The World Above the Sky (14 page)

Keswalqw took a long draught of brandy, handed the skin to Eugainia.

The torches guttered in the rising landward breeze. Henry re-examined the torn parchment, certain now the ragged tear across the bottom of the map was both strategic and recent.

“Sir Athol?”

“My Lord?”

“I think the little admiral withholds a fragment for some dark purpose of his own.”

“The section of the map indicating the Grail Castle ruins, and the sacred well.”

“Quite so. Take the good admiral for a little stroll tomorrow, will you Athol?”

“I will. And if I find he holds the chart and won't surrender it?”

“Slit his throat. The map to the Well of Baphomet must never return to Rome.”

“Aye. God wills it.”

Henry rolled the charts. “It has been spoken.”

As he left the meadow, Sir Athol scraped the last of Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk moose butter from its container. He tossed the container on the fire. It flared into bright blue then red flame, then vanished. Unnoticed by Athol, but witnessed by Henry, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk grimaced at the waste of a perfectly good box. Sir Athol waved his thanks to Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk, nodded and smiled, then disappeared down the trail.

“Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk?”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk joined Henry at the table. Henry indicated the surrounding landscape. He pointed to the village below. “What is the name of this place? This place. Here. Where we are now.”

“Ah. Piktuk.”

“Pictou?”

“Pictook...tookh,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk corrected, exaggerating the asperated
h
. “Tookh. Pic-tookh. It means fart.”

Henry remained blank.

“Because of the smell of the winds which sometimes emerge from the Smoking Mountain,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk explained.

Still nothing.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk considered for a moment. He brightened, made a fart noise. “Pictook.” He repeated the tongue-flapping, lip-fluttering, spit-spattering sound.

“Ah.” Henry laughed, repeated the noise. “Piktuk means fart. Ha! Very good. And appropriate, by times, no doubt when wind and mountain act in tandem.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk showed relief his message had not been misinterpreted but rightly understood.

Henry considered, then spoke and gestured his next question. He clarified his query with the aid of the map.

“‘Pictook' to ‘The Place of Boiling Waters'?”

“Less than two days.”

“I'm sorry. I don't understand.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk indicated the sun, its rise and fall.

“Sunrise, yes, to sunset,” Henry said.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk repeated the gesture, interrupting the second arc halfway along its course.

“Less than two days. So close.”

Laughter erupted from the sweat lodge. Eugainia poked her head past the hide door.

“I'm not certain, but I think Keswalqw just told—I mean showed, me—a very naughty story.” She tossed the wineskin to Henry. “We need more brandy wine.” She disappeared inside.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk approached the lodge. “What's so funny, Aunt?”

Keswalqw pulled back the flap. “I just showed Eugainia the story of your poor fumbling father's first night with my sister.”

“Shame on you, Keswalqw.”

“What?”

“That story isn't as funny as the time you mistook your second husband for a bear. Remember? You were on the side of the small hill by the river—”

“Achhh!” Keswalqw snapped the flap shut.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk offered Henry his broad, open smile. “Thank you. 'Enry Orkney,” he said, “for bringing this beautiful woman to walk among The People.”

Henry smiled and nodded, not comprehending in the least words that would have alarmed him profoundly. He returned to the table, collected his charts and, torch in hand, walked toward the path.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk paused near the entrance to the sweat lodge, listening for a moment to soft murmurs of friendship from within.

Inside, Keswalqw moved behind Eugainia, squared her shoulders. From an open bladder, she scooped a daub of seal oil that she worked through Eugainia's matted hair. She ran a whale baleen comb through the tangled mass. Slick masses of tar and seal fat rolled onto the back of the comb.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk withdrew an alder wood flute, carved with the image of a bird in flight, from his sash. He moistened his lips. He rested the flute below his lower lip. He exhaled.

