The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (26 page)

“That was the same day they had planned to go out testing that wretched boat. The whole village was there to see them off. At the last minute your mother decided to go too, and handed you to me to take home. But I went up to the west cliff so that we could watch. Even with them that far out, I noticed a tussle of some sort. Then the whole boat capsized and I thought them all gone forever. Who could have blamed my poor brother if he had seized a chance to push Artin in – but some people lead a charmed life. Abusing hospitality seems a family failing round here.”

“But it doesn’t make me the bastard!” hissed Fearn, now silhouetted in the doorway. “My mother loved him, you know, and she loved me, and once upon a time my father loved her! She was his wife! But you wouldn’t give up the beads he had made for her when he still pined for her and his distant home. Even after you had to thrust his love-child in her face! Eggs – she threw them at him, all of them – and they were rotten too! I forget nothing!” said Fearn with a terrible matter-of-factness.

Grizzel had seized the broom. Niav had finished scrabbling around for her scattered clothes. “Get out, you bastard’s bastard. You leave now, not tomorrow!”

“Yes, perfect timing, into the setting sun!”

They harried him down the cluttered compound, tripping up on hay-rakes and buckets and panicked livestock, past the weaving-hut and the herb garden and stumbling through the clutch of hives. The last they saw of him, he was running, screaming, towards the river, followed by a cloud of bees.

Grizzel dusted off her palms and walked sedately back towards the well. She undid her jet necklace, held it for a moment catching the sunlight and then, pushing the well cover aside, she dropped it clattering down the shaft.

***

Aunty Grizzel sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands. Niav suddenly remembered how tired she must be – she had been called out at crack of dawn on a blisteringly hot day.

“Was the birth all right in the end?”

“Yes, she should be fine – but she has lost a lot of blood.”

“And the baby?”

“Two boys!”

“Well, you thought it might be twins. Now you lie down. I will get you a nice camomile tea and then start the meal – at least I will know how many to cook for this time!”

At this, astonishingly, Aunty Grizzel burst into tears. Niav had never known her to cry real gulping tears, not in her whole life – she was more used to Grizzel comforting hers.

“I should not have done that,” said Aunty Grizzel shakily. “That was a beautiful thing and I should have given it to you long since – my stupid temper, why must I do these things!”

“Your necklace? Why on earth to me? Maybe it should have been buried with Fearn’s mum, and anyway, didn’t you help to make it?”

“I only helped Artin to string it and, we were making it for Orchil, Artin’s much-loved wife – he planned to take it to her when he sailed away, but of course that never happened. I have never had any right to it. It should have been yours because poor Orchil wanted you to have it. Don’t you have any memories of my going out the night she was dying? Artin came back to fetch me.

“When Artin came down to see us at the weaving-hut, it was to get medicine for her as much as the necklace, but most importantly she had wanted him to bring the pair of us back with him to the bothy.

“But the fool failed to handle it right. For all his magic, Artin can be bad at asking for favours that he really cares about – he ended up picking a quarrel with me. That is why the poor woman threw the eggs at him in desperation (and they were fine, by the way – Fearn remembered that wrong). She knew that she was dying. She was afraid Fearn would be put to work in the copper mines and she wanted him taken somewhere where that wouldn’t happen to a child, and he could be safe till he was old enough to travel round with Artin.”

“Couldn’t they take him to all those relatives up in the mountains Artin carved?”

“That is a very long journey – she didn’t think there was time, and she was right. Believe me Niav, Orchil was every bit as wonderful as Artin had always told me that she was, and she could not have been kinder. She said Artin trusted me, and neither of them mentioned my brother Diarma at all. Being asked by her to care for Fearn was an honour. She didn’t begrudge your existence in the least. She felt you could be the daughter she would never be able to have, and she wanted the necklace to go down to you.”

“Then why all the wretched secrecy?” said Niav in a tired voice.

