Episode 6: Loneliness and Adventure, Chapter 3

Sleep, when he had not been long encumbered with hardship and toil, was of little necessity to Galeas, and he often rose early, before the rest of the clan who had given him shelter. The year had turned cold and the winter solstice grew near. Food was scarce, kindling more so. Every day the children of the clan went out along the shore in search of driftwood to supplement their dwindling supply of peat. The smith's forge lay quiet and still, its embers cold and lifeless. Whatever ironwork needed doing in the depth of winter, would have to wait until the thaw, when men could go back up to the moor and cut more peat. Nothing but the greatest emergency was to cause the lighting of the forge until sufficient fuel was found to last.

Galeas stood on the curtain wall, the boundary of his world for the time being, looking out to the sea loch below. The sun had not yet risen. The moon had set. The stars were covered over with cloud. It was the blackest of nights. The fourth of the night watches had just changed, making it about the sixth hour after midnight. Galeas stood, a silent sentinel, listening to the sough of the waves, watching and thinking. Always thinking.

"What secrets do the waves whisper to you this morn?" Flora murmured, stepping up beside him on the wall.

"No more than the usual," he answered, his gaze still fixed westward.

"No lights on the water?"

"None."

"Nor shall there be," Flora slipped an arm through his. "We have food enough yet and the folk are gathered in the dun for warmth at night. There is no illness in the clan. No threat of an attack. Not from the humans of this world nor from that powrie you angered."

"Death is never far away at this time of year," replied Galeas. "Red Caps have been known to lay siege to their targets before now. Our supplies are shrinking. No more grain has arrived from the south of the island in over a month."

"In this weather, that is not uncommon."

"Maybe," he allowed, "but maybe there is more to it than that. The first snow has still to fall. There has been only wind, rain and ice to contend with, and the first two have never stopped your supply before, have they? Why should the ice make the task more difficult?"

"What weather there is in the north of the island does not necessarily match the weather in the south," Flora pointed out. "You cannot know that..."

In the same instant, both watchers froze, Flora's grip tightening on Galeas' arm.

"Teine sith," she whispered.

"Will o' the wisp," nodded Galeas. "Lights on the water. Come, Let us see what can be done. If anything."

"If nothing can be done," murmured Flora, holding him back a moment, "the fault is not with you."

"I brought the Red Cap to your door," he replied, shaking his head. "If any of these people die from its interference, that fault is mine and will stay with me to the end of my days."

Picking their way carefully down the wooden steps in the frozen darkness, the two elders found their way to the dun. The warmth inside was tangible, and it blanketed them as soon as they entered. The scent of multiple unwashed bodies was even more so, and hit them each with a force enough to make them recoil at first. But such was the norm for the lower floors of the dun in bad winters. Out at the edge of the world, the clan lived together, or died alone.

Flora and Galeas separated, winding their way through the rows of huddled, sleeping bodies, surreptitiously checking each for signs of illness or difficulty. They met again at the far side of the single ground floor room, silently exchanging looks that conveyed their findings, or lack thereof. Flora pointed upwards. Galeas nodded, and followed her across the room again to the winding stairs that led up to the chieftain's private rooms and those of his direct family. They ascended quietly, but not quietly enough to startle the clansman on guard. The man nodded in recognition and stepped aside, bowing as the two elders passed.

The rooms on the second floor of the dun were divided into two uneven parts by a woven willow partition. The stairs opened into the smaller of the two chambers, where a long wooden bench waited by the curtained door to the larger room. Galeas held the curtain back and waited for Flora to precede him into the chieftain's meeting hall. A second staircase led out and up around the side of the dun to the third floor, where the MacLeod and his family slept. The room on the third floor was partitioned also, this time into five chambers. The first chamber was a simple slice of the circular stone room that housed another vigilant guard. Beyond the woven wall, another joined it, perpendicular to the first. Doors at either end of the first wall led through to each half. Beyond them, a third willow wall crossed at right angles, dividing each half into two smaller rooms. Flora led the way into the right hand rooms first, passing quickly through the chamber that was her own and into the room that housed two sleeping boys, Iain and George, just five and two years of age. She ran a fond hand through the unruly blond curls of the elder, tucked the woollen blanket closer around the younger, and kissed each child's forehead.