Keswalqw cleansed her hands clean of seal oil and tar. Eugainia washed the tar residue, sweat and seal oil from her hands, face and body with the porous swatches of soft rabbit hide Keswalqw offered. When done, Keswalqw retrieved the sealskin package. She handed it to Eugainia. Porcupine quills and copper beads rattled delicately as the butter-soft doeskin dress revealed its hand-stitched beauty.

Outside, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk sat cross-legged at a respectable distance and raised his flute to his lips. He invoked rustling grass, the sound of waves breaking on shore, flights of geese and the song of the white-throated sparrow.

• • •

Reclamation
, recaulked and tight as a drum, righted herself in the rising tide. All attention was focused on the ship when Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk and Eugainia slipped away.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk determined pace and direction from the stern. His silent strokes dug deep below the light chop. Eugainia's paddle, drawn cleanly back, pulled hidden life to the surface. Jelly fish—the benign moon-fleshed variety, and the blood red subspecies trailing venomous stings—swirled up, inverted. The gelatinous pulsing masses struggled with mindless irritation to right themselves in the canoe's lengthening wake.

In the centre of the broad strait, the tide hovered, momentarily motionless, then fell away in two directions. Eugainia felt the craft pulled in a lateral tug of war. Sudden images of her recent encounters with good and evil in the waters off the new found land threw her concentration. For an instant, doubt obscured desire. The unfaltering push from the rear of the canoe refocused her intent.

The tide ebbed swiftly. Apekwit's east point and north cape were soon awash in late summer krill, shellfish spat, and swirling clouds of milt and roe.

Apekwit was regarded by The People as feminine in topography. Longer than wide, a family group could walk the island tip to tip in three days. At her narrowest point, on a well-trod path, a hunter could cross from the north to the south shore in a morning; at its widest, less than a day.

Apekwit's gulf coast, curved like a crescent moon, opened to the northeast. The north shore had the ragged look of an unravelled sleeve. Eroded by storm seas in high summer, ground by blocks of ice driven ashore by winter gales, the north shore was defined by discrete stretches of pale, salmon-hued dunes. Vistas to the east and west were defined by out-cropping sandstone that sheltered oyster bays and shellfish coves.

Human profiles—outlined in sandstone cliffs—recalled the faces of The People's ancients. Long, curved stretches of untrodden sand linked profile to profile. From season to season the profiles altered; one strong face replaced the next, one ancestor rested, another came alive. Not all the features carved by wind and sea were human. Creatures of the Six Worlds appeared on the horizon in silhouette according to the Great Spirit's pleasure: last year's high-cheeked chief might become this season's walrus, beaver or wolverine.

The south shore defined the strait side of the island; it was more protected, and a short journey from Pictook and the continent. Unlike the fine pink sands of the north-shore beaches, ebb tide exposed expansive flats of dense red grit, interrupted by much lower banks of red clay. Rarely more than twice the height of a man, the south-shore banks showed deep strata of bedrock and top soil, tufted with topmost layers of green. The grass was made more vivid by the red earth below and, on clear days, the luminous surround of water and the intense blue sky.

This island is as green as Eire, Eugainia thought as they drew near. Greener. Gentler. In all aspects a landscape carved by the Goddess, not her God. Apekwit had reached the peak of her summer beauty. So many shades of colour, all playing one off the other in the diffuse light of an overcast sky. The soil...rust red in places. Blood red in others. Cinibar here, vermilion there. Brilliant greens. Sombre greens. Greens so deeply hued they're almost black; yes...the black of the spruce against the yellow green of the larch. Silver birch. Oak and pine. Dazzling and subtle, all at once. My, my. We were in a pleasant mood the day We created Apekwit.

Eugainia regarded a grass-covered mound on the approaching shore as a natural element of the landscape. Had she recognized it for what it was—not a natural hill but a camouflaged mound of debris—she might have thought the less of it. Mounds of shells and burnt pottery, the detritus of plenty, lay heaped by generation upon generation of The People.

