By These Ten Bones (2 page)

Maddie brought the filled flask back to the old man and hurried off with her carving across the muddy ground of the township. Every house in the community was one room wide and several rooms long, built of thick earthen walls and a heavy turf roof covered with brown heather thatch. Long weeds straggled across the older roofs. No house had windows, and the walls grew a friendly layer of grass and moss. They looked less like works of human architecture than animal dens, snug and safe against the winter storms. They had no chimneys, and the bluish smoke that rose from the peat fires burning within percolated out through the thatch roofs here and there like steam rising off the back of a cow.

Maddie reached her home. The two family sheep sprang from the doorway at her approach and scampered off. She ducked under the low door frame and stayed bent, keeping her head under the thickest layers of smoke.

Inside, the house was dark and quiet, warm and welcoming, smelling pleasantly of burning peat. A small fire of coals glowed in the hearth ring at the center of the dirt floor. After a short time, her eyes adjusted to the gloom and the haze of blue smoke. Furniture emerged from the darkness. The big box bed stood by an interior wall, its sides and top covered with boards to keep off grimy drops of moisture. Low stools grouped companionably by the hearth. Wicker boxes and the large wooden meal chest stood against the far wall. Wooden bowls and cups tumbled together on a shelf. Long sticks made a framework in the corner for the chickens to roost on at night, and a straw bed waited for the little brown sheep. The kettle on its long iron chain hung over the fire, and her mother's cooking utensils lay nearby. Fish and meat dangled from strings and hooks overhead, drying in the dense smoke, and above them, rising to a peak all but invisible in the darkness, lay the roof, its ceiling of long, thick sapling poles covered with soot. Even the spiderwebs that hung in shadowy profusion from the rafters were a shiny, sooty black.

Maddie's father, James, wove clothing and blankets for the community. His loom occupied an area at the lower end of the house, with its own door for light. But a wall separated it entirely from the main living room in order to reduce the smoke and soot. The family had to go out of doors and back in again to get to the weaving room.

Having seen nothing he needed from the Travelers' wares, James was at work again, singing as he threw the shuttle back and forth across the web of the loom. Maddie's mother, called Fair Sarah for her honey-colored hair, had seen several things she did need. Now Fair Sarah stood in the storeroom, considering what to trade. Maddie put the little carved tree on a shelf near the box bed and went to help her mother.

Maddie had spent almost every day of her life near this house, within sight of this tiny township, absorbed in the activities and accomplishments of her relations who farmed there. Every rise of ground and every rock was as familiar to her as the expressions on all the faces she knew so well. For the most part, the girl was content that this should be so. She would raise her own family within the beautiful green walls of the enfolding hills. She would return the care her parents had given her, place grandchildren in their laps, and close their eyes in their final sleep. Then her parents would lie peacefully beneath the moss of the old churchyard while she prayed for their souls in the little stone church. Her children would grow up to care for her, and the cycle of life would continue.

Only one detail of this pleasant picture still eluded the girl: a husband to help her father in the fields. The men of Maddie's settlement had fought hard for their defeated chief in the battles that had preceded her birth. Many lives had been lost, and in the downturn of the valley's fortunes, families had moved away. Widows were plentiful, but young men were scarce, and the few who remained didn't seem satisfactory. Maddie wasn't particularly worried, however. The problem of a husband would keep for another year or two, and perhaps the men would improve.

That night, Black Ewan feasted the Travelers at his big house so that they could tell their news and share their tales. The townspeople all came to enjoy the songs and stories, lining the long, smoky main room on benches or stools and spilling out into the cool night. The harvest would shortly be upon them, and they would soon be hard at work. They wouldn't have another such evening until the start of winter.

Maddie was there and gave out a song when bidden, but she looked in vain for the wood-carver. He wasn't sitting with the other strangers, and no one else seemed to have missed him. What would he be doing all by himself in the long summer twilight? Twilight was a dangerous time. Restless spirits and unholy beasts walked abroad until day. She worried about him as she listened to the tales.

