Foxmask

by Juliet Marillier

  “Why would these folk steal a child only to let him drown?”

  Creidhe bowed her head, cuddling Small One. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “The old women say the Seal Tribe don’t feel love and loss as we do. A human child is nothing to them. I suppose they took him in payment and then found they had no use for him. We should not be speaking of this in front of—”

  “That story is false,” said Keeper flatly.

  Creidhe was astounded. “No, it isn’t,” she protested. “My mother was there, she knows—”

  “Not all of it. But it is wrong to say these sea people let your brother drown. That is a terrible deed, a murderous deed. That is not the way it was.”

  “How can you possibly know that? How can you be so sure?”

  “I know, as you know your web shows truth, even when a force outside yourself guides your needle. I am sorry your brother drowned; I understand your father’s grief.” He was gazing at Small One now, his eyes shadow-dark. His expression stopped Creidhe’s heart, so full of love and fear was it. “Your Kinart died by accident, no more. The folk of earth and ocean do not demand cruel fees from those who honor them. That is not the way of it. Men and women of good heart have no reason to fear such folk.”

  “You can’t know that. These tales cannot take shape without some grain of truth—”

  “The tales are wrong. They come from fear. But you should not fear. It is the tribes of men that are heartless, not the ancient ones.”

  “Men can be cruel, it’s true,” Creidhe said, thinking of Somerled. “But they can be good and noble too, brave and strong. My father is like that.” She glanced at Eyvind’s embroidered image, with which the Journey began: the stalwart, sunny-haired warrior with the wolf pelt on his shoulders. “And there are all sorts in between: men who strive to be valiant, or loyal, or virtuous, and who keep failing; men who start life with advantages and waste them. Women who are selfish, or lazy, or jealous; others who are wise and loving. All sorts.”

  She began to roll the Journey up once more; today’s additions were dark, full of sorrow, but that was not of her choosing; she could only make truth as she saw it.

  “You are sad,” Keeper observed. He had not come to sit close by her this time, but remained a few paces off, standing, arms folded. The wind was stronger tonight, its eddies seeking them out through cracks in the stone walls, making the flames of their hearth fire flicker and tremble, and setting the feathers on Keeper’s tunic shivering.

  “Not sad exactly.” Creidhe thought about this. “I think what I feel goes beyond sadness. I feel—powerless. There is a great pattern here of blood and death and loss; I would give much to be able to change that, and yet I cannot see any way it can be done. I fear for my friends, across there with Asgrim; I have no idea what has become of them. I fear for Small One, and for you—the risks you take are so great my mind can scarcely encompass them. I am a long way from home, Keeper; it seems everything that happens carries me away just a little farther.”

  “You wish the ocean had not brought you to my island?” His face was in shadow; she could not read his expression.

  “Strangely, I cannot say yes to that. All along I believed I had some part to play in Thorvald’s journey, and although I have been separated from him, I still believe that to be so. I just hope I find out what it is soon. What you showed me today alarmed me. These are unquiet spirits, Keeper. I do not think you are a cruel man. But it is a cruel vengeance not to let them rest, at the last.”

  “They brought this on themselves.” Again, the flat statement of fact.

  “Certainly they came here knowing they faced death. The hunt is a time of blood. But they came to try to win peace for their tribe, to salvage some hope of a future. Not to hurt Foxmask, only to return him to where he belongs. I do not like what Asgrim did; I did not like what he intended for me. But I can understand their reasons. Keeper, I delivered a child while I was in Brightwater, a boy who would have died without my skills in midwifery. I could not understand the terror that gripped the young mother even after her son was safely born. Then the Unspoken came, the voices, and sang him away. He died there in her arms, a boy who had been whole and sound a moment before. It was cruel, terrible. This was the third infant Jofrid had lost that way. Can’t you understand why Asgrim’s men would act to stop that happening again? If this continues, the Long Knife people are finished.”

  Keeper stared at her. “You argue for the folk who would have sold you to their enemy?”

