Chapter 27 Pictish Stories #2
“A scholar would tell ye they’re before the Picts were Christian folk, and that’d be true.
Not that the Picts ever let go the old ways, Christ or not.
” She brushed a few bobbing seed heads aside, clearing the face of the leftmost stone.
“These hail from a Britain with gods of briar and bog. My seanmhair”—she glanced over her shoulder—“my nanna that means, she taught me to read them, for the story is told only at the stones, and the mistress of the strath must be the one to read it.”
Reverently, she touched her fingers to her forehead, then to the first stone. “The Wyves’ Stone.” Sharply, she stabbed two fingers at her heart, then touched the second. “The Stone of Betrayal. Together, they tell the tragedy of the flute.”
That word, “betrayal,” stung my guilt, then a colder realization drowned that. This was the story, the very history I had concealed from Darcy. The story that had played out on this hilltop long ago.
On the Wyves’ Stone, Mistress MacLeod’s finger traced the top row of symbols. “Three ovals for three leaders. Those are the Scottish great wyves.”
That interested Darcy. “The pre-Christian Picts lived a thousand years ago.”
Mistress MacLeod nodded. “So I’m told.”
“Then the dates do not match. The great wyves fought in the Scottish wars. That would be five hundred years.”
She snorted. “That’s the English story. The great wyves never fought England. If they had, there wouldn’t be an England, would there? It’d all be Scotland.”
“That is a bold assertion—” Darcy began, sounding irritated, academic, and rather like Mary. Perhaps that was why they got along so well.
“The great wyves united would have defeated England,” I said, silencing him, “but the Scottish wyves were dust long before England existed.”
“Mind ye,” Mistress MacLeod added, “the wyves did fight. We’ve no lack of wars in the north.”
Her words were brightening my own recollection. Helmsdale hill seemed to roll back through time. Despite the dull, overcast sky, sea wind lifted my hair. Salt bit my nostrils.
I knew the story. Pretense was pointless. “The Scottish wyfe of war was a Bennet.”
Mistress MacLeod’s gaze found me. “Aye. Her clan name was an old form of that.”
“It sounded almost French…” I sifted through the past. “Bénet.”
Darcy was confused. “You knew this?”
“I knew before we left Pemberley.” I made myself meet his gaze. “I lied to you there.”
I had expected anger or hurt when the truth was revealed. Instead, his confusion ended. His tension eased, leaving only a swordsman’s alert balance.
“I thought you had not told me everything,” he said. “I only wondered why.”
“You would not have come if I told the truth.”
He shook his head. “Nothing could keep me from your side. Nothing could keep me from seeking the flute…” He trailed off, watching Mistress MacLeod. He was beginning to suspect.
She resumed her story by touching the last row, three elaborate symbols.
The first was a sinuous draca intertwined with a bent arrow: “Command, for the wyfe of war.” Then came a Celtic knot: “Binding, for the wyfe of healing.” Last, there was a stylized rod in two parts: “Duiseal, the flute, for the wyfe of song. This stone recounts the great wyves allied on Scottish soil. They stood on Helmsdale hill. The Wyves’ Stone is a proud stone. ”
Darcy grated out, “What is the Stone of Betrayal?”
“Well, as happens, there was a war.” Mistress MacLeod moved to the second stone, laced with moss and lichen.
“A battle of two great clans, north and south, as tends to be. Blood was shed aplenty, and the north paid the higher price, but the northern clan had the great wyves, so their chief asked them to aid the fight. The wyves met to decide, aye or nae, on Helmsdale hill.”
I remembered stretching my arm like a banner to the south, to the lands to conquer. “The wyfe of war, the Bennet, wanted to fight.”
“Aye. But the wyfe of healing, she was a wise wyfe, she said nae, and the wyfe of song supported her. That dinnae need to stop the wyfe of war—she could fight alone—but she wanted the great talisman that had found its way to the north: the flute. The wyfe of song held that, and when she refused to give it up, the wyfe of war took it from her. Took it by force. One bound wyfe fighting another.”
“Our draca fought,” I said. “I had a lindworm, she a drake. Hers died.”
Mistress MacLeod recited familiar words:
“To sound our claim,
the three wyves came:
Of healing, wise.
Of song, who cries.
Of war. Arise.”
That song was this story, but… “The words are wrong,” I said.
“Her firedrake fell, torn and smoking, and the wyfe of song’s binding broke.
That should have stunned her, but she was too strong.
