The Harp and the Blade (3 page)

Staring anxiously at the part of the forest the sounds appeared to come from, I saw flickering lights moving toward me. Fiends making a night raid was the first and only explanation that occurred to my startled mind. I wanted to run, but if they really were fiends they could catch me anyhow; if not I was as safe where I was as anywhere. Stretching out on the rock, in hopes I might not be observed, I watched them in fearful wonder.

In a moment or two the lights emerged into the meadow and began weaving more or less directly toward the dolmen. I groaned and sneaked my sword out of its sheath. I might accomplish nothing, but at least I would make the effort. There were, I could by that time count, a dozen torches, and the bearers were chanting to a rhythm that was not quite music. It had something of the quality of plain song, though it was divided into shorter phrases.

Straining my eyes to see what kind of thing was doing all ‘ that, I saw that the leading figure, their chief or priest, had no torch. He carried a wand and nothing more; but the rest, little, hairy varmints dressed in skins, all had either a spear or a club. They could have been gnomes, but if they weren’t that I was damned if I knew. I held my breath, expecting to be discovered, but a torch, though it gives good light, also casts black shadows; and none of the creatures came very near the dolmen.

Instead they started to weave in and out among the circle of standing stones. I had just been flattering myself that I knew all languages spoken thereabouts, but, whether gnome-speech or not, I could make nothing of their words. They continued repeating their chant, and as nothing ill was happening to me I got interested and started to analyze the verse form.

It didn’t have much form in the strictest sense. The lines, which apparently could be of any length, were tied together merely by a recurrent phrase. It reminded me of certain Pictish poems, and at the thought I almost snapped my fingers. Trim one of those ratty elves up a little and put a trifle more clothes on him and you’d have a Pict, if you wanted one.

I began going over the poem, which I then knew by heart, and found that though some of the words were strange quite a few closely resembled Pictish words. If I was right the gist of the chant was that it was dark and they wanted light, although why they didn’t go to sleep and wait for dawn was more than I could figure.

Suddenly the leader left the circle, marching up to the dolmen to stand right beneath me, and as he did so the others ground out their torches. In the abrupt want of light after the glare I could see little, but I could hear him intoning urgently in a high, sweet voice. He hadn’t spoken ten words, either, before his feet glowed like phosphorus.

For an instant I was stunned, then I turned to look behind me. The moon had just peaked above the horizon and was striking directly between the upright stones that supported the rock I was on to light up the little man before anything else in the world that we could see.

It rose swiftly then, a full moon, picking his body more and more strongly out of the dark and making his shaggy white head wondrously bright and shining. How he had timed it I didn’t know, but the effect was as if he had called the moon up over the edge of the world. It was the most impressive single thing I had ever seen, and I had once been present when a murdering, usurious louse of a king was withered to a sniveling suppliant by a bishop who turned him over to Hell with no hope of pardon, knelling him to everlasting punishment with bell, book, and candle. That was very good, too, except that it made my stomach crawl. This was clean, heartening beauty.

Just as I anticipated being discovered, however, and was trying to calculate how they would react, the ceremony was over. They turned away and made silently for the forest through the now coldly smoldering heather. But relief had had scarcely time to set in before I heard a slight scratching sound. The next moment the old man’s head popped up over the rim of the slab.

Seeing me, he almost fell backward in his fright and amazement, but I collared him, held a hand over his mouth and dragged him up. If I let him yell I’d probably have Picts throwing spears at me for the rest of the night. “It’s all right,” I told him, hoping he knew enough of the words I was using to get the general sense. “I was chased up here by wolves, and I’m going away in the morning?” I repeated the assurance for luck, then as his friends had disappeared I let him go.

He had recovered his poise and sat up, giving me a slow and careful examination. “You’re not one of us,” he finally observed, “but the speech you used was ours, though there were a couple of words you said twistedly.”

Notwithstanding the dialectical differences he had observed, we weren’t going to have trouble in conversing. “I learned it from a people,” I looked at the moon to make sure of my direction and pointed northwest, “who live on an island off there.” Now that the excitement was over I felt cold again. “Have some wine?”

