Veil of Time (27 page)

Ma-khee sighed. “What did you tell them?”

He squeezed her waist. “I told them you were a strange woman from the Far East.”

Ma-khee smiled. “I am not from the Far East.”

“I know.” He squeezed her waist again. “You are from Glaschu, and yet there are many mistakes in your Gaelic.”

She spread her hands over his cheeks and laid her lips on his, touching the edge of his teeth with her tongue. “How many mistakes?”

He kissed her back. “No mistakes.”

Her laughter spread out across the water. “Why don’t we sleep out here?”

Fergus smiled. “There are too many dangers for sleeping in the open this far from the sea. Do you have no wild beasts in that country you come from?”

She shook her head. “In Glasgow? No.”

He tugged her hand. “We must go into the crannog now so that we will be given a place to sleep together.”

He led her through the gate and along the walkway where the water grew deep beneath their feet. They passed Talorcan on his way back to the cart. He did not seem to share the others’ feeling of relief at having arrived at the loch after their long journey. He would not look at Ma-khee and only grunted in Fergus’s direction. Fergus glanced after him as he passed; he had never seen Talorcan like this.

As they came under the roof of the crannog, the woman looked all around in the dusky light—she must never have been in such a dwelling as this before with its reedy smell of thatch. Illa brought some of the speckled fish to Ma-khee, and Fergus brought her brose. She offered him part of her fish, but Fergus wasn’t fond of the muddy taste that came with these fish from freshwater. At Dunadd they ate fish from time to time, but only from the sea and more often shellfish and eels, which could be trapped by the shore with a willow trap.

He kept Ma-khee close so that the others would know she was with him and so she would know he wanted her under the covers with him when the chatter died down. He longed for her now, as the night set in; her fingers along his thigh made it hard to concentrate on the singing that started up and for which these people were well known.

She wanted to walk by the loch, while others were leaving or lying down around the fire or in couples out
of sight in a corner. Fergus marked their spot by the door from the entry room by laying down his shoulder belt and his father’s dirk.

By the water’s edge, he stood back and looked at Ma-khee’s face upturned, as the moon lifted over the hills on the far side of the loch. Only the small sound of waves broke the stillness. She stooped and splashed her face with water, perhaps for some ritual among her own people. And then she clung to him as though he were a rock, as though she were afraid she might be washed away at any moment. Her fingers found the golden ring he had tied back onto his belt. He didn’t know what that ring signified, but it had meant much to her, and so he kept it close and fingered it from time to time.

He took her hand, and they walked back along the path to the house, where Marcus had set their blankets by the door. They stepped over Talorcan, lying not far off. From all over the crannog came the sounds of sleeping, and the occasional bleat from one of the goats that had been brought in for the night. Only the mother of Rhada still stirred around the fire, saying her prayers for the evening blessing of the house. Fergus stopped to hear the words in Pictish he knew so well from childhood:

Deep peace I breathe into you

Deep peace, a soft white dove to you

Deep peace a quiet rain to you

Deep peace an ebbing wave to you.

In the silence that followed, Fergus called on Cailleach to watch over them, to stand under his world and hold it up with her strong arms. With Cailleach’s blessing, he lay down beside the woman, turned her gently, and looked into her face, far into the eyes that searched his face. He pulled the blanket over their heads so that they lay facing each other in the dark, breathing in the same air. He waited until her mouth came to his, until her hands reached down around his buttocks and pulled him in against her.

Under the cover he unwrapped her from her tunic, slowly brought his own over his head. It was easy to let her words
mo chridhe
turn him from his heavy thoughts and simply fall into her as he had on occasion fallen into the sea. She caught the hair at the nape of his neck and kissed each of his eyelids, traced the line of his nose with her fingertips. She did not look away from him, even though Talorcan’s eyes were open. She was eager for him, moving with him, biting his shoulder so she would not be heard.

Fergus slept with his arm about the woman, for it was not easy to stay warm in these houses made of willow and mud. Only a good stone house half buried in the earth could keep out the wind. He kept Ma-khee close, because he had noticed how the old man of the crannog had looked at her.

When Fergus awoke late on his belly, the woman was gone. But he heard her in the next room talking by the
fire with the old woman. He strained to catch a glimpse, and what he saw made him smile: the old woman’s hand was over Ma-khee’s, teaching her how to turn the quern and grind the flour for bannocks. It was child’s work, but the days of privilege at Dunadd were behind them. Ma-khee was going to have to learn these things that she must not have learned as a child of privilege in her parents’ home. Fergus could hear Illa playing along the shore with the other children. She was going to have to learn, too.

Fergus folded his arms behind his head and lay back, staring at the apex of the roof with its abandoned nests. His thoughts quickly shifted to his brother rallying his troops, and to his mother at her fireside on Dunadd hill. He knew he could never leave Glashan until he knew she was safe.

He got up and squatted by his woman at the fire, noting the red grooves the stick had made in the palm of her hand. He wanted to pick it up and kiss the sore, but he didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the matriarch. He took a pot of bubbling oats from its stone shelf by the fire and looked about for milk. Some things from childhood didn’t change, and this first meal of the day had always been Fergus’s favorite.

Ma-khee looked up at him and smiled.

The old woman said, “The goat is tied to the gate if you’ve a mind for milk with your porridge.”

Fergus hesitated. He had been used to milk coming
in a pitcher. He took Ma-khee by the hand and led her to the goat, hoping she would offer to help.

He waited, but Ma-khee was more intent on stroking the rough fur between the beast’s strange staring eyes.

Fergus cleared his throat. “I’ve heard it said that milk flows more freely into a woman’s hand. The hand of a man is too rough.”

