The Last Stitch (The Chronicles of Eirie: 2) (3 page)

Chapter Four

Ebba sat thinking of the dead girl and her morbid quest to deliver the souls to Veniche and into the waiting hands of Jasper.
Why, why? Oh Aine, Mother Mine, please help me, tell me what this is about.
She had hoped never to have dealings with the old Faeran, not whilst Phelim...

She thought of her stepson down at the withy, sweat dripping off his brow, the sheep gripped between hi
s legs as he clipped the fleece away. She could imagine the dusty light, the bleating and moaning of the sheep, the smell of lanolin and droppings. Her Phelim would be enjoying every sweaty, aching, exhausting moment despite...

Jasper. His name came back again and again and she shuddered at the memory.
Damn, the pipe’s gone out.
She thrust it on the settle and walked to the door, determined a walk would heal her troubled mind.

The fragrance of ocean wafted amongst the trees and the wind shifted once again more southerly. Ebba stopped on the track to dig between the roots of a wild hazelnut tree and presently a dark mound of rotted fungus lay in her hands. The smell wafted upward as she stowed the truffles, later to be shaved into the creamy potage that simmered in her kitchen. Further on she found some honeysuckle crawling up the tumbled remains of an old mill and which would aid in the understanding of mysteries. She shook out a calico bag to place the leaves gently inside, being careful not to bruise or damage the surfaces, hanging the bag from her belt. As she walked on she seemed like some strange chatelaine whose belted keys were strange bags of herbage and flower and which neither rattled nor clanged.

‘Lady, I can smell the fungus from the other side of the glade.’

A figure materialised at her side and stepped along in unison and Ebba betrayed no surprise at her companion’s sudden appearance. Indeed the arrival was welcome because she could feel herself beginning to dwell on her stepson and unpleasant matters. ‘Mr. No Name, it’s a while since we spoke.’ She was wary of thanking him directly for speaking to her. To show such gratitude would send the Other on his way, far from her side.

‘It’s a pleasure, I’m sure.’ The figure put his hands behind his back under the tails of a fine brown coat.

‘It’s unusual to spy you in daylight. Are you not afraid that a mortal will see you, saving myself of course, and be startled out of their wits?’

‘Why mistress, are you sure it is not you who are addled? For I am far more like to scare a mortal at night should they see me, than during the sunlit hours. Have you forgotten it is good fortune to sight a
n urisk in the day?’

Ebba stopped and turned, her frosted hair lifting in the breeze winding amongst the trees. She frowned at her companion, noting the fawn hirsute legs and the cloven hooves. She marked the way he ran a slim hand over his head, smoothing back the flowing taupe locks. In a
mongst the abundance, two small cream horns curled shyly skywards. A crewel embroidered vest and lawn shirt underneath the attractive brown tailcoat indicated a degree of fastidiousness at which she smiled. ‘Of course! Forgive me. I am confused of mind today.’ She tapped him on the arm, clearing her head. ‘You
do
look smart. Where did you find such apparel for I know if the manor people had laid it out for you, you would have departed.’

‘Yes, it’s true. But I
found
these shall we say, on the clothesline behind the dairy. A bit of alteration and they fit well.’

Ebba laughed. ‘Then I’ll not tell a soul. You look well, my friend. They’re looking after you at the manor.’

‘They leave milk out each night but I’d rather quaff a wine and so I feed the milk to the cat who is becoming rather rotund and I help myself to the squire’s grog and vittles while I wave a finger at the house brownies as they slave away. As all house brownies should, of course. You know I can never understand why brownies should so wish to scour houses in the dark of night. I have always said their prodigious energy exceeds their thinking.’ He tossed his coat tails upward with his hands.

‘Mr. No Name, you have no shame and you make me laugh which helps me through my current dilemmas.’ Ebba touched his arm.

‘Shall we sit?’ Mr. No-Name took her hand and led her to a mossy covered log by the side of a wide pond. Above them a pale blue sky was streaked with the wisps of mares’ tail clouds and a black swan flew over the trees, casting low for a place to land. Ebba and the urisk watched the bird as it settled and swam towards them, both realizing it could be, probably was a swan-maid. As they talked, it drifted gracefully back and forth.

The urisk spoke. ‘I think you have had an interesting night, have you not?’

Ebba looked at him with slitted eyes but realised he knew more than she of the past, maybe even the future and everything in between.

He continued. ‘To hold a bag inside which lie Faeran souls must surely un-nerve you.’

She nodded.

‘There is a story behind them and because I am a
n urisk and wise and all-seeing, I could tell you if you want.’

