Archie and the North Wind (16 page)

But he knew that had nothing to do with it. The poor can do what they like. Let them starve twenty times over, as long as the lights glitter in Paris. No. They would ask him to sign a work contract in the morning, not for the sake of the poor, but for the sake of the rich. He would go a-drilling not for Africa’s sake, but for America’s. For his own sake. He would help find oil which would make gasoline for cars, and which would heat houses in Times Square. And Tiananmen Square. And every other square and hovel in the developed and undeveloped world.

And Archie’s brief contribution to it wouldn’t affect things that much: he would hardly make a wick for a lamp, when you thought about it. The harm – could you really call it destruction? – wouldn’t amount to much, after all. For who, or what, was he anyway, in the large scale of things? One small, weak man – one little Archie, even if he had Brawn and Sergio and John Goblin and all the others at his shoulders.

He walked over towards the window. He spread the curtains and looked out at the heavens. A large, white bear stood yards away, looking at him. An Arctic hare sat in the snow a little distance behind the bear. All the stars that ever existed blinked above. He thought he saw a row of penguins marching past till he remembered that was at the other end, to the south, at the different Arctic called the Antarctic. Just as they call South Uist one island and North Uist another.

Maybe the two had met. Maybe both polar ice caps had now melted and all was one. Norway without the fjords. The magnetic fields had shifted and all was now north, or south, or neither.

How vast it all was out there. How wide and white and long. Eternal even – one endless whiteness after the other. In such immensity, surely a little, or even a lot of drilling would do very little damage. A drop in the ocean really. Only the removal of a single star from the vast and limitless sky. Only the taking of a single flower from the machair, the removal of a single shell from the shore, the subtraction of a solitary letter from the cosmic alphabet. When the village postie took a notion for strong drink, he too would just dump the letters and parcels under the nearest pile of stones. Nobody really missed them. And if anybody wanted them, they knew where to find them. 

Archie could hear Brawn rumbling in the room next door. Apart from that, all was silence. The machinery had been set for the night and work was not scheduled to really begin till tomorrow. That much he’d learned from Ted Hah, who’d personally come round the sleeping quarters at bedtime, like Florence Nightingale: ‘The show starts tomorrow. Night-night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bugs bite!’ And off he went down the long hall, repeating his soothing words like a benediction.

The room was centrally heated and a brand new pair of pyjamas had been laid out for Archie on the heated rail beside his dressing cabinet. He was now still in his pyjamas, gazing out at the white world. Far to the north he could see the Pole Star itself, winking. False stars were stuck to the wall and ceiling which then illuminated for a while once you turned the light off.

Archie climbed back into bed and put the light out. The imitation stars were shining on the ceiling: stars with five points and crescent moons, all in different colours. An orange moon and a yellow one. A red one and a blue one. The Star of David. Archie lay back, his head on the downy pillow. Was this it – the source of the wind, the lion’s den, the giant’s awesome abode? In the warmth, beneath false stars?

How do you behave in the lion’s den, he wondered? What do you do at the giant’s table?

How do you sleep in the dragon’s bed? Do you pretend? All the images – all the stories he’d ever heard – raced though his brain in kaleidoscopic sequence: George and the Dragon, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Do you slay, or pray, or run?

He had no sword. Had he faith? Could he run?

He was tired. And old. And lazy. And it was unfair to rely upon his friends.

Be wily, he told himself. That was always the chief virtue. The thing that was praised. Craftiness. The greatest skill. Courage. Courage certainly, but cunning was more important. Never attack a giant head on. You stood no chance. Always find his weak spot, his Achilles heel – wasn’t that the way they put it? Achilles, who found the tiny spot which made the invincible giant mortal. Right behind his ankle. The monster’s hidden weak spot. For every monster had a weak spot. Sex. Greed. Ambition. Pride. Sloth.

There was a king over Èirinn once, who was named King Cruachan, and he had a son who was called Connal MacRigh Cruachan. The mother of Connal died, and his father married another woman. She was for killing Connal, so that the kingdom might belong to her own posterity.

He had a foster mother, and so Connal went to live in the home of his foster mother. He and his eldest brother were right fond of each other, and the foster mother was vexed because Connal was so fond of her big son.

There was a bishop in the place, and he died. And he desired that his gold and silver should be placed along with him in the grave. Connal was at the bishop’s burial, and he saw a great big bag of gold being placed at the bishop’s head and a great big bag of silver at his feet, in the grave. Connal said to his five foster brothers that they would go in search of the bishop’s gold, and when they reached the grave Connal asked them which they would rather – go down into the grave or hold up the flagstone.

They said they would hold up the flag. So Connal himself went down into the grave and whatever squealing that they heard, they let go the flagstone and they ran off home. So there Connal was, in the grave on top of the bishop. When the five foster brothers reached the house, their mother was somewhat more sorrowful for Connal than she would have been for the five.

At the end of seven mornings, a company of lads went to take the gold out of the bishop’s grave, and when they reached the grave they threw the flat flagstone to the side of the further wall. Connal stirred below, and when he stirred, they ran, leaving their armaments and their dress. Connal arose and took the gold with him, and the armaments and dress, and he reached his foster-mother with them. They were all merry and light-hearted as long as the gold and silver lasted.

Now there was a great giant near the place, who had a great deal of gold and silver hidden in the foot of a rock, and he always promised a bag of gold to any being who dared to go down into the hole inside a creel and get some. Many were lost in that way: when the giant would let them down and they would fill the creel, the giant would not let down the creel more till they died in the hole.

