Episode 6: Loneliness and Adventure, Chapter 1
Galeas lifted his weary head, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the red and golden glare of the setting sun, spreading like blood through the sky and fire through the water. His journey had taken him a month and more by the faces of the moon, and, even though he had left London safe in the hands of his friend Richard Whittington, as its new Lord Mayor nonetheless, the midnight sun of the northern summer was returning to its rest below the jagged line of the horizon. It would not get fully dark. Not for some weeks yet. Not here. He closed his eyes and breathed in the salt air of the ocean. He was close enough now not only to see the waves, but to hear them and smell them too. It had been too long since he last visited here. Nearly five score years had passed. There would be none left to remember him. None but the faerie folk, should they choose to show themselves. It was safer that way. Fewer questions, difficult questions, would be asked. But he had missed the beauty of the place. It would be different now, he reminded himself, walking onward again. Back then it had barely been able to claim the title of a dun, with the straggling buildings of the old Norse fort encompassed by their relatively new curtain wall, an addition of Leod Olafsson himself after his marriage and settlement there.
The trees rustled restlessly in the cool night breeze as he turned the last bend in the road that would lay out his destination before him. And there it stood. Dun Bheaghain. And this time it truly was a dun. The curtain wall still stood, just as he had left it for the most part, with some reinforcements in others. Within the walls, though, and towering above them, were high stone buildings, built to withstand the ocean's fiercest storms. Galeas caught his breath and blinked. The light was fading now, and the dun was silhouetted by the last rays of the setting sun, but it was a welcome sight to see the glow of a fire illuminating the narrow windows of the new buildings. A weary traveller might find a night's rest in such a place. An ancient of the family perhaps might find a few nights more.
Galeas cast his mind back as he walked onward, rehearsing in his mind the acquaintance he would claim. He might well say he knew Tormod Mac Tormod Mac Leod but by now Tormod would be long since gone. His first born son, Malcolm, had been but a babe in arms the first time he had visited the dun. He had been all of ten summers when he last visited it, with a younger brother hanging on his every word and deed. There had been a girl too. An elder sister, approaching the first bloom of womanhood with the rash stubbornness of the young, and the pride of a princess. It would be their children's children who held sway at the dun now. Malcolm would have inherited, all being well, and he it was that Galeas might claim to have some friendship with.
He approached the gate and a voice challenged him from the shadows. He replied with the family's motto and the pronouncement of his status as a friend to all within.
"You are no known friend here," rejoined the sentry. "I was born within these walls, have watched these gates by my father's side, and watch them now in his stead as my son shall do after me, and I know not your voice."
"I have not passed this way for a long time," sighed Galeas, pushing back the hood of his travelling cloak to reveal a head of hair as white as the moon that rose behind him. "When my bones were less weary and my sight less dim. When Malcolm Mac Tormod Mac Tormod Mac Leod walked the land within and you were not a speck of starlight in your father's eye. You have no reason to know me, but none also to doubt what I say."
"Of what name are you, stranger?"
"Galeas," he replied, lifting his head. "Of what name are you, friend, and of what your chief? For I must speak to him this night on a matter of some urgency."
"I am Iain Mac Tormod Mac Godfred Mac Iain Mac Tormod Mac Godfred Olafsson," announced the gatekeeper, "and I serve William Mac Iain Mac Malcolm, that was your friend, fifth chieftain of the clan MacLeod. Step forward, Galeas, friend of the MacLeods, and enter, and I shall bring you to our chief."
The hall was warm in comparison with the rapidly chilling summer air outside. Galeas waited, warming his hands by the fire, while the clan chief was roused and brought down. William MacLeod was a dour man, and being brought out of sleep after midnight was not a help to his temperament. He descended the stone stairs to the hall to find the new arrival awaiting him in the presence of his clansmen. MacLeod stalked over to the old man and stood, glaring up at him and considering his presence. Though but two summers past his thirtieth year, strands of silvery white flitted through his dark black hair, reflecting the glow of the candle in his hand. He held it up to Galeas' face and scrutinised its every detail.