The woman smiled her disbelief. “This goat is a woman, and I’m sure she appreciates the hand of a man better.”

Fergus smiled. She had confused the word for goat with the word for danger.

Ma-khee gave him a shove. “You don’t know how to milk the goat.”

He handed her the pot of oats and gestured for her to hold it low beneath the animal’s rear legs, while he reached for a teat. His fingers around the dangling appendage felt more like grabbing a fellow man than grabbing a woman, and his instinct was to let go, but Ma-khee was watching, and there was much face to be lost here.

Fergus squeezed without producing a single drop.

“I know how to,” he said, “but it has been some time.”

Ma-khee laughed. “I think you don’t know how.”

“I do.” He grabbed the teat again and squeezed harder. A single drop fell into the oats and was lost.

Fergus stood up. “Like all women she needs to be warmed up.”

He stroked the goat’s back. He tickled behind her ears, tapped gently the fur between her eyes, then tried again. There were two drops this time, but they quickly ran into the oats.

Fergus stood up. “It’s clear this goat has already been emptied.”

Ma-khee set the pot on the ground and took a teat in her hand. She squeezed and pulled, producing a jet into the oats that swirled around the edge of the pot and stayed there. Fergus was so excited he gave a shout that brought Illa running.

“What has happened?” Illa asked.

He placed his hand on her hair. “Nothing.”

“Come,” she said. “The grandfather is teaching me how to mend nets.”

Illa tugged so hard, Fergus had no choice but to take the pot of oats and follow. He glanced back at Ma-khee, who was laughing as she walked over the walkway back into the crannog. The old man called to Fergus as they approached the shore. He was painting pitch onto the bottom of the curragh he used for fishing and for visiting the other crannogs on the loch. The smell of the hot tar made Fergus turn his face away. Illa went on with the net she was sewing with a bone awl.

The old man lowered his voice so that Illa couldn’t hear. “There are young women here at Loch Glashan,” he said, “who are in need of a man to provide children such as your Illa. We lost too many men in the fight with
the Northumbrians, and now there are not enough to go round. I ask in the name of Cailleach, let me know which one you would like to go to first, and my wife will arrange it.”

Fergus looked at his feet and then back at the old man. He knew this duty to Cailleach could be asked of a man, and his brother Murdoch would be glad to help in this way, but he feared his love for the woman Ma-khee would make him unable, like the goat he had just tried to milk.

“I will look,” he said in a way that didn’t convince the old man.

“What is this woman you have brought with you from Dunadd?” the old man asked. “Marcus says she is not your wife. Is she a slave? Could I take her if she likes men grayer in the face?”

Fergus shook his head. “You can’t take her, old man. She will be my wife.”

Now it had been said. Only he wasn’t sure yet that the woman agreed with it. And then suddenly he saw her coming from the woods with Marcus, carrying willow wands, perhaps for a screen for their sleeping area in the crannog. The old woman came out of the crannog and called to Marcus to stand the willow in water or it would be no good for bending.

When Fergus went back into the house, Ma-khee was kneeling by the old woman, who was showing her
how to make wattle with old willow wands that had already been soaked. But Ma-khee’s hands were not tough enough for such work. She kept putting her fingers in her mouth, bringing storm clouds over the woman’s face, making Marcus laugh, though, because of his low rank, he should be keeping those thoughts to himself.

Fergus pushed Marcus forward. “You’re not free yet, and my lady needs help.”

Ma-khee looked at him and smiled. Fergus longed for the warmth she was in the night, though her limbs were soft and hairless such as he had only ever seen on a child. It was no wonder she was always cold. Perhaps Iona might know of an herb to make hair grow on her body as it did on other women.

The women had settled Iona out in one of the field huts so she could be alone, and the wattle Ma-khee and Marcus were making was for her hut. Talorcan had nailed honeysuckle over the doorway to mark the place as sacred. Fergus intended to visit the girl and have her cast her stones.

As the days passed on to the time of the winter solstice, snow began to fall on Loch Glashan, as it rarely did in the sea air of Dunadd. Ma-khee stayed inside by the fire and worked the quern. She did not often go out with the
other women. Fergus began to wonder if she was with child, the way she guarded herself.

He laid his hand on her belly and asked,
“Torrach?”

She shook her head.
“Chan e.”

But if she wasn’t pregnant, then why had she not sat in the hut with Iona for her time of the month? He had noticed no blood in the time they had been at Glashan. He would like to have a son to teach in the way his father had taught him. Perhaps Sula had given Ma-khee herbs to close her womb as she had once done for Saraid. But Ma-khee was not young; perhaps it was already too late.

It pleased Fergus to get up in the morning and see his daughter running free along the shore with other children, or casting off with the old man on his fishing trips. Illa had found a small black cat and taken it for her own. Cats were kept by the grain houses in the village at Dunadd and about the bakehouse on the fort itself. But they were not black like this one. It paced along the shore while the girl was out on the water.

Fergus rowed along the shore in the old man’s curragh to the tanner and brought back a satchel for the woman, who seemed well pleased by it. He bought a jerkin for himself, which kept in the heat of his body now with the days so cold, the snow on the ground coming and going like the thin ice on the edge of the loch. Soon it would be the shortest day, and they would need Iona to be one with Cailleach in the celebrations.

It was then the messenger came from Dunadd, a servant, not a slave, but a friend of Marcus, though he spoke no Latin. He spoke in Gaelic, and Fergus heard his words by the edge of the peaty water that had become his haunt. All was not well at the fort. Word had come of Murdoch’s exploits in the north, his men running wild among the Pictish people, even before they had yet met with Oengus’s army.