Foxmask (44 page)

“I need to ask you something,” Creidhe said, “and you probably won't like it.”

“Go on.” Keeper's eyes were wary.

“He is your kin, I understand that: Sula's child. I know how cruel they were to her, and I understand how angry that must have made you. You must have been very young when you stole him away: twelve, thirteen?”

He bowed his head. “Young, yes. Not yet a man.”

“What you did was the act of a man, and I honor your courage; few would have attempted as much. But I look at him now and I do not see a little boy like those of my home islands, bonny, active, merry. To me he seems—deeply sad. He's so thin, and so easily frightened. Here on this island he leads a lonely life, for all he has you to keep him company. Please don't be offended, I can see what you have sacrificed for him. Indeed, I see your whole existence bent to his preservation. But this child is no ordinary child. He is not solely of your own lineage, Asgrim's lineage, but also of theirs. Whatever we may think of their barbaric treatment of your sister, this is the child of the Unspoken. This is Foxmask. Have you ever asked yourself, would it be better for him if you had left him where he was?”

Keeper stared at her across the fire; his eyes seemed very dark now, his pale features a mask of shock and hurt. Creidhe shrank from that look: it was
as if she had pierced him with one of those barbs, the poisoned ones. She struggled on.

“To the Unspoken, Foxmask is a seer, a wise man, venerated, respected. With them he would have a special place; he would be loved and guarded. Wouldn't he be safer there than here? Besides, if he were returned, there would be peace. There would be no more need for traps, for spears. There would be no more need for killing. The women of the Long Knife people could see their children grow and flourish. If you took him back, he would be happy. And you would be free.”

She waited, thinking Keeper would not reply at all, so wounded was his expression. The child was nestling close now, almost asleep; she gathered him onto her knee, rocking him. He was so slight, he felt like a cat, a little bird, a bundle of frail bones and skin. His hair was like a nest, tangled and filthy. She wondered if she could comb the knots out.

For a while Keeper stood there staring at her, quite silent. Creidhe was not sorry she had spoken; this had needed saying. But she was sorry she had hurt him. The child was his life's purpose. She was probably the first outsider to set foot on his island save in war, and he had had no cause to trust her. Yet he had taken her in. Now the weapon she had cast had pierced his armor with deadly accuracy.

Keeper bent to the fire. He set on fuel, poured hot water into a bowl, added cold from a bucket set near, glanced across at her.

“You are cold,” he said. “I have exhausted you. Perhaps you would like to wash, to warm yourself . . . I have forgotten such ways, it has been long . . . I think we offend you, myself and my brother . . . We are dirty, unkempt . . .”

Creidhe managed a smile. “You don't offend me at all. You merely startle and perplex me. I don't know what to make of you. I'm deeply sorry if I have upset you, I have the greatest respect for the way you have looked after the child. It's just that—this place, it's so remote, and—never mind. It's really none of my business. I have an unfortunate habit of interfering in other people's lives. Thorvald says I'm naturally bossy.” She could hear herself prattling like a nervous child. “And yes, I would love to wash, I am used to doing so every day. And I'd like to do something with your brother's hair, comb it, maybe cut it, but only if you say yes.”

“Do as you wish, as long as he is not frightened. I have made many errors. I knew nothing of the raising of children; all I could do was try to learn by myself. Now, I will go for fish while you wash. I have not quite forgotten what is correct.” His tone changed, darkened. “Creidhe?”

“Yes?”

“Will you show us the web again tonight? Tell more?” The look in his eyes was different now; there was a hunger in it that sent a shiver through her whole body, a shiver that was not fear, but something else entirely, a heady, dangerous feeling that was new to her.

“Yes, if you want.”

“Thank you. And I will tell too. I will tell you why my brother cannot go back, why that would be crueller for him than an exile here among the puffins and seals. Not now; please wash and rest. Tonight, when he sleeps again.”

