Manannan Trilogy

by Michele McGrath

  “Renny! What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for someone like you. I need you to carry a message to my father.”

  “I can’t do that. Oshin is furious with you. He says you’re no longer a daughter of his. He won’t listen to anything you say. He’s forbidden anyone even to speak your name. I’m not stupid enough to provoke him. I don’t want to have anything to do with a message from you.”

  “You must. I’m sorry, but the message is really McLir’s, not mine. He sent me to bring word here. He couldn’t come, because gone to tell the king the same thing. He thinks we may have a spy among us. Listen to me, before you refuse. It’s very important or I wouldn’t ask you. I know Father will be cross.”

  “Tell me then, but I’m not making you any promises.” Mian made as if to take my arm and pull me into the bushes. He stopped instantly when Shea growled.

  “Hush, old boy, it’s all right. He’s a friend.” I put my hand on the dog’s head, soothing him. We stepped away from the path into the undergrowth. I took a deep breath and said, “A man called Edan, who’s a worker in metals...”

  “I’ve met him,” Mian interrupted me. “He came last night and he’s still in the village, mending things for us.”

  “Tell this to my father, when no one else can overhear. McLir thinks he may be a Norseman, sent ahead of raiders. Say as little as possible, but let Edan find out the land is well defended. If he tries to leave the village, hold him. The king must decide what to do and judge the man himself.”

  Mian’s head shot up. “How do you know all that?”

  “We met Edan at Stoill’s hut yesterday. He said some things, which made McLir suspicious of him. You’ve heard the tales about the raids taking place elsewhere. Why should we be lucky enough to escape them forever?”

  “The man may be innocent.”

  I nodded. “He may. I hope he is, for I liked him. If he isn’t, we’re warned and can protect ourselves. I’d be grateful if you tell my father what I said.”

  Mian nodded, looking at me thoughtfully. “I’ll find a way to do so, and we’ll see what happens next. At any event, Oshin will have this Edan watched and held for the king.”

  “Good. I will tell McLir he’s here.”

  I started to turn away when he stopped me. “Renny,” he said, “Keir never told me what was in his mind, or I’d have warned you. Rape is no way to wed a woman, even if it is legal. If he’d asked me, I would’ve told him to woo you and wait for you to respond. He didn’t ask and he didn’t talk to me. I don’t think he trusted me because you and I are friends. You do believe me, don’t you?”

  I looked at him sharply. “I thought he was your friend, not me.”

  “He is, of a sort. You both are. But I don’t trust him with many things, Onnee for example. So he doesn’t always tell me what he’s up to. If I’d been with you, I would’ve stopped him, even if it came to fighting.”

  “He made certain no one was near. If McLir and Shea hadn’t found me...”

  “I was afraid for you when I was told McLir had taken you away again. Is he good to you, this magician? We hear such awful tales about him.”

  “He’s very good to me and I’m happy to be with him. I owe him so much. Don’t worry any more. Would you please tell my mother and Fritha you’ve seen me and I’m well? I miss them both.”

  “They miss you too. I’ll tell them. I’m glad we’ve met.” He stooped and his lips brushed my forehead gently. Shea never even moved, as if he understood the difference between a caress and a blow. He seemed to have taken my word that Mian was a friend and no threat.

  “I’m glad I’ve met you too.”

  “God go with you, Renny.”

  “And with you.”

  I hurried back the way I had come and McLir met me by the red rock at sunset, as he had promised.

  “Were you able to meet the king?” I asked, and he nodded.

  “Yes, he received me.”

  “Had he given the token to Edan?”

  “No, he hadn’t.”

  “So it was forged, as you thought. What’ll he do now?”

  “He sent some of his men to arrest Edan,” he said tiredly. “Their orders are to bring him to the king so he can find out why Edan’s really here, one way or another. However, they’ll be lucky to catch him, if he has any warning of the search. Easy enough for a man alone to vanish - as I’ve done many times before.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “Oh?”

