Cattra's Legacy

by Anna Mackenzie

  ‘We’re lost,’ Risha said. ‘Soldiers were chasing us.’ Her words were absorbed by the fog.

  The man pointed at her chest then at the punt. Risha pointed at Muir. The heron man didn’t move. She pointed again at Muir then the punt. With a shrug he bent, grunted as he lifted Muir, then in four quick, irregular steps crossed the bog.

  Risha squatted by Torfell’s head. The mare’s eye rolled. Risha kissed her and gently slid the bridle from her head. Tears splashed onto the horse’s nose.

  Dragging a shuddering breath, Risha looked around for the heron man. He extended his pole towards a clump of dark weed. Risha stepped onto it, then to the next clump and the next, guided by his pole. When she reached the punt she collapsed beside Muir, tears blinding her. As the heron man poled away from the island Risha caught one last glimpse of Torfell, belly swelling high, head motionless on the cold ground.

  When she woke she lay listening to the hiss of rain on wood, trying to accustom her eyes to the smoky darkness. There was a disjointed hum, as though someone was singing beneath their breath, and occasional sounds of movement. Risha sat up and the singing stopped.

  A small, dark-skinned woman appeared in the low doorway. Risha tried to speak but her throat felt sandy and raw. The woman crossed the room and lifted a bowl to her lips. The liquid was bitter and she wrinkled her nose, but the woman only nodded and tilted the bowl. Once the foul taste had faded she felt better, her throat soothed and her head a little clearer. ‘Where is this?’ she asked.

  ‘My home. You welcome.’ The woman’s accent was heavy.

  ‘Thank you.’ Risha hesitated. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Sair na’Irem.’ The woman bobbed her head again, like a bird, then pointed to Risha in a way that brought the heron man to mind.

  ‘Risha.’

  ‘Risha,’ the woman echoed, rolling the ‘r’ on her tongue.

  ‘My friend, Muir —’ Risha glanced around, panic beginning to rise in her chest.

  Sair bobbed her head. ‘Muir,’ she repeated, testing the sound. ‘He sick.’ She tapped her chest and made the sound of laboured breathing.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Eat first.’

  As the woman bustled away, Risha stared around the small room. The walls and ceiling were constructed of densely bundled rushes, the curving wooden ribs that held them hung with baskets and sacks. The bed was a low mound of stitched skins and blankets woven from a fibre she didn’t know. There were no windows.

  Sair came back carrying a bowl. Her clothes were a jumble of dull colours, woven like the blankets. ‘Eat,’ she said. ‘Good.’

  To Risha’s relief, the lumpy greyish liquid tasted better than it looked. The little woman nodded encouragement, bobbing approval once the food was gone. ‘Come.’

  Every one of her joints ached when Risha stood. Sair draped a shawl around her shoulders, tying it in a knot over her woven shift. By its size, Risha guessed the garment belonged to her hostess. Sair directed her through a cramped living space and out a low doorway. Risha stopped in surprise. The house was built on stilts.

  Nodding encouragement, Sair pointed to a smaller building, linked to the house by a flimsy bridge. Like the hive-shaped buildings, it was made of bundled reeds. Risha edged cautiously forward. The smaller structure proved to be a rudimentary washroom. She splashed her face and hands with water from a basin — dark, peaty water that smelt of the earth.

  A chill wind flattened the dress against her, cutting through its loose weave, as she crossed back to the house. The reeds of the bridge flexed beneath her feet. Below, the ground looked treacherous, except at the far side of the main building, where dark water slapped sinuously around the supporting stilts. The punt was nosed alongside, its prow tied to the bottom rung of a ladder that led up into the house.

  Her eyes watered in protest as she ducked back through the low doorway. Sair was squatting in front of a recess that held a fire, cloying smoke curling away from the narrow flue as she poked at the sullen flames. Risha stared around the room. Folded piles of fabric, a loom, a low table, shelves with an assortment of household items, hooks holding rain capes and carrying baskets, lanterns and fishing poles all crowded the small space.

  Finished with fussing over the fire, Sair beckoned and bobbed, pulling back a curtain near the fireplace. The alcove behind housed a box bed, too short for its occupant. Muir. Although his wound had been expertly bandaged he looked pallid, his face shadowed by death. Risha reached tentative fingers to his brow: his skin was hot and dry.

  ‘Sick,’ Sair said, leaning to tap Muir’s chest.

