Even as she thought of him he looked up from his work at her.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘stop standing about and give me a hand with this log!’
She bent to the work willingly. Moving logs was certainly easier than trying to answer questions.
They expected rain any moment, but strangely rain did not come. The main weight of the storm seemed to fall elsewhere and the wind, the weird flashing of lightning over the hills and the growling of the thunder in the neighbouring valleys showed that the night demons were satisfied with the role of warning and frightening for the moment.
As the storm moved off to the south, their fires grew stronger and the stone circle stood up clear against the immense blackness of the sky. Their hearts began to lift and there was talk amongst them about the coming changes. All were curious about the new priest. Maal had been with them so long it was almost impossible to imagine how it would be with a different priest.
‘Of course the rituals will be the same,’ someone said.
‘Will there be new Elders chosen?’
Kyra pricked up her ears at this. She had never realized it before this day, but she had never really liked Thorn. It would be no bad thing if new Elders were chosen.
‘No,’ someone replied. ‘Elders are chosen for life.’ Kyra’s heart sank. ‘Only death or disgrace releases them from their duties.’
‘Besides, who would we choose? Those already chosen are the best men we have.’
‘Ay,’ murmured someone else. ‘Thorn knows the ways of this village better than the priest does.’
‘That is blasphemy,’ came a voice from the shadows.
‘It may be blasphemy,’ one of Kyra’s uncles said with a laugh, ‘but it also happens to be true!’
‘Ay!’
There seemed to be general agreement on this.
* * * *
Kyra thought about what she had heard and she thought about Thorn. As long as she could remember he had ruled the village. Everything that had been done had been on his command. It is true he always spoke as though he was only delivering a message from Maal, but what proof had they that Maal’s messages were being delivered honestly? She was shocked at herself for daring to think such a thought and looked round hastily, worried that someone might have caught it from her mind. But she need not have worried. Her kind of talent was very rare indeed.
What did she know of Maal? He was an old man, very much revered and honoured. So much so that no one dared speak to him, except Thorn and the Elders. She had seen him walking about the place from time to time. When he passed, the villagers bowed and kept silent. No one spoke to him. As far as she knew there was no law that said they could not speak to him, it was just a matter of respect and diffidence. Even when he came to their homes when there was illness, Thorn came with him and Thorn did most of the talking. But it was Maal who put his long gentle fingers on the ailing person and it was Maal who did the healing.
Kyra had seen such a healing once. A friend of her mother’s was in great pain. Her husband brought Maal to her and the priest stood quietly by her for a while and then placed his hands upon her, bowed his head and closed his eyes.
The woman looked up for the first time as though she were aware of someone else in the world. She looked into his eyes and Kyra would never forget the dawning trust and peace that spread over her face. After he left she stood up and went about her chores.
Kyra remembered thinking that of all the powers in the world, the power of healing was the one she wanted most.
* * * *
It was almost sunrise before the new priest arrived. Kyra and Karne were with the group of villagers still tending the fires and so were present when he and the deputation that had been sent to meet him arrived. From time to time they had taken it in turn to doze off so they were not too weary. Kyra was still asleep, curled up in a small hollow of grass, Karne’s fur jerkin tucked round her, when the shout went up that greeted his arrival. She leapt up immediately, somewhat dazed, momentarily having forgotten where she was and what was going on. She was in time to see the new priest, immensely tall and broad, striding up the processional way alone, long cloak flowing, head held high, eyes blazingly fixed upon Maal still standing in the dead centre of their Sacred Circle. Above and behind him, as though his presence had disturbed them and his power was calling them from the secret places of the earth, an immense flock of crows was beating across the sky. Kyra looked up in alarm and in the half light of dawn, the crows, the flowing cloak, the hugeness of the man, all served to make her shiver. Karne put his arm around her.
‘Cold, little sister?’ he whispered gently. But even he could sense something did not feel right and he was cold too. They stood very close together trying to take warmth from one another.
‘Is he not huge?’ Kyra whispered.
‘More like a warrior than a priest,’ Karne replied.
The man had reached the circle and Maal stood like a standing stone himself challenging him with his eyes. The man paused as though for a moment he had encountered an invisible barrier. Kyra and Karne hardly breathed, they were watching with such fascination. They no longer dared even to whisper. Karne increased the pressure of his arm on his sister’s waist and she nodded. Yes, she had noticed. Yes, she was trying to find out what was going on.
Thorn now stepped forward beside the man and together they stood confronting Maal.
Kyra put her hands to her head, pain searing through it.
‘No!’ she cried within herself. ‘No, I cannot!’
Maal was calling her to stand beside him, to add her strength to his. But she was afraid. Afraid she was not really hearing the call but imagining it, afraid of what she could sense but could not understand, afraid of getting involved in something beyond her capacities. Even afraid she might make a fool of herself.
‘What is it?’ Karne’s brotherly voice broke through the roaring of her inner voices. He shook her slightly.
‘Kyra! Are you all right?’
