Episode 6: Loneliness and Adventure, Chapter 5
Time is said to travel in diverse paces with diverse persons. Perhaps there are none so diverse as those who have lived through many lifetimes. Time, to the timeless, is a lazy stream winding through a forgotten forest. Now it bubbles frantically over rocks and pebbles; now it piles up against a fallen log; now it runs narrow and deep, its true speed hidden by overgrowing bushes and reeds; now it spreads slowly out into the meander, idling in its unending journey.
So too did time travel at Dun Bheagain. Time and again, the ancient Norse fort was attacked by forces older still than its foundations. Time and again, those forces were beaten back by the crone of the clan and her husband. There was no hiding the truth of Flora MacLeod's prolonged life now, nor that of her husband, and the clan at least had the knowledge of its source. It was somewhere in the first few years of this marriage that the title of crone gradually changed to Cailleach: a name that translates simply into 'old woman', but has deeper roots in the history and lore of the faerie folk. Galeas likewise earned a title, and was known to young and old alike as Bodach: 'old man'. His stories filled the hearts of their hearers with both fascination and fear, for within them all lay a warning that all now paid far more heed to than in times gone by. Those children who had sat by the old man's knee in their younger years grew up, both wary and aware of the magical beings surrounding them. They married and had children of their own, sending them to the Bodach to hear the stories that had educated their own youth.
Time rolled by for Flora and Galeas. In the space of a generation, the stone walls of the dun grew and were strengthened. They were given their own set of rooms, high up in the dun, in a new tall tower added for the purpose. Galeas divided his time between his duties as a clansman, occasional long or short journeys for the Scholar, when absolutely necessary, and compiling a great archive in those tower rooms. The treasures of the clan were sent there, to be guarded over by the Cailleach and her husband. Great manuscripts, telling tales far older than either guardian, found their way to the tower rooms. Other items began appearing through the decades too. Some were relics of Galeas' adventures, old and new. Others were gifts sent by the Scholar, and appearing as if by magic in the rooms. An iridescent blue glass perfume bottle. A bloodstained and battle-worn olifant: an ivory hunting horn intricately carved at its widest end and bound in rings of worked silver. An exquisitely wrought gold arm ring, its interlocking projections weaving their way around its circumference. A small silver gilt cauldron with the embossed faces of Celts around the side. Numerous scrolls and maps. A supply of inks, parchment, thread and glue, with a raised copyist's lectern at which the Bodach often spent the lighter hours of the day, chronicling the Hebridean legends recounted to him by his wife. By the end of twenty years, a row of volumes, bound in leather, sat proudly on the wooden shelf beside the lectern. They had filled the shelf slower of late, as Galeas had spent much of the past year hunting a basilisk in Germany, but fill it they had. Each leather covered spine held an embossed and gilded title pronouncing the origin of the histories within. Tales of the Celts, the Norse, the Scots, Picts and Gaels, the Romans, the Angles, Saxons and Normans the Greeks, the Egyptians, and spreading out through all of Europe in between. Any casual browser of the volumes would find enough there to interest them for many days, perhaps weeks, months or even years. They would not find a complete volume, however. At the end of every manuscript there was a quire of blank pages, ready and waiting should new information become available.
"No story is ever truly over," Galeas explained when his wife questioned him on the blank pages at the end of each volume. "It echoes through the ages, resonating with all those touched by it. Perhaps they are a part of it themselves. Perhaps they simply hear the tale. Either way, somehow, within them, that tale lives on and gains new life, leading off in a new direction, or turning back on itself to begin all over again. Stories are important. They make us human. Teach us how to be human, and what that means. They teach us to fear, yes, but they also teach us bravery. Weakness, but also strength. They teach us how to succeed, but also how to fail, and how not to let that failure overcome you. They teach us how to feel, and how to live, and sometimes even how to die. I have watched many people die in my lifetime. Most of them are even now remembered by more than just myself. For each one of them, to them, their story seemed ended. To me, who continued without them, they were all part of one greater story, which simply began another chapter."
"And when your story is finally ended?" Flora asked, running her fingers through his snow white hair. "What will theirs be then?"
