On the Edge of Darkness

by Barbara Erskine

  A drift of mist strayed near them, barely more than a haze in the growing light. It was enough. Adam took two and then three swift steps towards the trees, holding his breath. There was a clump of whin near him. He reached it and crouched down in relief as the voices floated towards him again.

  ‘You must cut the cross on the reverse of the sacred stone, Gartnait. Show me your designs and I will choose. It will do no harm and it will please the king and his visitors. Later we will serve our gods and show that they are stronger when I split the mountains with the force of my anger! And little Brid here shall help me.’ He held out his hand to touch Brid’s cheek.

  From his hiding place Adam could see her now. He held his breath, his skin crawling as he saw the man’s hand linger on her face with long clawed fingers. She had one of the silver plates Gartnait had engraved for his mother and was offering their visitor something from it. He accepted and Adam saw him bring it to his mouth. For a moment he stood staring at the silent tableau in front of him, then the mist drifted back and he could see no more. Without hesitating, he sprinted silently for the trees, dived amongst them, and set off as fast as he could up the hill.

  The stone was touched with the first rays of the sun. Breathless as he reached it, Adam realised suddenly that he had left behind his knapsack with his precious books and binoculars. He cursed himself, but he knew it would have to wait. Brid would take care of them. Walking slowly round the stone he could feel the sunlight warm on his shoulders as for a moment he stopped to finger the intricate carvings. This was his stone. On one side were the strange symbols and figures of the ancient Picts, on the other the lattice and lace of the Celtic cross. Of Gartnait’s newly carved stone without the cross there was no trace.

  Brid had hidden the knapsack under the bed coverings as soon as she had spotted it. Calmly she had scanned the interior of the hut for tell-tale signs of Adam. If there were any her uncle would see them. He had sight beyond the sight of normal men. She was praying as hard as she could that Adam had gone; not just into the mist but from their land altogether.

  She knew her uncle was suspicious. He did not yet trust Gartnait and showed it by his constant visits. Gartnait was too young. The role of stone carver and keeper of the gate was a sacred one, a calling as special in its way as that of priest or bard. It was a family trust Gartnait had inherited from their father when he had died two years before. It went with the knowledge bred in the blood, of how to travel to the realms of the ever young if only one should dare. To go there was forbidden to all but the initiated, but sometimes people slipped without realising it through the gate – like Adam.

  She had known the first time she saw him that Adam came from beyond the stone. His strange clothes and speech set him apart. She had watched carefully to see how he travelled the road which was supposed to bring death to all but the very few who knew the way. That he was a proper man and not a spirit or a ghost she had proved to her own satisfaction. But he was young to be an initiate. He had fascinated her from the first moment she set eyes on him. And now she had made him hers. A secret smile touched her lips briefly and then disappeared. Whatever his power was, she was going to have it.

  ‘Brid!’ The impatient call from outside made her jump. With another hasty glance round she stepped outside into the mist to confront the steady gaze of her uncle.

  ‘You look frightened, child.’ He had caught her hand and pulled her to him. ‘There is no need.’ Putting his hand under her chin he tilted her head up so he could study her face. Meeting his eyes she looked away quickly, afraid that he could see the new woman-power which was still coursing through her veins, the power which had come from the touch of a man. She could feel his eyes probing her very soul, but after a moment he looked away from her face and turned to his sister. ‘She runs wild here, Gemma.’ He spoke sternly. ‘She should be at her studies. There is much for her to learn if she is to serve in the holy places.’ He ran his hand slowly, almost seductively, down Brid’s cheek.

  She took a step back out of his reach and straightened her shoulders. ‘I wish to follow the way of the word, Uncle.’ She looked at him steadily. Her fear had vanished, to be replaced by cool determination. ‘I have already learned much from Drust, the bard at Abernethy. He has agreed to teach me all he knows.’

  She saw her uncle’s face suffuse with blood and instantly regretted her brave speech. ‘You presume to arrange your own life!’ he thundered at her.

