The Islands of the Blessed (47 page)

The hazel wood had given way to oaks, and blue mountains rose to the north and slowly passed. “Do you want an apple?” said Thorgil, reaching into a basket. “The horses ran off with the venison pies, but the Bard brought these from the monastery.” She expertly cut one of the fruits in two with her knife.

Jack stared. “Your hand—”

Thorgil laughed merrily. “I forgot to tell you. When I woke up, it was as good as new. I guess I can't keep the name Silver-Hand.” She passed him half of the apple and lowered her eyelashes. “I really liked your poem, though.”

Jack felt his face grow warm. “Thanks,” he said.

The coracle swept on and the river widened until the blue mountains withdrew to the north. The channel deepened, and a skein of geese passed overhead, calling to one another.

“What's that?” cried Thorgil, pointing. A large fish with sun-bright scales swam just below the surface, going against the current. It passed the coracle, stroking the water with powerful fins.

“I think it's a salmon,” said Jack, filled with wonder. “It's the biggest one I've ever seen.”

“It's the Salmon of Knowledge returning to the pools of its youth,” said the Bard, stirring from his reverie. “It goes
to feast on hazelnuts. Hobgoblins aren't the only creatures besotted with them. Look ahead. We've come to the sea.”

And so they had. Long waves rolled out of the west and changed the river's color from blue to gray-green. “We're going out there?” said Jack, looking with dismay at the waves.

“It's the only way to the Islands of the Blessed,” the Bard said. “That's where St. Columba moved the School of Bards.” They continued outward just as steadily as they had on the river, though they had no sail.

Jack looked back to see the land disappearing in the distance. “Will I ever return?” he said, suddenly close to tears.

“Of course. I have done so many times,” said the Bard. “Once you learn the paths in the hazel wood, you can go to quite a lot of places, not all of them nice.”

“But what of Mother and Father, Hazel and Pega? I can't just abandon them!”

“You can watch over them. That is part of the high calling of a bard, but there is always a price to pay for such power and responsibility. It is to serve all life, not just a little corner of it. Don't grieve, lad. If it puts your mind at rest, the Blewits have moved into the old Roman house and Hazel won't have to leave the village. They decided it was better to be mudstruck than risk losing her. Pega has found the love she always deserved with your family. I think you'll find that most of the time people get along just fine on their own.”

The sun passed zenith and turned toward the west. The Bard brought out hard-boiled eggs, bread, and a bag of cider.
They talked of many things, and the time passed quickly. Little by little Jack's sorrow lifted.

In late afternoon they saw the islands shining in the distance. A breeze brought them the scent of apples and land birds began to circle the coracle. As they approached, the sea became clear, as though they were sailing through the sky. They passed one island, then another and another. One had a green hill on which horses grazed.

“Look! Oh, look!” shouted Thorgil. A woman and a dog were standing on the shore. The woman raised her hand in greeting. “It's Mother,” cried Thorgil, bursting into tears. “She looks so young. And that's Maeve, who saved me from the wolves. Oh, can't I stop? Can't I stay here?”

“Another time.” The Bard waved back at Allyson and Maeve. “You can visit after you've studied awhile at the School of Bards. Don't worry. They'll understand.”

“Thorgil ‘s
going to the School of Bards?” said Jack, outraged. She hadn't learned nearly as much magic and poetry as he had.

“Jealousy is not encouraged here,” the old man said severely. “She may not be the same kind of student as you, but she's just as qualified.”

“So there,” said Thorgil, sticking out her tongue. She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I feel torn up inside, miserable and happy at once. I don't like it.”

“It's one of the things that happens when you serve the life force,” the Bard said. “Ah! We've arrived at the school for apprentice bards.” They had come to a large island with
mountains and valleys and forests, but at the top of a small hill close to shore was a gray building every bit as grim as St. Filian's Monastery.

“Apprentice bards?” said Jack, somewhat upset. “I thought I'd got beyond that.”

“You've come a long way, lad, no mistake. I'm very proud of you. But the study is difficult and you don't accomplish it in a few years. As you improve your skills, you will move deeper into the island.”

Jack suddenly became aware of the cloak and staff he carried. “Is St. Columba going to be angry with me for taking his belongings?”

“Not in the least. He moved on long ago,” said the Bard. “The Islands of the Blessed are what Brother Aiden calls the doorstep of Heaven. It is for those of us who are not finished with the affairs of the world. St. Columba's cloak and staff were meant for you, but don't look too pleased about it. You'll have to work three times harder than anyone else to understand them.” The old man unfolded a cloth in the bottom of the coracle and took out Fair Lamenting. It had not been left in the tomb after all. In place of its clapper was the silver flute of Amergin. The Bard rang it.

The chime rolled through the evening air as golden and sublime as Jack had remembered, but this time it brought only joy, for it had come to its true home. A door in the gray building opened.

“They're expecting you,” said the Bard, beaching the coracle and waiting for Jack and Thorgil to step onto the
sand. “I'll look in on you later.” He pushed off, sailing away tranquilly without a backward glance.

“Oh, bedbugs,” said Jack, looking up at the forbidding school. A group of men and women in white robes had come outside. They looked even grimmer than the building.

“I'm not even sure what a school is,” said Thorgil.

“Neither am I,” admitted Jack. The late sunlight had turned the hill a deep green, and a cat came out of the building, meowing for attention. One of the bards leaned over and picked it up. That was encouraging.