"They sleep easily," she breathed as she returned to Galeas' side. "Now let us check that their mother and father do likewise."

The first chamber on the left side was inhabited only by two more clansmen, sleeping after taking their turns on watch earlier in the night. They checked the sleepers gently then moved on. Galeas paused at the curtained door to the chief's bed chamber beyond.

"Perhaps I should..." he began.

"Please," Flora waved him into silence. "I helped birth him, and I bathed him and clothed him more times than he cares to remember. I've tended his wounds and those of his soldiers, and I've had two husbands of my own to boot. There is nothing beyond that door I haven't seen. But if you would care to wait here, of course..."

"I am a guest in this house," he replied, holding up his hands in surrender and stepping back. "These are your people. It is your right to take charge of their well-being."

Flora reached out a hand toward the curtain.

"And your funeral if you wake him in a bad mood," Galeas whispered with a smile.

"If only!" Flora growled under her breath.

The curtain swung shut behind her, and Galeas let the mischievous smile fall from his face. His brows knotted, his eyes downcast, he let his memory wander back through his time in the dun. He replayed each conversation with Flora, finding sentences here and there that, put together, wove a dark and troublesome picture for him. It was an issue that must be addressed, but not here. Not now. Not today.

She returned with a rustle of the woollen curtain, and led him out of the guards' chamber. Together they made their way down the stairs to the chieftain's hall. There, Flora beckoned him onto a stone bench built out from the very wall of the dun. With lowered voices, they were far enough from the partition wall and curtained doorway that the guard there would not hear them.

"All is well," she murmured. "None in these walls sicken or are ill at ease."

"Death is not always caused by illness, starvation or cold," Galeas reminded her.

"I have seen enough of it in my time to know that, old one," she retorted. "I've had a harder time predicting the others though, and an even harder one preventing them."

"Then there is nothing to be done," he sighed. "I feared as much. We must keep the clan within the walls today. The faerie magic that protects me here will protect them also."

"We cannot keep everyone under lock and key for the whole day," Flora pointed out. "The fires burn low and we have little enough wood to fuel them with. We must send some out when it is light to gather what driftwood they can. I will go with them, but I cannot collect enough alone to serve the wants of the whole dun."

"Then I will go with you," suggested Galeas. "I am harder to kill than any others here, and it is by my doing that this danger waits by your door. I will not allow innocent others to risk themselves in my stead."

"I find 'innocent others' very rarely care what you and I will or will not allow them to do," retorted Flora, rolling her eyes. "Danger has walked these shores long before you or I did."

"Speak for yourself, little girl," muttered Galeas under his breath.

"I'll speak as I find, old man."

Galeas glared at her, and was met with folded arms and an ice blue gaze as steady and immobile as the dun wall behind her. He threw up his hands, having learnt early in his stay at the dun that there was little point in arguing with that catlike stare.

The East was turning golden-edged shades of peach and pink when they returned to the grass before the dun, and as they climbed the steps up to the curtain wall, the growing light reflected on the rippling water of the sea loch. They stood there, watching the changing colours of the sunrise reflected in the ever-shifting waves, until the rising noise level behind them told them the dun was awake and moving. Their argument on hold until it could be brought before the MacLeod himself, they picked their way back across the greensward to renew it in his presence. As both had expected, the recalcitrant William cared little for their superstitious fancies, as he called them, and would not hear of keeping the clan within the walls for the day. Nor would he accept the alternative that Flora and Galeas alone went out that day. If Galeas was so much more indestructible, then why was he sheltering there in the first place. Better he take himself to some other protected place where there were no weak women and children to suffer for his errors. Flora's lips thinned to the tight, pale line at this. It was five years since William had taken his place at the head of the clan; a second son, it was true, and one trained more for the clergy than for leadership. But the man was no idiot, she thought, keeping her features blank and inscrutable, he surely knew by now that there was truth in the old tales. He had met a faerie queen. He had known Flora herself all the days of his life, and had not in all those thirty two years seen her age. What more proof did he need? Her face was white with rage when she left his presence some half hour later.