He was more than willing, and when he finally took his mouth from the nozzle things were on an amiable social plane. “These men who talk like you,” I said when I had drunk in turn, “fashion a brew out of heather which tastes milder and can make a man drunker than anything I’ve ever had.”

He smiled and then grew thoughtful. “They must be of our people. Though I didn’t know there were any left except ourselves. But we used to own the world.”

“Yes?” I said politely.

“Oh yes. I remember.”

I was startled. Rome had been a long time ago, before Christ even. “How old are you?” I asked cautiously.

He put the hand on the rock. “As old as this.”

I understood then and nodded. Among the Picts the man who conserves the old knowledge and wisdom of the tribe is believed to have lived always. Well, it would be some while before day returned, and maybe I’d learn something interesting from the fellow. I passed the wine again. “You must have had quite a life.”

This remark seemed to please him. “I have. I’ve seen everything in the world come and go. First my people were here, and I had them put up the stones because there are powers that should be honored. Then, as I say, we ruled everything until men came who looked like you and talked like this—” Here he astonished me by speaking words that sounded something like Gaelic.

“Well,” he went on, “they were here a long time, and those of us they didn’t kill lived as best we could. We thought nobody could defeat them, but a new people finally did. They spoke like this—” and though the words were slurred they were in Latin—“and were great builders. But they made it harder for us than the others because they cut down the forests.” He stopped and chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Well, I’m still here, and they’re gone; or if there are any of them left they don’t know it. The language they spoke and the things they made and knew are no longer theirs.”

“Meanwhile,” I pointed out, “the Franks have come.”

“Yes, and Bretons,” he nodded. “We have been crushed as never before because of their wars on our land, but maybe they’ll kill each other off.”

“They tried hard,” I admitted. “Still you’re getting weaker all the time.” I was not drunk but had yet taken enough to push discussion solely on its merits without too delicate a regard for feelings.

He didn’t take offense but smiled pensively, fingering his great, moon-glowing beard. He looked as though he might actually have been as old as he said he was. “Perhaps I’ll die,” he spoke again finally, “but if I do everything really good will die with me. After my people are gone nobody will ever really know how dawn holds life in check when the mist rises white above the heather or how the trees move and change shapes at night. They won’t know how a friend’s eyes can look, warm over the ale, or how the beauty of one of our girls—for there are no others of any worth—can stir a man. They won’t know how fine a thing it is to be of the land or be honored in the tribe.”

I shrugged. “I suppose all peoples feel that way.”

“Do they?” he challenged. “Then why do they all come here, leaving their own lands, often leaving their tribes or, yes, even their women behind? You, for instance, who are you?”

“Finnian. An Irishman.”

That meant nothing to him, but he wasn’t interested in details. “You’re from somewheres else, too. What are you doing here?”

“I’m a bard,” I explained. “I travel around singing wherever men will pay to listen.”

“Won’t they listen in your own land?” he inquired with a suggestion of a sneer.

“Of course.” In spite of myself the thrust injured my professional pride. “I am welcome anywhere.”

“Why not stay home in that case? Isn’t the land good?”

“It’s all right,” I said, “but so are a lot of other places.” That seemed to annoy the old fellow, and he snorted. He was getting into the spirit of the thing and drank without invitation. “Do you like it where your own gods aren’t worshiped?”

“Why, as for that, they make it easy for us these days. Word’s got around that there’s only one god for all people everywhere.”

“Drivel!” he snapped, reminding me of an Irish priest commenting on the claims to supremacy of the pope at Rome. “Do you believe that?”

“I don’t care much one way or the other.” I was trying to be disarming but achieved no such results.

“You don’t care about your land or your gods. Why don’t you at least stay and stand with your tribe?”

“Oh, the clan’s getting along all right.” I shook the skin and felt relieved as it gurgled encouragingly. “They don’t need me.”

“They’re probably better off without you,” he said bitingly.

His obvious spleen about something that was so little his concern amused me. He was all priest in his worrying about who had which gods and what other people did about life. “Maybe,” I said placidly.