“In a time not so far off, and in a valley not so far away, a group of boys went walking by the loch,” said her uncle Colin the Smith. “All their kin had gone to Mass, but the day was hot, and they crept away together for a swim. No sooner had their feet touched the water than they saw a pretty sight. A white pony came trotting toward them along the shore.

“‘Let's ride him!' proposed the oldest, and the others agreed. Only the littlest boy hung back.

“‘He's not a horse,' the child protested, but the rest only laughed.

“They led the friendly pony over to a big rock, and they all began to climb on. Each boy found that there was room for him before they realized what was happening. The pony had stretched longer and longer in the middle until it looked like a big white lizard. ‘Get off! Get off!' shrieked the littlest boy. ‘I told you he's not a horse!'

“But now the boys discovered that they were stuck tight to the back of their mount. The strange pony threw back its pretty white head and laughed a long, loud horse's laugh.

“The little boy on the ground made the sign of the cross. In an instant, the illusion was gone. Instead of the pony, a great sea serpent thrashed on the shore of the loch. It dragged its screaming riders under the waves, and they were never seen again. They'd been taken by the Water Horse, shown for once in his own real shape.”

The listeners nodded with satisfaction at this familiar story. Everyone who lived near water knew of the Water Horse. Usually he stayed deep below the surface of his home, the loch, but he watched for the unwary, appearing in pleasant disguises to lure them away. Once he trapped them, they couldn't escape. He pulled them into the water and gnawed the meat from their bones.

Maddie worried again about the wood-carver. He was a stranger to their country. Did he know to avoid the loch at night, when the shadow world came into its powers? Something about those green eyes made her keep thinking of him. He couldn't speak, but with such eyes, maybe he didn't need to.

As Maddie brought breakfast to Lady Mary in the castle the next morning, she saw the Travelers packing their ponies. By the time she came back, two of them were gone, but the carver and his grimy companion had stayed behind. The young man sat on a stone taking apart Lady Mary's box, and the old man was on his feet arguing with Father Mac.

The parish priest was a big, strong man with a thick neck and hands like slabs of beef. He was always out among the townspeople, working at the planting and harvesting or up on the roof mending thatch. It was said of him that he was one of the sons of a chief and could have had land and men for the asking, but he had run away instead to study Holy Writ.

“Father Mac?” Maddie had asked when she was a little girl. “Father MacWho?”

“Now, lass, that's a secret,” he had told her gravely. “People should feel that their parish priest belongs to them, but the instant I tell my name, I have a whole set of friends and enemies. If I were Father Mackintosh or Father MacLeod, well, the Mackintosh and MacLean clans are at feud, and so are the MacLeods and the MacKenzies. Once, when I was studying with the bishop, another student heard my name and gave me a blow there and then. It isn't right for a priest to be scrapping like that. My hands are consecrated.”

Crossing the boggy ground on the stepping stones, Maddie could hear the old Traveler's raised voice. “Thirty silver pennies, and not a penny less,” he said in his funny accent. “Don't be saying you can't afford it, neither. I know about you clergies.”

Father Mac spread his big hands apologetically. “I could never raise such a sum for a new Madonna for our church. But our old statue isn't anything to match his talent, and the whole parish would be grateful. It would be a good deed, something to help him in the hereafter.”

“Hereafter?” scoffed the Traveler. “That don't mean a thing to him. He don't got a hereafter.”

As Father Mac framed a philosophical response to this, he caught sight of the approaching girl. “Good morning, young Madeleine,” he rumbled. “How are your parents this fine day?”

“Both well, Father,” she answered. “Dad hopes you'll have a chess game with him tonight.”

“Willingly,” said the priest. “Tell him I'll come once the lamps are lit. I'm Father Mac,” he told the Traveler, extending his hand.

“Ned,” rejoined the old man, shaking hands with the priest. “Thirty pennies for the statue,” he repeated, to show that the handshake wouldn't help.

“What's his name?” asked Maddie, pointing at the young man busy with his carving work.

“He don't got a name,” answered Ned with a shrug. “What does he need with one?”