Grizzel studied her for a moment. “Didn’t I explain clear enough just now? Your parents were respected as healers. My brother Diarma was a great man – your mother and I would not have had him shamed, even after death. I could not bear the thought of Lurgan’s gloating if he had known of my brother’s betrayal. What angered me most was your mother’s stupidity choosing a partner to make her baby with who came from a family that carried such distinctive features. It isn’t as though she didn’t know. Artin’s brothers had been very busy for years round here – why do you think they doled out so many presents? But that green bead is special – and Artin’s intentions were clear. I should have told you then.”

Niav was wide-eyed, remembering some of the other children who had received gifts.

“Quite,” Grizzel said drily, seeing her face. “But I think cousins would have been all right. Let’s face it, everyone is a cousin of someone else round here. We didn’t know you might meet any actual brothers then. But I was very angry with your mother Befind – not to her face, but angry.” She recounted her finding of Befind on the beach. “I couldn’t tell anyone what I thought I had seen my brother do – could I? I could only get nonsense out of Befind. I told everyone she had been dead, but she wasn’t.”

“But she did say goodbye to me?” Niav was crying too. “What was the nonsense?”

“Yes, she said goodbye, and she was still beautiful. She said something inconsequential about Seyth’s death. You see, her corpse had washed in by your snake stone too, and it was she and I that found her. Your Mother was blaming the bung of her stupid dug-out boat again, still living in the past – ridiculous last words for a woman like her to go out on – better to say nothing.”

By the time Niav made the tea Aunty Grizzel had fallen asleep.

It seemed a bit pointless to do any cooking. Niav went out into the sun-kissed evening and walked on past the well to see if the bees had settled down.

Niav hadn’t heard the necklace hit the water and she knew how long it should have taken; they regularly registered the depth of water with her dad’s – no, Diarma’s – knotted string which still hung by the door. She knew the level was way down and that the roots could snag things.

“Well, should I?” she asked them.

The bees didn’t say “No.”

She shifted the lid right over as far as possible and gave the bucket rope a couple of extra twists round the hitching post for strength. With a last look at the darkening sky, she let the bucket drop right down to the water level and swung herself over the edge.

Once she got past the stone lipping, encroaching roots glimmered through the wattle that lined the earthen walls, and the air smelled cool and moist like leaf-mould. Down she swung and down, and still no luck. She was just giving up hope in the semi-darkness when she spotted something that spun and glittered just near the waterline. It was terrifying reaching down that far but with a frantic grab that almost made her lose her hold on the rope, she got it. The jet necklace.

As she tried to regain her breath for the long haul up, the unearthly stillness of the well was shattered by a furious Aunt Grizzel, who, having guessed what she was doing, was yelling at her down the shaft. Niav almost let the precious necklace slip, but just in time she grabbed it back and knotted it firmly in her belt. The climb up was going to be hard and she started to feel the first drops of much needed rain. Up above, Aunty Grizzel continued shouting at her in a most unhelpful way.

“Why, you could have died down there and never been found till the water went rotten … and where would that have got anyone?”

Niav had succeeded in getting herself almost walking up the well wall, finding her footing in the wattle, when, unnervingly, her foot snagged itself through some slimy loop of root. It was exhausting trying to pull herself out, as the rain pelted harder and stung her eyes. She leaned down and managed to haul the root loose from the well wall, but it stayed clinging to her foot. She simply couldn’t shake it off. As she swung there in the semi-darkness, it seemed not to want to let her go. It was not a root at all, but a longish, flexible wand of wood – partly snapped, but encased in what seemed to be plaited strips of snakeskin that had twisted themselves most successfully round her ankle.

“Would this be what I think it is?” challenged Niav, as she finally hauled herself over the lip of the well and waved her unexpected trophy in the face of an equally furious Aunty Grizzel. “Something else you should have saved for me?” It had to be her mother’s missing sacred barra.

***

The rain beat down on the roof-turf during a long night of recriminations, but the next day, as Niav and her aunt were enjoying their bread and honey in the freshness of reconciliation and a sun-and-birdsong morning, a raging Kyle came crashing his way up from the river.

“Where is that arsehole Fearn?” he roared at his bewildered relatives. “He has killed Father!”

***

Grizzel and Niav were still completely bewildered as they fought to row their coracle across the swollen river, Niav with her newly mended barra at her belt.