  She stood her ground. ‘It is my right, Uncle, if I have the gift of memory and words.’ It was her right as daughter of two ancient bardic families, one, her mother’s, of royal descent, for Broichan, her uncle, was the king’s foster father and his chief Druid.

  There was a long silence. Gemma was nearby, jug in hand, in the doorway. She had been about to replenish her brother’s ale but she, like her two children, was standing, eyes fixed on his face. She held her breath.

  ‘Have you encouraged her in this?’ Broichan looked first at Gemma and then at Gartnait.

  It was the latter who spoke first. ‘If it is her calling, Uncle, surely it is the gods who have encouraged her? Without their inspiration she would not have the talent to learn from Drust.’ Gartnait spoke with pride and dignity.

  Brid bit back a triumphant smile. She wanted to hug him but she didn’t move.

  Abruptly her uncle turned away. Striding to one of the logs positioned near the fire as a seat he pulled his cloak tightly around him and sat down. ‘Recite,’ he commanded.

  Brid caught her breath and glanced at Gartnait. He nodded gravely. His sister’s waywardness, the stubborn furies which frightened him, the wild, in-born power, would be contained and safely harnessed by their uncle.

  She moved forward. At first she was too nervous to speak, then almost miraculously her nerves vanished. Straightening her back she raised her head and began.

  Her teacher had been thorough. On the long winter evenings, by the fire, he had noticed Brid in his audience, aware of her breeding and her brain, and had painstakingly repeated the long poems and stories which were their heritage until she could recite them faultlessly. Brid’s memory, as Adam had discovered, was exceedingly good. Already she had the basics of what was taught in the bardic school.

  At last Broichan held up his hand. He nodded. ‘Indeed your tongue must have been touched by the goddess. That is good. You shall study further.’ He gazed at her for a moment seeing clearly her nascent power, her wild, untamed link to the Lady. He frowned for a moment, a shadow crossing his face. There was a hardness there, a stubbornness, a single-mindedness of spirit which until the moment was right would have to be carefully handled.

  He turned back to his sister. ‘Your children are both talented, Gemma, which is as well. As soon as this monk, this Columcille, has gone back to the west where he came from, we shall have to chase the Jesus god from the land. They shall help us do it.’

  That way she could be used.

  And contained.

  And her blood, as the child of kings, could sweeten and purify the earth defiled by the man sent from the Jesus god.

  4

  ‘Adam, where have you been?’

  Thomas Craig had spent the whole night searching the hill. Unshaven and exhausted, he stopped, leaning heavily on his walking stick, trying to recover his breath.

  ‘Father!’ Adam had been sitting on the sun-warmed rock, overwhelmed by sleepiness, too tired to face the long walk back to the manse. ‘I’m sorry.’ He scrambled to his feet, suddenly frightened. ‘I –’ He hesitated. ‘I got lost in the mist. I thought it better to stay put– ’

  ‘You thought it better!’ Thomas’s fear and exhaustion were swiftly turning to anger. ‘You stupid, thoughtless, arrogant boy! Does it never cross your mind that I worry about you? Did it not cross your mind that I might have a sleepless night and spend the time searching for you?’ The guilt, the self-punishment with which he tormented himself endlessly, was taking more of his strength each day.

  ‘I did not think you
would notice, Father.’ Adam took a step back, though his tone was defiant.

  ‘You – you didn’t think I’d notice!’

  ‘No, Father. You haven’t known whether I’m there or not for months.’ Somehow Adam maintained the courage to speak. ‘You haven’t noticed me at all.’

  He held his father’s gaze. Overhead a buzzard mewed plaintively as it rode a thermal higher and higher over the hill. Neither of them looked up.

  The silence stretched to one full minute, then another. Adam held his breath.

  Abruptly, his father’s shoulders slumped. He sat down on a rock and threw his stick down at his feet. Rubbing his hands across his cheeks he sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’ He kneaded his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right, of course. I’ve behaved unforgivably.’

  Adam sat down some six feet from him. He said nothing, his eyes fixed on his father’s face. His fear and defiance had changed to a strangely adult compassion for this tortured man.

