Veil of Time (32 page)

The hut was small and closer to the tilling field than Talorcan’s own house. They kept low, hoping no one would see, but there was no escaping the children who ran up to them. Many of them knew Talorcan; a few, Fergus knew by the look, recognized him as father. But they did not follow into the hut of Alban, and Fergus soon saw why. The old man sat by himself in the dark, and his eyes, when a cast of light from the door lit him, were opaque and dead. He sat in easy reach of his fire, a bundle of sticks close to his right hand.

Alban recognized Talorcan by the hand; it alarmed Fergus that the old man knew to turn his voice to a whisper.

The old man spoke in Pictish. “Who’s that with you?”

Talorcan let the old man’s hand drop back into his lap. “Fergus, son of Brighde.”

“You should take him away from here,” the old man said. “His brother’s army has been smashed at Brechin.”

Fergus stepped forward and asked his question in Pictish. “Is Murdoch alive or dead?”

The old man shook his head. “I have heard no reports, only that there were many dead. The rest fled.”

It was the worst news Fergus could have hoped for. He quieted himself with the thought that Murdoch might have escaped, that even this King Oengus would be loath to put another king to death. Almost in concert with these thoughts, the ground rumbled beneath them, sending the old man’s blind eyes searching. Talorcan covered the distance between himself and Alban and grabbed his teacher’s hand.

Fergus glanced at Talorcan after the short quake had passed. “What is it?”

“It has happened before,” said Alban, “in the time of my grandfather. It is a warning from Cailleach of changes to come.”

Fergus made towards the door. “I must go to my mother.”

The old man let go of Talorcan’s hand and stretched his arm out to stop Fergus. “After the news came about your brother and his army, the druids of your people escaped with your mother and the Great Stone towards the eastern sea, bound for Scone. Your people no longer
rule Dunadd. A council of Picts of the Clan of the Boar now sits in the fort until King Oengus reaches us from the north.”

“Where is Sula?” Fergus asked. His heart had stepped up and was banging in his chest. He knew very little of Scone, except as a druid center and place of learning. He knew Glashan would not be safe for long, and it occurred to him now that this was going to be the way for him, his woman, and daughter to follow.

“Sula is where she belongs, with the Picts. Most of your people fled, but those who remain are held across the river by the base of the fort. They are fenced in and guarded. You will join them if you do not leave.”

Fergus sat cross-legged on the floor and prodded the fire. He could not flee and leave his people captive here at Dunadd to await the arrival of the brutal King Oengus. He knew without any doubt that he was going to have to free them. But even if he did, how was he going to lead a march back to Glashan? Most at the loch were Pictish and might not accept the dark-haired ones from Dunadd, even for a short time until they moved on to Scone.

Fergus caught Talorcan’s eye and gestured him to the door where they could speak in private.

“Did Iona say only one horse would return to Glashan, but with many behind it on foot?”

Talorcan smiled. “I forgot to mention that.”

Fergus sighed and tried a smile for all the impossibility of what lay ahead. If he could kill the guards during
the night, he might be able to lead his people out of sight under the cliffs of Dunadd, and then circle around the back. But the tide wouldn’t retreat until morning, and by then it might be too late.

Talorcan took Fergus’s arm. “I cannot go with you through this.”

Fergus sighed. Everything was getting harder. Even his brother Talorcan was deserting him.

“Perhaps I should have brought Hairy Gavin, after all,” said Fergus. Talorcan did not smile. “How long a march is it to Scone?”

Talorcan shrugged. “A week or more. But there are many crannogs along the chain of lochs that take you there. Some of the lochs were settled in years gone by by your own people. You will have shelter and food. It is a good plan for you to move to Scone. I have heard the soil is rich there.”

Fergus tried to gauge the time of day by the amount of light that sneaked in through the walls of the old man’s house. Talorcan lit a torch and hung it from the wall. He glanced at Fergus, who was saying nothing, just fingering the hilt of his dirk and wishing there were another way.

As soon as there was enough dark for cover, Fergus left the old man’s house and went to find Sula. Her house was a new one, close to the river, the heather thatch still green in places. He stole in without announcing himself and found the old woman asleep on a mat
of woven reeds by a small fire. As he crouched over her, she seemed to him much frailer and older than he remembered.

She stirred and sat up, keeping herself well wrapped in her blanket, for it was damp by the river. “Fergus, I saw you would return.”

She got up and reached for a jar, from which she took a piece of bark to chew. Fergus could tell from her small movements that her bones ached. The chew would be of willow to ease the pain.

He crouched beside her to keep the talking low. “I need to know. Is Murdoch alive?”

She patted the back of his hand, as she had done when he was a child. “He lives.”

Fergus let out such a sigh, he had to catch himself from falling back. “Will you cast your stones and see what is to become of us?”

She blew into the fire and set dry sticks on the flame. She called to the queen of fire to help her see through the veil, while she walked around the flames three times. It was a well-worn ritual for Fergus. He handed her his dirk to mark her lines in the dirt, and when she reached inside her wrap for the stones, he sat on the ground, the better to see how they might fall. One straight line and three crossing it; the stones fell over the lines like a flock of flying geese.

She looked at him. “You must move fast,” she said. “You must go forward with your plan.”

Fergus sheathed his dirk down into the warmth under his arm. “Did my mother come to you before she left?”

Sula nodded. “She came and the stones said the same as these. She left with my brother druids. She will be safe.”

Fergus took hold of the old woman’s bony hands. “Sula, can you help me? I would prefer to release my people without the blood of friends on my hands.”