  “I did as you told me to. I waited until Mian came along and asked him to give my father your message. He was afraid, at first, because Father has cast me out and forbidden anyone to speak to me or about me. I no longer exist to him.” I choked slightly on the words. About Father, I did not care, but his ban meant I might never see Mummig or Fritha again.

  “Did you manage to persuade Mian?”

  I nodded. “Oh yes. When he found out what the message was, he agreed at once. He also told me Edan is in our village now and likely to be so for some time. They’ve given him a lot of work to do.”

  “Good news! You did well,” he said with a weary smile.

  “I’m sorry. I liked Edan.”

  “So did I, but he lied to us and such men can be dangerous.”

  “I wonder why we both met him in our dreams.”

  “He’s important in some way. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him,” he said and he was right.

  19

  Edan’s Story

  I was given no warning my disguise had been penetrated. Renny had told me enough about her home to make me want to find out what the place was like. I found the village easily enough, lying in a loop of the river about five miles upstream, as she said. A simple place for us to attack; surrounded on three sides by shallow water. The fourth side lay open, with only a wicker fence to keep out stray animals, which offered no defence. The river itself was no real obstacle and I wondered why the people made their homes in such a vulnerable spot. There must have been attacks here before, yet they had not put up a proper palisade. Nor did they keep a good lookout. They seemed careless of their own safety, all the better for us.

  Their fields looked rich in crops. A number of fat animals grazed nearby. The land was obviously fertile, yet few people appeared to live there. The sickness had definitely left its mark. Smoke rose from only some of the houses, others seemed empty and disused. Not all the fires were lit, as they should be with mealtime approaching. I felt even more encouraged. I climbed up to a small knoll to look out over the fields. More smoke appeared on the horizon, marking other settlements. They seemed to be a long way away and nothing suggested anything large, although I needed to check. I thought the smoke columns rose from scattered villages, like the one lying in front of me. They could be picked off later, one by one, if my father mustered others to join him in this enterprise. It would be no problem for us to conquer and hold them. We always found enough men who wanted fertile land and were willing to fight with us. Both Dag, and our father before him, had renown as leaders. Yet, for one reason or another, we had never reaped the success that should have come to us. Perhaps this time would be different. I hoped so.

  I stripped and left my clothes on the bank, while I waded out into the river to test its depth. Right in the middle, I could not touch the bottom. The rest became shallower and would not be deep enough for the dragon boats to be rowed this far upstream. They would only be able to float part way. Dense woodland, fortunately, would shield our approach. The place seemed promising, and my discovery pleased me. I dried myself off and put my clothes back on. Then I went into the village to find out more.

  I did not think, at the time, that my actions were a betrayal of Renny and her people. We had only met the day before. She’s a pretty girl, with her red hair and sparkling grey eyes. I liked her, but I hardly knew her and I was totally committed to my task. The thought never occurred to me that I was guilty of a kind of treachery. I merely used the knowledge she unwittingly gave me. Some
time would pass before I questioned where my loyalties lay and many things happened before I did so.

  I showed the king’s token to the headman and Oshin made me welcome. He asked me to stay for a few days, while I did some work for him. No metalworker lived in this village. A man from one of the settlements to the west used to mend any broken items for people nearby. He died of the plague, so my arrival was most opportune. A plough blade had cracked and needed welding. There were holes in a few of the cooking pots and buckets. Axes and daggers also wanted sharpening. I smiled when they brought them to me. I know a way to make an edge appear sharp. In reality, you can destroy the part of the blade that is most dangerous to an enemy. You grind it quite blunt in fact. You need a certain skill to do so, one that I possess. It was a little trick that my master, Ulf, taught me long ago, at my father’s orders. After all, what’s the point in making life difficult for ourselves? If Fadir decided to fight for this place, blunting our enemies’ weapons would save us lives and wounds. One by one, I worked on each one of the blades and axes they brought me. By the time I finished, I rendered them all more harmless.