  Risha sank onto the edge of the bed. ‘Muir.’ There was no response. Sair handed her a cup, nodding encouragement as Risha lifted Muir’s head and tilted it to his lips. He swallowed but didn’t wake. ‘How long has he been like this?’

  Sair made a non-committal sound.

  Risha stared fiercely at Muir’s face. ‘I’ve already lost Torfell. I’m not losing you too. Fight, Muir.’

  As she spoke, a wooden trapdoor slapped back against the wall and the heron man’s head popped into view. He nodded when he saw her, then let out a stream of unfamiliar sounds. Sair replied in the same guttural tones, bending to lift a string of flat, mottled fish up through the opening. The man followed, closing the trapdoor with a thump.

  After exchanging more words with Sair, he bowed formally to Risha, tapped his chest and pronounced his name: ‘Blor na’Irem.’

  ‘Arishara, called Risha,’ she replied, matching his formality.

  Sair made a clucking sound and reached towards a shelf. Risha recognised her clothes, clean and neatly folded, and, on top of the pile, Cattra’s brooch. ‘Havre?’ the woman asked, holding it towards her.

  ‘My mother,’ Risha agreed.

  There was a spate of conversation, ended by a shrug from Blor.

  ‘I’m grateful for your help,’ Risha began. ‘I thank you, and my father will too.’ She hesitated, her thoughts snagged on Donnel’s likely reaction to her disappearance.

  Blor spoke again but Sair only shook her head.

  ‘My horse.’ Risha cleared her throat. ‘Do you know …?’

  Blor’s response was a single low sound. Even without Sair’s translation Risha could guess the word’s meaning. Blor added another string of words and Sair offered: ‘Marsh no good for horses. People, too, most times.’

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, Risha nodded.

  Sair watched her. ‘Sleep,’ she said, giving her a gentle nudge. ‘I watch your man.’

  Crawling wearily into bed, she curled on her side, images merging behind her eyes. Cantrel’s face became Pelon’s, while Barc’s sardonic grin was set beside Meredus’s studious gaze. A knife flashed towards her, held first by Gorth, then by a sneering soldier from Fratton. Behind everything, the mountains of Torfell rose up, their peaks shadowing four fingers of rock that clawed upwards from the sea.

  By the end of a week Risha allowed herself to hope that Muir might live, though for no reason other than that he was not already dead. He wavered between hot, restless periods and shivering chills, his breathing rasping unevenly, his skin the colour of old lichen.

  The bruising on his chest had spread and deepened to a wide band of mottled purple that wrapped him from waist to collarbone. Sair suspected broken ribs. His fever she called marsh ague, made worse by loss of blood. Under her ministrations the wound on his arm was healing well, but neither marsh dweller seemed to hold much hope for his survival.

  Blor left communication to Sair. Risha suspected he understood more than he let on, the woman translating his questions without always bothering to relay Risha’s answers. The relationship between the two remained unclear. They were familiar enough, and occasionally short-tempered enough, to be husband and wife, but Blor went elsewhere to sleep — perhaps because their guests occupied the only beds in the house. Sair slept by the fire on a mattress that she rolled up and hung on the wall each morning, and stoutly resisted Risha’s efforts to c
onvince her to trade places.

  It rained almost continually. Staring out at the pockmarked surface of the waterway and the wall of fog beyond, Risha wondered how the marsh dwellers could stand it.

  On the eighth day it dawned clear. Blor took down his fishing gear. After a lengthy exchange, Sair wrapped Risha in a tightly woven cape and sent her down the ladder, continuing to call instructions to Blor until he had poled them out of earshot.

  Risha, accustomed now to the fetid air, breathed deep and revelled in the pale filtered light on her skin. She felt like a worm that had been too long underground.

  The old man navigated the marsh as easily as a city dweller might wend a path through back streets and alleys. Sometimes the channels he followed were clear, sometimes he had to force through weed that parted only reluctantly to reveal brackish water. With slight grunts of effort, he lifted traps and lines, harvesting fish and mud eels, the former gutted on the spot, the latter dropped into a bucket of brown water. When a haphazard cluster of stilted buildings loomed from the fog, Risha assumed they’d come full circle, then saw that the main building of this group was built entirely over water.