On a day of days, Connal met with the giant, and the giant promised him a bag of gold if he agreed to go down into the hole to fill a creel with the gold. Connal went down, and the giant was letting him down with a rope. Connal filled the giant’s creel with the gold, but the giant did not let down the creel to fetch Connal, so Connal was stuck in the cave amongst the dead men and the gold.

When the giant failed to get any other man who would go down into the hole, he sent his own son into the hole giving him the sword of light in his lap so that he might see his way before him. When the young giant reached the bottom of the cave and when Connal saw him, he immediately grabbed the sword of light before he realised what was happening, and he took off the head of the young giant.

Then Connal put gold in the bottom of the creel, and he climbed in and then he covered himself with the rest of the gold and gave a pull at the rope. Up above, the giant drew up the creel, and when he did not see his son he threw the creel over the top of his head. Connal leapt out of the creel as it flew behind the giant’s great black back, laid a swift hand on the sword of light which he’d taken with him and cut the head off the giant. Then he took himself to his foster mother’s house with a creelful of gold and the giant’s sword of light.

After this, one day he went to hunt on Sliabh na Leirge. He was going forwards till he went into a great cave. He saw, at the upper part of the cave, a fine fair young woman who was thrusting the flesh-stake at a big lump of a baby. And every thrust she would give the spit the babe would give a laugh and she would begin to weep.

Connal spoke, and he said, ‘Woman, what ails thee at the child without reason?’

‘Oh,’ said she, ‘since you are an able man, kill the baby and set it on this stake so that I can roast it for the giant.’

Connal caught hold of the baby, and he put the plaid he had on about the baby and hid the baby at the side of the cave. There were a great many dead bodies at the side of the cave, and so he set one of these on the stake, and the woman began roasting it.

Then was heard underground trembling and thunder coming, enough to terrify the life out of any living soul. So Connal sprang in the place of the corpse that was at the fire, in the very midst of the bodies.

The giant came and asked, ‘Is the roast ready?’ He began to eat, complaining, ‘
Fiu fiu haogrich
. No wonder your body is rough, woman. This child of yours is tough to eat.’

When the giant had eaten that one, he went over to count the bodies; the way he had of counting them was to catch hold of them by the ankles and to fling them over his head, and he counted them backwards and forwards like that three or four times, and as he found that Connal was somewhat heavier than the corpses, and that he was soft and fat, he took that slice out of him that stretched from the back of his head to his groin. He roasted this at the fire, and he ate it, and then he fell asleep.

Connal winked at the woman to set the flesh-stake in the fire. She did this, and when the spit grew white after it was red, he thrust the white-hot spit right through the giant’s heart, and the giant was dead.

Then Connal went and he set the woman on her path homewards, and then he went home himself.

His stepmother sent him and her own son to steal the white-faced horse from the king of Italy, and they went together to steal the white-faced horse, and every time they would lay hands on him, the white-faced horse would let out a cry. Guards came out, and they were caught. They were imprisoned and their ankles put in tight, painful chains.

‘Hey you, you big red-haired man,’ the king said to Connal, ‘were you ever in such dire straits as this?’

‘Make the chains a little tighter for me, and a little looser for my comrades, and I will tell you,’ said Connal.

The queen of Italy was looking at Connal. Then Connal said:

  ‘Seven morns so sadly mine,
  As I dwelt on the bishop’s top,
  That visit was longest for me,
  Though I was the strongest myself.
  At the end of the seventh morn
  An opening grave was seen,
  And I would be up before
  The one that was soonest down.
  They thought I was a dead man,
  As I rose from the mould of the earth;
  At the first of the harsh bursting
  They left their arms and their dresses.
  I gave the leap of the nimble one,
  As I was naked and bare.
  ’Twas sad for me, a vagabond,
  To enjoy the bishop’s gold.’

‘Tighten his chains well, and right well,’ said the king of Italy. ‘He was never in any good place. He has done great ill.’

Then his chains were tightened tighter and tighter, and the king said, ‘You big red-haired man, were you ever in such dire straits?’

‘Tighten my chains even further, but let a little slack with this one beside me, and I will tell you,’ said Connal.

They tightened even further. ‘I was,’ said he:

  ‘Nine morns in the cave of gold;
  My meat was the body of bones,
  Sinews of feet and hands.
  At the end of the ninth morn
  A descending creel was seen;
  Then I caught hold of the creel,
  And laid gold above and below;
  I made my hiding within the creel;
  I took with me the glaive of light,
  The best thing that I ever did.’

They gave him the next tightening, and the king asked him, ‘Now, were you ever in such dire straits, in such extremity as hard as this?’

‘A little more tightening for myself, and a slack for my comrade, and I’ll tell you that.’

They tightened his chains, and loosened his comrade’s, and Connal said:

  ‘On a day in Sliabh na Leirge,
  As I went into a cave,
  I saw a smooth, fair, mother-eyed wife,
  Thrusting the stake for the flesh
  At a young unreasoning child. “Then,” said I,
  “What causes thy grief, of wife,
  At that unreasoning child?”
  “Though he’s tender and comely,” said she,
  “Set this baby at the fire.”
  Then I caught hold of the boy,
  And wrapped my cloak around him,
  Then I brought up the great big corpse
  That was up in front of the heap;
  Then I hear Turstar, Tarstar, and Turaraich,
  The very earth mingling together;
  But when it was his to be fallen
  Into the soundest of sleep,
  There fell, by myself, the forest fiend;
  I drew back the stake of the roast,
  And I thrust it into his maw.’