The Golden Strangers, page 17
‘We shall see,’ he said, ‘we shall see.’
Then he nodded to the herald. The man caught his eye and understood what he was to say.
‘Come down, come down, Headman of dung-eaters! Leave your swine and come down to the King. Come with your weapons, or come with your shirt off. Come when we call, or the birds shall feed full!’
Garroch felt the blood pound in his head. He was a prince as old as the hills and he knew it. He knew it by story and by the strange tensing of his muscles, that brought his head upright against his will. Garroch felt himself to be as old and as pure as the great stones at the edge of the village, as the grass that came anew each year on the lull above the chalk, as the very flints themselves, deep deep below the soil, below the earth, the first of things.
Garroch stood upright, like a man entranced, like a man walking in his sleep, a troubled sleep, the sleep that started with the beginning of the world.
‘Sit down, you fool!’ said Asa Wolf, who was even older than Garroch, for he knew the language of the otter and the wren.
Mai-Mai the hound stood up with his master. Together they began to walk down the hill.
Barduca and his men stared upwards and smiled. Such a small man! Such a small dog!
Asa Wolf said once more, ‘If you do not sit down, Garroch, I will place a shaft between your shoulder blades!’ He drew his bow.
But Garroch and Mai-Mai kept walking down the hill as though they had not heard him. Then he knew that he was powerless and waited to set an arrow into the breast of Barduca or Isca, or whoever seemed the most dangerous to his brother.
As Garroch came nearer, stepping daintily, a lord of the ancient world, his slight dark head flung back, so that the blue war-marks on his cheeks could be seen by all, his hands by his sides, their palms open and empty towards his enemies in the old way, the rough men of Barduca, the bronze-men laughed. They saw the flimsy wicker shield slung at his back, the short flint knife, the delicate stone axe. They saw that he wore his thick black hair now streaked with grey in a bun on top of his head, held up with bone pins, but no helmet. They saw that his light leather tunic was plated with horn from elk and horse— and they laughed.
Isca, leaning forwards, her lips parted, saw something else. She rose to meet the great horn of her pommel and then fell back again with a little gasp. Garroch was a comely man, she thought, though small; such a one as she had never seen before, a prince of the first days.
Ten paces from the war-band, Garroch halted, his right hand held upwards to signify that he came in peace. The little hound stood at his right side, his head against the Old Man’s calf.
Garroch said quietly, ‘I come, as you ask. I come to tell you that we are a peaceful folk. I come to tell you to go away to whatever land you please. I come to tell you that we do not wish to kill you, if you go back in the way you have come. We do not wish your company in the chalk hills. Go, and peace go with you!’
As he spoke, his heart thumped with tiredness and fear, for he knew that not more than twenty men of Craig Dun lay back there in the gorse, to fight with him should the need arise. Yet he did not show this in his proud blue-lined face.
Barduca stared at him, amazed. Then he turned to Isca and Said, ‘What shall we do with this one?’ But his quick eyes noted her expression, saw what she would have done, and he turned back. ‘
‘Come closer, chieftain,’ said Barduca, as gently as he was able. ‘Come closer and’ let us talk of peace. It would be a shame for two such men as you and I to spill the blood of our people. Let us settle our differences otherwise.’
Garroch stood still and said, ‘There are no differences. I only tell you to go away. That is what I said. I am the Old Man of the land.’
Barduca turned back to Isca, and this time she smiled.
‘But all the same, we must not waste the blood of men,’ said Barduca, amazed at his own tolerance. ‘We cannot afford to let men die in an argument, can we, little Chief!’
‘The word had slipped out before he knew it. He saw the sudden startled look come into Garroch’s dark eyes; he heard the low rustle of amusement form the men behind him.
‘Look,’ he said, trying to make the peace once more, ‘we must not fight. Let our dogs fight instead.’
