Mythology Abroad (10 page)

C
HAPTER ELEVEN

“Another bloody boring day in Inverness,” Charles grunted, throwing himself into a booth in the local pub they frequented a few days later. “I’m ready to go home. If I have to sit for one more day on the steps of Inverness Castle until the sun goes down, I’ll just jump off the bank into the river. At least that’ll give me a different view.”

The weather had continued to be bright and warm, which only exacerbated the boys’ annoyance that they couldn’t be out at the dig site.

“If it had been gloomy, we’d have a reason to stay off. But you know if he said to come it’d rain every day,” Martin pointed out.

“Unless you fish or play golf, there’s not much to do, once you’ve hit all the tourist traps,” Keith said gloomily. He propped his chin up on his hands and glanced at Holl. That afternoon, they had been out as far as they could range on rented bicycles, looking for Holl’s bellflowers. He was frustrated, hot, and his legs ached. He hated to guess how Holl felt. The spirit of tolerance among the tour group was fast dissipating. It was a good thing that week was coming to an end.

“I knew I could find you here,” said a low-pitched female voice. They looked up to see Narit standing beside their booth. “May I join you?”

“Of course,” Matthew said, standing up to let her slide in along the bench.

“We thought you liked to spend the evenings with the other ladies,” Alistair added, abashed.

She tossed her head, and her long pigtail whiplashed. “It is all right when we are busy,” Narit answered patiently, “but when there is nothing to do all they talk about is ailments and grandchildren. I have neither. I don’t care to stay in and watch the
East Enders
so I came looking for you. Do you mind?”

“Far from it,” said Keith gallantly. “We thought you wanted to stay in and talk girl talk.”

“Sometimes. I wish there were more girls my age on this tour, because then I would have somewhere I belonged when this happens.”

“I know what you mean,” Holl put in. Their search for the object of Holl’s quest had been fruitless so far. Keith had pushed himself extra miles if they even spotted a glimpse of white in the undergrowth at the side of the road and pedaled back to report, saving Holl the effort. He was grateful, but it would take more than gratitude to solve the knotty problem he was wrestling with. The internal argument still roiled within him. He knew that if he found the white flowers tomorrow, he’d be on the jet home to Maura that afternoon, Ireland or no Ireland.

He had also been unable to make contact with his folk except by use of the telephone. It wasn’t easy to conceal from Keith how unhappy it made him being isolated from his family and friends, but it wasn’t fair to worry him with a new concern. “You
didn’t
do anything wrong at the dig, did you?”

“No!” Narit protested. “I sorted the small pieces exactly the way his assistant told me to, and I entered the notations very neatly, precisely as they were written on the sheets. When I looked up, he was there, glaring at me. I had no idea what he thinks.”

“No one’s blaming you,” Keith said soothingly. “I think he hates women. We’ve all come to the conclusion that Stroud’s an a—uh, idiot.”

“Aye.” There was a chorus of agreement. Max grinned at Keith. He knew that the American had substituted a last minute euphemism out of consideration for Narit. Holl watched the glance, and added his own smile. These young people had formed a common front against an enemy, and were supporting one another. He enjoyed socializing like this. It was so easy for Big Folk to get to know strangers, to make friends with them. Some of their ways were worth exporting to the Little Folk. If he made headman one day, he’d incorporate some of their notions into daily life—slowly, of course. But that also meant completing his quest. He didn’t know what to do.

“You’ve not been at the Bored Meetings these last couple of afternoons,” Charles accused Keith. “We were counting on a full membership on the castle steps.”

“Oh, well,” Keith said. “Holl and I have been out having a look around. The Highlands have a lot of mystical associations, and I’m interested in that sort of thing. You might call me a … research mythologist.”

“Come again?”

“I track down the source of legends. I’m really interested in how those old stories got started. I mean besides Nessie,” he said, forestalling Charles from making the obvious association. “There’s thousands of fascinating tales in your history. This place is great for legends.”

“What, like Robin Hood, or King Arthur?” Alistair asked.

“No, more like magical things,” Keith corrected him, warming to his favorite topic. “Dragons, elves, unicorns, banshees, you know. There’s legends about things of magic in every early culture. You wonder where they all came from.”

“I don’t,” Martin protested.

