Chapter 23
“HOW DID YOU do it?”
Varrick merely smiled, or at least his lips curled slightly, giving a brief illusion of pleasure.
“You should ask your wife. Her father is the most powerful magician I have ever seen or heard of. She knows some of his magic. I can tell this by looking at her, at her eyes—an odd green, her eyes, holding secrets and power. You are lucky, Cleve, for she will protect you from your enemies.”
“If ever she protected me, it would be because she is smart and cunning, not because she cast some curse. Ragnor of York wanted her. William of Normandy wanted her. Now she’s my wife and I just pray that neither man will come to skin my hide, including her father, King Sitric.
Now, Lord Varrick, how did you manage that terrifying wind, the utter blackness, and all that thrashing water? ”
Varrick picked up that odd-looking stick.
Cleve saw up close that it looked more like a carved wooden spear.
It wasn’t really a spear, for it was much too short, not more than a foot long.
It wasn’t a knife either, for it wasn’t sharpened at its tip.
It was wood, but a heavy wood that really didn’t look like wood.
There were strange designs on it: circles and squares, in bright reds and blues.
“This comes from a Pict chieftain who ruled not farther than a long day’s ride from here, to the east of the loch.
I knew it had power, this burra, for that is what it is called.
It comes from the Druids, used for hundreds of years in their ceremonies.
It is older than Caldon, older than Thor and Odin-All-Father perhaps.
I have studied it for years, learned all its secrets. I let it take my magic and focus it.”
“How did you get it from the chieftain?”
“I killed him and took it. Here, hold it.”
Cleve took the burra. It was heavy on his palm, so heavy that it dragged his arm down with its weight. He couldn’t believe such a small slender piece of wood could be so heavy, yet Varrick had held it easily. He felt something in it, something that made him want to shiver.
“I call it Pagan,” Varrick said. “What do you feel?”
“Nothing, merely that it is heavy, that the man who fashioned it added something to the wood.” He willingly handed the burra back to his father. He never wanted to see or touch the thing again.
Varrick called out, “Chessa, please come here. I have something for you to see.”
Chessa, who was speaking with Laren, looked up, saw that Cleve was seated perfectly still, and walked quickly to Varrick. “Aye, my lord?”
“Here,” he said simply, and handed her the burra.
Chessa cocked her head to one side as she accepted the strange looking spear that wasn’t at all a spear.
It looked to be naught more than a simple stick of wood with strange markings on it.
Suddenly she gasped and tossed the wooden piece into the air, then caught it again with three fingers.
It was very light. Strange, because it looked heavy, but it wasn’t.
“It’s very hot,” she said, and tossed it back and forth from her right to her left hand, as if it were naught but a feather.
“Very hot indeed and it weighs nothing. Why is that? It looks heavy, as if I wouldn’t be able to lift it, but it isn’t. ”
“Look at the markings on it, Chessa.”
Suddenly the wood was different. She dropped it to the earthen floor.
“I’m sorry, but it became so very cold, painfully so.
I couldn’t hold it.” She frowned at Varrick, then leaned down and touched the burra.
It felt warm to the touch, not hot or frigidly cold.
She picked it up again and studied the circles and squares on it.
“It’s very old,” she said. “I feel that it’s older than this promontory upon which this fortress rests.
” She frowned in confusion at her husband.
“Cleve, this is very strange. I touch these circles and these squares and my fingers seem to sink down into the wood, yet they don’t, not really.
But I can feel how very deeply they’re carved, and you know, it’s not like they’re really carved at all, for they’re smooth and deep and there doesn’t seemed to be an end to them.
” Then she was silent, looking down at her fingers as they traced each pattern very slowly.
Suddenly she turned white, her eyes wide and deep with fright.
Cleve jumped to his feet and grabbed that damned heathen stick from her hands.
He tossed it to Varrick. It was difficult, for it was so very heavy.
Then he took Chessa in his arms. “It’s all right, Chessa. What happened? Can you tell me?”
Her face was against his shoulder. She said, “I saw my mother, Naphta. I saw her as clearly as if she were here, standing before me. She was so real, Cleve, and then she smiled at me, and I knew I was very small, no more than a babe. She was so very real, Cleve, so very real.”
