Chapter 11 #2
‘The waulking of the cloth serves many purposes, but one is to tell stories and express emotion. It is a tradition that wyverns and humans once undertook together, a way to communicate.’
‘Did the humans of Canna speak Cannair?’
‘It is said they did in centuries past, but certainly not in my lifetime,’ Abelio replies.
‘What are they saying?’ I ask as I stare at Cindra and the other wyverns.
Abelio attempts to explain but I don’t understand the words he uses, so I just look quizzically at him. It’s odd, being able to understand only when he uses the simplest of sentence structures and vocabulary I remember from the journal.
‘It is the story of a wyvern with a brotnacroí.’
I understand part of the word – croí, which means heart and is pronounced kree – but not the rest. A big heart?
A broken heart? I can only guess. Instead, I content myself with listening, relaxing now the first demonstration of the fake tunnel detector is over, and as the singing echoes through the tunnels I almost forget Abelio and the other wyverns are there.
The beauty of the chanted words was unknown to me back when I was studying Cannair in Hollingsworth’s office with just the journal for reference.
Studying this language on paper was like feeling around in the dark, Clawtail’s notes revealing only a muted chink of a much brighter, fuller light.
And yet I still feel blind. Afterwards, I go looking for Aodahn. I find him still at work with Gideon.
‘No,’ I hear Gideon say as I enter the cave. ‘In French, the n of dragon is silent.’
Aodahn re-attempts his pronunciation.
‘Better,’ Gideon says.
Aodahn’s cave is smaller than the one we sleep in, the ground littered with so many piles of books that I don’t know where to stand.
The walls are painted the colours of the rainbow and wooden shelves hold all sorts of trinkets: colourful stones, seashells, an arrowhead and a pair of reading glasses.
Aodahn gestures for us to sit around his central fire.
‘Have you been at this since this morning?’ I ask Gideon.
Gideon nods as Aodahn scurries across the room to retrieve a pile of papers, then lowers his voice. ‘I think he’s going to drive me mad.’
‘Gideon, speaker of tongues, is a dedicated teacher,’ Aodahn exclaims. ‘Look at all the words he has taught me!’
He gestures to a list of vocabulary, his long talon dripping with ink.
‘Aodahn, would you help me with something?’ I ask.
Gideon gives me a look of grateful relief.
‘The word brotnacroì. What does it mean?’
Aodahn pauses thoughtfully. ‘It is like . . . a heartbreak, but stronger than that. It is irremediable, a heart that is not simply broken, but broken forever.’ He lets out a surprised yelp that makes me jump.
‘It is like Gideon, speaker of tongues taught me with the French word Adieu! It does not only mean goodbye, but goodbye forever. A definitive farewell.’
I’m nodding. Explained like that, it makes sense.
I’ve deciphered a word that doesn’t even appear in Clawtail’s journal and the sensation it gives me takes me straight back to the glasshouse.
I can almost smell the citrus freshness of Dr Seymour’s plants around me.
It’s the feeling of not just translating a language, but recording it for the first time.
When I look up at Aodahn again, his huge eyes are shining.
‘Patrick Clawtail showed the same enthusiasm for Cannair as you, Vivien Featherswallow. But it only brought us closer to our own forever farewell.’
Aodahn stirs the pot that sits in the fire with a wooden spoon the length of my arm. Then he ladles the liquid into three earthenware cups so large that I have to hold mine in both hands. It’s a hot, savoury broth, coating my tongue and warming my body.
‘Abelio talks as though he is closed to any form of interaction with humans, but that can’t be true, can it, if he was letting Clawtail learn Cannair with the aim of promoting it?’
‘Abelio has changed since Patrick died. Now, his priority is protecting Cannair from outside influence, preserving its pure, undiluted form.’
‘No language is pure,’ I reply. ‘It’s a living thing, changed by those who speak it and other languages it comes into contact with. If Patrick had been given the chance to share Cannair with other humans, he would have passed on mispronunciations, tiny mistakes. It’s inevitable.’
Aodahn buries his snout into the cup and slurps the broth. ‘Patrick had an almost perfect mastery of Cannair. And his little daughter spoke it as if she were born to the Hebridean Wyverns.’
‘But he never finished translating it,’ I say. ‘I’ve seen the journal. He stopped recording the language two years after he joined you.’
Aodahn sets his cup down, his milky eyes swimming again. ‘Cannair is a complex language, dear one.’
‘You knew Clawtail well,’ I say softly. ‘Perhaps better than we think?’
Slowly, Aodahn goes to a shelf.
‘This is all I have left of Patrick,’ he says, unwrapping a piece of cloth and bringing it to the fire.
Gideon and I peer closer at a gold ring, wound in a piece of yellow thread. It’s tiny in Aodahn’s talons.
‘A wedding band?’ Gideon said.
Aodahn nods. ‘We wrap our dead in tweed before we burn them, to preserve their memory. But we never found Patrick’s body, so this is the best I could do.’ He sniffs, a puff of black smoke escaping his nostrils. ‘The other is with his wife, no doubt.’
I think of Clawtail’s journal, seeing the careful handwriting in my mind. Back in London he was just a piece of history, a faceless figure unknown to everyone but Hollingsworth and me. But now, he’s Aodahn’s friend.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I say.