Her face was filled with fear and pain. Her arms were over her head as though she was fending off something.
‘Oh Karne,’ the tension broke with tears and she clung to him. ‘Oh Karne . . . I cannot . . . he cannot expect me to . . . he cannot . . . I would not know what to do . . . I am not ready . . .’
‘What is it? Tell me!’
He tried to lift her face and look into her eyes but they were obscured by tears and she could say nothing but ‘I cannot’ and try to hide her face. He held her close, bewildered, but knowing that she needed comfort. He turned his head to see if anything in the scene before them would give him a clue to her behaviour. Much had changed since he had last looked.
‘Kyra,’ he gasped, ‘look!’
The new priest was within the circle now, in the centre, facing east, his arms raised to the ocean where the sun would soon be rising. Thorn and the Elders with heads bowed were in their ritual places by the stones. Maal had disappeared.
‘Kyra!’
Kyra looked and saw.
She spun round and looked back along the processional way, tears forgotten now. The figure of Maal, ignored by all his community, small, steps somewhat unsteady, was making its way towards the pile of stones that had been gathered for his burial mound.
She began to run.
When she reached him he was sitting on one of the larger stones, contemplating the pile, looking no longer like a priest, mighty in magic and mystery, but like a very tired, old man who had decided to give up trying.
Out of breath she arrived and stood a little distance from him, watching. He did not seem to notice her but went on staring at the pile of rocks, his head turned from her. They stayed so, in that configuration, for some time.
Then he said, very distinctly and calmly, without turning his head, without apparently having seen her approach, ‘Come, my child,’ and he indicated another stone beside the one that he was on. ‘Sit awhile.’
She approached like a shy fawn, step by step, watching him,
ready to take off at any sign of anything untoward. He did not turn his head towards her until she was seated near him, and then he looked at her with great gentleness and tenderness. As her eyes met his she opened her mouth and tried to say all the things that were hurting in her heart. The regrets, the fears, the apologies.
He held up his hand and stopped her before one word could leave her lips.
‘I know, my child,’ he said quietly. ‘You were not ready. I should not have asked you.’
So she had not imagined his voice calling to her!
She dropped her head and sat very quietly, gradually becoming more relaxed and peaceful in his presence.
It seemed to her now, as the first rays of the sun crept across the landscape and rested upon his white hair, that she had known him always. This was no strange god-like creature, remote from her everyday life, this was someone she knew. She looked up with the realization and met his eyes again. They were as old as the hills . . . But so were hers!
Chapter 6
The Questioning
The new priest took over vigorously and from the time of his arrival not much was seen of Maal in public places.
The younger man strode about in the village and in the fields beyond, surveying the narrow strips of cultivated grain the villagers worked, the cattle they owned, the wood and straw houses they had constructed. He was interested in finding out all he could about their ways. And wherever he went Thorn followed him, explaining things.
Wardyke (for that was his name) nodded imperiously at the people he passed but did not speak to them. Wherever he went, whomever he met bowed the head and knee to him and did not dare to look into his eyes. It was well known that if you looked directly into the eyes of a priest-magician he could see your inmost thoughts and had power over you.
The villagers were delighted with the novelty of change and there was talk of little else in the evenings when the families gathered from their work to enjoy the evening meal. Karne and Kyra’s family were no exception.
‘He will be a good priest,’ Karne’s father said.
‘We had need of a change.’ Karne’s eldest brother Thon spoke boldly, aware that he was offering a tacit criticism of Maal and that this normally would be construed as blasphemy. He was aware also that the tide had imperceptibly turned against Maal and he would not now be called to account for it.
Kyra spoke up suddenly.
‘Why?’
Everyone looked at her.
‘I mean . . . why do we have need of a change? Maal has always served us well.’
‘He is very old, dear,’ her mother said soothingly, sensing a quarrel building up.
‘It is not just his age,’ Thon said. ‘He was incompetent as well.’
‘I do not agree,’ said Kyra fiercely.
‘What about the drought last year? We lost most of our grain.’
‘And the storm this spring,’ her father interjected.
‘He did his best! The gods do not always give what the priest asks. We do not know the ways of the gods. There may have been a reason why the harvest should fail last year.’
‘What reason?’ Thon jeered.
‘Perhaps . . .’ Kyra thought desperately for a possible reason, but it was Karne who unexpectedly gave her one. He had been listening very carefully to the talk while he was eating.
‘If the grain had not failed,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘we would never have learned that those plants in Fern’s garden were so good to eat.’
‘And if we had not had that storm in the Spring,’ Kyra cried triumphantly, ‘we would not have had those giant trees blown down in the forest to use for building.’
‘Nor the animals to eat that were driven out of the forest by the storm practically onto our spears,’ Karne added.
‘Nor the houses blown down . . .’ Thon said sourly.
‘Well, the houses that we rebuilt are much better than the old ones . . .’ Kyra was still defiant.
‘Nor the water-logged earth that spoiled our first planting . . .’ Thon persisted.