“It must have been an accident. That thing is sharp and Uncle Lurgan had no right to have taken it.”

“Calm down. We will see exactly what has happened when we get there,” panted Aunt Grizzel, looking at the new patch of dark cloud moving in from the north. “That could be another downpour – I don’t fancy getting trapped on the east side if we turn out to be unpopular.”

“They might not even let us in – there isn’t much reason why they should.”

“Interesting that it was hidden in Helygen’s ‘Dangerous Herbs’ basket all this time. I wonder how Fearn found out?”

“I told you – when he came to say his goodbyes yesterday, he seemed to know where the blade was, and he intended to get it. But I just don’t see how it would have been hidden in there. I know the basket was kept well out of our reach in the roof beams – but it’s not as though she didn’t winch it down often when she was teaching us; all those neat little jars securely sealed. We have used it lots of times. I never got a hint of anything concealed in it.”

“Poor Kyle – he is shattered. He may have got that bit wrong. They have had a long night.”

“I hope he doesn’t find him.”

They beached the coracle and headed up the hillside. Lurgan’s hut – the ancient home of Niav’s family – was a large, thatched, almost square building with the significant feature these days of having more than one room. It stood slightly set apart from the other buildings – a venerable place. Today it was in turmoil, or as near to turmoil as the east side ever got. Several of the assembled lady mourners gave a slight gasp as Grizzel and Niav arrived in the doorway.

Estra seemed to be the one in charge. After a moment’s hesitation, she hurried over to greet them, gliding effortlessly through the milling crowd of well-wishers in an impressively dignified way. She ushered them over to where her mother was sitting, placed formally before the dresser, hunched among a huddle of her cooing and sobbing neighbours next to the wattle bier, suitably draped in his second best cloak, where a very clean Uncle Lurgan had been laid out in his finest kilt and cape in the light from the door. His dead fingers had been bent around his hard-won greenstone axe, and they had even given him his hat. Niav had always seen Uncle Lurgan’s hat as the symbol of his pomposity; now it somehow seemed fitting and almost stately. His hound lay sleeping, slumped beside the bier, as if he knew his master would never wake.

Poor Aunty Helygen looked up at them as they came in. Niav could have sworn she saw her eyes flicker at the sight of the barra at her waist, but she didn’t say a word. Grizzel didn’t seem to register this at all and ran over and folded her in a warm embrace. Helygen clung to her, sobbing fiercely.

Estra left them to it and drew Niav over to the comparative privacy of the woman’s section of the hut. “I am so glad you’ve got here,” she whispered. “However did you find out? The river seems to be running very high – who managed to tell you?”

“Kyle came storming over to us – whatever happened?”

“You haven’t seen Fearn?”

“Not since late yesterday afternoon. If someone stabbed your dad, Fearn hadn’t got the blade then – so when on earth did this happen? Kyle was pretty difficult to get any sense out of.”

“Kyle wasn’t here. He came home just as Father breathed his last. The rest of us were, though. We heard them shouting outside and then Dad came staggering in. It was definitely Fearn, I’m afraid. Whatever came over him?”

Niav gave Estra a brief account of yesterday’s revelations.

“Fearn’s your
brother
!” Estra almost shouted, her mask of composure cracking for a moment. “And your barra – it seems it’s found you too,” she observed with unconvincing brightness, resuming the whisper.

Niav felt a distinct chill at the odd, widening sparkle in her cousin’s eyes – just as she used to look when she put on her creepy voice and told them all some fearful story. “Oh,
your
barra will be making itself known to you any day now, I am sure,” said Niav hurriedly. She had no intention of divulging anything about her journey down the well to Estra, who would no doubt construct some completely unwelcome significance from it. Niav did not want yesterday’s simple recovery of two misplaced items to become some esoteric legend of questing for her heritage in the deep.

“Fearn’s your
brother
!” This time it was Canya, who had stumbled in from the curtained room at the back.

“Oh do go back and lie down, Canya,” said Estra, all concern. “She really isn’t well at all,” she whispered, turning to Niav. “You know the way traumas always go right to her stomach.”