“So you go about like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, eh? Looking for fairies and so on?” Matthew asked, an eyebrow arched cynically skyward.

“Only partly. He believed in those things with all his heart. I do, but I’ve got to convince my head, too.”

“Ah,” Martin nodded sagely. He and Martin exchanged winks. “Well then. We might have something to show you later, eh?”

“Do you believe in the unseen, Keith?” Narit asked in her soft, lilting voice. She seldom spoke up in the group, so Keith turned his whole attention to her. “My family believes in karma. I practice with the Tarot cards, myself. I find they have great meaning for me. The symbols here are not familiar in my people’s history, but they have their equivalents. May I read the cards for you?” She reached for her handbag. From it she drew a silk-wrapped bundle as long as her hand and half as wide.

“Well, uh, why not?” Keith accepted, a little unsurely. “Thanks. I’d really appreciate it. How do you do it?”

“I shuffle the cards,” she began, taking the silk off and smoothing the edge of the deck with her fingers. The backs were a plain bicolored design, but the faces were exotic and colorful. Keith peeked at them as Narit shuffled. She separated the cards into two piles and sifted them together again and again with skillful motions. “Cut.”

Keith gathered a third of the deck between thumb and forefinger and handed it to her. Narit took the remainder and placed it on top of the smaller section. “The last card of the section you chose is your significator, the card which represents you in this reading.” She pulled the card from the bottom of the combined deck. It showed a young man with a hobo’s bundle over one shoulder and a dog romping behind him up a craggy path. “The Fool.”

The others laughed. “Good choice, Keith,” Charles crowed.

“He represents potential, substance rather than form.” She dealt the cards into a cross and to its right an extra column of four starting at the bottom up. “That’s interesting. You have several of the Major Arcana in your reading. This means that much of your situation is not of your own devising, that you’re being led by circumstances rather than creating them. Is that right?”

“I don’t know. What circumstances?”

“Well, since you didn’t ask a specific question, it usually means your life’s path. Many things which you think you encounter by chance are karmically arranged. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. It means there is much power in your life. It is far from ordinary.”

Keith glanced surreptitiously at Holl, whose eyebrows were in his hairline. The others hooted. “I guess. What does the rest mean?”

Delicately, she turned over the cards one at a time. “Here in your potential future is the Star. Whether that means help will come to you, or that you will provide help for others is yet open to question. Ah!” Narit’s voice took on a note of concern as she flipped the card at the right arm of the cross. It showed a crowned turret being struck by lightning. Keith’s eyebrows lifted. “The Tower. There will be the abrupt end of a path, and a new beginning. It can mean death, but you needn’t take it as that. Your final outcome is the Three of Cups, which shows fulfillment and celebration, so it is doubtful the Tower predicts a death in this case.”

“Well, what does Death mean?” Keith asked, poking a finger at another card, which depicted a cloaked skeleton wielding a sickle, the second card from the bottom of the column of four.

“Change,” Narit said promptly. “Many times for the good. Death is not a threat if you consider the pitfalls of everlasting life.”

“I’d want to live forever,” Charles put in. “Who wouldn’t?”

“Only if you could get replacement parts,” Keith replied mildly, enumerating them. “Teeth, hair, eyes, knees …”

“D’you really believe in this stuff?” Martin exploded scornfully, amused by the serious acceptance Keith offered Narit.

“Karma works in your life whether you believe in it or not,” Narit said coolly. “Do you want to know your own future?”

“Not me!”

“I would,” Holl piped up.

“Think of a question, if you have one.” Narit gathered the cards as she had before, and shuffled them deftly. Holl reached out to pick up half of the deck, and found his fingers only wanted a small fraction. There was something to these cards. They weren’t charmed themselves, but felt rather more like a conduit of power. He leaned forward curiously.

“The Hermit. You seek, as Diogenes did,” Narit said, her voice seeming to Holl to come from far away. “He is alone in all ways, in his mind, his heart. This is a very old card for a child.”

Holl ignored the inference. “What do the others mean?”

