Land of the Silver Dragon (30 page)

Hrype and I stood out there on the marsh in the moonlight, and, hardly daring to breathe, I waited for him to speak.

‘There was a secret, in the keeping of a dying woman,' he said, right in my ear. Without my noticing, he had silently come to stand right beside me. ‘The secret had two distinct elements, which were passed to two different people, neither permitted to know the element entrusted to the other. I did not know until this night where Edild had hidden the stone, and, even now, I am only guessing.' He paused, and I saw that his eyes were fixed on the sacking-wrapped object in my hands. ‘The other part of the secret – the reason for the stone's destiny – was placed solely in my care.'

‘So that you – you could pass it on to
me
?' It was so unlikely, so preposterous, that I felt embarrassed even suggesting it.

But Hrype was nodding. ‘Exactly so. The time for secrecy is over, for the safety of many is at stake.' He seemed to be gathering his thoughts, and then, of all unlikely things, said, ‘Where, Lassair, do you think you and your aunt get your healing gift?'

‘I ... I have no idea.' It was obvious that I'd inherited it from Edild, but as to where
she
had acquired it, I'd never thought to ask. I suppose, if I had done, I'd merely have assumed she'd discovered it was something she could just do, rather like me and my ability to dowse.

‘It is handed down from your grandmother,' Hrype said.

My mother's mother. Then I hadn't been far off the mark when I had believed that Ama – my grandmother's sister – had been the little healer who had tended Thorfinn. ‘I never knew her,' I whispered. ‘She died before I was born.'

Hrype let out a sound of exasperation. ‘What's happened to your wits, Lassair?' he demanded crossly. ‘You've just been presented with an object of power that was hidden in your paternal grandmother's grave, yet here you are talking about your
mother
's mother.'

Granny
Cordeilla
? ‘But Granny Cordeilla was a bard!' I said, stupefied.

‘Yes, she was,' he said, a little less testily now. ‘But she was a healer first, and a very fine one, by all accounts, with strong little hands and an instinct for seeking out and dissolving the dark thoughts that can trouble a man deeply, yet which give little outward sign.'

‘I never knew her heal anybody!' I protested, still unable to believe what I was hearing.

‘No, I'm sure you didn't.' I had the impression that, not without effort, he had mastered his annoyance at my slowness. ‘When Cordeilla saw the talent emerge in Edild, you see, she stepped back. She gave way to her beloved daughter, letting Edild develop at her own pace and in her own way. Cordeilla didn't want to overshadow her. She guided her, but let her discover her skills and her talent for herself.'

Granny Cordeilla had been a healer. Slowly I shook my head in amazement. And – oh, dear Lord! – she'd had the stone, which meant she was
Thorfinn
's healer. She was the punchy little woman who had saved his life and taken on the guardianship of his magic shining stone when it proved too much for him.

‘Do you ...?' My mouth was dry, and it was hard to speak. I tried again. ‘Do you know any more about her?' I asked.

Hrype smiled. ‘I do,' he said. ‘I know rather a lot. Would you like to hear it?'

Did he think I'd say
no
? I nodded. ‘Oh, yes, please.'

‘S
he was vibrant with life and full of sparkling magic, the young woman you only knew in old age,' Hrype began. ‘They tried to control her, her kinsfolk and the village elders, for, loving her as they did, despite her waywardness and her utter refusal to accept restraint or advice, they feared she would stand out like the one tall stem of corn and, like it, be cut down. Then, as now,' he added, shooting me a glance, ‘it did not do to be too different. When she was fifteen, Cordeilla married a calm, steady man, quite a few years older than her, and in a short time she produced two little sons in exactly his image, with not a spark of magic in either of them.'

‘My uncles Ordic and Alwyn,' I interrupted. Yes, it was fair to say they had no magic. I wondered if I should tell Hrype that this part of the tale was already familiar to me, but held back in case it stopped his flow.

As soon as he picked up the narrative, I was glad I hadn't, for the things that he now revealed to me I had neither known nor even suspected.