Cleve felt his flesh grow cold, felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
He didn’t like this—not the damned darkness, black and impenetrable in the morning, the raging wind that had shaken the fortress, or the roiling waters that had seemed nearly alive, wanting to engulf the fortress and swallow all within.
He didn’t like this burra that had touched something strange in Chessa. He suddenly very much wanted to leave.
But he couldn’t. This was where he belonged.
Kinloch was his birthright. But he didn’t like this, any of it.
To soothe Chessa he said, “You are your father’s daughter.
He is a wizard. It’s natural that you would have some affinity for things old and sacred.
It’s not important, Chessa. Now, I would like for us to fetch Kiri and see the land.
I have memories and I would like to see if they are anything now as they were for the small boy. ”
Varrick said nothing. He gently placed the burra in a lined scabbard, then tied it to his waist with a strap of leather that was also painted with red and blue circles and squares.
It looked as old as the burra. It was leather and it was still strong, no hint of fraying or decay to be seen.
It made no sense. Cleve hated things that made no sense.
Men were helpless enough as it was, but with this, all this unexplained magic, this confusion of senses, the fact that the damned burra weighed no more than a feather to both Varrick and Chessa.
“I will have your brother Athol show you the land, Cleve. The boy knows every glen and hillock. He will take care. There have been few attacks by the Picts or the Britons. The Scots are the ferocious ones but they usually don’t bother us.
We must always be on guard against the outlaws and the thieves, homeless men who roam the land and steal and murder.
The Scot king, Constantine, encourages them, at least against us.
We fight back, naturally. My men are ferocious warriors.
They show no mercy. You must have at least a dozen men with you if you ride south.
I am pleased that you want to learn all about what will be yours one day when I am dead. ”
Varrick gave them horses to ride. Cleve had ridden a pony before he’d been taken from Kinloch and then learned to ride again only after he’d come to Malverne.
He was comfortable enough astride the raw-boned bay stallion, but he would have preferred to walk, something he couldn’t do, for Kinloch lands stretched far to the west and to the south.
Chessa was at her ease on a mare with white stockings who kept tossing her head, making Kiri laugh.
Laren rode well and she looked thoughtful.
As for Merrik and the other Malverne men, they looked uncomfortable.
They looked wary, as if they expected demons to rise from the dark waters of Loch Ness and attack them.
Several of Varrick’s men, all of them with their faces painted with blue lines and circles, garbed in bearskins, rode at their rear, eyes alert.
Varrick had told him they were Pict warriors and owed their loyalty to him.
Their leader, Igmal, as evil looking as the Christian’s devil, had very white teeth, a blue-painted face, and a ready smile.
Kiri ordered him about and he would smile that evil-looking smile and throw her into the air.
Such a contrast, Cleve thought. Silence within the fortress and at least a bit of an occasional smile without, smiles that Kiri brought, no one else.
He wondered if Kiri would lose her smiles soon enough living here. He wouldn’t allow that.
Chessa pulled her mare close to Cleve’s, saying, “Look at the mist coming toward us, like a tide, and you know it won’t stop until there is naught but chill and gray and no sunlight.
This place is savage and as pure as the sweetest music, but it is summer and this mist will take getting used to.
Ah, but the green, such a deep pure green, just like in Ireland, where it rained all the time as well. ”
“It isn’t Norway,” Cleve said. “Do you find it beautiful, Chessa? Truly? Can you make your home here?”
“Aye, I find it splendidly untamed, yet the sheep and the cows graze so peacefully, and the birds, Cleve, there are so many birds. Mirana would be blissful were she here, so many birds. I can’t begin to identify them all and I’m trying so I can tell her all about them.
Aye, Scotland is a perfect place. And why shouldn’t it be?
It is our home now.” She paused a moment, then added, “Cayman won’t say anything to me.
Neither will Argana or her three sons. They don’t treat me badly, but I know they don’t want me here.
None of the women will speak of anything but cooking and weaving and dyeing. Nothing at all. All fear Varrick.”
“You don’t.”
“Nay, but then again, there is my father, the greatest magician the world has ever known. It would be cowardly of me to fear him.”