  “I do not support that,” Creidhe said, shivering. “If I did, I would not have tried to escape. I have blood on my hands as you have: men drowned that day because of what I did. But I understand Asgrim’s desperation. In such times, men take action that may be judged extreme in years of peace. What I do not understand is why, having defeated your adversary and killed him, you would not then allow him rest. If you sunder a man’s head from his body, he cannot move on. You condemn his spirit to roam the wilderness, alone and crying.”

  He did not reply, and now Small One wriggled down from her knee and wandered off, out to the open hillside. Creidhe stood up, thinking to follow him, for it was late and in the half-dark the ground was treacherous.

  “No need to go,” Keeper said quietly. “The moon rises; he will watch, as he does when it is full. Later he will sleep. Sit down; there is a tale you must hear.”

  Creidhe sat, hands folded in her lap.

  “When Asgrim’s people first came to the islands, there was peace,” Keeper said, squatting down beside her and using his long hands to illustrate his story. “The Unspoken had their seer, their Foxmask; they listened to his wisdom, and it helped them live well, reading the winds and tides, sowing seed by the moon and reaping at the right time, tending their creatures and their children. A hard life, but orderly. The islands were almost empty; there was plenty of room for the Long Knife people, and they settled and lived their lives. Each clan kept to its own islands; the fishing grounds were shared. Foxmask was a very old man. He was blind, and his legs were twisted and useless. He did not go abroad; the Unspoken tended to his every need, brought him food, kept his hut snug and dry. When they sought counsel they came to him. At the turning of the seasons he would sing for them, and in those songs he would set out what was important for the right living of their lives.”

  Creidhe nodded; this much she had heard already from Brother Niall.

  “Then Foxmask died. There was no other to take his place, no child of a fair-haired mother whose skin rivaled the snow for pallor. Without the wisdom they needed, the Unspoken grew wild and dangerous. It was not long before war broke out with the Long Knife people, a conflict in which many died over the course of the years. Then they took my sister, and for a little, the war ceased.” Keeper closed his eyes.

  “You need not speak of this, if—”

  “It seems simple to you, doesn’t it?” His tone was bitter. “Sula cannot suffer anymore; she is gone. Give them the child, then, let them place him in the position of love and respect that Foxmask deserves, and all will be well. Best for him; best for all. That is what you think.”

  Creidhe did not reply.

  “Part of what you see for my brother is true. If Asgrim’s men took him and passed him to the Unspoken, Small One would indeed become a venerated seer, as his predecessor was. But first they would break his legs and put out his eyes.”

  “What?” Creidhe’s voice was a strangled whisper.

  “This ritual was to occur as soon as he was weaned from his mother’s breast,” Keeper said flatly. “I took him away just in time. They believe, you see, that to perform his role fully, Foxmask must be as the old man was. I know this. I walked among them. To do what I did, it was necessary to earn their trust. They believe thus, that to close the body’s eye is to open further the eye of the spirit. To take away the ability to walk is to anchor the seer in the heart of his tribe. No matter whether this lore is true or not. If he goes back, they will do it. I do not believe he could survive suc
h an ordeal.”

  “Oh, no . . .” Creidhe could hardly speak. That frail child, who had curled so trustingly on her knee: no wonder Keeper guarded him with such violent dedication. “Oh, no . . .”

  “Asgrim knows this. Perhaps his men know it as well. Yet the Ruler does not understand why I took my brother. For Asgrim, to sacrifice a child for the good of the tribe is entirely justified. Even his own kin. He has shown that he cares nothing for the bonds of blood. It was not his legacy that bound me and Sula together, that binds me now to her son.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Creidhe whispered, clutching her arms around herself, “save that I am sorry I doubted your wisdom; had I been in your position, I hope I would have had the courage to do the same. This is . . . it is sad beyond belief. There are no answers here.” It was inevitable; the hunt would go on, and men would be killed, and Keeper would put his life at risk over and over. Her mind showed her Asgrim’s men advancing, to be cut down one by one, their bodies strewn across the island. Thorvald and Sam were with Asgrim; would they, too, lie in their blood before this summer was over?