 

A few days later, Maddie slowed her walk up from the old castle, where she had delivered Lady Mary's breakfast. She was enjoying the lovely morning. The sky was a deep, clear blue, and the loch was sparkling. The sun had climbed over the rim of the hills to the east, filling the valley with shades of green and turning the grain fields gold. Purple heather bloomed on the hillsides, looking rusty brown in the distance.

Near the path from the castle were several great gray boulders, sunk waist-deep in the mud and moss. The wood-carver was sitting on one of these, his tools spread out around him and the top panel of Lady Mary's box across his knees. But he wasn't doing his work. He was looking at the high hills that rose in jagged walls along either side of the valley. For the last several days, the low clouds had covered them completely.

Maddie walked quietly up behind the young man and stood beside the boulder, looking over his shoulder at his carving. On the flat box panel, leafy vines stretched and twined in complex knots, curving over and under one another like her father's checkered weaving patterns. As soon as he realized she was there, the carver fell to work again, reaching for a thin chisel.

“This line of hills on this side, we call them the Green Hills,” she told him, just as if he had asked her. “And the hills over there are the Black Hills because the pine woods look black when it rains. No one knows why the Green Hills don't have any woods on them, but they don't, and Little Ian says that if you plant a tree there it will die.”

The mysterious young man glanced up at the hills as she spoke, and she gathered courage.

“That peak there,” she said, pointing, “that's the Old Woman. Now is the only time of year she doesn't wear her kerchief of snow. And the peak right in front of us, where the two ridges meet and the valley ends, that's the Herdsman. All the clouds come to the Herdsman, and then they stop and rain because they can't get away.” The wood-carver looked from peak to peak as she pointed, his white face thoughtful and interested.

“Our town is called the Chief's Home, and the castle by the loch is called the Chief's House because our chief used to live there. But before I was born, the new lord came to take the land. Our men turned out for the chief, but he lost in the fighting and went away. The battles went on for years, and we fought for him every time he tried to come back. He's dead now. The new lord put Lady Mary in the castle. We think she's kin to the new lord's wife, but she doesn't ever say.”

The young man turned on his boulder to look back at the abandoned castle, its stark, square form rising from the shore of the loch, its tower doorway gaping and empty, and its paths covered over in grass. Long black smears of mildew stained the gray walls, a bleak sight on that lovely day. So the carver knew her language after all, decided Maddie, even though his clothes were so strange. Father Mac said breeches were English.

“Would you like a piece of bannock?” she asked, reaching into her basket. “My mother just made it.”

Immediately the spell was broken, or maybe the spell resumed. The wood-carver went back to work, his face hidden behind his hair. Maddie stood there for a little while, watching the wood shavings lift before the chisel blade. At last she sighed and walked away, leaving part of an oatcake on the boulder beside him.

Some time later, Black Ewan walked by the boulder, and he, too, studied the carving, but he was not as impressed with the delicate work as the friendly girl had been. Harvesttime was here, and the harvest was good, but they lacked the hands to gather it. He could remember when there had been enough men to bring in the harvest and row the big war galley, too. Now widows did the work of the men who had fallen in battle.

Black Ewan had the running of his dead brother's house, lands, and herds, with his brother's widow and her two children to look after and the three men who worked his fields to command. He was the most important farmer in the settlement, and he ran most things there, seeing that the other widows and their children worked hard and didn't go hungry. He was both fair and good to them, but he brooded in the evenings over the lost pride and hope of his youth.

Black Ewan had been named for his black hair, but the name was a good match to his temper. He had stayed by his chief and wandered with him through long, uncertain years, hiding, organizing the men for battle, hoping for victory, and finally bringing his fallen leader's body home to rest with his fathers when hope was gone at last. Black Ewan had returned after all that time to find everything changed. A stranger woman lived in his dead chief's castle. His sweetheart worked for that woman, and she didn't want to marry him anymore. Perhaps she just thought herself too old for marriage, but he blamed Lady Mary. His sweetheart had sickened and died years ago, but he still didn't forget. He had heard new sermons during his wandering years, words full of righteousness and rigor. He was far more interested in the Old Law, with its eye given for an eye, than he was in Father Mac's sermons of compassion and love.