"Then," he said, "like mine, their tales will become a part of someone else's story. Someone who has been a part of my life, and carries the memory of me with them."
That spring, work began again on extending the dun. Iain MacLeod, the sixth chieftain of the clan, had put forward a grand plan of work. He had been a scant seventeen summers when his father had died, far off in Castle Camus, and had been buried on the holy isle of Iona. In the restlessness of youth, he had travelled the mainland and the inner isles, sailing up even to his kin at Lewis. He had brought back tales of his own, and ideas of many others. Ideas that had led to charcoal scratched designs of tall tower houses, some attached to the old dun, some replacing it. Finally one such scrawl had been selected and, over the years, a new wing had extended out from the wall of the dun. The hollow where the great harvest feasts had been held had been built over. The foundations had been laid. Building materials were sparse in the isolated north of the island, but by quarrying their own stone and felling their own timber, the clan had begin a work of great magnitude. A work that would take a generation or more to complete.
Now, with their chieftain approaching his thirty second year, the tower house stood, two storeys high and held up on the strength of vaulted stone rooms on the ground floor. Those rooms were already in use, inhabited by the growing clan when the weather grew cold, with people in one set of rooms and livestock in the others. In warmer days, the cold, dark stone rooms served to keep the fish, meat and vegetables of the clan fresh and edible longer. The work the masons, smiths and carpenters were beginning this year was on the roof of that second floor, and all spare men, women and children had been sent out in search of great trees to form the main supports of the roof. These would have to be built into the walls as they rose, so work had ceased on everything but the quarrying of stone and the finding of the trees.
When the geese were flying north overhead, and Galeas was making his round of the walls, taking his turn on watch like any other clansman, a curious incident occurred. He had seen the men from far off, hauling a newly felled tree in the direction of the dun. Their progress had been slow and halting, as if the burden they bore were a much heavier one than its appearance would suggest. Passing a signal to another of the men on watch, Galeas dropped down from the curtain wall and hurried to the hut where he knew his wife would be, aiding a young mother at the fullness of her time.
"Flora," the old man called, stopping deferentially at the door of the hut before entering. The door opened halfway and his wife's face peered out at him, the silent question written in her features. "You must come. Now."
The door closed. Behind it, Galeas could hear hurried words explaining, cajoling, consoling. He could also hear another voice, high and fretful, pleading tearfully. The unwavering, calming voice of his wife, both fierce and gentle all at once, sounded again, then stopped with decision. Moments later the door opened again and his wife stepped out, her shawl around her shoulders.
"What have you?" Flora enquired briskly, falling into step beside him as he returned to the curtain wall. "Kelpies, Blue Men, boggarts, pixies?"
"No army this time," Galeas shook his head. "In fact, I can't see what's causing it. But maybe you can?"
"Faerie magic?" Flora looked up at him sharply, pausing on the now stone steps up to the wall. "Cast against here?"
"Maybe," he murmured, holding out his hand to help her up the last step onto the walkway. "I hope I'm mistaken."
Flora shot him another curious glance then hurried round the wall after him to the point facing inland, along the line of the hill. He pointed to the struggling team of men and their burden. She followed the line of sight indicated, a slight intake of breath the only sign of worry a passing guard might have spotted. To Galeas, though, who knew every line of her face so well now, a deathly fear seemed to have gripped his wife. He dropped his arm and slipped his hand in hers.
"Where did they find one?" Flora murmured. "I have not seen such a tree in these lands since I was a girl."
"Then I was right?" Galeas asked, his brow clouding. "It is an elder tree?"
"They cannot bring it in here," replied Flora, ignoring his question. "Those trees are protected. They will bring the wrath of the Hyldermoder upon us all."
"They will suffer her wrath alone if we leave them out there with it," her husband pointed out. "If I bring them within the wall, without the tree, can you hold the defences against her?"
"If I am on my land and she has not been brought into it already," Flora nodded.
Galeas nodded once, kissed his wife's hand, and left her side. Moments later, Flora saw him riding out on one of the clan's great draught horses. It was no swift shoed messenger carrier, but it brought him to the struggling men in the space of a few minutes. Very little discourse was needed to convince the men to fly their charge and leave it for Galeas to deal with, as he and Flora had dealt with all other matters of such ilk in the past. Flora watched the small group, dwarfed by the great size of both her husband and his horse, hurrying back to the gate in the curtain wall. A flicker of green caught her eye and she turned back to the fallen elder tree.