“It's probably no worse than the dungeons of Elfland,” Thorgil said doubtfully.

“Or getting pulled into a knucker hole.”

“Or being eaten by a hogboon,” said Thorgil.

“Come on, Jill. We can get through this.” Jack took her hand, and together they walked up the hill.

Appendix

This war trumpet was as tall or taller than a man. Its origin is unknown, but the best-preserved example of it was found in northeast Scotland. The wide end was shaped like the head of an animal, but which animal is anyone's guess. Some say it is a boar. I think it's a Pictish beast. The mouth of this trumpet contained a hinged, metal tongue that made a particularly nasty sound.

A Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus, described “the dreadful din (of battle), for there were innumerable horn blowers and trumpeters and, as the whole army were shouting their war cries at the same time, there was such a tumult
of sound that it seemed that not only the trumpeters and the soldiers but all the country round had got a voice and caught up the cry.” The Romans were so intimidated by this that they made the
carnyx
the official emblem of their enemy.

A team of Scotsmen—Dr. John Purser, archaeologist Fraser Hunter, silversmith John Creed, and musician John Kenny—recreated a
carnyx
in 1992. John Kenny played it in Smoo Cave, a wonderfully creepy place in northern Scotland where the Vikings used to hide out. You can hear it and get an idea of what a Pictish beast sounded like, at this very long website:
bbc.co.uk/scotland/music/scotlandsmusic/episodes/episode_02.shtml
.

Or you can go to YouTube and look for “John Kenny +
carnyx.”
There are a couple of YouTube clips of other people blowing
carnices
(the plural of
carnyx)
, but they don't really know how to do it.

Some may find it amazing that Father Severus had so much authority that he was able to keep his monks from fleeing the plague. Such an event actually happened in 1665–66. Bubonic plague was sweeping the port cities of England, but the disease had not reached the countryside. In particular, the town of Eyam in Derbyshire had been safe. Unfortunately, someone in London sent a sample of cloth to a tailor in Eyam, and out hopped a few plague fleas. The tailor sickened and died.

The Anglican rector William Mompesson and the Puritan preacher Thomas Stanley both realized that if the villagers
panicked and ran, they would spread the disease. They forbade anyone to leave the town. This bottled up the plague and made its effect much worse. Two hundred sixty-seven people died out of the three hundred fifty who fell ill. This included Mompesson's devoted wife, Catherine. But the villages around Eyam were spared. Mompesson survived, and as soon as Eyam was plague-free, the villagers locked him out of his church and forced him to leave town.

The fin folk lived in the Orkney Isles north of Scotland. Fin men were tall, thin, gloomy shape-shifters with no love of humans. They punished anyone who tried to fish in their domain. They dealt in illusion and were able to render themselves invisible. They propelled their boats along by magic.

Fin wives started out as beautiful mermaids, but if they were unable to win a human husband, they deteriorated into sea hags and had to make do with fin men. Both spent the summer on an island called Hildaland, which was sometimes invisible. Winters were spent in a fabulous city at the bottom of the sea called Finfolkaheem. In the book I have combined these into one place, Notland.

The Shoney was an ancient sea god, possibly a Pictish god. Until recently, islanders won his favor by pouring a keg of ale into the sea. Most of my information comes from this website written and maintained by Sigurd Towrie:
orkneyjar.com
.

Until recently, people didn't know how disease was communicated, but they did have some ideas about avoiding it. Medieval monasteries (where the hospitals were) usually separated contagious patients from those with physical injuries. Doctors (also called “leeches”) knew that the medicines they made should be prepared with clean ingredients, using clean tools.

Flying venom
(onflygge)
was how they explained a disease that could move swiftly through an entire community. The source was described in various creative ways, such as dragon breath, evil winds, and small winged creatures. We know today that small winged creatures (flies and mosquitoes)
do
carry disease. Sneezes, too, are a favorite way for a germ to get around, and that isn't so far from dragon breath.

The old British and Irish historians kept records of plagues. It isn't always easy to know what they were describing, but some of the diseases were probably bubonic plague, smallpox, and cholera. A few might have been relapsing fever, polio, rabies, and anthrax.

And there was the yellow plague. No one knows what the yellow plague was, but it was devastating. It began (so the story goes) with “a vaporous column sweeping over the land, one head in the clouds and the other trailing along the ground.” All who breathed of it fell sick and died. People fled in all directions. Maelgwn the Great, king of north Wales, hid in a church, but when he peeked through the keyhole to see what was happening, the sight of the yellow plague killed him.

My personal favorite among disasters happened in Ireland in 896. Vast numbers of “vermin-like moles with two teeth” fell from the air and ate everything up. They had to be driven off with prayers.

I don't give a name to the disease in this book.

Lorica
is the Latin word for
breastplate
or
body armor.
It was also an incantation used by early Christian monks to protect themselves from enemies. The most famous
lorica
is “The Breastplate of St. Patrick” with which the saint hid himself and his followers in the shape of deer. The style of St. Patrick's spell is very similar to ones used by Amergin, the founder of the druidic order in Ireland.

Two of the most common symbols carved by the Picts were mirrors and combs. They occur together. People have guessed that these indicate the death of a woman, but there might be a larger explanation. Mermaids are often shown holding mirrors and combs. They could be later memories of Pictish sea goddesses. At any rate, mermaids were generally bad news to the sailors who encountered them. One of the oldest versions of the Scottish ballad “Sir Patrick Spens” has the following verse:

Then up there came a mermaiden
,