And she called up to him ahead of her on the path, “I am surprised to see you lending yourself to this charade, Kinnock. Why did you?”
“I have my reasons,” the Priest called back. “Though I must say,” he added sourly, “I did not expect to have my house burnt over it.”
“What reasons?” said my aunt.
“The respect for the gods and for the priesthood is not what it should be,” he said across his shoulder. “My aim is to set that right.”
“You mean you think Alasdair is more god-fearing than his father?” my aunt asked. “If you think that, you’re doomed to disappointment two ways.”
“Gratitude,” retorted the Priest, “is not to be discounted.”
“Or counted on either,” snapped Aunt Beck.
They continued arguing with Aunt Beck getting crosser and more breathless at every sentence, but I have no idea what they said. I remember Aunt Beck accusing the Priest of trying to turn Skarr into Gallis, but that meant they had started to talk politics and I stopped listening. I was suddenly overwhelmed with a fear that I might not see Skarr again and I was busy trying to see as much of it as I could by the light of the repeatedly clouded moon.
The mountains were mere blackness overhead, though I could smell the heavy damp smell of them, and the sea was another blackness flecked with white over the other way. But I remember dwelling quite passionately on a large grey boulder beside the path when the moonlight glided over it, and almost as ardently on the grey, wintry-looking heather beneath the boulder. Where the path turned, I could look over my shoulder, across the bent figure of Ogo heaving the luggage donkey’s bridle, and see the castle below against the sea, ragged and rugged and dark. There were no lights showing. You’d have thought it was deserted. Of course the house where I lived with Aunt Beck was well out of sight, beyond the next rise of land, but I looked all the same.
It suddenly struck me that, if I never saw Skarr again, I would never again need to go down into the Place. You cannot imagine the joy and relief that gave me. Then I found myself not believing this. I knew Aunt Beck would somehow contrive that we gave everyone the slip. We could well be back home again by morning. I knew she was unwilling to go on this unlikely journey – unwilling enough that she might risk the displeasure of the High King himself. As the last and only Wise Woman in Chaldea, she had standing enough, I thought, to defy King Farlane. Would she dare? Would she?
I was still calculating this, with a mixture of excitement and hopelessness on both sides of the question, when we clattered into the deep road at the top of Kilcannon, where the stones of the fane lofted above the shoulder of hill to my right. I could feel them, like an itch or a fizz on my skin, and a tendency for the light here to seem dark blue to my eyes. The place makes me so uncomfortable that I hate going near it. Why the gods should require such uncomfortable magics always puzzled me.
A short while later, we were out to the flatter land beyond. There stood the Priest’s dark house, smelling of burning still, and around it the empty, moon-silvered pastures where Donal had driven all the cattle away. On the other side of the road was the long barnlike place where the novices lived. This was brightly-lit and – oh dear! – the most distinct sounds of roistering coming from inside. Evidently, the novices had not expected the Priest back until morning.
The Priest leapt down from his donkey and strode to the entrance. A sudden silence fell. Looking through the doorway around the Priest’s narrow, outraged body, I could see at least ten young men caught like statues in his glare. Most of them were guiltily trying to hide drinking cups behind their backs, though two were obviously too far gone to bother. One of those went on drinking. The other went on singing, and actually raised his cup in toast to the Priest.
“I see,” said the Priest, “that the demon drink needs exorcising here. All of you are to walk down to the coast with Wise Beck and see that she gets safely to her boat.”
Aunt Beck made a soft, irritated sound. I was right. She had been thinking of slipping off.
“What? Now?” one of the novices asked.
“Yes,” said the Priest. “Now.” He strode inside the dwelling and picked up a little barrel from the table, and calmly began pouring its contents on the floor. The scent of whisky gushed to my nostrils through the door, strong enough to make my eyes water. “Fresh air is a great exorcist,” he remarked. “Off you go. And,” he looked at us waiting outside, “I wish you a good journey, ladies.”
So we went down the rest of the way with twelve drunken novices. There was quite a strong wind blowing on this side of the mountains and, whatever the Priest said, it seemed to me to make them worse. They wove about, they staggered, they sang, they giggled and every ten yards or so one of them was sure to pitch forward into a gorse bush while the rest roared with laughter. Several of them had to leave the path to be sick.
“Gods,” Ivar kept saying. “This is all I need!”
And Aunt Beck asked them several times, “Are you sure you wouldn’t be better sitting down here for a rest? We’ll be quite all right on our own.”
“Oh no, lady,” they told her. “Can’t do that. Ordersh. Have to shee you shafely to your ship.”
Aunt Beck sighed. It was clear the Priest had promised the High King that we would be on that waiting boat. “Drat the man!” said Aunt Beck.
Surrounded by the hooting, galumphing, laughing crowd, we came at last down to where the rocks gave way to sand while the sinking moon showed us quite a large ship swaying up and down vigorously in the bay. Ivar moaned at the sight. Waiting for us among the wet smash and sheen of the breakers was a rowing boat, whose crew leapt out eagerly to meet us.
“Hurry now or we’ll miss this tide,” one of them said. “We thought you’d never be here in time.”
I slid off the donkey and patted it. I also patted the gorse bush by my side. It was in bloom – but when is gorse not? – and the caress of my fingers released the robust fragrance of it. It is a smell that always makes me think of home and Skarr. It seemed a shame to me that the youngest novice promptly staggered into that same bush and was sick on it.
“Here, lassie.” One of the sailors seized me and swung me into his arms. “Carry you through the water,” he explained when I uttered a furious squawk.
I let him. I became almost unbearably tired just then. It seemed to me that in leaving the soil of Skarr I left all my strength behind, but I expect that it was just that I’d had no sleep the night before. As I was carried through the crashing surf, tasting salt as I travelled, I had glimpses of Ivar and Ogo wading beside me, and a further glimpse of Aunt Beck, drawn up to her very tallest, facing the sailor who had offered to carry her too. I saw her glance at the waves, lift a heel and glance at that, and then shrug and give in. She rode to the boat sedately sitting across the sailor’s arms, heels together and both hands clasped demurely around his neck, as if the poor man were another donkey.
I scarcely remember rowing out to the big dark boat. I think I must have been asleep before they got there. When I woke, it was bright grey morning and I was lying on my face, on a narrow bench in a warm but smelly wooden cabin. I sprang up at once. I knew it was only a matter of forty sea miles to Bernica.
“Heavens!” I cried out. “I’ve missed the whole voyage!”
It turned out to be no such thing. When I dashed out into the swaying, creaking passage under the deck, Aunt Beck
