young that the dew had not yet melted from the grass, and that this giant was kept in Fingal’s cave, over on the island of Staffa. Kept in chains he was, by faerie magic, until he roared so that the
sìthichean
swore they would release him after he had built them a fine fort. And this is the fort that he built for them.”

“A fine big fort it is, too,” piped up Sean. “But what were they needing it for, if they were the faerie?”

“Och,” I replied, thinking madly, “why they were needing it for protection from the
cailleach
, the old hag that comes down from the northern mountains in the winter, with the snow swirling out of her white hair.”

“Muirteach,” said Aorig, a worried look on her brow, “you will be frightening the bairns, with your tales.”

I ignored her and continued with my storytelling.

“And then, after he was finished, his chains fell away, for all that the
sìthichean
do not always keep their promises, they were keeping this one for the size of him, and they knew they could not be holding him forever, giant that he was. And so, as his chains fell away, as he was putting the last stone into place, he dove away into the sea, and swam away, and was never seen again on the land. But the faerie cursed him as he swam away and the magic of their chains grabbed onto him again, and held him at the bottom of the sea. It is said that he lives still in the Cailleach, between Scarba and Jura, just over there,” I finished, gesturing back in the direction of Jura. “He thrashes his legs, and kicks his feet to try and free himself, and that is what makes the whirlpool.”

Maire’s eyes were wide with the story, while Sean danced around in excitement. Even their baby brother, whom Aorig had brought along for the ride, laughed and kicked his feet at the clouds from where he lay on his blanket on the grassy hill. And after we ate our bannocks and our white cheese we entered the realm of the
sìthichean
.

Inside the walls kept the sun away, and it felt cooler, as if a cloud had obscured the sun, although when I looked up it was shining bright enough. Some smaller stone walls stood in the interior, dividing the space up into some dwelling places, I imagined. I kicked at the dirt and found a small fragment of black pottery, incised with faerie markings of a diamond shape, but I put it down and crossed myself. Just then Sean came running over saying he had found an elf-bolt. He showed it to me, a small point of finely chiseled flint, before he put it away in the pouch where he kept his treasures.

Aorig looked uncomfortable, and the baby began to fret while Maire stood over at the western wall, staring at the sea with an intensity I found somewhat unnerving. After a bit I walked over to her and stood beside her, watching the gannets swoop over the waves. One dived into the waters for a fish while we watched it.

“And what is it you are thinking, lass?” I asked her after a time.

She did not look at me, but kept her eyes fastened on the waves, which pounded on the rocky beach below us. “I was thinking of Mother,” she finally said.

“Maire,” I said, “you are knowing who His Lordship is, are you not?”

“I have never seen him, but I am knowing he is a most powerful chief. Our father was always talking to my mother about him and all. He it is who set up our father at the Priory there.”

“You have the right of it, Maire,” I replied. “And himself it is who is wanting me to find the person that killed your mother—and your father as well. He is wanting to see that justice is done about it all.”

“I do not care about justice. I just want Mother back again.”

I felt the tears in my eyes while I thought what to say to her. The sea itself gave me the answer I needed.

“Och, white love, she is waiting for you in Tir Nan Og, the land of Youth, at the end of this very western ocean it is, they say. And after you have grown, and had your own wee bairns to mother, and then grown old with the mothering of them, then finally you will go and meet her there one day, a long, long time from now that will be. But I am thinking it would be making her very sad if she was to see you there anytime soon.”

Maire said nothing, thinking on what I had said, I guessed.

“White love,” I continued, “I am needing your help. Is there anything you can be telling me, anyone you might think of who had reason to harm your mother?”

Maire shook her head.

“And who would come to your house to visit there? Angus and Alasdair, your uncles?”

Maire nodded yes.

“And anyone else?”

“Just my father. But he said little to me, although he liked speaking with Sean. You came once.”

“Aye, so I did. No one else?”

She shook her head no, but the movement seemed to have some doubt to it.

“Sometimes at night I would hear my mother talking and singing,” she finally admitted. “And then I would think I heard another voice, a man’s voice, answering her back, and I would hear music as well.”

“It was not your father’s voice?” I asked.

Maire shook her head no. “Father’s voice was not like this one. This voice was like the rippling of the burn in the hills, so sweet it was. But when I would ask her of it she always told me I had been dreaming of the
sìthichean
singing, or that she had been crooning a lullaby to him.”

She nodded her pointy chin towards where her brother lay, sleeping quietly now. As if he sensed the movement in his dreams he stirred a bit and whimpered in his sleep. Aorig went to him and picked him up, then joined us by the wall.

“It is an ungodly place, this is,” whispered Aorig to me, and I heard her say a charm under her breath. “Have you children finished exploring?” she called out in a louder voice. “For we had best be getting back home now, before the sun is going down entirely. There are still the cattle to be seen to, as you are knowing well enough Seamus.”

Even Seamus assented and only Sean seemed reluctant to leave the place. For myself, I felt eager to leave. The murders had cast a cloud over even this place that had been my refuge as a boy.

When we reached Scalasaig it was already late. Aorig’s husband was back from the hunt, and hungry, and her family busied themselves with the evening chores of their holding. I wandered down toward the sea, accompanied by Somerled, picked up some pebbles on the stony beach and idly cast them into the water while I tried to piece together the puzzle. The ripples from one stone spread out, until they intersected another circular pattern, all orderly, unlike my own puzzle.