  “It is not always sad,” Keeper said. “The hunt is but once a year, and over quickly. We have long times of calm. Winters are hard; sometimes he is sick, coughing and choking, and that troubles me. But good times too. After the hunt we can walk our island freely, without fear of attack. The Isle of Clouds is a place of beauty and holds many wonders. A forest of stone; a perch as high as an eagle’s nest. Creidhe?”

  “Yes?”

  “I have tried to teach him, to show him how to fend for himself. Tried to remember to talk to him, so he can learn words. Sometimes I forget; sometimes I think he cannot learn. I can protect him from Asgrim’s men; I can keep him safe from attack. But what if I fell from a height, or drowned while fishing? What if I took an illness and died? Then he would be all alone. You say I have done wrong somehow, that he is not like other children. Then I have failed him, and I have failed my sister. This makes me sad; it makes me afraid.”

  Creidhe reached out, put her hands around his. “No,” she said. “I was mistaken. In you he has the best example he possibly could.” She forced tears back; this was not a time to be weak. “You love him, and you are strong. You understand the island and the patterns of survival in this place; that, you surely can teach him. And . . . if I am here long enough, I can help a little. Maybe I can teach him to talk, and some other things. I could try, anyway. If you were happy with that.” Despite everything, despite Thorvald and Sam and all she had left behind, there was no choice in this.

  His mouth curved in a smile. “Happy, yes,” he said, eyes sliding away from hers in what seemed a sudden, inexplicable attack of the same shyness that had beset him earlier. She still held his hands between hers; now he moved his fingers to the outside, so his larger hands enveloped her smaller ones, and she felt the strength in them, a warrior’s strength.

  Light was filtering in through the entry; the moon was rising. They sat in silence, hands locked together, as the shadowy space turned silver-gray about them. Keeper’s face, ever pale, now seemed suffused with an unearthly glow, his eyes strangely bright, his skin translucent with light. Creidhe could see from the wonder in his face that she, too, had been transmuted thus; it was as if he saw a goddess before him. Her breath faltered.

  A song came lilting through the silence, a song of such magical purity Creidhe wondered for a moment if Keeper’s eyes told the truth and some spirit of the night had indeed chosen to honor them with its presence. The notes rose in a great, perfect arch, aching in their intensity, and hung in the air, sounding from rock and bush and hillside, echoing from ocean and moon and star, then falling away in wondrous cascade to ringing silence. And again the song rose, stopping the heart, flooding the eyes with tears, bathing the spirit in a balm of deep wisdom. As the singing went on, the brightness in the shelter intensified, pulsing, glowing, radiant and strong. Creidhe was aware of Keeper rising to his feet, and of the two of them walking together out to the open. They stood there hand in hand, watching the full moon move up the pale summer sky in shining certainty; watching Small One as he sat cross-legged on the rocks, eyes fixed on that disc of light. Watching and listening as Small One offered his wondrous, wordless anthem to the beauty of this celestial spirit, made his music for her solemn dance. Keeper’s arm crept around Creidhe’s shoulders, hers around his waist. They stood in utter silence as the melody rose and fell again, noble, sweet, full of ancient power.

  The wind had died down; the island was quite still, not a rustle, not a cry. The dark water of the western ocean shone in the strange light, glittering and perilous. It seemed to Creidhe such a song must reach to every corner of the world: to Asgrim among his warriors, dreaming of the hunt; to Thorvald and Sam, wherever they were; to the Unspoken, sick with longing for their seer’s return. It seemed to her such an anthem of loveliness must reach even as far as the Light Isles, and beyond. If she had ever doubted Small One’s abilities, she doubted them no longer. Perhaps he would never learn human speech; perhaps never play as other children did. After this, that seemed of no account at all.

  The song drew to a close, falling away in a ripple of decoration, a filigree of little notes swirling around the great strong cadence of it. Small One gave a huge yawn and blinked. Creidhe and Keeper moved apart; neither, perhaps, had been aware of how they had been standing, bodies pressed close, arms wrapped, until now.

  “Rest,” Keeper said, picking up the child. Small One put his arms around the young man’s neck and his head against his breast as if he were an ordinary lad tired out after a day’s fun and games, and not a powerful vessel for the moon’s ancient voice. “Time for bed.”