Sula searched among her jars and brought out a bottle that had not been made at Dunadd. She smiled. “From the Christians.”

The smith had long ago fashioned Sula a bowl of bronze, hammered thin with a handle attached. She dropped into it a concoction of flowers and leaves, added water, then let it simmer. She let it cool while Fergus told her of his plan to follow his mother east to Scone.

“The last crannog along the long loch belongs to my sister druid. Her name is Birog. It is not a good time of year to make such a journey, but she will give you shelter before you turn across the land to the smaller loch that leads east. When I was young, I made the journey to Scone to learn from the old druidess who held court there. She has long since joined the dead, but she told of a time to come when Scone would be as Dunadd is to your people today, a place of kings, and in time a place of desolation.”

Fergus picked up a stick and poked the fire. “Why must desolation always follow?”

Sula laughed a little. “My son, there is only fire and
those things consumed by fire. All comes down to ashes; it is the way of things.”

“But not of the goddess. The eternal goddess who sustains us will never turn to ashes.”

Sula placed her hand on Fergus’s back. “Even the goddess, Fergus. Gods and goddesses rise; gods and goddesses fall. Nothing escapes the fire. The task is to burn bright while you can. Fergus, I always knew the goddess had chosen you for this.”

Fergus didn’t like the weight of Sula’s words. He didn’t like the task before him, and he didn’t like that his efforts would eventually come to nothing but words in the mouth of a bard.

“How is your woman?” Sula asked.

Fergus looked straight into the old woman’s eyes. “Sula, I do not understand her ways.”

Sula shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. She is a mystery. You must honor her.”

She wrapped the edge of her shawl about the pan’s handle and tipped the herbs into the bottle of whisky.

She smiled as she handed him the bottle. “The guards will be children in your hands.”

“But who will take it to them? They surely will not accept it from me.”

Sula nodded. “But from the hands of an old woman, something to warm them in the night?”

Fergus took the old hands and wrapped them about the bottle. “Thank you.”

When he brought her head near to his breath, he could smell the scent of her herbs and spice, the way she had smelled when he was a boy and she had run her fingers through his hair.

He left into the dark, his step heavy because this feeling was becoming too familiar, always leaving things behind. With Dunadd, he would leave Saraid once and for all. This was her land, after all, the place where her ancestors were buried. He was angry that Murdoch had muddied the waters that could have remained smooth if he had only taken Sula’s word and moved his people out of Dunadd quietly. Now Fergus had the task of stealing them away, and it was not going to be easy.

He sneaked around to the bridge and crossed, staying low behind the top rail, and then, because this was the place of his childhood, he took his childhood path around the outer wall of the fort to the low space where he and Murdoch had squeezed in and out of the fort as children, the same place Illa had found as a meeting place for herself and Talorcan. Fergus could not squeeze through now, but he could see through to the place where the guard inside turned his back for a moment, just long enough for Fergus to vault on his hands over the top of the wall and land softly.

Inside the fort with his hood over his head, he was just another Pict moving about the place, walking past his old house and then the house of his father and mother, past the well and the forge. Only the light from
the bakehouse shone across the flat part of the hill. Fergus moved quickly away from the familiar smell of bread and pushed into the bracken, where a little way up the hill he found the place where the mason had recently carved around Sula’s foot. He lay flat against the rock and saw now, almost with relief, the predicted boar chiseled so finely on the sloping edge of the rock. The Picts had wasted no time in placing their mark there, although they would have to live with the foot, as there was no easy way of erasing what had been put into stone. If the people from Erin should ever regain control of Dunadd, they would have to live with the boar, a handsome female boar at any rate.

Up on the top of the hill, there was no one to disturb him as he stood at the cliff edge and smelled the salt air rushing in against his body, paying no heed to the thin wrap of woven cloth that was a human being’s only defense against the elements. At best, it would be a long time until he cast his gaze again across this water to the western isles. He did not know if the sea to the east had the same look or smell.

He knew every stone on this hill, each place where heather gave way to bracken. This was home as much as any place could live inside a man or woman. For a moment he felt it would almost be better to be penned in with his own people down at the base of the fort than to have to remove himself from everything he knew. But his father had not trained him in the way of being a
slave. If the future for his people lay in Scone, he must follow the path his mother had already set.

He scaled the wall again unseen and pushed down through the rusted bracken to the small pond against the side of the hill where the spring collected. It was here the fence had been constructed high against the side of the hill, and here where he heard his people talking quietly among themselves. He followed the fence around to the gate where three guards stood.

He would have to wait until Sula came with her offerings, and this was not the place to do it. He shrank back against the side of the hill, into a scallop of rock where he had hidden once, waiting to ambush his brother. As he waited, his thoughts danced back and forth around Ma-khee. The night before he had awoken more than usual, glad to feel her breathing beside him, glad to wrap his hand around her breast and drop back into sleep.

Fergus tried to bring his thoughts back into a straight line like Sula’s stones. As the moon started to cross the sky, his mood fell. He began to worry that Sula had drifted back asleep, or even that Talorcan might have warned the guards. For the first time he saw that he was alone at Dunadd, without friends, and that just as he had come into life here, this night might see him slip out of it.

24

W
innie hasn’t been back for days. Her empty dish on my kitchen counter is too depressing, so I put it out beside the wilted pansies. With the days inching towards the light, small clusters of snowdrops dangle their bobbleheads over the riverbank; in the lengthening evenings, hares race about the field looking like small dogs, sensing, I suppose, that the fight for mates might be close at hand.