"Who are you, who dares uproot my home?" The Hyldermoder asked, green light blazing from her eyes. "Who kills one of my beloved trees, beautiful and helpless against the ravages of thieving humans?"
"The humans felled only what they needed to build their own home," responded Galeas, looking up at the swaying, green clad fae. "They knew nothing of the protection you afforded all elder trees."
The green fae's eyes focussed on the source of the voice, looking down at the erstwhile knight on his horse. "Why, it is Galeas, is it not? I had not heard tell that you were come to this isle again. But then, the last of my elders died out here long ago. These humans you are so fond of, who have butchered and stolen this treasure of mine, they may not know the importance of the old ways, but you do. You, who are older than the very hill their tiny settlement is built on. How comes it that you let these new pets of yours run free and hunt down my poor trees? You cannot be their prisoner, for you stand alone here before me. You cannot be their leader or such an error would surely never have happened. You must then be their guest. But why? The Scholar cannot need anything from within those walls. They are already protected by faerie magic. Whatever treasures lie within are as safe as if they were resting with the Scholar himself."
"They are my people now," Galeas replied, keeping his voice low and calm. "I am one of them. A part of their clan. And I am here to ensure no harm befalls them for their error."
"Poor Galeas," smiled the Hyldermoder, but the smile did not reach her eyes. "Always so lost. Always missing something. Always looking for a home. A family. Do you think you have found one here? For how long?"
"For as long as they will allow me to remain," shot back the knight. "And I believe that term may go on indefinitely."
"Forever?" The Hyldermoder's eyes blinked. Sideways. "Poor Galeas. Do you not remember the questions, accusations and unpleasantness that occurred the last time you tried to settle down? I do. You were almost burned once, tied to the trunk of one of my trees. I watched you escape then. My tree was not so lucky. These people will tire of your novelty. They will grow wary of your unchanging years and turn fearsome of your sword and your knowledge. Then what will they tie you to? This tree? Another? Must I endure another fiery death all because you are so desirous of acceptance?"
"Here is different," he retorted. "Here, magic is a reality for the people. They fear it, and the creatures bound by it, but not me. Not Flora."
"Flora? A woman?" The Hyldermoder frowned, glancing up at the wall again, then back to Galeas. "The woman on the wall? The one with fae blood? What is she to you? A pupil?"
Galeas cursed himself for being drawn on Flora's name and identity. He could not lie to the Hyldermoder, she would know as soon as any untruth passed his lips. There was no help for it: he would have to answer her. "My wife."
As soon as he said it, he saw the green clad woman's eyes shine with an vengeful light.
"So you have given up your work for the Scholar to play house with a fae," she sing-songed triumphantly. "How the choice must have burned within you. Almost like the fire that burned my tree. But perhaps the ties have not been fully cut yet. Are you still a vassal of the Library, Galeas? Do you still run swiftly to your Scholar when he calls? Surely each time you do, the burden gets heavier? Does your duty call you to stand here, by your wife? Or does it demand your attention whenever the Scholar needs you? Does it tear you in two? Uproot you, as your pet humans uprooted my tree? Allow me to simplify matters for you. To expedite a clear choice. My tree is dead now. It is of no use to me. Your humans can use it in their home if they wish. The blame for its death, however, I lay at your door. Compounded with the burning of another of my trees so long ago, this leaves me no option but to place a curse upon your head. I cannot enter the home of your faerie wife as long as she remains there, nor, by the laws of my people, can I justify doing her harm. But know this: should you enter her domain just once more in your lengthy years, you will never again find yourself able to leave the place. Not until the blood in her veins ceases to flow, and her magic has gone out of this world. Should she ever leave her home to follow you, I will tear every rock, every pebble down to dust, and I shall not worry over the blood of inconsequential mortals who know no better than to tear down my trees. Choose now, sir knight: where lies your greatest duty? With the institution you swore to serve? Or with the woman you swore to love?"
