“Well, you were both wrong about that, weren’t you?”
I whirled round to McLir. “Take me with you, please,” I begged him. “You heard what he said and I believe him. I knew he was plotting something with my father. The pair of them kept talking together and looking over at me, as if I was a prize sow. If you don’t take me away, you might as well leave me here and he can finish what he started. If I go back, I’ll never be safe.”
I watched McLir’s grey eyes, reading the indecision in his expression. I shook like a leaf with fear and the terrible realisation my own father disliked me enough to sell me to this man. The two of them had tried to twist the law for revenge and profit. Several emotions fleeted across McLir’s face, but too swiftly for me to read them. I waited in dread of his decision, terrified he would refuse me.
I almost fainted when he said, “Very well, come then. Shea, loose him and follow us!”
The dog obediently released his hold and trotted at our heels. My last sight of Keir was his body, still stretched out on the ground, panting with relief. Then, as we left the clearing, his voice reached us.
“I’ll get you for this, Renny, if it’s the last thing I ever do! You wait. You won’t escape me and neither will he!”
His words rang out clearly in the still air and I shuddered at the depth of his hatred.
13
I have always counted those last months I spent with McLir as among the happiest in my life. We dwelt in quietness, two companions who enjoyed even the silences that fell between us. My body and my mind healed from all the tumbled emotions of the spring and early summer. The days were long, and they seemed to be filled with a golden light. It must have rained from time to time and some of the days would have been grey or cloudy. I can remember nothing but fine weather. In my memory, the sun always shone, the sky was blue and the wind only a gentle breeze.
We seemed to exist in a place apart, a world that had a dreamlike quality. I did not think about the future, I forgot the past. I lived wholly in the present and I dwelt in peace, for the first time in my life. I knew I would never go back to the way of living I had before. I did not search for the one that would come to break our idyll. I tiptoed through the hours, deeply grateful for their serenity and hoping they would not change.
Never before, save for the time when we had been alone after my injury, had I been free of all constraint. For most of that time, I was too ill to enjoy myself fully. Now I was encouraged to be myself by my beloved teacher and friend. My fears about him had completely vanished. Magic that can conquer terrible illness is past price. McLir gave freely of his genius to me, teaching me things that were new. He seemed to be in a hurry for me to learn as much as possible, and he drilled me unmercifully. I recited long lists to him by rote, and I even attempted to read his notes and began to form letters of my own.
I was so grateful to him; I set myself to please him in every way. Memory came to me easily after a while. He said he delighted in my progress, but I wondered sometimes why he was so keen to have me learn. He was usually beside me to correct me, if I made a mistake. One day I asked him the question.
“Because of my dream,” he replied. “The knowledge will be useful to you and others when I am no longer here.”
“May that day be a long time in the future,” I said fervently. He smiled at me then, but his eyes were sad.
We spent our days wandering, from the edge of the sea to the top of the highest mountain. We climbed over rocks, into caves and all through the depths of the woodland. McLir taught me about the ways of the plants and animals living in those places. Some I had always known. A number I learned when I lived with him before. But there were others I had never noticed and different ones he revealed in a new light.
Some things we studied for the knowledge itself. The way a wave curls upon rocks revealing the direction the current flows. The way an insect scratches its legs to make a sound. Why do certain plants grow in a marsh? Why do others live only in the sand? Objects I never noticed in the past had a new meaning for me. The way a bird flies against the wind, the way a reed cracked or the cry of a hunting animal.
Others we studied for their usefulness to people. I brewed strange potions and made up salves from certain plants I had never considered of value. McLir showed me how to write the mixtures down, using his squiggly lines. I learned the symbols stood for the sounds we make in speech. My hand was unsteady and my letters often blurred, but gradually I was able to understand the things I wrote.
I worked harder than I ever had before. However, the tasks were not as difficult as that I had performed in the village, when I tended to the sick. The work interested me so much, I did not want to rest or to stop for the everyday tasks of living. I looked at the world around me with new eyes and found it fascinating.
On crystal clear nights, McLir and I sat up to study the stars. He told me their names in the common tongue. He also used the language of the people who live in the lands by the southern sea. They had recognised the star patterns first. Those names McLir learned from his father. He told me odd stories of the men and beasts that lived in the stars. They had come here, once, a long time ago. They did strange things on earth, then, uncanny things. However, this seemed unbelievable to me, impossible to imagine. How could men possibly travel so far? Only birds can fly through the air, not men. I understood McLir well enough, by now, to know when he was telling me wondrous tales or information that should not be doubted. He also spoke of ideas about which he was unsure.
As well as recognising the stars by their patterns, McLir also made me study the rest of the sky. He wanted me to recognise signs that foretell changes in the weather. I never forgot his lessons and they have saved me many a drenching since. How different my life would have been, if I had been taught them sooner. The storm would not have caught me out that day. I would never have fallen from the cliff or met McLir. I am so glad I did not know.
