The Islands of Chaldea

After that, we left. One of the High King’s robed courtiers came with us to the door, where he passed Aunt Beck a purse. “For expenses,” he said.

“Thank you,” said my aunt. “I see by this that your king is in earnest.” High King Farlane was known to be quite sparing with his money. She turned to Ivar. “Run and fetch Ogo. Tell him just that you and he have to escort the Priest back to his fane.”

The Priest was coming with us, to my sorrow, as far as the hilltops where his religious establishment was. Donal went in front to show us the way to the small postern I had hardly ever seen used before. For a moment, I thought Donal was coming as well. But he was only making sure we found the four little donkeys waiting for us by the wall.

Aunt Beck clicked her tongue at the sight of them. “So much for secrecy. Who saddled these up?”

“I did,” Donal said. By the light of the lantern he carried, his teeth flashed rather smugly in his beard. “No chance of any gossip in the stables.”

“I was thinking rather,” Aunt Beck countered, “of the bags.” One donkey was loaded with four leather bags, very plump and shiny and expensive-looking bags. “Who packed these?”

“My mother did,” said Donal. “With her own fair hands.”

“Did she now?” said Aunt Beck. “Give her my thanks for the honour.”

Since no one could have sounded less grateful than my aunt, it was possibly just as well that Ivar came dashing up just then, and Ogo with him looking quite bewildered. They were to walk, as befitted an escort. The Priest mounted one of the donkeys and sat there looking quite ridiculous with his long legs nearly touching the ground on either side. Aunt Beck sat on the second. Ogo helped me up on to the third. I looked at what I could see of him – which was not much, what with the flickering lantern and the clouds scudding across the nearly full moon – and I thought that no one so puzzled-looking and so anxious to help as Ogo could possibly be a spy. Or could he?

“You don’t have to hold Aileen on to the donkey,” Ivar said to him. “Take the baggage donkey’s halter and bring it along.”

Donal raised the lantern, grinning again, as we all clopped off. “Goodbye, cousins,” he said to my aunt and me. “Have a good voyage, Ivar.” It was not quite jeering. Donal is too smooth-minded for that. But I thought, as we clopped down the rocky hillside, that the way he said it amounted to sending us off with a curse – or at least an ill-wishing.

The fog had gone, though my poor little donkey was quite wet with it. It must have been waiting for hours outside that door. All the donkeys were stiff and more than usually reluctant to move. Ivar and Ogo had to take a bridle in each hand and haul them out of the dip below the castle, and go on hauling until we were well set on the path zigzagging to the heights. There my donkey raised its big head and gave voice to its feeling in a huge mournful “Hee-haw!”

“Oh, hush!” I said to it. “Someone might hear.”

“It won’t matter,” said my aunt. In order not to trail her legs like the Priest, she had her knees bent up in front of her. It looked most uncomfortable and I could see it was making her breathless and cross. “It doesn’t matter who hears,” she said. “Everyone knows that the Priest must be on his way home.” And she called up to him ahead of her on the path, “I am surprised to see you lending yourself to this charade, Kinnock. Why did you?”

“I have my reasons,” the Priest called back. “Though I must say,” he added sourly, “I did not expect to have my house burnt over it.”

“What reasons?” said my aunt.

“The respect for the gods and for the priesthood is not what it should be,” he said across his shoulder. “My aim is to set that right.”

“You mean you think Alasdair is more god-fearing than his father?” my aunt asked. “If you think that, you’re doomed to disappointment two ways.”

“Gratitude,” retorted the Priest, “is not to be discounted.”

“Or counted on either,” snapped Aunt Beck.

They continued arguing with Aunt Beck getting crosser and more breathless at every sentence, but I have no idea what they said. I remember Aunt Beck accusing the Priest of trying to turn Skarr into Gallis, but that meant they had started to talk politics and I stopped listening. I was suddenly overwhelmed with a fear that I might not see Skarr again and I was busy trying to see as much of it as I could by the light of the repeatedly clouded moon.