Galeas took Flora by the arm and led her aside. "He is young," he said, his voice low and soothing. "Young and headstrong. And still grieving both a father and a brother. He is new to too many worlds. Give him time and he will see he's a fool to ignore your advice."

"My advice?" Flora snorted. "It was your advice he ignored. He never ever heard mine!"

"He'll learn the better of that in time."

"At what cost?" Flora rounded on him. "Someone within these walls will die this day. We know this to be true. We know also, and far better than he, what danger lies beyond these walls. The very place he will happily send our children. Not even the grown men and women would he send in their place, hearing of our warnings. The children. The most innocent and helpless of all. Sent out to collect firewood as usual, with no knowing what fate may await them there."

"They know the tales," soothed Galeas, gathering her into his arms, "They are as safe as we can make them. And only one will be lost."

"There is no such thing as 'only' when a mother loses her child," Flora whispered, fear and anger shuddering through her voice.

From their usual perch on the wall, they watched the children leave on their daily expedition. Her shawl wrapped close around her, Flora counted them out, watching them until they disappeared up the shoreline. The day wore on and, try as he might, Galeas could not budge the steel-eyed woman from her watch-point. One by one the children returned, arms filled with varying sizes of driftwood bundles. She counted them in. By dusk only two remained unaccounted for, two boys, both in their tenth winter. Her eyes flicked between the lowering sun and the shore path, by which the children must return. Finally, with the last sliver of sunlight dissolving into the sea, the two boys ran up, arms full. They reached the gate in the curtain wall and hurried through, heading straight for the wood store, then on into the dun to be fed.

"All our little chicks have come home to roost safely," said Galeas, still unwaveringly by her side. "Perhaps we misread this morn's warning."

"Such warnings are never misread, only misinterpreted," she sighed, her voice still shaking, but this time with relief. "This day is not over, and death still waits for one of us."

Holding out his hand, and waiting patiently until she relented so far as to place her hand in it, Galeas helped Flora down the stairs and led her over to the dun, where the clan gathered for the evening meal. The warmth of the single room on the ground floor of the dun hit them with a palpable force as they entered. The smell of stewing mutton filled the room, almost overpowering the smell of the people crowding in there. Where the outside had been cold, dark, lifeless and quiet, in here there was noise, light, laughter and warmth. Flora eyed her charges silently and led Galeas to the stairs up to the chieftain's hall. The laughter echoed up the curving stone stairwell, and as they reached the curtained doorway to the hall, Flora felt it take on a mocking tone. She pushed back the curtain and entered. William MacLeod, fifth chief of the clan MacLeod, sat in his high-backed chair, presiding over an argument. While the children of the clan had been innocently gathering firewood, some of the adults had been finding other means of keeping warm, it seemed. A man Galeas recognised as one of the guards was accusing one he knew to be a carpenter of stealing away his betrothed. The woman in question was weeping pitifully in the midst of the feud.

"She has not yet said her vows to you," the MacLeod cut off the guard sharply. "She may be promised to you, but if memory serves, it was not herself that did the promising. Until she is wed, then, you have no claim to her heart, only her future."

"Her father promised me that she was..."

"What her father promised is neither here nor there anymore," interrupted William. "Will you wed her as she is or no?"

"She'll be mine as promised, and I'll wed her," answered the guard, "but I will not raise a cuckoo in my nest."