Night after night, we went to bed late. We often rose before the dawn to search out the flowers and creatures that appeared only at first light. Those dawns will remain in my memory forever. Their grey mists crept away in the amber gleam of the not quite risen sun. We rarely spoke, and silence surrounded me like cloak of rich velvet. I snuggled into its folds with a sensuous delight.
As he had done before, McLir would often take his boat and go ashore to treat those who waited for him. This time, I went with him and helped him. I learned to stitch not cloth but skin. I bound up wounds. I measured out his mixtures and fetched things for him. More people than ever came and asked his help. They even travelled from the furthest parts of the island, so great had his reputation become.
Since the plague, McLir and his treatments had the same kind of awe previously only enjoyed by God and the church. Tales were told of how he had defeated certain death with just some pieces of mouldy bread. Most people threw it away or fed it to their pigs, but he knew differently. Everyone called his cures miraculous and he was said to have wonderful powers. McLir did not try to explain how or why things worked to those he treated. He tried to tell me, when he could, but often he did not know himself. Sometimes he would chant strange words over the pots and the packets before he gave them away.
“Why do you do that? What are you saying?” I asked when we were alone again.
“I use the same chants my father did, in the language he learned from the strangers where he was taught. I don’t speak that tongue but I remember the sounds he made. They’re strange, but all the more potent for that.” Then he laughed and I laughed with him, at the absurd thought.
“Why do you use them, if you don’t understand what they mean?”
“Their meaning doesn’t matter. The man who is handed a packet, over which a spell has been chanted, believes in it with his whole heart. He recovers far more quickly, than if he does not believe.”
“Never! That’s stupid.”
“People can be very silly when they’re frightened or in pain.” He grinned. “I’m telling you the t
ruth. If a person believes in magic spells, he’s sure such spells can cure him. So I speak words he doesn’t understand. Then he thinks pure water is the finest medicine and gets well. The appearance of enchantment has its uses and, if the sufferer recovers faster because he believes, what does it matter?”
It didn’t of course, as long as the cure worked. After he explained that to me, I watched it happen repeatedly. I began to look on so-called spells and their uses in a different way. What is true magic? A jumble of words in an unknown tongue? Or the potions lovingly made from the fruits of the earth, by a man who understands their properties? As he said himself, McLir’s magic, at its root, was a worldly thing. His knowledge of growing things and of the ground itself, anyone could understand, with training. However, McLir also used all the trappings that ordinary men think of as magical. He spoke strange words. He dropped pieces of bark, on which he had written certain signs, into water, and then made the sufferer drink. He used fumes, music and mysterious sounds, in addition to the potions we brewed.
As I progressed in my studies, he showed me how to do things that are more difficult. He showed me what happens when certain types of soils are mixed together and dropped into a fire. They burn with many different colours and textures. I learned to create scents, smoke and even images that gave an illusion of real objects. They almost seemed to have weight and substance.
“Don’t despise illusions,” McLir told me, “if the purpose they serve is useful.”
“The church tells us such things are evil, yet you use them for people’s good. Why do the priests hate you so?”
“Because I challenge what they believe. I learned my knowledge from sources other than the revelations of their God, so it can only come from the devil. For example, you, Renny, are supposed to be a daughter of the woman, Eve. She ate the forbidden apple and committed the first sin, so all women must suffer to pay for Eve’s crime.”
I nodded. I had been told this story many times before. “Women do suffer, in childbirth certainly, as well as in many other things.”
“People like me, who take away suffering and save people from death, upset God’s plan for the world. Or so the priests would have everyone believe.” He smiled crookedly. “I suppose I do, at that.”
“You do, and I’m afraid for you.” I was always scared, if we were with others. I had seen the way people looked at him and whispered when they thought we couldn’t overhear.
He sighed, and the smile faded from his lips. “So you too have listened to the rumours.”
“It isn’t fair,” I cried. “When people were dying of the plague, you were the only one who could save them. They thought of you as their saviour. Why should anyone turn against you now and say evil things?”
“Men act differently once their pressing need is past. They go back to the ways they always used, and the thoughts they always thought. People forget anything new, especially if a stranger brings it. I’ve seen such things happen many times before.”
Several rumours had indeed made me even more anxious recently. “I heard that the new priest, Father Tomas, is preaching against you,” I said slowly. “He says you’ve taken me away from my home to be your slave. He thinks our men should come here to rescue me and kill you, or drive you off the island.”
One day, I had met Mian by chance, on the shore, and he had repeated the priest’s words to me. I told him the true story, about what Keir had tried to do to me, and why I fled with McLir. I think he believed me – but others would neither believe nor care about the truth.
“Is anyone listening to the priest?” McLir asked.
“Very few, although the numbers are said to be growing. Most people still remember how you cured the sickness and let them live.”
“Their memories will fade.” He caught sight of my face. “It’s only a matter of time until they turn against me and try to drive me out. It’s happened to me before and is one reason why I can’t stay long in any place.”