  At last Thomas looked up. ‘You should come home. Get some food.’

  Adam nodded. Slowly he stood up. He was stiff and tired, and suddenly he was starving.

  The sound of screams to which he woke were his own. Muffling his face in the pillow he stared out of the window at the rags of ivy which danced round the frame, tapping the glass and blowing, in green and cream streamers, in the brisk south-easterly wind.

  He had eaten a huge breakfast under the watchful eye of Jeannie Barron and then on her instructions made his way upstairs. He had only meant to lie down on the bed for a minute, with his book on butterflies in his hand, but overwhelmed with exhaustion and his own frustration and confusion, he had fallen instantly asleep.

  The dream had been terrifying. He had been swimming underwater. At first it was fun. His limbs moved with ease and he had been staring round, eyes wide, watching the streaming green weed and the swift-moving brown trout in the dark water. Then suddenly she was there in front of him. The hag. The ugliest face he had ever seen, grotesque, toothless, her eyes bagged, surrounded by carbuncles, her nose broad and fleshy, her hair a tangled mass of swirling watersnakes. He had opened his mouth to scream, limbs flailing desperately, and swallowed water. He was drowning, sinking, and all the time she was coming closer and she was laughing. And suddenly she wasn’t the hag any more. Her face was Brid’s face and her hair was Brid’s hair and he was staring at her naked body, reaching for her breasts even as he drowned.

  He sat up in bed, clutching his pillow to his chest, still fighting for air, and realised to his miserable embarrassment that he was sporting a huge erection. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed he ran to the window and heaved the heavy sash up. Sticking out his head he gasped for air. He stayed there until his breathing had calmed and he was himself again, then he turned back into the room. He wondered if his father had heard. He was not to know that downstairs his father had closed his ears to the boy’s tormented shouts, and sitting at his desk in the ground floor study had felt the hot slow tears trickle down his own cheeks.

  * * *

  The next day was the Sabbath. Adam had not wanted to go to the kirk. He had hung back on the path as the congregation had filed into the old stone building, wondering if he dared duck out of sight around the trees and run down through the kirkyard to the broad slow-moving river. Then Jeannie had come, Ken at her side, and somehow they had swept Adam inside with them and into the manse pew. Adam sat motionless, his eyes on his father’s snowy-white bands as Thomas stood above him in the pulpit. The boy was shaking. If his father could not see what was going on inside him, God certainly could. Adam was terrified. His skin was clammy with guilt, his hands clutched between his knees, his scalp crawling with terror as he thought about Brid and his dreams and what he had done. And slowly at the back of his mind he began to wonder if what his mother had done had been as bad and whether she like him would go to hell.

  As they stood for the hymns he found his mouth was dry and his voice came out as a thin squeak. When the service was over, his face was so white he was able to slide away pleading a headache without even the observant Jeannie questioning the truth of the matter.

  Thoughts of Brid filled his every waking moment. Alternate guilt, fear and obsessive longing, which at night in bed turned to dreams of lust and in equal measure self-loathing, were with him constantly. He returned to the stone again and again, but he could not find his way back to her village or to the cottage. Frustrated and impatient he found himself sobbing out loud as he raced back and forth amongst the trees. But every time the hillside was empty save for the occasional herd of deer grazing on the lower slopes, and thwarted he had to go home to a lonely, unenthusiastic supper and a cold bed where he dreamed of her again, shame-facedly scrubbing the treacherous signs from his pyjamas with his handkerchief so that Jeannie wouldn’t see when she did the washing.

  Broichan sat for a long time staring down into the embers of the fire. Beside him Gemma and Brid had watched as he consulted first the streaming clouds, pink and gold from the setting sun, then the fall of the ogham sticks which he kept in a bag at his waist, and finally the deep red stone set in gold which hung from a cord around his neck. Now at last, the auguries clear, he raised his head.

  ‘Brid.’

  The two women jumped. Gartnait was not with them. He had departed earlier with his bow to hunt.

  An imperious finger decorated with a carved agate ring beckoned Brid to her feet. ‘It is decided. You will return to Craig Phádraig with me. We ride at dawn.’