‘We planted again . . . There was no real harm done . . . and besides, Bera and Finn would not have fallen in love and married if they had not been trapped together for so long during the storm . . .’
‘But that is not the point,’ Karne’s father intervened here. ‘The point is that a competent priest would not have let those things happen!’
‘Maal is a competent priest,’ Kyra insisted. ‘There are just some things that have to happen, priest or no priest. There are reasons for everything. It is just that we cannot always see them.’
‘But the priest should see them and it is his task to explain things he cannot avert!’ Thon said.
‘No, l do not agree with that,’ Karne’s mother interrupted.
‘What do you not agree with?’ Her husband looked at her sharply.
‘I think the priest should see the reasons even if we cannot, but I do not think he has any duty to explain them to us.’
‘I wish there was more explanation of things,’ Karne said regretfully. ‘There are so many things I want to understand.’
‘It is not your place to understand,’ his father said. ‘Your place is to work for your family and worship the gods. It is enough that Maal, and now Wardyke, understand things. I must say I feel Wardyke will be good for the village.’
‘Maal used to come amongst us more,’ Karne’s mother said musingly. ‘I remember when my children were born he came to bless them and talked quite a bit to me.’
‘What did he say?’ Karne asked eagerly.
‘Oh, I cannot remember . . . it is such a long time ago. He hardly said a word the last time he came.’
‘Please try and remember,’ begged Kyra.
‘Something about new life being precious, coming from the past, going to the future . . . everything linked in some way . . . tied . . . so everything . . . even my scrawny little baby howling its head off . . . is of vital importance to the Whole. I did not listen much, I must admit. I was feeling so embarrassed that he was in our humble house and everything was in such a mess.’
‘Oh mother!’ cried Kyra impatiently.
‘Did he say much when I was born?’ Karne asked.
His mother thought for a while.
‘He stood looking at you for a long time and then made the blessing sign. Then he said, “This child has the strength to be a leader among men. Pray that before he leads he may be well led.” ’
‘And I? What did he say when I was born?’ Kyra asked anxiously.
‘I remember when you were born,’ Thon said. ‘I was hungry and I thought Maal would never leave.’
‘Yes, that is when he did most of the talking about everything being important and everything being dynamically – you see I remembered that word! – dynamically part of everything else. He went on and on . . .’
‘What did I do?’ Kyra was passionately interested in every detail.
‘You just howled and howled as though this was the most miserable experience of your life. You were such a sickly, mewling creature I was not at all sure you were going to live. Maal said you were. And you did!’
‘You see he is not so incompetent after all!’ Kyra said, pleased.
‘Oh, in those days we had no complaints,’ her father said. ‘But lately he seems to have withdrawn himself more and more from the people. He stays in his house most of the time or walks in the hills by himself.’
‘He performs all the rituals well,’ Kyra said quickly in Maal’s defence.
‘True. But he used to do more.’
‘He used to speak comfort to us on days that were not ritual days,’ her mother said. ‘But now he never seems to know when we need him.’
‘He came when Nidav was killed by the boar.’
‘Big things he still knows about. But before he used to know about the little things as well. He just seemed to know and care . . . about everything.’
‘Well,’ said Kyra defiantly, ‘I will be interested to see if Wardy
ke knows and cares about the little things!’
‘Why are you so against the new priest?’ Kyra’s mother asked worriedly.
‘I am not against him. It is just that I like Maal. There is something about him I trust.’
‘But surely you trust Wardyke? He was chosen by the gods and specially trained for our community.’
‘Yes, that may be true . . .’ Kyra’s voice carried no conviction.
‘Enough of this talk!’ The head of the household remembered his position. ‘Next we will be criticizing the gods!’
Kyra’s mother threw up her hands in horror at such a thought.
‘Then we are surely finished!’ she said.
* * * *
The next day Kyra took Karne aside and told him all that had transpired between Maal and herself on Midsummer’s Day and the following dawn.
‘What happened then?’ he asked with curiosity. She had stopped talking when she told him how she had felt that she and Maal were as old as each other and that she had known him before.
‘I do not know,’ she said sadly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I just sat there . . . feeling those things . . . and I could not think of any words to say them in . . . and he just sat there not speaking . . . so after a time . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I just walked away.’
Karne looked annoyed and disappointed.
‘You would!’ he said bitterly.
‘Do not be angry, Karne,’ she said miserably. ‘I have no one but you to tell these things to . . . no one but you to help me . . . and besides . . .’ and here her voice took an upward turn with a hint of resentment in it, ‘besides . . . it was you who got me involved in the first place!’
‘Nonsense!’ He denied it vigorously as he felt a twinge of guilt. ‘You were involved by just being born . . .’
She sighed deeply.
There was silence between them for a while as they both tried to work the situation through in their own way.
Kyra was thinking how much she would like to speak to Maal and ask him outright the answers to all the questions that were now bothering her as much as Karne.
The Tall Stones Page 5