I had to wrench the flute from her hands.
Even then, she stood tall.” I found Mistress MacLeod’s steady gaze. “The wyfe of song never cried.”
“What then?” Darcy asked, the words sharp and separate.
A voice called outside—the guard—but my memory shone bright, so I continued, “I led the northern clans to battle. The south had four times our warriors, but a wyfe of war laughs at those odds. And I held the flute! Its power sang. I thought it would summon a tide of draca, but when the battle began, it… hushed. I struggled to wake it. I obsessed. I ignored the fight. Then an arrow struck me.” I clutched my left shoulder, feeling that barbed point drive below my collarbone.
“It hit hard as a hammer and cut deep. They had breached our line. I fought, but my sword tangled in a warrior’s mail, then a rush drove me to the ground.
An ax swung. I lifted the flute—it was a reflex, to block—and the flute shattered… ”
The vision ended with a splitting shriek in my skull.
“The song’s words are true,” Mistress MacLeod said in her brogue.
Her finger circled the final symbol: roaring flame.
“The two clans built a pyre for the wyfe of war, and the wyfe of song laid the shards of the flute in her dead arms. They burned wyfe and flute together while the wyfe of song wept.”
I did not remember that, but it sounded like what she would do.
My lips formed a ragged smile for Darcy.
“This is why you would not have come if I told the truth. My own ancestor destroyed the flute. That is the legacy of the Bennets, our mysterious Scottish heritage. The French are chasing a fable, some obscure mention of the Bennet name, but the flute is lost. The three items will never be united. The song cannot be healed.”
“I do not believe it,” Darcy said.
“I remember it,” I said simply. “It broke in my hands.”
“Then I do not accept it. We could repair it. Replace it. The great items did not fall from the sky. They were fashioned by people. We could learn how.”
“It took years to craft them. Fènnù’s sanity, what there is of it, will break in days.
That is the purpose of the French advance, to trigger her apocalypse.
Fènnù will abandon her search for me and unleash destruction.
Our petty war will be eclipsed.” I took Darcy’s hand; I had to pull through his resistance.
“But Fènnù has a weakness. She is drawn to conflict…” The next words hurt—I knew what Darcy would think—but I would not lie any more.
“If she cannot find me, if she does not have my memories to focus her, her destruction will fall on the south. Longbourn and Pemberley will be safe, above the tide.”
Darcy’s fingers were wood in mine. I counted thudding heartbeats before he said, “You cannot surrender half the country to destruction. It is amoral.”
“Amoral, how? Is destruction in one place better than another? I lost a sister and a father. I lost Denny. We both mourn Mr. Rabb. I will not lose more people that I love. You matter to me. My family matters. Georgiana matters. If you and I escape, if we hide, Fènnù will hunt endlessly amongst the southern war. Without me, she… she might even give up. Return to harmless sleep…”
“If you believed that,” he said icily, “you would have told the truth at Pemberley.”
Until now, I had been pleading. Anger cut that away. “I did not tell the truth because you are sentimental. You would not accept the truth.”
“What truth? That you have abandoned duty?”
“That we have lost! We are in retreat from a superior foe. When I am near Fènnù, she poisons me, drags my mind into her mad violence, and through me, her madness poisons Yuánchi. To save Yuánchi, I had to flee, and if I left you behind, Fènnù would find you instead. Yuánchi’s binding touches you too, and the black dragon is jealous.
She would kill you in idle pique and resume her hunt.
” An old lesson returned. “ ‘A general must retreat without fearing disgrace.’ ”
Without hesitation, Darcy recited the full quote, “ ‘A general whose only thought is to protect his country must retreat without fearing disgrace.’ ” Into my surprised silence, he added, “When did you start reading Sun Tzu?”
I remembered an ages-dead general so respected that he defied custom and taught his daughter the art of war.
He dictated thirteen chapters while I transcribed them, holding the brush perfectly vertical as he had taught me, always standing, never sitting—father said writing was a dance, like swordplay.
“My father told me,” I said, but these bursts of ancient knowledge felt suddenly too real, too frighteningly uncontrolled.
Despite the risk, I reached out to Yuánchi to steady my mind…
and could not find him. It was like I had thrust my hand into a mountain of snow, silent and soft and impenetrable.
Darcy’s eyebrows had risen in disbelief, so I forced my attention back to him. “All that matters is that you and I remain here. That we wait.”
“Wait for England to fall?”