Garroch stared, for he could see no dog beside Barduca. Then as though he understood what the enemy had said, Mai Mai pushed his head hard against Garroch’s thigh. Garroch nodded. He could think of nothing else to do. He did not like the way this golden woman was smiling at him, sneering with her lips. Besides, he was afraid, very much afraid, to be amongst these strange men who smelled differently, and who were always closing round him, putting him in the middle of the circle. He was the Old Man, he knew, and must never be enclosed like that. All the men of Craig Dun knew that. No one ever closed a circle about him, for that was against the ancient law. Yet these men did such things. Garroch was afraid because they did not understand what was sacred. So he nodded.
Immediately a man behind Barduca whistled, three times, and then the others stood aside to let an animal pass into the circle. It was a sheep-dog, huge and grey and matted, its hair hanging down almost to the ground, unkempt and stinking. It seemed almost blind, for the long hair covered its face. At first Garroch started to laugh. But Barduca said, ‘Hey! Hey!’ and the creature stopped dead and turned towards the man on the horse.
‘Who-iee! Who-iee!’ whistled Barduca, and the great dog swung round to face Mai-Mai, his legs spragged back, so that he might be ready to stand any assault.
Barduca called to Garroch, ‘That is the warning of wolves, my friend. This dog has torn the belly out of twelve wolves, He is a good dog. We can rely on him to settle any argument.’
Garroch felt down and touched poor Mai-Mai’s head. His hair was bristling. Garroch spoke to him gently in the sheep language, but he knew that his hound was badly matched. Then Mai-Mai licked his hand, but instantly turned back to face his enemy, on guard. Garroch knew that there was nothing he could do. He stepped away from his dog, saying, ‘Fight well, brother, and may we meet under the hill!’
Then little Mai-Mai seemed to shrug his shoulders and run forward to meet the great sheep-dog of the bronze-men.
The scuffle did not last long. Soon Mai-Mai rolled on the ground writhing, his entrails bare, his eyes wildly searching for Garroch who hid his face in his hands. A man leaned forward and smashed the tormented dog’s skull as he shuddered past him. Barduca smiled, but Isca leaned forward, her eyes wide, her nostrils dilated, the pommel pressing against her, hard.
The great sheep-dog lurched back on to his haunches, waving his shaggy head from side to side. Then he began to howl shrilly.
A man said to Barduca, ‘The little hound has blinded him, King. He has torn the eyes from their sockets.’
Barduca smiled again and said, ‘Well, we have other dogs.’ Garroch looked up to see the man thrust his copper sword easily through the creature. The dog dropped, still crying. Garroch knew then that he might expect no mercy.
In the gorse, Asa levelled his arrow at a point just below Barduca’s jaw. He was about to release it when he saw that jaw move. He held back expecting words of peace. But what Barduca said was, ‘So, you have lost your land. My dog was the victor.’
Garroch’s anger was cold now. He shook his head slowly. A bone pin fell out, letting a great dark wave of hair fall over his shoulder, the hair that must never be cut. Isca gasped, shutting her eyes.
Garroch pointed to the still twitching bodies. ‘Who is the victor,’ he said, ‘when both lie dead?’
Barduca rocked in his saddle, angry at the force of the dark chief’s argument. A slave-woman ran forward towards him, bearing a long horn of mead which Barduca drank off at a draught, signing for more. The woman hastened away, she knew already how urgent that gesture was, and with what severity it could be enforced, should the need arise, or even seem to arise.
Isca was leaning forward, her eyes still closed, as though she did not wish to see Barduca’s anger vented on this strange lithe dark man, who stared up so arrogantly at them, whose muscles twitched lightly, like a hunting-hound’s, whose deep brown eyes were proud and afraid at once.
Barduca tore at his thumb-nail until it gave him a sudden agony. He swore quietly and then putting on a smile said, ‘Where did you become so wise, little one?’
Garroch stared back at him, his long fingers now on the bone handle of his slim flint knife.
The slave woman hurried forward and thrust the second horn of mead into her master’s outstretched hand. He drank it noisily, and belched, flinging the bronze-mounted horn behind him for the woman to snatch up before she ran back among the others.
Barduca wiped his thick lips with the back of a scarred hand. His eyes were bloodshot and fiery, but still he kept his great furnace of a temper in check. When he spoke, his voice was like oil flowing slowly between two rubbing stones.