The mountains were mere blackness overhead, though I could smell the heavy damp smell of them, and the sea was another blackness flecked with white over the other way. But I remember dwelling quite passionately on a large grey boulder beside the path when the moonlight glided over it, and almost as ardently on the grey, wintry-looking heather beneath the boulder. Where the path turned, I could look over my shoulder, across the bent figure of Ogo heaving the luggage donkey’s bridle, and see the castle below against the sea, ragged and rugged and dark. There were no lights showing. You’d have thought it was deserted. Of course the house where I lived with Aunt Beck was well out of sight, beyond the next rise of land, but I looked all the same.

It suddenly struck me that, if I never saw Skarr again, I would never again need to go down into the Place. You cannot imagine the joy and relief that gave me. Then I found myself not believing this. I knew Aunt Beck would somehow contrive that we gave everyone the slip. We could well be back home again by morning. I knew she was unwilling to go on this unlikely journey – unwilling enough that she might risk the displeasure of the High King himself. As the last and only Wise Woman in Chaldea, she had standing enough, I thought, to defy King Farlane. Would she dare? Would she?

I was still calculating this, with a mixture of excitement and hopelessness on both sides of the question, when we clattered into the deep road at the top of Kilcannon, where the stones of the fane lofted above the shoulder of hill to my right. I could feel them, like an itch or a fizz on my skin, and a tendency for the light here to seem dark blue to my eyes. The place makes me so uncomfortable that I hate going near it. Why the gods should require such uncomfortable magics always puzzled me.

A short while later, we were out to the flatter land beyond. There stood the Priest’s dark house, smelling of burning still, and around it the empty, moon-silvered pastures where Donal had driven all the cattle away. On the other side of the road was the long barnlike place where the novices lived. This was brightly-lit and – oh dear! – the most distinct sounds of roistering coming from inside. Evidently, the novices had not expected the Priest back until morning.

The Priest leapt down from his donkey and strode to the entrance. A sudden silence fell. Looking through the doorway around the Priest’s narrow, outraged body, I could see at least ten young men caught like statues in his glare. Most of them were guiltily trying to hide drinking cups behind their backs, though two were obviously too far gone to bother. One of those went on drinking. The other went on singing, and actually raised his cup in toast to the Priest.

“I see,” said the Priest, “that the demon drink needs exorcising here. All of you are to walk down to the coast with Wise Beck and see that she gets safely to her boat.”

Aunt Beck made a soft, irritated sound. I was right. She had been thinking of slipping off.

“What? Now?” one of the novices asked.

“Yes,” said the Priest. “Now.” He strode inside the dwelling and picked up a little barrel from the table, and calmly began pouring its contents on the floor. The scent of whisky gushed to my nostrils through the door, strong enough to make my eyes water. “Fresh air is a great exorcist,” he remarked. “Off you go. And,” he looked at us waiting outside, “I wish you a good journey, ladies.”

So we went down the rest of the way with twelve drunken novices. There was quite a strong wind blowing on this side of the mountains and, whatever the Priest said, it seemed to me to make them worse. They wove about, they staggered, they sang, they giggled and every ten yards or so one of them was sure to pitch forward into a gorse bush while the rest roared with laughter. Several of them had to leave the path to be sick.

“Gods,” Ivar kept saying. “This is all I need!”

And Aunt Beck asked them several times, “Are you sure you wouldn’t be better sitting down here for a rest? We’ll be quite all right on our own.”

“Oh no, lady,” they told her. “Can’t do that. Ordersh. Have to shee you shafely to your ship.”

Aunt Beck sighed. It was clear the Priest had promised the High King that we would be on that waiting boat. “Drat the man!” said Aunt Beck.

Surrounded by the hooting, galumphing, laughing crowd, we came at last down to where the rocks gave way to sand while the sinking moon showed us quite a large ship swaying up and down vigorously in the bay. Ivar moaned at the sight. Waiting for us among the wet smash and sheen of the breakers was a rowing boat, whose crew leapt out eagerly to meet us.

“Hurry now or we’ll miss this tide,” one of them said. “We thought you’d never be here in time.”

I slid off the donkey and patted it. I also patted the gorse bush by my side. It was in bloom – but when is gorse not? – and the caress of my fingers released the robust fragrance of it. It is a smell that always makes me think of home and Skarr. It seemed a shame to me that the youngest novice promptly staggered into that same bush and was sick on it.