"I have no memory of you," he growled. "Why should I grant you aught but the usual hospitality afforded a traveller in these isles?"
"My last visit here was before your time," replied Galeas patiently. "It was of some importance and I was assured that my name would be passed on should I return in need of your aid again."
"Our aid?" MacLeod frowned. "Our aid in what? Summer passes and autumn storms will soon be upon us. If you are here for fighting men you picked a poor time for it. Beyond that, I see not what we can offer in aid of any kind other than our hospitality. I know not your name, nor any tales of your deeds."
"But I do," said a voice. It was an old voice, but a clear one: high, feminine and lilting. The woman spoke from the shadows, but at a turn of the clan chief's head, she stepped forward. "This man speaks true," she nodded. "He is a friend here and we are bound by oath to aid him."
"What oath is this, crone?" MacLeod barked. "I known naught of it."
"It is an oath taken long before you were born, child," she replied, her tone hardening at the last word as she fixed a warning gaze upon the chieftain. "Galeas is an ancient of this place. He knows our secrets, and I know his. You do not know them, for, like your father and his father before him, you have never had reason to. I am the keeper of the clan's history, their secrets and their treasures. I know what must be known and I share only what must be shared."
"There is more must be shared this night if I am to let a stranger sleep within the safety of the dun's walls," growled MacLeod.
"Enough of your whining and arguing, boy," snapped the old woman, flames flashing in her eyes. "He sleeps this night here, with the men, in safety and peace. In the morn you will hear what he has to say, and you will hear it with patience and with respect. Then, perhaps, I may tell you as much as I deem should be told."
MacLeod's jaw tightened and he took a step towards the woman, but stopped. With a growl of frustration, he threw up a hand to his waiting retainers and gestured for them to do as the crone had ordered, then he stalked out of the room and up the stairs. Galeas watched him go, then turned his gaze onto the old woman to find her gazing sadly at the empty stairwell. Behind them, the clansmen disappeared to retrieve the necessary items.
"Do I know you?" Galeas asked, frowning in vague recognition. There was something about the stance, the proud turn of the head, the eyes.
"I was but a child when you last visited here," she replied, turning to face him with a mask falling back into place over her emotions. The anger was gone, the sparks of fire in her eyes dulled.
"That cannot be. I have not set foot in this place for nearly a century," he said, watching her steadily.
She gave a snort of laughter. "For a man who looks the same now as he did to a child of seven a full century ago, I dare say the impossible is not all that far off a land as never was seen on a clear morn over the waves."
Seven. She had been seven on his first visit. Sixteen on his last then. He searched his memory for a child, a girl, from either visit. He had spent so much time ensconced with the elders of the clan, he had not seen many children about the place. And of course, it had been so different then. But this child would have been different. A young girl first, and then a young woman, but not of the lower members of the clan. This would have been a girl with the bearing of a princess. His memory cleared. His eyes snapped up to her face.
"The daughter," he murmured, holding her now attentive gaze. "Eldest child of Tormod Mac Tormod Mac Leod. He introduced me to his eldest son, but not to you."
"Why should he? I am but a mere woman," she shrugged. "My brother was to inherit the name and the lands. His offspring would be those who remained here should you return. I would be married off to another chieftain's son and forgotten."
"Yet here you stand," he mused.
"Yet here I stand."
"Unlike names or fortunes, faerie blood does not distinguish between male and female," Galeas explained gently.
"Neither does intelligence," replied the old woman sharply. "Although I know which of those I worked out first."
Galeas felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. Instantly The crone's gaze hardened.
"Do not mistake me, Galeas," she warned. "We are not friends, you and I. I know of you and of the importance of your quest. You do not know I. You know nothing of the person I am or the life I have led. You do not even know my name."
"Then, pray, tell it me," Galeas requested politely, holding up his hands and stepping back."
The old woman pinned him with a sharp glare, studying his features. Eventually, it appeared, she reached a conclusion. "It is Flora," she answered. "My name is Flora."
