Foxmask (45 page)

The Journey was fully unrolled. Keeper still stared at the part she had
made today, where rows of faces gazed forth, each captured in the moment when breath ceased, each showing what gripped his mind in the instant before shadow took him:
my child, I will never see her again . . . my wife . . . my home shore . . . this hurts, let it end . . . I am afraid . . . the darkness comes
. . . Around this swathe of unquiet spirits Creidhe had embroidered a barrier that might have been rock, or smoke, or some manifestation that was not of this earth; whatever it was, it was clear these men were confined by it, condemned to be held there forever staring out, each reliving eternally the moment of his death. Above them Creidhe had made sun and moon, rainbow, clouds, birds flying. Whatever the strange perplexity of man's behavior, the long rhythms of earth and sky go on regardless. In the end, the little lives that play out below are not so very significant.

“Tell of this,” Keeper said, his fingers reaching to touch a screaming mouth, a staring, ghastly eye. “Tell why you have made this.” His voice was tight, almost accusatory; he would not meet her gaze.

“No,” Creidhe said, “not for the child's bedtime story. I have not fashioned this to make some point, some comment. Sometimes I set down what is in my head; this is what I saw today, not merely the objects, but the essence of them. Sometimes these images seem to—make themselves. Often I am not quite sure what the stitches will show until I am finished. It is not for me to explain this to you or to anyone. You must look, and consider, and make of it what you will.”

Keeper shot her a sidelong glance. “You think I do wrong,” he muttered. “That is what this tells me. You think me savage and cruel.”

“You weren't listening. The Journey does not show what I think. It shows what is to be seen. Do not assume that I judge you, Keeper. I try not to judge anyone. Instead, I take what action seems right to me, and in between I make my embroidery.”

“There is too much power in this.” Still his eyes were fixed on the tiny stitches, the small, wild faces, the agonized mouths. “It hurts me.”

“Then look away. I have a tale for Small One, and it starts at the other end of the Journey. See, Small One, here is a boy of much your size and age. He was my brother, as you are Keeper's. Well, not quite the same; Kinart and I had the same mother and father.”

She had intended to tell only a brief story, in which the young Eanna and Kinart and Creidhe met their friend Thorvald and went on an adventure, crossing a field with a large bull in it. But the tale flowed on, and did not stop until she reached the point when it must: when her brother, at not quite five years old, had wandered away from his family one day on the shore and had
been found limp and white in the shallows, shawled in sea wrack. Creidhe had been less than four at the time. She remembered every detail, and although she was not a crying sort of girl, she came very close to it as she told of her father's terrible grief, and her mother's stoical acceptance that, at last, the Seal Tribe had come to claim a payment long due to them.

“It was because they had helped my mother with a magical task,” she explained, her voice choking on the words, “the making of a special harp from the bones of a murdered man: a harp that sang the truth. The testimony of that instrument saved my father's life, and it saved the future of our islands. At the time, the women from the sea asked Nessa for no payment; indeed, they made her a gift. But she had always believed they would come back to claim what was due to them, and they did. She paid with the life of her only son. I'm sorry,” Creidhe blinked and wiped her eyes. “I did not intend to tell such a sad story at bedtime. It was a long while ago.”

She felt the child stir and raise his small hand to touch her wet cheek, as softly as the brush of a feather. She put her arms around him, gently so as not to frighten him, and closed her eyes a moment. Home was a very long way away. Within her, somewhere, that three-year-old remained, watching helpless as death transformed her sunny world.

“You have many tales of those you call the Seal Tribe?” Keeper's voice still sounded strained; there was no doubt she had upset him. Still, he could hardly expect her to be nonchalant about that panoply of weapons, that wall of skulls.

“Many. There are parts of the Light Isles where they are said to dwell; Holy Island, where the Christian hermits have their community, is one such place. Though the coming of the brothers drove the sea people away from there, I think.”

“Have you ever seen them?”

“No; few people have. The women are said to be very beautiful, and seductive: many a fisherman has yearned to have one for a wife and come to grief because of it.”