Aodahn places the ring back on the shelf and I know I have to take advantage of the moment to ask him what he knows.
‘Some humans claim that the Hebridean Wyverns could help them win the war against the government,’ I say slowly. ‘The government that killed Patrick. Do you know how that might be?’
Aodahn blinks. ‘If they have weapons like they did before, then there are too few of us wyverns to withstand an attack.’
I catch Gideon’s eye as Aodahn shakes his head. ‘I am afraid that the humans are mistaken. Be it by teeth or by talon, the wyverns cannot help you.’
Our own cave is quiet during the hours that the others are busy with the wyverns.
Atlas is teaching about how the dragon industry of metallurgy influenced the British rebel movement and Marquis is shadowing one of the healers.
I sit by the ever-burning fire, turning Cannair words over in my mind.
So far, the three months I spent studying the language have done me little good.
If what Aodahn said is true then Abelio considers my learning Cannair a dilution, a weakening of the language rather than a respectful attempt to master it.
He’s made it clear that he has no interest in the war, which makes our presence here pointless.
In fact, I suspect that his fascination with the loquisonus machine is the only reason he is tolerating our request for shelter at all.
I pull my jumper off in the sweltering heat of the cave.
Perhaps we should call this mission off and return to the rebels on Eigg, then get word to Hollingsworth that the war will have to be won without the wyverns.
I try to imagine the look on her face when I tell her I’ve failed and my skin crawls.
Surely she has a Plan B? I look up as Atlas walks in, tucking his notebook into the pocket of his jacket.
He smiles. ‘Did you find any tunnels, girl with the golden machine?’
I roll my eyes. ‘No. But Abelio wants nothing to do with the government, or with bringing it down. He’s waiting for us to leave.’
Atlas nods. ‘The wyverns coming to my classes on the Peace Agreement and the rebellion seem nervous to be there. They’re all so intrigued by human-dragon relations, but Abelio is the opposite.’
‘At least you’re doing something. I’m useless here, and I was supposed to be the one using Cannair to convince the wyverns to join the rebels.
Half the time I can’t even understand what they’re saying.
’ I can barely keep the bitterness out of my voice.
‘Now I’m here, I’m realising that I’ve barely scratched the surface of the language.
Maybe we should leave. I could go back to Hollingsworth and—’
‘What if we use the loquisonus?’
Atlas’s eyes are on the wooden swallow around my neck.
I frown. ‘What for?’
‘You already know the basics of echolocation. It would take a lot less time to learn the wyverns’ Koinamens than to become fluent in Cannair. You’ve done it before, haven’t you?’
When I don’t reply, he continues, ‘You could listen to it to know what they say to each other. Maybe, from that, you could figure out how they can help us.’
I shake my head. ‘That would be spying. And the Koinamens is—’
‘Sacred, I know,’ Atlas says. ‘But this is war we’re talking about. And we wouldn’t be hurting the wyverns. When we leave here with them we’ll destroy the machine, like we did with the other two. No one will ever be able to listen to echolocation again.’
I hesitate. ‘A few months ago you would never have suggested such a plan.’
Atlas shrugs his jacket off, a weary frown on his face.
But I remember perfectly well what Chumana told me back at Bletchley Park – that the Koinamens is a sacred language of dragons that gets more complex depending on the bond, that it’s made up of emotions so strong it can make tiny dragonlings grow inside their eggs.
If my work in the glasshouse taught me anything, it’s that the Koinamens is not to be tampered with.
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. What Hollingsworth was thinking. It takes years of study to learn a new language, let alone communicate effectively in it. This task is impossible. Almost as impossible as understanding the deeper meaning of echolocation calls.’
‘But—’
‘No, Atlas.’ I stare at him until he meets my gaze. ‘You know the Koinamens is more than just a set of audible noises. I couldn’t make any use of it even if I wanted to, because I’m not a dragon. And anyone who has told you otherwise—’
Atlas stands up abruptly, his jacket falling from his lap. ‘No one has told me otherwise,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m not stupid.’
I gape at him. ‘I didn’t say you were.’
‘I’ll see you at the Twilight Meal.’
I watch as he leaves the room without a backward glance, my cheeks burning with humiliation.
It’s not like Atlas to sulk. My eyes fall to the jacket on the floor, the notebook sticking out of the pocket.
I pull it out. It’s bound in marbled leather, with a small pencil tucked into an elastic loop.
I open it. I can tell from the printed dates that it’s a diary.
One quick look could tell me what’s going on in his head.
The pages are covered in Atlas’s small, untidy handwriting and the sight takes me back to a time when we exchanged secret notes. I glance at the last sentence he has written and my heart freezes.
This mission is a sin.
An uneasy feeling creeps over me. What mission is he referring to? Finding the wyverns? Why would that be a sin? My heart hammers as I flick through the pages.
What I’m being asked to do goes against my every instinct. And yet I know that its fruits will be good. If I refuse, or fail . . . the consequences don’t bear thinking about.
I jump when I hear clattering in the passageway.
I close the diary and slip it back into the pocket of Atlas’s jacket, where a piece of green cloth has been cut away from the lining.
Atlas just tried to persuade me against leaving the wyverns, so this can’t be the mission he’s referring to.
Dread floods my body. Has he been entrusted with another?
And if so, why is he keeping it a secret?