“Here, lassie.” One of the sailors seized me and swung me into his arms. “Carry you through the water,” he explained when I uttered a furious squawk.

I let him. I became almost unbearably tired just then. It seemed to me that in leaving the soil of Skarr I left all my strength behind, but I expect that it was just that I’d had no sleep the night before. As I was carried through the crashing surf, tasting salt as I travelled, I had glimpses of Ivar and Ogo wading beside me, and a further glimpse of Aunt Beck, drawn up to her very tallest, facing the sailor who had offered to carry her too. I saw her glance at the waves, lift a heel and glance at that, and then shrug and give in. She rode to the boat sedately sitting across the sailor’s arms, heels together and both hands clasped demurely around his neck, as if the poor man were another donkey.

I scarcely remember rowing out to the big dark boat. I think I must have been asleep before they got there. When I woke, it was bright grey morning and I was lying on my face, on a narrow bench in a warm but smelly wooden cabin. I sprang up at once. I knew it was only a matter of forty sea miles to Bernica.

“Heavens!” I cried out. “I’ve missed the whole voyage!”

It turned out to be no such thing. When I dashed out into the swaying, creaking passage under the deck, Aunt Beck met me with the news that we had met contrary winds in the night. “The sailors tell me,” she said, “that the Logra barricade diverts the air and the sea too when the wind is in the north. We shall be a day or more yet on the way.” And she sent me back to do my hair properly.

Breakfast was in a little bad-smelling cubbyhole at the stern, where the sea kept smashing up against the one tiny window and the table slid up and down like a see-saw. No porridge, to my surprise. I wouldn’t have minded porridge. I was ravenous. I laid into oatcakes and honey just as if we were on dry land and the honeypot didn’t keep sliding away down the table whenever I needed it.

After a while, Aunt Beck wiped her fingers and passed the cloth to me. “Ten oatcakes is plenty, Aileen,” she told me. “This ship doesn’t carry food for a month. Go and see what has become of Ivar and Ogo.”

I went grudgingly. I wanted – apart from more oatcakes – to go on deck and see the sea. I found the boys in a fuggy little space across the gangway. Ivar was lying on the bed, moaning. Ogo sat beside him, looking anxious and loyal, holding a large bowl ready on his knees.

“Go away!” said Ivar. “I’m dying!”

Ogo said to me, “I don’t know what to do. He’s been like this all night.”

“Go and fetch Aunt Beck,” I said. “Get some breakfast. I’ll hold the bowl.”

Ogo passed me the bowl like a shot. I put it on the floor. It was disgusting.

“Don’t put it there!” Ivar howled as Ogo dashed from the room. “I need it! Now!” He did look ill. His face was like suet, all pale and shiny. I picked up the bowl again, but he wailed, “I’ve nothing left to be sick with! I’ll die!”

“No you won’t,” I said. “It’s not heroic. Where’s the medicine your mother packed for you?”

“In the bag you’re sitting on,” Ivar gasped. “But stupid Ogo doesn’t know which it is!”

“Well, I don’t suppose I do either,” I said, getting up and opening the bag, “and I’m not stupid. Why don’t you know?”

Ivar just buried his face in the lumpy little pillow and moaned. Luckily, Aunt Beck came in just then. “This is ridiculous,” she said, taking in the situation. “I thought Ogo was exaggerating. Move over, Aileen, and let me have a look in that bag.”

There were quite a number of jars and bottles in the bag, carefully packed among clothes. Aunt Beck took them all out and arranged them in a row on the floorboards. “Hm,” she said. “Which?” She picked up the glass bottles one by one and held them up against the light. She shook her head. She picked up the earthenware jars one by one, took the corks out and sniffed. Ivar reared up on one elbow and watched her anxiously. Aunt Beck shook her head again and, very carefully and deliberately, began pouring the contents away into the bowl.

“Hey!” said Ivar. “What are you doing?”