“Why would these folk steal a child only to let him drown?”

Creidhe bowed her head, cuddling Small One. “I don't know,” she whispered. “The old women say the Seal Tribe don't feel love and loss as we do. A human child is nothing to them. I suppose they took him in payment and then found they had no use for him. We should not be speaking of this in front of—”

“That story is false,” said Keeper flatly.

Creidhe was astounded. “No, it isn't,” she protested. “My mother was there, she knows—”

“Not all of it. But it is wrong to say these sea people let your brother drown. That is a terrible deed, a murderous deed. That is not the way it was.”

“How can you possibly know that? How can you be so sure?”

“I know, as you know your web shows truth, even when a force outside yourself guides your needle. I am sorry your brother drowned; I understand your father's grief.” He was gazing at Small One now, his eyes shadow-dark. His expression stopped Creidhe's heart, so full of love and fear was it. “Your Kinart died by accident, no more. The folk of earth and ocean do not demand cruel fees from those who honor them. That is not the way of it. Men and women of good heart have no reason to fear such folk.”

“You can't know that. These tales cannot take shape without some grain of truth—”

“The tales are wrong. They come from fear. But you should not fear. It is the tribes of men that are heartless, not the ancient ones.”

“Men can be cruel, it's true,” Creidhe said, thinking of Somerled. “But they can be good and noble too, brave and strong. My father is like that.” She glanced at Eyvind's embroidered image, with which the Journey began: the stalwart, sunny-haired warrior with the wolf pelt on his shoulders. “And there are all sorts in between: men who strive to be valiant, or loyal, or virtuous, and who keep failing; men who start life with advantages and waste them. Women who are selfish, or lazy, or jealous; others who are wise and loving. All sorts.”

She began to roll the Journey up once more; today's additions were dark, full of sorrow, but that was not of her choosing; she could only make truth as she saw it.

“You are sad,” Keeper observed. He had not come to sit close by her this time, but remained a few paces off, standing, arms folded. The wind was stronger tonight, its eddies seeking them out through cracks in the stone walls, making the flames of their hearth fire flicker and tremble, and setting the feathers on Keeper's tunic shivering.

“Not sad exactly.” Creidhe thought about this. “I think what I feel goes beyond sadness. I feel—powerless. There is a great pattern here of blood and death and loss; I would give much to be able to change that, and yet I cannot see any way it can be done. I fear for my friends, across there with Asgrim; I have no idea what has become of them. I fear for Small One, and for you—the risks you take are so great my mind can scarcely encompass them. I am a long way from home, Keeper; it seems everything that happens carries me away just a little farther.”

“You wish the ocean had not brought you to my island?” His face was in shadow; she could not read his expression.

“Strangely, I cannot say yes to that. All along I believed I had some part to play in Thorvald's journey, and although I have been separated from him, I still believe that to be so. I just hope I find out what it is soon. What you showed me today alarmed me. These are unquiet spirits, Keeper. I do not think you are a cruel man. But it is a cruel vengeance not to let them rest, at the last.”

“They brought this on themselves.” Again, the flat statement of fact.

“Certainly they came here knowing they faced death. The hunt is a time of blood. But they came to try to win peace for their tribe, to salvage some hope of a future. Not to hurt Foxmask, only to return him to where he belongs. I do not like what Asgrim did; I did not like what he intended for me. But I can understand their reasons. Keeper, I delivered a child while I was in Brightwater, a boy who would have died without my skills in midwifery. I could not understand the terror that gripped the young mother even after her son was safely born. Then the Unspoken came, the voices, and sang him away. He died there in her arms, a boy who had been whole and sound a moment before. It was cruel, terrible. This was the third infant Jofrid had lost that way. Can't you understand why Asgrim's men would act to stop that happening again? If this continues, the Long Knife people are finished.”

Keeper stared at her. “You argue for the folk who would have sold you to their enemy?”