  “Here is your axe,” I said to the headman as I handed him back his weapon, which was very heavy. It was the last one I’d worked on. My other tasks were also done, and now was the time to pack up my tools. I wanted to leave the following day. I had seen and done all I needed to. While I sat down by the fire to take my meal, Oshin ran his finger gingerly along the blade. He tested the new grinding, which shone brightly in the firelight.

  “Is the work up to your satisfaction?” I asked, although I already knew what his answer would be. Only another smith could tell what I had really done and no one here possessed such skill. As far as I know, the trick is a secret known to few.

  “It pleases me,” Oshin said, laying the axe down and coming to sit beside me.

  “Then I’ll leave you in the morning, unless there’s anything else?”

  “There isn’t. You’ve done well and I thank you.”

  “I’m glad that you’re satisfied.”

  “Where are you heading for next?”

  “I’m not certain. Perhaps you could suggest to me any places where I might find more work?”

  “I would go west if I were you. Almost certainly they’ll have work there, now Yvon is dead.”

  “Then I’ll go to the west.” I sat back satisfied. I had thought to go in that direction anyway. I wanted to find out if the smoke columns I saw that first day were anything more than they seemed.

  “This is a pleasant place to live, Oshin,” I said, as I drank some of the thin ale he gave me. Brewing good ale is another thing we’ll have to teach these people.

  “Pleasant indeed, but there aren’t enough people to till the land properly, since the plague. We’ll have to leave more of the fields fallow. I think we’ll be hungry next winter, unless the weather is kind to us and stays mild.”

  I nodded. His fear was a real and common one. He was right to worry about the future he foresaw. Yet it might be the least of his concerns, if my father chose to act on my information. Oshin had given me another reason for us to come here. Weakened people can be conquered at little cost. I would use the rest of this month to make sure no hidden dangers lurked nearby. No strongholds, which might house enough trained men to drive us away. I wanted to be certain. In Bretland my folly had led to disaster. Never again.

  These thoughts ran through my mind until Old Margaid came to fill up my cup and overheard Oshin’s last remark. She broke into the conversation, with the freedom or perhaps the forgetfulness of old age. “More of us would’ve died but for the magician.”

  “Magician?” I had never told anyone about my meeting with McLir or Renny. She warned me not to mention her name if, by chance, I came here. When I asked her why, she had been evasive and changed the subject abruptly. I also remembered what Carbry and Jinn told me about her in the first village I visited. I thought she had a good enough reason to leave her home, having met her father. Most likely, he would have a different view and I did not want to get involved in their squabbles. I had taken her at her word, and never told anyone I met her.

  “The magician cured many of us, with only some mouldy old bread,” Margaid continued. “We’re luckier than most.”

  “Oh? Tell me more.”

  “Nothing to tell,” Oshin said brusquely, motioning her away. He sounded furious. “The man came here, did some of his rubbish and fell lucky, that’s all. This business of curing people with mouldy bread is a fairy tale. The fever had run its course by the time he arrived. He did very little, but they all said his magic had cured them. As if it would!” He glared at the others around him, daring them to dispute with him. No one spoke and everyone turned away.

  A small sigh behind me made me looked round into the eyes of the headman’s wife, Feena. She is an old woman and rather bent – a strange contrast to her burly husband. She’s completely under his thumb, or so it appeared to me. I had been told she’d been sick herself and almost died. She still seemed weak from her ordeal and her hands shook. I thought, for a moment, the platter she held would crash to the floor. Oshin heard her sigh also, and glanced sharply at her, as if daring her to speak. She said nothing, served us and shuffled away. Oshin rather abruptly changed the subject and we talked of other things. Later on, when I returned from the privy, I bumped into old Margaid in the dark.

  “Oh, it’s you!”