“I do not know,” Aunt Beck said, starting to empty the glass bottles into the bowl too, “what Mevenne was intending here, but I fear she is as bad at remedies as she is at embroideries. Aileen, take this bowl up on deck and empty it all into the sea. Be careful not to spill it on the way. It could set fire to the ship. Then come back for the bottles. They need to be thrown overboard too.”

“But what shall I do?” Ivar was wailing as I carried the bowl away as carefully and steadily as I could.

Aunt Beck snapped at him to behave himself and to take that filthy shirt off at once.

It took me quite a while to get that bowl poured away. I was two steps along the gangway when the ship pitched sideways, suddenly and violently. And, do what I could, the bowl swilled and slopped some of the stuff on the wooden floor. There was only the merest drop, but it made a truly horrible smell and started to smoke. Aunt Beck had not been joking about those medicines. I went the rest of the way more carefully than I had ever done anything in my life. I put the bowl down on each step of the wooden stair that went up to the deck and held it steady as I climbed after it. I crept with it out into the sudden brisk daylight on deck. There were ropes everywhere, sailors staring and a dazzle of choppy waves beyond. But I kept my eyes grimly on the nasty liquid in the bowl the whole way to the edge of the boat and carefully looked which way the wind was before I started to pour the stuff away. I didn’t want it blowing back in my face. It was a huge relief when I finally tipped the bowlful into the brownish, rearing waves.

The sea boiled white where the liquid went in. I had to wait for the ship to move past the whiteness before I could lie on my front and swill the bowl out. That made a lesser whiteness. I snatched my hand away and, I am afraid, lost the bowl, which dipped and sank almost at once. Oh well, I thought. Probably good riddance.

When I went back below, the spilt drop had stopped smoking, but there was a round charred place where it had been.

In the cabin, Ivar was now sitting up, his top half all gooseflesh without his shirt, staring at Aunt Beck. Aunt Beck had taken her ruby-ended pin out of her hair and was wagging it slowly in front of Ivar. “Watch the pin. Keep watching my pin,” she was saying, but broke off to pass me the bottles and jars all bundled up in Ivar’s shirt. “Overboard,” she said. “Shirt and all.”

“Hey!” said Ivar. “That’s a good shirt!” He stopped staring at Aunt Beck and scowled at me.

“Curses,” said Aunt Beck. “Have to begin again. Ivar, attend to this pin of mine.”

It took very little time to get rid of the bundle. When I got back this time, Ivar was staring at Aunt Beck, looking as if he had suddenly gone stupid. Aunt Beck was saying, “Say this after me now. I am a good sailor. I never get seasick. Go on – I am a good sailor …”

Ivar said obediently, “I am a good sailor. I never get seasick.”

“A very good sailor,” Aunt Beck prompted. “No weather affects me, ever.”

“Very good sailor,” Ivar repeated. “No weather affects me, ever.”

“Good.” Aunt Beck snapped her fingers in front of Ivar’s eyes, then sat back on her heels and stared at him closely. Ivar blinked and shifted and gazed around the small, dim cabin. “How are you now?” Aunt Beck asked, handing him a clean shirt.

Ivar looked at her as if he were not all that sure for a moment. Then he seemed to come to life. “Ow!” he said. “By the Guardians, I’m hungry!”

“Of course you are,” Aunt Beck agreed. “You’d better run along and get breakfast before Ogo eats all the oatcakes.”

“Gods of Chaldea!” Ivar leapt up. “I’ll kill him if he has!” Clutching his shirt to his front, he pounded away to the eating room. Aunt Beck climbed to her feet and pushed her ruby pin back into her hair, looking satisfied. Quite smug really.

I was going to follow Ivar, in case he did attack Ogo. You can never trust Ogo to defend himself properly. But Aunt Beck stopped me. “Not now,” she said. “We’ve work to do. I want to know what Mevenne packed in our bags.”

I sighed a little and followed her across the gangway. The bags were piled at one end of our cabin. Aunt Beck knelt down and unbuckled the top one. A strong smell came out. It was not exactly a bad smell, rather like camomile and honey-gone-bad, only not quite. It made me feel a little seasick. Aunt Beck bit off a curse and clapped the bag shut again.