“A man who lives away from his own country and people,” he stated, “doesn’t live in reality. He knows nothing that is really happening, nor is he truly a part of life. He is merely suspended in it.”

That caught my attention, for in a purely general sense I had found it so. “Possibly that’s why I like it.”

For a little old man he certainly could hold a lot. “You like nothing that’s worth anything to a man!” he scolded when he had wiped his mouth. “You travel alone, don’t you? I suppose nobody wants to be seen with you!”

“You seem to like to drink with me,” I pointed out.

“I do not like to drink with you! I just don’t hold it against the wine if the company’s bad.” He released the skin grudgingly. “What’s your woman doing while you’re running all over places you don’t belong?”

“I haven’t got one and don’t want one.”

I expected another outburst, but the statement seemed to leave him speechless. Hunched forward, staring at me, he was an eerie and angry figure swaying a little in the moonlight.

The moon was by then well up, and the rim of the forest looked no longer ominous but as soothed and relaxed as my mood. If the night had been as cool as I had thought, it was so no more. I was beginning to feel that it wouldn’t be difficult to sleep, but his next words changed that.

“Always after the others leave when the moon ceremony is over I sit up here to wait for signs. I had thought that you might be a good omen, but you are bad.” He was leaning forward, peering fixedly at my face, and though I met his eyes I was not happy. All my uneasiness about the stones and their makers came back with a rush. This was the servant of those wild, old powers, and he had become malevolent toward me. “You care for nothing,” he accused again.

There was no use mentioning poetry. A priest can’t get over the notion that a good poem is a hymn. Of course, sometimes it is, but not often.

His words were coming a little thickly, but he knew just what he wanted to say. “You serve nothing and help nobody!”

As he said that my mind went inevitably back to the Saxon youngster, and I felt shame again that I had not so much as stretched out a hand, no, not even spoken a warning. My efforts might not have been effective, but I had foreknown and hadn’t tried.

The old Pict was leaning so close by then that I could smell the wine on his breath; and he got it! Whether it is done by magic or not, there are some men who can reach into another’s mind and pull his thoughts out whole. That man was a priest of an ancient, strange race, probably versed in wizardry, too, and he read me out. “You let a man die today because you couldn’t be bothered!”

“It wasn’t my business,” I muttered.

He saw he had me on the run and that increased his sense of power. “You think nothing in life is your business!” he howled. “But I’ll make it so things will be!”

For an instant I merely shivered, then pure, scared rage made me pull myself together. I shoved his face so hard he fell over backwards, then I caught up my sword. “You try to curse me, you damned hobgoblin, and I’ll chop you up for dog meat!”

Far from being taken aback, he defied me in a voice crackling with vindictive glee. “If you don’t believe in any gods, what are you worried about?”

“I’m not worried,” I blustered lamely. “I just don’t like to be cursed.”

“You’re not worth a good curse,” he informed me, sitting up as I took the point of my sword away from his throat, “but I’ll put my will on you.”

“Go ahead,” I said sullenly. “Not that anything will come of it.”

“Oh yes it will!” I waited alertly, ready to kill him if he voiced anything that sounded as if it might be a spell, but he only looked at me hard and said: “From now on, as long as you stay in my land,” here he swept an arm to include all directions, “you will aid any man or woman in need of help.” That didn’t seem so bad, and my relief was mixed with mortification at having been so afraid. In the past couple of minutes, however, I had become nearly sober and thus conscious of the chill and the stiffness in my weary muscles. Rising, I stood with my back to the Pict, stretching and looking hopefully for some sign of dawn. There are limits even to the elastic hospitality of inebriety, and after having threatened to kill another, a man could not—or I could not—go on drinking with him. I hoped he’d take the hint and go away.

When I heard a slithering noise, therefore, I didn’t turn immediately. I waited awhile and then looked around to find the slab empty—completely empty. He had taken the last of the wine with him. I spotted him then, a blur just merging with the apron shadow of the trees. My first impulse was to leap down after him; but I’d never find him, and the Lord alone knew how many other raffish demons he could conjure out of ratholes or in whatever other appropriate places they lived.