  ‘No!’ Brid’s cry of anguish echoed above the sound of water from the burn and the crackle of the dying fire, and spiralled up towards the clouds.

  Broichan rose to his feet. He was taller than her by several hand-spans and his eyes were like flint. ‘You will obey, Niece. Pack your belongings now, before we sleep.’

  ‘Mama –’ Brid threw an imploring look at Gemma but her mother refused to meet her eye.

  ‘You must do as my brother says, Brid.’ Gemma’s voice, when she spoke at last, was shaking.

  ‘I will not go!’ Brid’s face reflected livid colour from the dying sun. ‘You cannot make me. I have power too.’ She drew herself up to her full height and held Broichan’s gaze. ‘I can bind the storms, and I can ride the wind. I can hunt with the wildcat and run with the deer. I can catch and keep a man!’ She veiled her gaze hastily. She must not let him read her thoughts, must not let him know about Adam.

  Broichan stared at her thoughtfully. There was something like a small sardonic twitch of humour in his eyes as he held out his hand and without seeming to move caught hold of her wrist. ‘So, little cat, you think you can duel with me,’ he murmured. ‘Such confidence, such foolishness.’ He seized her chin in his other hand and forced her face close to his, his eyes boring into hers. ‘Peace, little wild one. You are my servant and you will obey me.’ He reached for the translucent red stone ball in its golden setting and held it for a moment before her eyes. In seconds the eyelids began to close and she became still.

  ‘So.’ Broichan pushed her towards her mother. ‘Put her to bed, then pack her bag. I will take her tomorrow at first light. She shall ride in her sleep across the saddle like a bag of oats and at Craig Phádraig if she disobeys me I shall chain her by the neck like a slave.’ He turned the full force of his gaze on Gemma’s terrified face. ‘I do not allow disobedience, Sister, from any of my family. Ever.’

  Adam had finally given up all hope of seeing Brid again when he met Gartnait on the mountain. He followed Brid’s brother and stood watching as he stooped and, picking up his chisel, squatted at the foot of the stone to work on a curved design. It was, Adam saw suddenly, a graceful, very realistic serpent.

  ‘You must go back.’ Gartnait spoke without looking up at him. Both he and Gemma could remember some of the English they had learned.

  ‘Why?’ Adam was suddenly tongue-tied with embarrassment.

  ‘It is not safe. You will be seen. Brid was careless.’

  ‘Why is
it so wrong for me to be here with you?’

  Gartnait glanced up at him. His tanned, weather-beaten face was dusty from the stone chippings, his strong hands callused but gentle on his tools. He leaned forward to blow at the work and rubbed at it with his thumb.

  ‘Your father serves the gods. That is how you found the way.’

  Adam frowned. ‘There is only one God, Gartnait.’

  The young man squinted at him and then down at his handiwork. ‘The Jesus god? His followers say there is only one god. Is it he your father serves?’

  ‘Jesus, yes.’ Adam was uncomfortable. Jesus and Brid – or Brid’s brother – were incompatible.

  ‘Yet how can you believe this when all around you the gods are there? Brid told me you and she saw the Lady in the waterfall.’

  Adam blushed to the roots of his hair. Surely Brid would not have told her brother what had happened between them? ‘It is what we are taught. Only one God,’ he repeated stubbornly.

  ‘And yet you have been taught the way. How to walk between our world and yours.’ Gartnait leaned closer to the stone again, the tip of his tongue protruding between his teeth as he concentrated on an intricate corner, lifting the hard stone with his sharpened blade as though it were a flake of mud.

  ‘No one taught me to come here.’ Adam frowned. ‘I found it by myself. Though sometimes I can’t find the way – I don’t know why.’ He was feeling more and more uncomfortable.

  Gartnait sat back on his heels. He stared at Adam thoughtfully. ‘That is because the way is not always open,’ he said at last. ‘It has to be taken when the time is right. The moon, the stars, the north wind. They must all be in the right place.’ He smiled gravely and changed the subject abruptly. ‘Brid likes you.’