She opened her eyes wide, her heart beating fast. She had always respected the urisk, he treated her well and she had no misgivi
ngs about the trust she placed in their relationship. As to his knowledge and how he came upon such, he was Other, she was mortal. It would be rude and insensitive to cross-question him. She nodded and said, ‘But of course, I’m all ears.’

Thus the tale of Adelina, Liam and Ana was revealed and the role of the dead woman, Lhiannon, and of the outrageous Severine and her henchman, Luther. Of the urisk’s anger and disgust towards the latter two there was absolute
ly no doubt as his voice crisped like an autumn leaf and the expression on his face chilled like a breeze from Oighear Dubh. Ebba sat overawed with the scope of the telling, aware the urisk was coming around to something she knew would shift her own life profoundly sideways for had her skin not prickled earlier in the day?

‘And you have a problem Lady, for it is you who holds the bag of souls and
it should be you who continues them on their journey. But the Fates have intervened and I’ll tell you this, and as I am Other and as old as the universe and wiser than the wise, you should hearken to me.’

Ebba nodded again, her eyes searching the brown orbs of her quaint friend as he spoke, his voice with the austere tone of a seer. ‘It is for another to deliver the souls. And you know, Lady, who it must be. His journey begins now and if he is ever to find his true place in Eirie then it must begin by carrying the souls of those to whom he is connected.’

Ebba’s heart missed two, even three beats, as close a feeling to putting her life on hold as she could imagine.

‘The wind blows southerly,’ the fellow continued. ‘There are boats handy and Veniche lies to the north.’ The urisk rubbed at his pointed, smooth face. ‘Your harder problem is your secret, isn’t it? It is time, mistress, to reveal all. You know in your way and I know in mine, the time has finally come. Eight and twenty years is a long time to conceal the truth and the Fates have finally decreed the moment.’

Ebba looked down at her hands and found to her horror they swam before her, tears filling her eyes.
But no, you don’t understand. He is happy with the life he has, as am I. Why change what is to what must be? I am not ready.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘The moment has arrived. The time for fact and the time for farewell.’

The urisk tucked her hand in under his elbow. ‘Mistress, you have always been kind and courteous to me and shared much with me. I shall share my name with you.’

Had Ebba given it a thought, she would have realised quaint Mr. No Name was moved by her tears as they ran down her face to her chin and wanted to help somehow, but it wasn’t the sensitive motivation of his action which surprised her. She looked up.
Name-giving!
‘Then
muirnin
,’ she said. If that’s the case you shall call me Ebba.’

‘And you shall call me Balthazar.’

She took his other hand in her spare one and shook it as if meeting him for the first time.

They sat in shared silence, listening to the rattling of the beech discs above them and feeling the moistness of the southerly on their cheeks.

‘I like your waistcoast.’ Ebba touched the stitching.

‘Thank you. Embroidered by a Traveller called Adelina.’ The look he gave Ebba could only be called inscrutable.

Chapter Five

The smell of truffles laced upwards through the small spirals of steam as Ebba and Phelim sat at the table and tore up chunks of bread with which to sop up the potage. Ebba tapped her crust a couple of times on the table as if prompting herself to speak and finally
she began. ‘Phelim, we must talk. We must talk about the girl and her bag for I have some knowledge which I must impart.’

Wisps of frosted hair curled on the edge of her lined face and she had twisted a cable of lavender wool to frame the hair and decorate herself, as if the trimmings would armour her and ease the task ahead. She told him the story... the saga so lately relayed to herself. The soup grew cold and congealed and the breadcrumbs dried a little on the table as the story stretched itself into the hours of night. Finally, Ebba picked up the bag and laid it in front of Phelim. ‘In there are the souls.’

Phelim touched the bag with a finger and then looked at Ebba. ‘But,’ he said.

‘But indeed,’ Ebba sighed and shook her head.

‘Where did you hear all this, Ebba? Not from your leaves and feathers or from the breeze, I’ll wager.’ He continued to run a finger over the chamois as if he stroked a fragile kitten.

She wondered what he thought as the bag’s cool
touch bit into his fingers. Did he feel the need to remove his fingers from the unfriendly lack of warmth? ‘I have a friend of a lifetime’s standing. An urisk. He is erudite and wise and I trust him. That is the most important thing to remember.’ She told her stepson that it had become his duty to return the souls to Jasper. She touched on Fate and Destiny as if such things would swing the balance of his thoughts but it was that more than anything that was her undoing. Her stepson leaned back in his chair, a faint air about him. Not rebellion, she thought, no, not that but he had raised an eyebrow and his eyes darkened.