‘My friend, my dear friend,’ he murmured, ‘you and I are masters, not slaves. We can talk freely, can we not, without such words as victor and death coming into the talk, like ill-bred dogs that shove their muzzles between their master’s hand and his plate?’
Garroch’s face began to twitch now. He had not understood all that Barduca had said, but he had sensed the smiles on the mouths of the great men about him, and Garroch was sensitive. He resented smiles on the faces of other men unless his own words had put them there. Slowly his own face hardened and with an almost imperceptible movement, he assumed the posture from which he might best put his throwing-knife into the fat throat of Barduca.
As he did so, Barduca winked to the men on his left and they drew their own knives slowly, ready for the cast should this savage make another move. The air was tense with death. Even Asa Wolf, up there in the gorse, felt it rubbing along his shoulders, like fur, making them twitch as they did in the frost-time.
Then Garroch suddenly bared his long white teeth at the man on the shaggy horse. Barduca started with surprise that such a mild little man could make himself so frightening, and so quickly.
Isca, who had opened her eyes, shut them again quickly and decided that she was a fool to think of this little cannibal as a man.
At that moment the man in the black robes pushed his pony forward, signing to Barduca as he passed by him, with a pale hand.
His gaunt face was half-shrouded by a fold of his thick frieze garment, yet Garroch saw that he was blind. His great eyes stared before him like moonstones in the afternoon sun, opaque and pearly, shot through with dangerous amber glows that seemed to come from nowhere and to disappear as instantly. An ivory mask, set with two bloody-hued stones. Garroch did not like this man. He wished that he might have put his little knife into the neck of that fat headman without any interruption.
Barduca was lolling in the rawhide saddle now, heavy with mead. He waved his hand and the copper bracelets jangled. ‘Listen to this man, little chief,’ he whispered. ‘He will decide everything for us. Have no fear!’
The men behind him laughed quietly. Garroch heard that laugh and felt the blood rising in his temples again.
‘Why should I fear him?’ he said.
The blind man said gently, ‘Aye, indeed, why should you fear me? I am nothing. A leaf in the wind. A shell on the seashore. A dry stick beating against a granite wall. Indeed, why should any fear me?’
And so gentle was his tone that many were deceived and gazed at him as children do at a kindly old man who gives them honey-cakes when they expected blows from his white stick. But others, who knew more, nudged each other and set themselves to wait for what would happen.
‘I do not fear you,’ said Garroch, his pulses pounding and his inner heart thrusting at him to be away, to run, and run, and run, into the sunset, anywhere, as long as it was not this awful place with these strangers about him, closing him in, making him a little man, not the Old Man any more…
‘Come here,’ said the blind man, reaching out his thin hands from his horse. ‘Come here, my son. Let there be no fear between us.’
Garroch found himself walking towards the black horse, as though a great wind were pushing at his back. Once he tried to break the power of this wind, but it became even stronger and thrust him on, in spite of himself. He saw that the blind man was holding out his two hands now. Amazed at his own foolishness, he let fall his dagger and his shield and held out his hands to meet them.
The blind man’s hands were very strong, surprisingly strong, and cold, like a stone, or like the hands of a dead man who goes into the long House of Sleep. Garroch shuddered as he grasped them, but he could not take his own away. He even heard the chuckles of the men who clustered about Barduca, but he could no longer make himself interested in them. His whole mind was concentrated on what the blind man was saying to him.
‘Come, come,’ the grey voice was saying. ‘Come into the long house and rest, my son, my son, my son…’
Garroch gave a gasp and broke away. He did not know how he did it, or why—but there was something in the old man’s voice which told him that he was doomed if he did not break away, like a frightened wood-creature out of a trap.
Garroch found himself sprawling on his haunches, three paces from the horse of the blind man. And then he realised with what force he had flung himself backwards.
He heard himself screaming then, trying to impress his own importance on the creature who stared at him and could not see him, who smiled though no man had made a joke.
‘I am the Old Man in this country,’ his shrill voice said. ‘I have the magic in my fingers and my stick. If you have power, then test it now. Step over this line which I draw on the earth before you.’