While the child slumbered by the fire, Creidhe stripped, washed as well as she could in the small quantity of warm water Keeper had provided, and scrambled back into her clothes. There was no sign of her original garments, and she deduced they had been too damaged to salvage. Laid away in yet another cave, she suspected, was a stock of tunics, breeches, cloaks and boots removed from the owners of those rows of sightless eyes out there on the cliff face. How else had he fashioned garments for herself and for the child, how else clothed himself as he grew from a boy to a man? So, she must ask him another favor. One could not wear a single set of clothing indefinitely, not even on an island at the end of the world with only three inhabitants.

She longed for soap; the supply she had brought from home was long gone, and she had carried none in her pack when she set out from Council Fjord. All the same, she felt a great deal better. Her hair was at least somewhat clean now, though sorely tangled. She was tempted to get out the shears and cut it short, but decided instead to give the long, damp locks a thorough combing, then plait them tightly. After a visit to the privy, which was a somewhat alarming hole in the rocks with a vast drop to the foaming ocean below, Creidhe settled with comb in hand and began the long, tiresome business of restoring her hair to some kind of order. She glanced across at the sleeping child. She hardly knew where she would start with him, but a face wash, surely, would not scare him unduly. When he woke she would try.

She had watched Keeper as he went to fish, a tall, thin figure in his fluttering, faded garments, walking in long strides down the bare, windy hillside to the western margin of the island. He seemed to pass like a shadow over the landscape, treading so lightly he would leave no tracks behind him. So young: not even as old as Thorvald, who had often seemed to her a great deal less than grown up. What a life for a boy to choose for himself. It shut off so
many possibilities, for him and for that poor little scrap there, who seemed less powerful visionary than fragile outcast. What could their future possibly hold? And yet Keeper was strong. One could not pity him. There was a core in him that was surely unbreakable; perhaps he was strong enough for his small kinsman as well. Keeper wore death lightly; in the midst of blood and terror, he still found time for tenderness, he still watched over Small One as father and mother, brother and friend. It seemed to Creidhe, as she dragged the comb through her wind-knotted hair, that there was no way for this tale to end save in sorrow. For, whatever she might wish, whatever Keeper might wish, Asgrim's men would come. As surely as sun follows moon across the sky, as surely as summer comes on the heels of spring, the hunt would unfold, and a new season's blood would stain the lonely shore of the Isle of Clouds. To wish that they would not come was to wish death on the children of Asgrim's tribe, to wish more grim losses on young mothers like Jofrid.

It was necessary to use the shears after all, just a little: some knots simply refused to be undone. Creidhe snipped here and there, consigning the remnants to the fire. The rest of it was smooth enough. It was the best that could be managed; the days of washing her hair with soft soap and rinsing it in chamomile water had faded to a dream. She bound it into a neat plait, fastened with twisted strands of embroidery wool. On the blankets Small One still slept, curled neatly, cheek on palm. She tried to imagine him in Hrossey with her own family, sitting on Brona's knee playing a little game with a loop of string, or following after Ingigerd as her sister headed off across the yard to visit the goats in the walled infield. She pictured him riding on Eyvind's shoulders, or cuddled in Nessa's lap. But he did not fit there; the child that appeared in her thoughts was another, a sturdy, fair-haired lad whose bright eyes and sweet smile showed him to be of her own kin, not Kinart who was lost long ago, but another like him: her own brother, a brother she did not have. Small One, she thought, had no family but Keeper; perhaps needed no family but Keeper. All the same, he lay there vulnerable as a chick in the nest, and she feared for him. In his human form he seemed to her entirely without resources.

Keeper had said rest. She found she did not want to sleep; dark images floated in her mind, just below the surface, and she would not give them the open door that sleep provided. So she unrolled the Journey, took up her needle and began steadily to sew.

Later, when the child woke, she spoke to him quietly, showed him water and cloth, mimed washing her own face. His big eyes were watchful, grave; she could not tell how much he understood. He was far dirtier than Keeper.
Probably the young warrior swam in the sea. Creidhe damped her cloth in the water she had warmed, wrung it out, dabbed at the child's face.