‘Ebba, Fate and Destiny uttered out of the mouth of an Other are hardly like to convince me I should give up all I hold dear to travel on some vague quest. And for the betterment of those I don’t know and have never heard of, let alone trust. To do something for
Others?
Aine help us, why should I? What do they ever do for us? Especially the Faeran. Except cause fear and concern. Let the urisk do it if he is so wise and honourable.’

Ebba cringed at his sore words. ‘Phelim, it has been written differently.’

He swung forward on his chair, the legs hitting the flagstones with a crack. ‘
What
has been written differently? And what on earth does it have to do with me? I begin to think you speak in riddles.’

Ebba stood a
nd carried the bowls to the trough, scraping the remnants into a bucket for the fowl. She could see her reflection in the glass window. The squire had ordered panels from the Venichese glassmakers for the manor house and wanting to pay the carlin the respect he felt she was due, had filled her own windows with the stuff. She loved being able to look out her windows at the view, albeit a little distorted. She thought of those in other dwellings who weren’t so fortunate.

But luck is what I make of
it, she thought, and when she sought her stepson’s reflection in the glass it wasn’t there and it frightened her, even though she was aware it was because he sat in shadow. ‘Oh my love,’ she turned back, her shoulders bent as if all the world’s troubles weighed her down.
Aine, I feel old.
‘How can I say this? I may have wronged you and I want to know before I begin to tell you, that you will forgive me.’

‘Ebba, you’re beginning to worry me. When did you ever do anything for which you needed to be forgiven. As like to be congratulated I think.’

‘Huh,’ she muttered with a face as sour as bad milk. ‘You ask when?’ She sat back in front of him. ‘I would say it was twenty-eight years ago.’

At Mevagavinney, before the day had begun to turn to night, Adelina stared out the open window. A breeze blew in carrying the smell of the cold wastes of Oighear Dubh. The cold reminded her of snow which reminded her of Star and snow angels and fire festivals and a tear crept down her cheek as she realised she had curled her fingers at her side as if slipping them into Kholi Khatoun’s hand. Her throat tightened and she sniffed, shivering as she pulled the window shut.

She turned away, spying the broken hoop by the wall and the robe swinging in the inanimate air. Silence smothered her and suddenly the urge to escape from the four walls surrounding her became an imperative and she hammered on the door. ‘Luther, Luther! Where are you, I want to go out! Take me out! I want to walk! Luther!’

As she hammered her fist on the wood, the swarthy gaoler threw the door open. ‘Shut your mouth,
bicce,
shut it! You went for a walk this morning. Once a day only.’ He began to pull the door shut, his face flushed.

‘No, Luther, I have such an ache in my head - just some fresh air before dark. Please.’ Adelina aimed the full force of her tawny smile at him and noticed the loathsome apple in his throat bob up and down as he swallowed.

He sighed. ‘If you must, damn you. Come quickly.’

His hand glided across her rump as she sidled past and she ripped on her coat and buttoned it, hurrying down the stairwell, trying to keep ahead of him, arriving breathless at the garden and having to wait whilst he squeezed in front of her, pressing against her to open the gate, aware he watched her as she stepped to the pond and the willows. She heard him lock the gate and guessed he was licking his lips and making some lewd gesture as he turned away. The fear of his lust for her had grown bigger each day, trying to crowd out the vengeful thoughts that most often ran round her head.

She sat on the bench used by she and Lhiannon, trembling at what Luther might do and she realized she had never felt as alone in her life. She knew Luther waited like some obscene flycatcher to carry off his prey and demolish it and she knew her life hung by a thread only as long as the last thread it took to finish the robe. She was under no illusions. Severine would no doubt kill she and Ajax just as she had killed the others, after tossing her to Luther like a bone to a dog. She sighed, her shoulders rising high and dropping with a rush as the air fled her lips.

‘Needlewoman is sad. Thy sighs make willows dance.’

Adelina jumped and turned to the voice behind her. Maeve Swan Maid stood in her elongated black beauty, a stark column of loveliness with an expression Adelina could not read.

‘You’ve come back. Is Lhian...'

Maeve broke in. ‘Thy Faeran friend is faraway. Fret not, Threadlady.’

‘Thank Aine.’ A weight lifted from the pile of cares and woes Adelina carried.