‘The years passed slowly for Cordeilla, for, although her husband was a good man, the truth was that he bored her. She loved her little sons – of that I have no doubt – but the daily round of washing, cleaning, cooking, and the unremitting toil that was her lot wore her down. Her days were no tougher than those of any other woman,' he added, perhaps sensing the protest forming in my mind, ‘but Cordeilla's particular form of suffering was that she no longer had time for the free, wide-ranging thinking that had entranced her in her youth. Her days were just too full and, when she tumbled into bed at night, she was far too tired to do anything but fall instantly asleep.'

Would it be like that if I married and had children, I wondered? Would the daily grind effectively close iron doors in my mind, shutting out the wonder of the world and its endless possibilities?
It depends upon who you marry
, a very familiar voice said inside my head.

I smiled. I'd hoped Granny was with me just then. It was good – oh, better than good – to know I was right.

‘Then Cordeilla conceived again,' Hrype went on, ‘and, hopeful this time for a child in her own image, her mercurial spirits rose and she was full of joy. When she miscarried, it seemed to her, for a time, that her world was covered with darkness, and she could find no light.'

Oh, Granny!
I whispered silently to her.

Past and gone now, child
, she replied briskly. It was not easy to detect the tremor in her voice, but it was there.

Some pains never really go away ...

‘Her husband feared for her sanity,' Hrype's soft voice continued, ‘and, greatly missing her smile like the noonday sun that had once brightened the monotony and the hardship of his days, he too suffered. Unable to come up with a way to draw her out of her misery, he consulted the elders of the village. One of them, pointing out that Cordeilla came from a line of healers and wise women, said, why not let Cordeilla try to discover whether she shared the gift? To cut the story short, she reached out with both hands for this life-saving rope that was thrown to her, and, hurling herself into the study and practices taught to her, she found a reason to go on living.'

‘Was she good?' I asked.

Hrype smiled at me. ‘The best,' he replied.

As I watched, his smile faded. I'd been hoping he'd tell me that this discovery of her skills returned Cordeilla to her true self, but I sensed it did not happen like that. ‘The healing wasn't enough, was it?' I said in a small voice.

‘No,' Hrype confirmed. ‘She mourned still for the lost child, and, in the hope that a new baby would ease her pain, she longed to conceive again. But her husband – no doubt acting as he had been advised, and wanting only for Cordeilla to get better – did not think the time was right for another pregnancy. In his clumsy way, he tried to make her forget the miscarriage, telling her that such things happened; that it was God's will, and mere humans should not question the decisions of the Almighty. His remarks, far from consoling his wife, pushed her further back into her darkness. Her constant, ill-humoured mood drove her husband away, so that he spent as little time at home with her as he could. There were rumours that he sought comfort elsewhere, and, indeed, if they were true, who can blame him? If Cordeilla suspected or knew, she kept it to herself. Perhaps, understanding his distress and what had caused it, she felt he deserved some comfort. But it did not help: on the outside, she was a dutiful mother, wife and healer. On the inside, grieving, estranged from her husband, she was dying.'

I wondered what it had been about that particular pregnancy, that Cordeilla should grieve its loss so inconsolably. Miscarriages were, after all, a regular occurrence, and while I would not have presumed to minimize the pain they caused, I had observed with my own eyes how most women seemed to overcome their sorrow.

When another baby comes along
, said Granny in my head.

Ah. Yes ...

There was a short silence, and I felt Hrype was preparing for the next part of his tale. Taking a breath, he spoke. ‘All this time, a bright new star was poised to come blasting across Cordeilla's sky, in the shape of a giant of a man by the name of Thorfinn Ofnirsson.'

In my mind's eye I saw Thorfinn as I knew him. Without any apparent effort from me, slowly the image changed. The shock of silver hair that I had observed turned pale blond, here and there streaked white by sun and salt; the creases and wrinkles of age smoothed away. In this earlier Thorfinn, his brows were bound with a plait of leather, beneath which two thick plaits swung either side of his laughing face. Tall, broad and upright, he was in his prime.