“I do not support that,” Creidhe said, shivering. “If I did, I would not have tried to escape. I have blood on my hands as you have: men drowned that day because of what I did. But I understand Asgrim's desperation. In such times, men take action that may be judged extreme in years of peace. What I do not understand is why, having defeated your adversary and killed him, you would not then allow him rest. If you sunder a man's head from his body, he cannot move on. You condemn his spirit to roam the wilderness, alone and crying.”

He did not reply, and now Small One wriggled down from her knee and wandered off, out to the open hillside. Creidhe stood up, thinking to follow him, for it was late and in the half-dark the ground was treacherous.

“No need to go,” Keeper said quietly. “The moon rises; he will watch, as he does when it is full. Later he will sleep. Sit down; there is a tale you must hear.”

Creidhe sat, hands folded in her lap.

“When Asgrim's people first came to the islands, there was peace,” Keeper said, squatting down beside her and using his long hands to illustrate his story. “The Unspoken had their seer, their Foxmask; they listened to his wisdom, and it helped them live well, reading the winds and tides, sowing seed by the moon and reaping at the right time, tending their creatures and their children. A hard life, but orderly. The islands were almost empty; there was plenty of room for the Long Knife people, and they settled and lived their lives. Each clan kept to its own islands; the fishing grounds were shared. Foxmask was a very old man. He was blind, and his legs were twisted and useless. He did not go abroad; the Unspoken tended to his every need, brought him food, kept his hut snug and dry. When they sought counsel they came to him. At the turning of the seasons he would sing for them, and in those songs he would set out what was important for the right living of their lives.”

Creidhe nodded; this much she had heard already from Brother Niall.

“Then Foxmask died. There was no other to take his place, no child of a fair-haired mother whose skin rivaled the snow for pallor. Without the wisdom they needed, the Unspoken grew wild and dangerous. It was not long before war broke out with the Long Knife people, a conflict in which many died over the course of the years. Then they took my sister, and for a little, the war ceased.” Keeper closed his eyes.

“You need not speak of this, if—”

“It seems simple to you, doesn't it?” His tone was bitter. “Sula cannot suffer anymore; she is gone. Give them the child, then, let them place him in the position of love and respect that Foxmask deserves, and all will be well. Best for him; best for all. That is what you think.”

Creidhe did not reply.

“Part of what you see for my brother is true. If Asgrim's men took him and passed him to the Unspoken, Small One would indeed become a venerated seer, as his predecessor was. But first they would break his legs and put out his eyes.”

“
What?
” Creidhe's voice was a strangled whisper.

“This ritual was to occur as soon as he was weaned from his mother's breast,” Keeper said flatly. “I took him away just in time. They believe, you see, that to perform his role fully, Foxmask must be as the old man was. I know this. I walked among them. To do what I did, it was necessary to earn their trust. They believe thus, that to close the body's eye is to open further the eye of the spirit. To take away the ability to walk is to anchor the seer in
the heart of his tribe. No matter whether this lore is true or not. If he goes back, they will do it. I do not believe he could survive such an ordeal.”

“Oh, no . . .” Creidhe could hardly speak. That frail child, who had curled so trustingly on her knee: no wonder Keeper guarded him with such violent dedication. “Oh, no . . .”

“Asgrim knows this. Perhaps his men know it as well. Yet the Ruler does not understand why I took my brother. For Asgrim, to sacrifice a child for the good of the tribe is entirely justified. Even his own kin. He has shown that he cares nothing for the bonds of blood. It was not his legacy that bound me and Sula together, that binds me now to her son.”

“I don't know what to say,” Creidhe whispered, clutching her arms around herself, “save that I am sorry I doubted your wisdom; had I been in your position, I hope I would have had the courage to do the same. This is . . . it is sad beyond belief. There are no answers here.” It was inevitable; the hunt would go on, and men would be killed, and Keeper would put his life at risk over and over. Her mind showed her Asgrim's men advancing, to be cut down one by one, their bodies strewn across the island. Thorvald and Sam were with Asgrim; would they, too, lie in their blood before this summer was over?