  “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  “No. Come here with me.” She clutched my sleeve and led me further into the darkness, behind one of the disused huts.

  “I shouldn’t have spoken about the magician with Oshin sitting right beside you. Sometimes I forget, and say what’s going round in my mind. I’m getting old and stupid. McLir saved us, but he took Oshin’s daughter away and there’s been bad trouble. Oshin wants to kill them both for shaming him and he’s not the only one.”

  “What’s stopping him doing so then? Oshin’s a fighter.”

  “Oshin’s scared of his magic. He won’t say so, but that’s the truth. What might the magician do to him if he got angry? Oshin doesn’t want to chance being turned into something slimy.” She gave a sudden cackle of a laugh.

  “Why did his daughter leave?” I asked, for I wanted to find out what Margaid would tell me.

  “She wouldn’t wed Keir, the man who asked for her. He tried to rape her, so she ran off with the magician instead.”

  “Did she now?” Part of what I had been told was evidently the truth. I was surprised. Renny and McLir seemed an unlikely pairing to me, one being so much older than the other. From the little I saw of them, they didn’t act like lovers either, more like father and daughter.

  “Don’t listen to Margaid,” Feena said, out of the darkness. Oshin’s wife had come up softly behind us. “My daughter had good reasons for going. You’ve said more than enough now, Margaid, go about your business.”

  The old woman grimaced but she hobbled away. I stayed.

  “I’m sorry to offend you by asking, but I’m curious about any man who is said to work magic.”

  She sighed. “Everybody is. The scandal has been the talk of all the villages around here. Their gossip makes my husband furious. The magician saved my life and others, but Oshin will not accept he did, so let the subject rest. Please. Talking only makes things worse. Let us go in now.”

  When I went back into the house, several others had joined the group by the fire. They had just returned from fishing. People told me their names, Sharry, Mian and Keir. So he was Keir, the man who had tried to rape Renny. I looked at him with frank interest and could believe it of him. He was a big, hulking fellow, with a swarthy face and lank, dark hair. Oddly, he seemed familiar, as if I had met him before, but I knew I hadn’t. One of the men, in Carbry’s village, looked a bit like him, but surely that couldn’t be. I remembered the man’s name as Mayl.

  This Keir’s instinct might well be to dominate rather than persuade. He seemed to be the sort of man to bruta
lise a woman. I don’t like the type, and he annoyed me – but it was truly none of my business. Then I thought of Renny. A slight girl, she would have had no chance against such a man, if fate and McLir had not intervened. I remembered her big frightened eyes and I grew angry. Why I should do so, I do not know, for she meant nothing to me. Just a girl I met along my way, about whom people told stories.

  Keir must have seen me staring at him. When he finished eating, he brought his cup over and sat down beside me. “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “You looked at me as if I did.” There was certain truculence in his voice and I made haste to answer.

  “You reminded me of someone I met once before. That’s all.” I used the resemblance as my excuse. I didn’t want to tell him my real interest and provoke him. I did not want a fight over something that was not my concern. Also, I never like leaving an enemy behind me when I go.

  “Who’s that?”

  “A man from a village south of here. Mayl’s his name.”

  He laughed. “You are not the first person to say so. Mayl is my cousin. His mother and mine are sisters.”

  “That explains the resemblance then. You are so alike, you might be brothers.”

  “Mayl is more handsome than ever my real brother was,” Keir said with a grin, and I smiled as the tension between us passed. I was pleased to meet him and find out more about him. He betrayed his moodiness and bad temper more than once in our talk together. I would certainly avoid him in the future if possible.

  We went on to speak of other things, and to take our share in the jokes and the singing. When the evening ended, I rolled myself up in my cloak and settled down to sleep. A noise alerted me and I noticed Oshin going out of the house. With him went the man they called Mian, another of the fishermen who arrived back late. The pair returned after a few minutes and Oshin came over to me. Seeing I was not asleep, he sat beside me.