  Blor nudged in underneath and banged on a trapdoor with his pole. It opened and was quickly ringed by curious faces. Blor fended off a volley of questions as he handed up a couple of greeny-grey flatfish and an eel, wriggling for freedom as it was hauled through the opening. At their next stop Blor accepted a heavy sack in exchange for his fish. Everywhere eyes stared and conversation flowed around her. At the last house — or village: half a dozen dwellings were linked by raised boardwalks — a girl swung down to join them in the punt.

  She stared intently at Risha, finally nodding as if satisfied. ‘Good day, daughter of Havre. Blor na’Irem has a question he would like me to ask you.’

  ‘Of course. But please call me Risha.’

  The girl nodded gravely then tilted her head to Blor’s rapid stream of words. ‘Sair refuses to ask you. I do not,’ she said. ‘Blor wishes to know of the man who is with you, who carries many scars. Blor believes him a soldier and asks whether you travel with him by choice.’

  ‘He works for my father. Not as a soldier; he’s responsible for my safety.’

  The girl relayed her answer, nodded at Blor’s response and turned back to Risha. ‘Blor does not trust soldiers. He rescued you because you are young, but your guard he would have left — he is still not sure.’

  ‘Muir’s a good man,’ Risha insisted, as the girl watched her impassively. ‘Please tell Blor I’m very grateful for his help.’

  There was another exchange, ending in a shrug from the girl. ‘Blor says Nan-Irem play no part in the lords’ squabbles. He is worried that the man with you belongs to one of the lords and will bring us trouble.’

  ‘What is Nan-Irem?’

  ‘Marsh dwellers — mud people, you would call us.’ The girl’s tone was scathing.

  ‘I would not,’ Risha answered.

  For the first time, the girl smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ she acknowledged, then cocked her head to one side. ‘I think your father is not of Havre?’

  Risha frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘Your look is otherwise.’

  ‘My father is from LeMarc. Will you tell me your name?’

  ‘Ira.’

  There was a burst of words from Blor and Ira tossed her head and stood up.

  ‘Wait! Can’t we talk? Sair only knows words for basic things and I —’ She stopped, not sure how to explain that she was lonely.

  The girl laughed. She said something to Blor, then swung herself with practised ease up the ladder. ‘I’ll visit you,’ she said, as the trapdoor closed. ‘Look after your friend.’

  23

  Marshland

  Her hands chapped red with cold, Risha bent forward to pull the line from the water. Two of the ugly spotted fish were caught on its hooks. She unhitched them, re-baited the line, and flung it back.

  ‘You improve,’ Ira said, poling them on to the next buoy. ‘Take the pole while I check the traps.’

  Learning the skills of the Nan-Irem helped pass the time, but it was Ira’s company that Risha appreciated most. It was a week since Muir had first opened his eyes, three since she’d ridden across Othbridge — Risha shied from thinking of Torfell. As for Muir: he’d spent days slipping in and out of a fevered delirium, tossing and turning, sometimes fighting against them. Sair had fed him broths and watched Risha’s concern with a motherly eye.

  ‘He die or fever break,’ she’d announced four nights ago.

  Risha had sat beside him through the evening, wiping sweat from his face and trying to coax him into swallowing a little water. Around midnight he’d opened his eyes. Risha had seen at once that he knew her. He’d been too weak to talk, but there had been just a hint of his sardonic smile. He’d slept for a full day and night after, and had since woken for brief, lucid periods, though he remained feeble as a newborn.

  When Ira had arrived in the punt, Muir had been asleep and Sair had waved Risha off, muttering something that made Ira laugh, though she refused to translate.

  The weather was bone-chillingly cold. ‘Does it snow here?’ Risha asked.

  ‘Just ice,’ Ira told her. ‘Mostly it rains.’

  Risha sighed. She was heartily sick of rain. The first time that Ira had come to visit she’d confided that she’d lived for a year in Saithe, till homesickness had brought her back to the Nan-Irem. Risha couldn’t imagine how anyone could miss the perpetually sodden marsh. ‘Do you know the way to Elswater Sound?’ she asked now.

  Ira emptied an eel into her bucket and re-baited the trap. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Could you take us?’

  ‘By punt,’ the girl agreed. Risha’s heart leapt. ‘In the spring,’ Ira added.