“Up on deck with these,” she said to me. “You take those two, Aileen.”

I did as she said, but not easily. Those bags were good quality hide, and heavy. I thought Aunt Beck was going to throw them into the sea. But she stopped in the shelter of the rowing boat, where it was roped to the deck, and dumped the bags down there.

“Put yours here,” she said to me, kneeling down to open one, “and then we shall see. What have we here?” She pulled out a grand-looking linen gown and unfolded it carefully. There were brown twiggy bits of herb in every fold. “Hm,” she said, surveying and sniffing. Her face went very stiff. For a moment, she simply knelt there. Then she put her head up cheerfully and said to me, “Well, well. Mevenne was no doubt trying to keep moths away and has got it wrong as usual. Take each garment as I hand it to you and shake it out over the side. With the wind, mind. Make sure none of these unfortunate plants touch the ship or yourself either if you can avoid it.” And she bundled the gown into my arms.

It took me half an hour to shake all the herbs away. Aunt Beck passed me garment after fine garment, each still folded, each stuffed with herbs like a goose ready for roasting. Some of the woollen ones took no end of shaking because the twiggy bits stuck into the fabric and clung there. About halfway through, I remember asking, “Won’t this poison the sea, Aunt Beck?”

“No, not in the least,” Aunt Beck replied, lifting out underclothes. “There is nothing like salt water to cancel bad magics.”

“Even if it was unintentional?” I asked.

Aunt Beck smiled a grim little smile. “As to that,” she said and then said nothing more, but just passed me a bundle of underclothing.

By the end, we had a heap of loose clothing and four empty bags. Aunt Beck knelt on the heap, picking up shirts and sleeves, sniffing and shaking her head. “Still smells,” she said. “These are such fine cloth that it goes against the grain with me to throw them in the sea too. Kneel on them, Aileen, or they’ll blow away, and I’ll see what I can do.”

She went briskly away and came back shortly with a coil of clothesline and a basket of pegs. Goodness knows where she had got them from. Then we both became very busy slinging up the line around the deck and pegging out flapping garments all over the ship. Ivar and Ogo came up on deck to stare. The sailors became very irritable, ducking under clothing as they went about their work and sniffing the bad camomile scent angrily.

Eventually, the Captain came and accosted Aunt Beck, under a billowing plaid. “What are you doing here, woman? This is a fine time to have a washday!”

“I’m only doing what needs doing, Seamus Hamish,” Aunt Beck retorted, pegging up a wildly kicking pair of drawers. “This clothing is contaminated.”

“It surely is,” said the Captain. “Smells like the devil’s socks. Are you raising this wind to blow the smell away?”

Aunt Beck finished pegging the drawers and faced the Captain with her red heels planted well apart and her arms folded. “Seamus Hamish, I have never raised wind in all my born days. What would be the need on Skarr? What is the need here?”

Seamus Hamish folded his arms too. It was impressive because his arms were massive and covered with pictures. “Then it is the smell doing it.”

Whatever was doing it, there was no doubt that the wind was getting up. When I looked out from under the flapping clothing, I could see yellow-brown waves chopping up and down and spume flying from the tops of them. Aunt Beck actually had long black pieces of hair blowing from her neatly plaited head. “Nonsense!” she said, and turned away.

“I tell you it is!” boomed the Captain. “And turning the sky purple. Look, woman!” He pointed with a vast arm and, sure enough, the bits of sky I could see were a strange, hazy lilac colour.

Aunt Beck said, “Nonsense, man. The barrier is doing it.” She picked up one of the bags and began punching and pounding it to turn it inside out.

“I have never seen the sky this colour,” Seamus Hamish declared. “And you must take at least this plaid down. My steersman can’t see his road for it.”

“Aileen,” said Aunt Beck, “take the plaid and peg it somewhere else.”

I did as I was bid. The only other place I could find was a rope on the front of the ship. I got Ogo to help me because the wind was now so fierce that I couldn’t hold the plaid on my own. We left it flying out from the prow like a strange flag and went back to find Aunt Beck had turned all the bags inside out and was strapping them to the rowing boat to air. The ship’s cook was looming over her.