Invariably, a freshwater stream or small tidal river meandered from land to sea through red sand flats. These waters drained forest meadows, marshes and brackish
barachois
. The falling tide exposed rock pools, some ankle deep and several strides across. Eugainia could see the bottom clearly. Great round moon snails (and their tiny periwinkle cousins), hatchling cod and crab, lobster and shrimp miniatures—all foraged amid olive-drab bladder kelp and limpid greens of the filigree moss. There was no shortage of diatoms and algae. Their minuscule bodies, too small for the naked eye, clouded patches of water where the land-wash nutrients blended with the salt of the sea. Phosphorescent saltwater plankton, which pulsed and flashed vivid bluish green light when agitated this time of year had yet to bloom. Perhaps, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk speculated, the sea green miracle of light awaits the arrival of she who will be my wife.

The canoe occasionally scraped bottom as they navigated the shallows. The abundance of life sustained by these waters was no longer matched by a surfeit of fauna on land. Only the wiliest of small game remained. Though her great primal stands of pine, hemlock and maple stood largely unmolested, generations of The People had hunted Apekwit's big game to extinction. No bear, moose or deer remained.

Apekwit had reverted to her natural solemnity. Having stripped the island of late-fruiting nuts and berries in the last of their summer visits, The People had recently abandoned her to the rigours of the winter to come. High summer days and short, cool nights had begun to reset her balance. One could almost hear the island breathe relief at the absence of the ravenous humans.

Apekwit in September was sweet to the eye, ear and nose, and as peaceful as any place on earth. Snow and ice were far from the minds of the young man and woman from opposite ends of the earth. Or so it suddenly seemed to them, finding themselves to be incomprehensible to each other as if they represented unmatched species.

Eugainia and Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's clean escape from hawk-eyed Keswalqw and vigilant Lord Henry was at first a great relief. Now they stood on the shore, looking anywhere but at each other. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk was alarmed when he glimpsed the longing in her blue green eyes, clear as crystal, which Eugainia attempted to hide by concentrating on long vistas or small tasks close at hand—looking anywhere but at the shining pupils of polished obsidian that pulled her, fixed and wanting, to him.

They moved apart.

It had been Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's intent to arrive at night, not sunset. They would become as one on a starlit beach. The notion had come to him in a dream. He would stand behind her on this beach, known to generations of The People as
gwitn elsipugtug
: Canoe Great Cove. It was here the most joyous, most carefree days and nights of Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's youth were spent. To him, and hundreds of children like him,
gwitn elsipugtug
represented the freedom of youth joyfully expressed amidst adults at their ease in the plenty of summer.

He would stand, he had dreamed, behind the beautiful Eugainia under the full moon. They would raise their eyes and stare together deep into the studded dome of the sky. They would become dizzy at the wheeling immensity above them. Both would waver. He would steady them with discreet hands on her waist, feel the rise and fall of her breath, allow his breathing to synchronize. They'd turn to each other. He'd touch her naked shoulder. She would lay her head upon his. They wouldn't kiss. Not yet. They'd lean together, lips barely touching. For the first time he would bathe in the full scent of her inner beauty. Her lips would part. As would his.

With infinite tenderness, with great care and affection they would come to know each other...slowly, at first. Then, with all the strength of their young bodies, unable to distinguish passion from duty, love from lust, day from night, heaven from earth, woman from man, they would become one.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk had known great love. Like Eugainia, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk had been raised for two great purposes: to lead the people and swell the numbers of his community. Love was a vague, abstract notion to Eugainia, best locked way from the attention of a high-born vessel of the Holy Blood. Courtiers and balladeers made much of love's overpowering mysteries and the fate of the heart in story and song. It had little relevance. Duty was destiny: until in the heat of an early summer's day, in the shadow of a great singing stone in an unknown world, duty and destiny died. From an early age Morgase diverted Eugainia's attention from such questions. Eugainia would conceive a holy child; Morgase would devote her life to the child's safe delivery and nurture. Morgase loved Eugainia. Eugainia would love the child. As would Morgase. As would God. That was all she knew and all she needed to know about love.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk glanced at the horizon. Then up to the zenith. The sky grew more heavily overcast. The tide, it seemed, had forgotten to rise. To all appearances, there would be no full moon, no stars, tonight. He'd been too eager to satisfy his selfish needs to correctly read the dream the Creator sent him.