“Good boy,” she murmured. “You will feel much better; I know I do.” It sounded foolish; what relevance had this small ritual of domesticity in such a wild and marginal place? “Good, that's it. Now your ears . . .” He was so little. Creidhe marveled again at the odd, triangular face; the neck like the stalk of some tender plant; the neat, long-fingered hands with their grimy, broken nails, hands that were a miniature version of Keeper's. The eyes, too, were the same, darkest green and fluid, like light through deep water. “There, that's better. Now I'm going to try combing your hair.” She showed him the comb, pulling it through the unbound tassel at the end of her long plait. “See, mine's tidy now, I did it while you were sleeping. Sit here in front of me, and I'll see what I can do. It may pull a bit. Tell me if it hurts and I'll stop.”

It must have hurt considerably; this hair had possibly not seen a comb since Small One was an infant of one year old. Creidhe itched to cut it short, to slice off the knots and twists, the filthy debris woven through it, weed, feathers, twigs, to take a brush to the crusted scalp. But that could not be attempted; without the iron shears, the only way was slow, meticulous combing. She sighed and made a start, and to distract the child she sang as she worked. Her sister Ingigerd loved songs; she knew plenty now, and would join in enthusiastically when Creidhe and Brona reached the chorus. Creidhe sang one about a fisherman who caught a cod so big it nearly sank his boat on the way home. She sang one about the Hidden Tribe, back in the Light Isles, and the importance of leaving out milk and sweet cakes on certain nights of the year so they wouldn't play tricks on you. She sang one about the sun and moon and why they followed each other across the sky. By then she had combed out a small section of the child's hair to dark, fine floss. He had remained quite still on the ground before her, submitting silently to the ordeal. It had not been possible to do it without pulling; she wondered, really, why she was inflicting it on him. Who cared if he was unkempt and dirty, save herself?

“That's enough for today,” she said gently, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You're a very good boy; my sister would have been squirming and complaining by now. She's about your age, but she's bigger than you and has long yellow hair like mine. Can you understand what I'm saying to you, Small One?”

He looked at her, round-eyed, aware, at least, that she was addressing him.

“I want to help you if I can. I could teach you songs, stories. Other things, too. Numbers. Games. Lots of things, if you want.” Who knew how
long she would be here? Surely anything that helped this waif become more like a normal child had to be good. It was clear she wasn't going to be much use to Keeper in his other activities, but this, at least, she could offer.

Small One's hand crept out to rest on her sleeve a moment, the fingers thin and pale as hazel twigs. Then he got up and went to the entry to stare down the hill, waiting for Keeper. Creidhe shivered as she moved to tidy away the bowl, the cloth; to put the little comb Sam had made for her back in her bag. Without one another, these two were incomplete. They needed one another for survival. Without Keeper, Small One would soon die: of cold, of starvation, of a broken heart. Without Small One, Keeper would have no purpose in life, no reason for going on. When Sula extracted his promise from him, she had surely not known how she limited her brother's future: how much he would deny himself, to keep faith.

They sat by firelight, Keeper, and Creidhe, and Small One. The Journey had changed again. It had silenced Keeper; he studied it with somber eyes. Creidhe observed that his hair was damp, and tied back from his long, strong-boned face with a cord. It had been thus when he returned from fishing, his gleaming catch slung over his shoulder. She had seen the glance he gave her, the shy admiration in it, the undercurrent of something a great deal stronger. She could feel the reflection of it in her own gaze. Perhaps Keeper knew little of the world beyond this island, little of how folk lived their lives. All the same, she realized that beside him, the young men she had known in Hrossey were children.

Supper was over now and Small One sat on her knee, perched where he could see the pictures. Creidhe wondered if the child had words at all; perhaps he had been born half-made and would not have grown up like other boys even had he been raised in a less unusual manner. She knew about children with deficiencies. Back home, she had delivered two infants of this kind herself. One young mother had been kicked by a cow while her daughter was still in the womb. That girl had survived, but was slow to walk, slow to talk, slow to understand. Then there was Moya, who lived near a haunt of the Hidden Tribe, an underground chamber where they were known to congregate after dark. Moya's infant had been born deaf. The story went that the mound dwellers had taken away his power of hearing because they were sick of the sound of Moya's voice, she and her man being known for their fierce disputes. Probably the Hidden Tribe thought they were doing the child a favor.