  The child was asleep the moment he put his head down. Then Keeper looked at Creidhe in the firelight, eyes liquid, dangerous, and Creidhe looked back at him unblinking, though the music of her heart was wild and urgent. After a moment he turned away, retreating to the other side of the fire pit to unroll his blanket, and Creidhe settled to sleep by Small One. The song was finished, but in the soft moonlight that touched their slumber, the memory of its power and beauty still lingered. This is eternal: ever changing, ever the same. The song calls me forth, and bids me farewell. I die and am reborn. I sing the pattern, whole, clean, pure; I sing the One Story.

  With a certain difficulty, for they were no longer young, the two hermits carried Colm home on a board and laid him to rest not far from the garden he had tended with such energy and love. Breccan found words for prayer; Niall stood with head bowed and palms together, and the fair, peaceable cadences warred in his mind with other, darker thoughts, thoughts that were less of sorrow and acceptance than of blood and revenge. Afterward Breccan gave him a cup of ale, made him drink it, poured him another.

  “You wish to render me senseless in order to save me from myself?” Niall asked his fellow hermit, not meeting his eye.

  “No, old friend. I merely hope to loosen your tongue a little. Primitive means perhaps, but I, too, am weary and sad. God has gathered our young companion home; Colm is in the best of hands now. Still, I feel his loss, and the girl’s terrible fate among the Unspoken. Man’s wickedness is strong in this place; at such times doubt assails me. It is not so difficult for me to understand your thoughts. We’ve known each other a long time. You should talk. This is best not kept within.”

  “It is a curse,” Niall said, staring into his ale. His face was expressionless. “All that I touch turns to dust. It is a darkness I bring with me. I thought on these remote isles to escape it, but it seems I cannot do so. I thought, by inaction, I might hold to what I promised, that I might wreak no more havoc in the world. A contemplative life seemed safe. But it follows me wherever I go, this shadow from the past; there is no place where I can hide from it. What do you think? Is this some devil I carry within me? I’ve never had time for such fancies, you know that well enough. Had I your faith, this would be simple. To trust implicitly in a deity of love and forgiveness is to smooth one’
s path greatly; one abrogates responsibility that way. I would do that if I could. But a man cannot feign belief; he cannot pretend faith.”

  “Such times, such losses are by no means easy,” Breccan said gravely, “even for a man who knows God’s mercy. Believe me, one remains entirely accountable for one’s actions: more so, in fact. You think I am untouched by grief or guilt for what has occurred? I saw Creidhe assaulted. I’m an able-bodied man, Niall. Do you imagine I do not ask myself, could I have done more? Could I have saved her? Do you think I do not wrestle with my conscience over the decision to take her away from here, risking attack in open country? Still, it is true, God’s love sustains me through my times of doubt and darkness. As it does you, my friend, whether you know it or not. You do not recognize how much you have changed over these years of exile.”

  “That’s just it,” Niall said in a whisper. “I haven’t changed at all. I’ve simply improved my self-control. I know the solutions, I ache to put them in place, every part of me screams, Act, act now, take control here and put it right. But I must not act. I’ve shown once before what I could do, what power I could wield, and what it led to. I swore I would take a different path. I will not break that oath.”

  They sat awhile by their small fire; the ale jug slowly emptied. Outside, the sky was dimming to the eerie half-dark of the summer twilight, and a full moon hung above the sea, pale and lustrous.

  “You know,” Breccan observed, “there’s a flaw of logic in your argument.”

  “Yes,” said Niall.

  “What is it that triggers this curse of yours? Action or inaction? What is it you’re supposed to have done wrong? We could hardly have refused to shelter the girl, knowing what we do of Asgrim. It was I who took her away, not yourself. It was Colm who volunteered to walk over to the encampment. I don’t think you can claim to be the sole cause of this particular disaster, Niall.”

  “No,” said Niall, “perhaps not. But I ask myself, why did Creidhe and her friends come to the Lost Isles in the first place?”