Time, stymied, left the would-be lovers standing dumb and silent on the edge of a dream. They became wary of each other. Dream time and reality rarely synchronize. Time, they would come to learn, had different meanings for each of them. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's senses were aligned with the movements of the seasons and the creatures whose lives, including his own, cycled through the Great Wheel, at the centre of which revolved all the Powers of the Six Worlds. Eugainia lived in constant tension, the Christian pull of right and wrong. Good and evil. Damnation and redemption. God and the devil. The plague- and war-wearied Christian's unhappy existence—life a long, dark night of the soul's hell on earth—was made bearable by the hope of the bright, eternal days of heaven.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk stared at his foot, then the trail left in the wet sand by a delinquent moon snail, lugging its ponderous abode in pursuit of the falling tide. The sun fell perceptually toward the long arc of the horizon, etched to perfection by the edge of the indigo sea. It flared below slate clouds, flooding the narrow band of clear sky. A stiff landward breeze chilled the air. Eugainia felt the need of a light covering. Instead, she stood where she was, although a light moleskin robe was within easy reach. She folded her arms close across her breasts, and pondered the red shore. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk turned abruptly, walked to the margin of the forest—its green conifers crested gold in the sudden burst of light. He set to work, constructed a bivouac on deep sand piled by wind and water amid a spacious stand of young pines.

Eugainia took her time unloading the canoe, making several trips across the damp red sand when one or two trips would do. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk mumbled as she approached, made a vague, unfathomable gesture, then disappeared into the forest. Eugainia sat in the shelter of the bivouac on the hide-and-fir-bough floor, protected from sand stirred by the rising breeze. She pulled her knees to her chest, wondering...what in the name of all things holy has come over him. And what's come over me? I stood there dumb as a ruminating moose!

She felt disconnected from herself and, to greater alarm, the cosmos she had travelled so widely, with such ease, throughout her charmed young life. Memories of her last physical intimacies began to plague her. From the moment it had entered her body until the birth of the dead child she'd felt poisoned by Lord Ard's seed. Could that grim coupling have been love? Or anything like it? If so, what was this? Unless she misread the situation entirely, seeds would be sown tonight, and soon.

I'm sick and dizzy and elated all at once, she thought. Fear and yearning, all mixed together 'til I can't tell one from the other. Can this misery be the love of which the troubadours sing with such passion?

She tried to conjure an image of her and Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk coupled. All that arose was the memory of frail, boney old Ard, impotent upon top of her, her desire to rid herself of his aged flesh and fowl breath paramount. Yet she had gone willingly to the old man's feeble bed, time and fruitless time again, consumed by her sense of duty, the divine directive from which she dare not deviate.

All had changed so quickly. She sat on a strange island across the ocean, alone and cold. The Rosslyn Court, transported these thousands of miles to serve her, had all but disappeared. Morgase was dead. Henry grew increasingly ill at ease, his debt to Antonio distracting him from his and his Lady's all-consuming purpose. Eugainia had begun to despise the weight imposed by Henry and his burden. She fled Pictook before her tongue, which could be sharp and unkind, betrayed her and she began to hate herself.

The freedom for which she had yearned was finally hers. Why was she suddenly so driven to bind herself to someone else, to commit everything to this young man with whom she shared no culture, no spiritual tradition, not even language? She who had soared with the holy dove to the pinnacle of her people's spiritual yearning? The consequences of this union, she feared, would be yet another burden, this one everlasting. No one knew better, or more greatly feared, the implications of the word
eternity
than she. This was no ordinary man, this Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk. Had the Goddess found her God?