Swiftly Garroch traced a line before that black horse, making it deep, thrusting down with his flint knife, as though cutting the throat of an old man lying on the midsummer stones.
It was a good line; as good a line as any he had ever drawn. But the blind man on the black pony smiled and kneed his mount forward. They passed over Garroch’s magic line, without any hindrance. The blind man was smiling. ‘
Garroch said, ‘You may smile, rider, but you know nothing yet.’
He tried to convince himself of his courage as he bent and took up a pebble from the ground beneath his feet. His eyes saw that it was a perfect instrument for the task it was to perform— a round thing, grey, streaked with white.
‘Look you,’ he called, in a high voice, ‘here is a mouse in my palm!’ He held it up for all to see. Barduca saw and turned to Isca. Her eyes were round with amazement. The tribesmen behind her muttered and whispered, ‘This is a wizard. He is a Great One!’
‘What do you see?’, called Garroch to Barduca.
The chieftain shrugged his round shoulders and shook his head to clear his vision. Then he said, ‘I see a mouse!’
The blind man half-turned in his saddle, shaking his head. His face was angry.
‘You fools,’ he said, ‘it is a pebble. An ordinary stone that this cheat snatched up from his feet. It is grey and streaked with white. It is no mouse. That is what he made you to say. It is a pebble.’
Barduca alone among the gathering knew the truth of the blind man’s words, for he had blinded him, to keep the magic in the tribe. He had seen the red sticks pierce through the damp orbs and let another liquid out. He shut his own eyes and said, ‘He speaks the truth. It is a stone.’
Then Garroch fell back, for he knew that his magic was not strong enough to win this fight.
The blind man came forward, urging his pony step by step towards him with the gentle pressure of his old knees.
‘Look you,’ he whispered in a soft voice, ‘the thing in your hand is a flower, is it not?’
Garroch looked at the stone, his dark eyes wide with fear. It was a flower; a little blue flower, with petals shaped like a star. It had a gold centre. The petals were, streaked with green, in three fine lines. ‘Yes,’ he said, nodding his head, ‘it is a flower.’
A great laugh went up from the men about Barduca, for they saw now that it was a stone. Garroch did not hear them. He stared at the flower, thinking he had never seen one so beautiful. The blind man said, ‘Is it a flower you know, friend? The cornflower, perhaps?’
Garroch answered, ‘Aye master, it is the cornflower.’
The blind man smiled. ‘Or is it the flower of the flax?’ Garroch seemed to smile at his own stupidity. ‘Aye master, it is the flower of the flax.’
Then the blind man nodded, as to himself, and turning towards Barduca whispered, ‘It is well.’ He slowly dismounted from his pony then and groping with his hands before him, went towards Garroch. Now he smiled like a pale wolf. He said, ‘For such a pretty flower any king would give up his kingdom, my friend. Is that not so?’
Garroch frowned a little, but answered nevertheless, ‘Aye, master, his kingdom for this pretty flower. May I keep the flower, master?’
The blind man reached out for Garroch’s hands and said, ‘Put your hands in mine and tell me that you will sell your bare chalk hills for this splendid flower, than the bargain will be settled.’
The warriors held their breath as Garroch slowly came to meet their bard, his dark hands before him, like those of a man who must walk through sleep to find his dreams.
And even as their fingers touched, the blind man gave a violent start, stiffening his back and throwing up his vacant head. A strange harsh gasp came from him and he flung his hands up towards his throat. Garroch felt that someone had flung a pannikin of icy water over him. He shook his head. His sight came back, clear as a hawk’s. He saw the feathered barb of an arrow showing between the blind man’s scratching fingers, too firmly fixed to be moved by any man now.
‘Asa Wolf!’ he yelled. ‘Asa Wolf!’
In battle-fury he reached down for shield and knife, the blood coming before his eyes like a red cloth and into his nose, smelling thick and strong with death.
Isca clenched her hands suddenly and cried, ‘Kill! Kill, Barduca!’
Then Barduca had kicked his horse drunkenly forward and was slashing at Garroch with the long shining sword.