‘Thorfinn was a mariner,' Hrype was saying, ‘one of the finest of his generation, based in Iceland and with close kin on the Faroe Islands. He was the descendant of other sailors and explorers, one of whom made an extraordinary voyage, first sailing north-west from his home to Greenland, then south-west to Helluland, Markland, Vinland, and on, always on, further than any of his kinsman had dared to go or even dreamed of going.'

The land behind the sun
, I thought, remembering the words of Thorfinn and his daughter. I knew this story already, for it was Thorkel's tale. But Hrype, it seemed, knew where the place with the mystical-sounding name was to be found. Where was it? To the west, it appeared. I went over his description in my head, but the words made little sense. I would have to ask Gurdyman. He seemed to know how the lands of the earth were disposed.

I knew what Hrype was going to say next. I waited, keeping silent while he told me again what I already knew. Once more, I listened to the tale of what had happened to Thorkel and his treasure; how and why it had eventually come to Thorfinn. I heard again – and, as before, it pained me – what Thorfinn's inheritance had led to: his slow, steady disintegration, from the instant when he received a black stone with unimaginable power, once acquired from a dark-skinned stranger with feathers in his hair, right up to the moment when he lay, battered, bruised, broken, beside my grandmother's hearth.

‘And in the end,' Hrype concluded, ‘his heart full of despair, Thorfinn understood that he and his shining stone must part. Although it tore out a part of him, he gave it to Cordeilla, and told her to hide it away, out of the earth's light, until the right hands should come to claim it.'

Skuli believed his were the right hands, I thought, more than half entranced by the power of the story. Furiously resentful of the fact that it had passed down through the female side rather than via his father to himself, he had done his utmost to find it and claim it. He had failed.

And now, the shining stone had been bestowed somewhere quite different ...

Suddenly feeling it heavy in my palms, I whispered, ‘It has come into
my
hands.'

Panicking now, I met Hrype's eyes. ‘I am surely not the rightful recipient!' I cried, almost sobbing from fear. ‘You must have been mistaken, Hrype, or else Granny was confused and ... and ...'

I was never confused!
Granny protested firmly inside my head.
I knew exactly what I was doing, Lassair child. It is yours
.

I wondered if Hrype could hear her too.

I stared at him. ‘Why?' I said, the word more a breath than audible speech.

For a moment, his face twisted in compassion. Then, appearing to wipe the emotion away, he said, ‘Put yourself, if you can, into Cordeilla's shoes. Into Thorfinn's. There you had two people, both suffering, whom circumstance had drawn into close proximity. Both were in need of comfort and compassion. Because of what they were to each other – patient and healer – there had been, of necessity, intimacy between them. Both were young; both were vibrant and attractive.'

He paused, as if leaving it to me to speak the words. ‘They fell in love,' I said. I knew it was so; it was the inevitable end to their tale.

‘They fell in love,' Hrype confirmed. ‘For the brief weeks of one midsummer, they were lovers. Then Thorfinn, healed both in body and in mind, sailed away. Cordeilla never saw him again.'

‘Did he not come back to her?' Tears were rolling down my face. ‘Not even once?'

‘He did not dare,' Hrype said heavily, ‘for he feared that the temptation to take back his shining stone would prove too great. He truly believed that he could only go on living if he no longer possessed it. Perhaps,' he added softly, ‘it is more accurate to say, if
it
no longer possessed
him
.'

This talk of the stone's uncanny power was deeply disturbing. Again, I seemed to feel the heaviness of it in my hands. I longed to put it down, but something stopped me. It –
it
– would not let me. It was as if, I thought wildly, it had to be assured that I was strong enough to deal with it.

I was not at all sure I was.

‘Cordeilla grieved for him,' Hrype went on, picking up the story, ‘but she had a husband, two small sons and a home to care for, and she had no choice but to gather up her courage and move on. She loved her little boys, and her husband was not a bad man. It was not his fault that he lacked the imagination and the wild flair she needed in a mate. She told herself firmly that she must not waste her life mourning for something she could not have, and she made up her mind to make the best of what she did have.'

I smiled. That sounded like Granny Cordeilla. She had always been a practical, courageous and resolute woman.