"That is easily attested to," sighed the MacLeod, waving a hand dismissively. "Anything else?"

"This man stole something from me. Something he cannot give back," replied the guard, fixing a dark gaze on the carpenter. "I would have him tried as a thief and punished as one."

"You, girl," barked the chieftain, pointing to the snivelling young woman in the middle of the room. She looked up. "Did this man force himself up on you in any way. Speak freely and true now, or it will be the worse for you."

Looking from the chieftain to the carpenter he was pointing at, she shook her head and burst into a fresh torrent of tears.

William MacLeod turned back to the guard. "What your rival took was freely given. I see no theft here."

"You would see your clan become a place where a man's word means nothing," complained the guard, rising up on false dignity, "and honour and virtue are but pale shadows of their true selves?"

"I would see my clan become a place where women were not bartered as goats are," retorted the chieftain. "My clan. And you would do well to remember that, Murdo mac Tormod mac Iain. If my ways do not suit you, perhaps you should seek another chieftain more bloodthirsty than I to stand guard for. You can wait until the spring if you wish, or not."

"I'll not leave without my promised bride," snarled the guard.

"How much did you pay her father for her?" William snapped. "What goods were exchanged that you hold her to a promise she did not make and so obviously wants no part of?"

The guard glared murder at the chieftain and stalked out of the room pushing past Galeas and Flora.

"What debt does your father owe him?" William asked the girl, whose tears had turned from those of shame, to those of fear.

"I do not know, sir," she replied, her whole body shaking like a leaf.

"And did you agree to this match?" William persisted.

"I did not, sir," she shook her head.

"And how long has there been an understanding between yourself and your lover here?"

"The full turn of four moons, sir, and then some days over."

The MacLeod nodded and sat in silent thought a while. "No marriage can take place within my walls without my permission," he said at last. "I do not give my permission for the match between you and Murdo."

"Thank you, sir," breathed the tearful girl. "Thank you."

"What say you, Angus of Lewis," said William, turning his eyes upon the carpenter. "Will you wed this woman you have beguiled?"

"I will sir," nodded the carpenter. "If her father will allow it."

"The choice lies not with him," murmured William, looking back to the girl. "It lies with you now child. Two men in this dun wish to wed you. Which will you have? He who paid for you, or he who won you?"

Silently, the girl held out her hand to the carpenter. He took it with the tentativeness of one reaching out to a stray cat.

"Very well," nodded the MacLeod. "To this match I give my permission, and to no other. Send your father to me and I will settle this matter with him."

The young couple nodded and wound their way around the waiting Flora and Galeas. Flora waited until their footsteps had echoed into silence before stepping forward to stand before the chieftain.

"Well," he sighed. "Did all of our children return safely?"

"They did," Flora admitted, "but..."

"As I knew they would," William cut in. "Night has fallen. The day is over. No ill has befallen any here."

"The day is not over," Flora countered. "Not in this instance. To any warning such as this, the limits of the day last a full cycle from when the warning was given. We have until dawn tomorrow before this is truly over."

"Then I suggest setting a watch upon our friend Murdo," sighed William impatiently. "If any is like to take the life of another this night it is he. It may be as well to set a watch upon the girl and her lover also, for they would surely be his targets."

"Indeed, but..." Flora stopped, her unusual agreement with her relative cut off by an anguished cry, echoing desperately down the stairwell and rising to a dolorous wail.

The entire company of the chieftain's hall rushed to the stairs. Galeas, closest to the door, was first to reach the source of the mournful sound. A woman sat on the stairs halfway up to the next floor, a small child hanging limply in her embrace. A bloody gash across the child's forehead, matching a reddened patch of wall by the edge of the stairs, told a story of its own in gory detail. In the depth of her despair, it took Galeas a moment to realise that the woman who sat so sorrowfully before him was the chieftain's own wife, and the child in her arms was the two year old babe that Flora had so lovingly tucked a blanket around that very morning.