  Risha bit down her disappointment. In reality it would be weeks before Muir was fit to travel — if travel was even possible. In the north, snow would by now have closed the mountain passes, while in LeMarc the interminable rain would likely have turned the roads to a sea of mud. They were without horses, provisions and coin, she reminded herself. Better to wait till the spring — but the thought sat heavily. Would Donnel hold Cantrel accountable for her disappearance? Or perhaps Barc, whose plan had led them into Fratton. And what of Emett? Responsibility chafed Risha’s shoulders.

  ‘Rain comes soon,’ Ira said. ‘Best you wake up and use the pole?’

  With an apologetic smile Risha returned her attention to the punt and pushed them slowly along the ice-fringed waterway.

  Sair was busy at her loom when Risha clambered up the ladder, the rhythmic clack coming to a halt as she popped her head through the trapdoor. ‘I caught two fish,’ she announced, holding them up, ‘and gutted them.’

  ‘Explains much,’ Sair said, taking the untidy results.

  Risha ignored the woman’s grumbling. It had been Sair’s idea that Ira teach Risha to fish, claiming it would do her good to get fresh air — as if such a commodity was to be found in the marsh. She hung her rain cape and washed her hands before looking in on Muir, asleep against a mound of pillows, his breathing still laboured despite Sair’s pronouncement that he was improving. As if he felt her presence, his eyes fluttered open.

  Risha smiled. ‘You’re awake. How are you feeling?’

  Muir gave his lopsided smile. ‘Better,’ he said. His eyes roamed around the cottage. ‘I’ve been trying to remember what happened. Where is this place?’

  ‘Sair’s house,’ Risha said, pointing out the small woman. ‘She’s Nan-Irem. A marsh dweller.’

  Muir’s eyes widened. ‘We’re in the marsh?’

  ‘It was our only option. Fratton’s soldiers caught up with us. I tried to outrun them but Torfell …’ The words died in her throat.

  ‘Torfell?’ Muir queried.

  Risha finished her telling briskly. ‘One of them laid Torfell’s rump open with his sword just before we reached the marsh. I couldn’t save her.’

  There was a brief silence. ‘I’m
sorry. I’ve done a poor job of protecting you.’

  Risha shrugged. The only sound was the rhythmic clack of Sair’s loom.

  ‘How long have I been ill?’ Muir asked finally. He looked anguished when she told him. ‘Donnel will—’ He stopped.

  ‘What? Assume we’re dead?’

  ‘Or prisoners of Fratton — you, at least.’ His mouth was a tight line. ‘He’ll hold Cantrel accountable.’

  ‘It was my choice. Cantrel had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Donnel placed your welfare in Cantrel’s hands. And mine.’ Muir paused. ‘We shouldn’t have risked it.’

  ‘But if Margetta is safe—’

  ‘Do you think your father will think it a good exchange?’

  Sair glanced up at his tone.

  Risha frowned. ‘I’m safe, Muir. There’s no exchange. And however Donnel sees it now, it’ll be different when he learns we’re alive.’

  Muir slumped back against the pillow, his breath rasping in his chest.

  Sair touched Risha’s shoulder and waved her aside. ‘Drink,’ she instructed, proffering a sludgy-looking tonic — from the look on Muir’s face, one of her fouler brews. ‘Plenty talk. Now sleep. Tomorrow walk,’ she added, closing the curtain that screened his bed.

  The winter passed slowly. It was a fortnight before Muir could walk to the privy without pausing for breath, but he slowly grew stronger. The cough that had plagued him eased. That he couldn’t shake it off completely Risha blamed on the constant damp and the peaty fug of the cottage.

  Ira visited often, entertaining them with stories of the year she’d spent in Saithe. She was Blor’s niece, and confirmed that all the households they’d called at belonged to Blor’s extended family, but also that there were other families of marsh dwellers who together formed a loose community. The rest of Muir’s questions she turned aside, saying the Nan-Irem chose not to be known beyond the marsh.

  As the weeks of sleet turned the marsh to a quagmire the Nan-Irem’s focus shifted to indoor chores: mending nets and baskets, rolling twine and carving hooks. Sair tried to teach Risha to weave the sharp-edged marsh grass, but her fingers proved no more adept than they had in her childhood and Risha contented herself with twisting balls of twine for Blor. When they visited Ira’s home, Risha amused the girl’s siblings with her clumsy attempts at their language. When the limitations became too much, Ira would translate Risha’s stories of the mountains, of winter storms and snow so deep that it nearly buried all the houses. The children listened in awe, congratulating themselves on not living in such an inhospitable place.