I felt cold. Frightened people can be violent, once they make up their minds to challenge the thing that frightens them. McLir lived alone with just a woman and a dog, how could he prevail if they attacked him? He had no magical power to smite his attackers, despite his reputation. Against one man or perhaps two, he had a chance. If several came after him, they would kill him. I shivered.
“New things are only evil if they’re used for a foul purpose,” said McLir. “The priests don’t understand or like anything different. Only those things they’ve always known can possibly come from their God. Anything else must be the devil’s work and be destroyed.”
“Do you believe in God?” I had never asked him about his beliefs before. This was the first time I had heard him talk about the subject and I was curious.
“I believe in a God, but my God is different from the one your priests worship. Who could study the things of this world, as I do, and not accept there’s someone who orders all?”
“You never pray.”
“There are many types of prayer. Each time I look at the wonders which surround me, I am praying.”
I had never thought of prayer in that way. All at once, it seemed to me far better than mumbling words inside a dark and smoky building. But McLir continued,
“Don’t be afraid. Perhaps the priest will not prevail and, if he does, I learned to defend myself, long ago. Time for you learn something about my defences now. If they attack me, you won’t be spared and you need to know what to do.”
“What defences are those?”
“Come, I will show you.” He led me outside to where some pots had been placed a short distance from the cave entrance. “There are others on board the ship.”
“What’s in them?” I asked, for the pots were sealed with skins and weighed down by heavy rocks.
“Different types of soils. I have discovered a mixture which, when set on fire, creates a dense fog. The fumes will hide us from those who come near. The smoke isn’t good to breathe and makes you cough. It does no lasting harm but no one else knows that, save the two of us. Everyone else will be afraid of poison.”
“Like the fumes in the cave, the night you had your vision? I thought we were being poisoned then.”
“Exactly. If we’re attacked and need to escape, cast a lighted stick into each of these pots and run away fast.” He must have seen the fear on my face. He said gently, “Such devices may never be needed, but it is always as well to be prepared for evil. Only by preparation can you avert its harm.”
“Rumour says you cover your ship in a purple fog at times,” I told him. I remembered a wet afternoon round the fire back in the village, so long ago. How young and ignorant I had been then.
McLir laughed. “One of the fishermen was nosy and tried to follow me here. I didn’t want him to see where I was going. So I set one of these pots alight and the fumes hid me from him well enough. That rumour is one of the few which is true.”
“And danger is coming, isn’t it? You saw it in your dream.” I had a sudden memory of the look on his face when he had awakened. “That’s why you said my name so strangely and why you looked so afraid. We’re going to die and, this time, you won’t be able to save either of us.” I heard the dread in my voice, as I said the words.
“No! We’re not going to die. You were in my dream and, as you guessed, men did attack us, but we escaped from them. How we did so wasn’t shown to me; only that we did.”
“How long before any of this happens?” I sat down on a rock, staring at him. I had been sweaty, for the evening was hot, but my sweat had suddenly turned to ice with my fear.
“Again I can’t answer you for I didn’t see. But I don’t think we’ll be left in peace much longer. Perhaps before winter comes, or even sooner. I sense things are already happening. I don’t know what they are, but they bring change.”
He stared out across the rippling water towards the western isle, its cliffs faint blue against the setting sun. I wondered what strange visions he sought in the sunset glow.
> 14
I shouldn’t have meddled, but I did, and my peace began to slip rapidly away. On many evenings, when the long day ended, we often sat and talked together. We chatted about the things we had done before we met each other. We told stories and we spoke about what we would like to do in the rest of our lives. We used to sip mead, or one of the cordials McLir had shown me how to make. We sat beside the fire, if the evening was cold. If the weather was fine, we went to the top of a hill. We used to watch the glory of the sunset painting the western sky with gold and crimson.
One night, for no reason I can remember, I asked McLir again about his visions. His uncanny ability to foretell the future fascinated me. I wondered what if I might be able to find out about what lay in store for us, myself. He had never had another vision since the one I had witnessed and I wanted to ask why. How did his dreams happen? I was curious to find out more about them. When I asked him, he looked at me broodingly, as if he had read my unspoken thoughts again. Then he answered the question I had not spoken aloud.
“Each person dreams in a different way. I asked my mother about her visions, when I was young. She wouldn’t – or couldn’t – describe them to me. Mine vary. I never expect what comes; anything or nothing, angels or demons.”
“Do you think, if I breathed in the purple smoke, I might find out for myself what the future holds?”
“Perhaps you might, but the experience can be harmful. At times I have experienced a darkness which I found difficult to escape.”
I hesitated for a moment, but my curiosity was greater than my fear. “You told me once you can make your visions come at a time you want them to. That’s why I am asking you to let me do the same. Why do you think I might be harmed?”
“Seeing into the future can be painful. You might witness things you don’t want to happen, horrors sometimes. They’re difficult to forget and bring their own darkness after them.”
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