‘Thy thanks are misplaced, mortal maid. Thou would do better to thank I and my sister maid who so kindly loaned a cloak to thy friend. Thou should speak in realities not hypotheticals. If Aine gave a care, She would help thee escape this prison and bring foul Other-killer to her death, she who murdered one of my sisters!’ Maeve moved from behind the seat to sit by Adelina, making sure none of her midnight blackness touched the mortal.

‘I know, I’m so sorry for your loss. But she spoke to me Maeve, as she died.’ She repeated the dying swan’s words and Maeve’s eyes darkened to the endless colour of death. She said nothing and Adelina squirmed, plucking at the strings of courage to ask a question. ‘Maeve, can you tell me where Lhiannon is?’

The woman shook herself from her shadowed revery. ‘No, but be assured Faeran is forever safe.’

Adelina watched Maeve’s swan-like neck turn as the dangerous eyes fixed her with a gaze that in the past may have produced shivers. But in her desperate state, all she wanted was for the swan-maid to feel some sadness for her, just as she felt wrenching sadness for the swan-maid’s loss. But it was not to be.

‘Souls begin journey across western seas to Faeran healer in Veniche where he shall wait. Fate decrees.’

Around Maeve and Adelina the birds had set up a loud chorus as the sky softened to dusk, the embroiderer marveling at the way her life was turning on its head. All those who would help her were Other. Her would-be, could-be friends were unbelievably Other.

‘Threadneedle Lady, thou wouldst do well to begin to plan thy escape. Ugly manservant will have thee as soon as thy gaoler’s back is turned and sooner rather than later for she comes and goes with great frequency. As to the woman, thou must surely have a plan for retribution?’

‘Not precisely...’

Maeve Swan Maid hissed as she stood, a column of fury. ‘Thy heartbreak is not as consuming as thou would have us believe. Thy lover was killed! Does that mean nothing to thee? And the witch-mortal killed Others who were thy friends. It matters to Others even if it does not matter to thee?’

‘Of course it matters,’ Adelina brought a fist down hard on the arm of the bench. ‘I would kill her here and now if I could.’

Maeve’s head flew back and she gave a harsh laugh like a swan’s cry. ‘Thou says! Thou says much but does little, Stitcher. Why dost thou not plan so-called retribution, woman? Do it, rather than think it. Dost thou still repudiate our offer to help thee avenge thyself on foul killers?’

Adelina thought for a moment. She had many vengeful ideas. ‘Maeve, your offer is generous,’ she prevaricated, ‘but I must do this myself, I swear. It is necessary for my soul.’

The swan-maid shrugged her shoulders. ‘Remember this, Threadlady. Thou hast sworn to me. Thou hast given thy word to an Other. Thou must carry out thy pledge on pain of equal punishment. Dost thou understand?’ Her eyes burned into Adelina’s. ‘And thou would do well to take help if it is offered. Thou will never get away from here otherwise. Evil Other-killer has many ugly tools at her disposal, more eldritch than one such as Stitcher could ever dream. She has soul-syphon. Keeping prisoner is easy pickings. Thou must hearken or thou will end up in pieces like Maeve’s sister maid.’ As she uttered the last words, Maeve walked to the water without looking back, shape-shifting and becoming a graceful black bird that glided away to the other side of the lake before launching itself into the darkening sky where it was hardly to be noticed.

Luther hovered close when he took Adelina back to her room. Inebriated, he brushed her with lingering fingers. Sick at the thought of her blatant vulnerability with Luther possessing the key to her room, she pulled a coffer to the door and jamming hard against the wood, knowing it would do nothing to stop the bull that was the man.

Maeve’s dark grey words had her almost like a jelly - dark grey because in truth nothing would ever be as black as the words that had told her Kholi and Liam were dead. But worse now, she had pledged to an Other and forfeited her own life should the pledge fail. She was threatened on all sides and as she trembled staring out at the dark sky, she thought of Lhiannon and how she had not demurred once as she began her dangerous journey. She had not let anything stop her.

And what hast thou done? Sat and embroidered for thy gaoler. Allowed thyself to be hit, bullied and provoked.
She could hear Maeve as surely as if she sat by her shoulder.
I am pathetic,
she railed.
But as the souls make their way to the northern waters, this will be my turning point.
She faced the wall near the door. ‘Hola, Mr. Goodfellow, hola!’ There was a hint of begging in her voice. ‘I need you.’

***

And so I pleaded. I could no longer continue alone. I needed a friend, I knew it the minute Maeve spoke to me. My heart had lifted with hope at the ridiculous thought she might be my helpmeet, someone familiar to whom I could vent my angst.

And whilst Maeve’s cool remove was a disappointment, I remembered the friendly gleam in the hob’s eye. It had potential...