Narit turned them all face up before speaking again. She pointed to a card with the face of a jolly, fat man among some cups. “Your finish is the Nine of Cups. It is also known as the wish card. You will have all that you require at the end. But there are many obstacles through which you must pass before getting your wish. It is by no means certain. The cards do not guarantee what you see. They are merely guidelines. You have several rod cards in this reading, trials of the spirit, and you are crossed by the Chariot, which is a balancing influence and an outside force that you might see at first as a barrier, someone or something which has mastery over you. But you will be aided in the end by the Star. Help from a friend.”

Overwhelmed, Holl could say little more than “Thank you.” He retired back in his corner with his St. Clement’s to think.

“That sounded a lot of mumbo jumbo,” Matthew said, but his face was uncertain. Narit glanced at him reprovingly, and mixed the cards once more.

“Go ahead, cut,” she ordered. “I think I can do one more tonight.”

Tentatively, Matthew reached out to the long deck, picked up half and set it firmly on the table next to the other half. Narit picked up both halves, and began to deal them. “You are the Page of Swords. In the past you have been the Knight of Pentacles, interested in the material world and somewhat advanced there, but here at present, you’re the Hermit, looking for something else,” Narit said, pointing at one card after another. “Crossing you is the King of Pentacles.”

“What’s that mean?” Matthew asked, interested in spite of himself.

“A master of Earth, a teacher, a father, a man of authority with regard to the physical world, also the material or financial. Ah, here, where you appear once again, is the Knight of Swords. The seeker of Air.”

“Oh, that’s the truth,” Martin said cynically. “Hot air, it is, too.” Matthew’s elbow took him in the midriff. “Oof!”

“Air is intellectual attainment,” Narit continued, as if Martin hadn’t spoken. She had a quiet authority when she handled the cards, and the boys were impressed. “Here is Death, who may be changing your life. If you win through your struggles,” the forefinger picked out a sword card and a pentacle card showing a man hugging sacks of gold, “you will come to the Four of Rods, which is contentment. Rods deal with the attainments of the spirit.” She met his eyes and studied him closely. “You have decisions to make soon.”

Matthew glanced at her with new respect. “Thank you,” he said sincerely as she bent her head to gather up the cards. He fell silent, and studied the far wall. In a moment, he realized the others were staring at him.

He drained his glass, noisily. “I’ll get the next round, shall I?” he asked the table. “Narit, what’ll you have?”

O O O

“Well, that’s it. I’m clappit out,” Charles said at about ten o’clock. He felt around in his pocket for money and came up with only twelve pence. “Until I find the till machine, that’s it for me.”

“I’m skint, too,” Martin said. Hopefully, they both turned to Keith.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” that youth said, flinging up his hands. “I’m broke for tonight, too.”

“Ach, you rich Americans,” Edwin said scornfully, looking up from the glass of beer he was nursing. It was down to an inch or so of dark amber fluid. “You know you’re rolling in it. You could cough up a little for one more pint.”

“Look, this rich American had to buy a plane ticket here,” Keith protested. “You guys only had to buy three pound train tickets from Edinburgh.”

Matthew cocked his head wryly. “Not even that. Martin’s father motored us down here.”

“See?” Keith said defensively. “Look, I’m sorry, but what money I’ve got has got to last me another three weeks. I haven’t even bought my girlfriend a present yet. Not that I have any idea what she’d like. She’s hard to buy for. But she’ll kill me if I come home empty-handed.”

“Yer a stingy old goldpockets,” Edwin slurred, leaning toward Keith threateningly.

“It takes one to know one,” Keith shot back, angling toward the other. “Isn’t it supposed to be Scotsmen who can squeeze a penny until it screams?”

“You—you
capitalist,
”
Edwin spat, raising his fist. Keith braced himself.

“Hey!” Shocked, Alistair rose and put an arm between them. “None of this, now. Sit down. Perhaps we’ve all had a drop too much.”

Keith felt a tug on his sleeve. “Keith Doyle,” Holl whispered. “To quote your Robin Williams, doesn’t the name General Custer mean anything to you?”

The red-haired youth was overwhelmed by a wave of shame. “I’m drunk. No doubt about it. I’m only this tactless when I’m blasted.” He put out a hand to Edwin. “I’m sorry, Ed. See, Narit was right. I am the Fool. That was a stupid remark, considering I’m surrounded by thousands of people who would be totally right to mash my head through the pavement for spouting stupid stereotypes. I am a dunce. But honest, I’ve really got to stretch my budget.”