The Midnight Circus, стр. 29
Followingthe trail of song, as clear to him as cobbles on a city street, hemoved toward the great Ban Forest, where the heavy trees still shadowedover winter storms. Crossing the fresh new furze between the woods,he entered the old dark forest and wound around the tall, black trees,in and out of shadows, going as true north as a needle in awater-filled bowl. The path grew cold and the once-muddy ground gaveway to frost.
Atfirst all he saw was a mist, as white as if the hooves of horses hadstruck up dust from sheer ice. But when he blinked once and then twice,he saw coming toward him a great company of fair folk, some on steedsthe color of clouds and some on steeds the color of snow. And herealized all at once that it was no mist he had seen, but the breath ofthose great white stallions.
“Mypeople,” he cried at last. “My kin. My kind.” And he tore off first hisboots, then his trousers, and at last his shirt, until he was free ofthe world and its possessions and could run toward the Winter Kin nakedand unafraid.
Onthe first horse was a woman of unearthly beauty. Her hair was plaitedin a hundred white braids and on her head was a crown of diamonds andmoonstones. Her eyes were wind blue and there was frost in her breath.Slowly she dismounted and commanded the stallion to be still. Then shetook an ermine cape from across the saddle, holding it open to receivethe boy.
“Myking,” she sang, “my own true love,” and swaddled him in the cloudwhite cloak.
Heanswered her, his voice a minor third lower than hers. “My queen, myown true love. I am come home.”
Whenthe king’s foresters caught up to him, the feathered arrow was fast inhis breast, but there was, surprisingly, no blood. He was lying, armsoutstretched, like an angel in the snow.
“Hewas just a wild boy, just that lackwit, the one who brought homekindling with the old man,” said one.
“Nevertheless,he was in the king’s forest,” said the other. “He knew better thanthat.”
“Nakedas a newborn,” said the first. “But look!”
Inthe boy’s left hand were three copper coins, three more in his right.
“Twicethe number needed for the birthing of a babe,” said the first forester.
“Justenough,” said his companion, “to buy a wooden casket and a man to digthe grave.”
Andthey carried the cold body out of the wood, heeding neither the musicnor the voices singing wild and strange hosannas in the wind.
Inscription
Father,they have burned your body,
Set your ashes in the cairn.
StillI need your advice.
Magnussues for me in marriage,
Likewise McLeod of the three farms.
Yet wouldI wait for Iain the traveler,
Counting each step of his journey
Tillthe sun burns down behind Galan
Three and three hundred times;
Tillhe has walked to Steornabhagh
And back the long, hard track,
Singing mypraises at every shieling
Wherethe lonely women talk to the east wind
And admire the ring he isbringing
Toplace on my small white hand.
—Inscriptionon Callanish Stones, Isle of Lewis
IT IS A LIE, you know, that inscription. From first to last. I did notwant my father’s advice. I had never taken it when he was alive, nomatter how often he offered it. Still Ineed to confess what’s been done.
IfI do not die of this thing, I shall tell my son himself when he is oldenough to understand. But if I cannot tell him, there will still bethis paper to explain it: who his mother was, what she did for want ofhim, who and what his father was, and how the witch cursed us all.
MagnusMagnusson did ask for me in marriage, but he did not really want me. Hedid not want me though I was young and slim and fair. His eye was tothe young men, but he wanted my father’s farm and my father was a dyingman, preferring a dram to a bannock.
AndMcLeod had the richest three farms along the machair, growing morethan peat and sand. Still he was ugly and old, older even than myfather, and as pickled, though his was of the brine where my father’swas the whiskey.
EvenIain the traveler was no great catch, for he had no money at all. Butach—he was a lovely man, with hair the purple brown of heather in thespring or like a bruise beneath the skin. He was worth the loving butnot worth the waiting for. Still I did not know it at the time.
Iwas nursed not by my mother, who died giving birth to me, but bybrown-haired Mairi, daughter of Lachlan, who was my father’s shepherd.And if she had married my father and given him sons, these troubleswould not have come upon me. But perhaps that, too, is a lie. Even as a childI went to trouble as a herring to the water, so Mairi always said.Besides, my father was of that rare breed of man who fancied only theone wife; his love once given was never to be changed or renewed, evento the grave.
SoI grew without a brother or sister to play with, a trouble to my dearnurse and a plague to my father, though neither ever complained of it.Indeed, when I stumbled in the bog as the household dug the peat, andwas near lost, they dragged me free. When I fell down a hole in thecliff when we went for birds’ eggs, they paid a man from St. Kilda’s torescue me with ropes. And when the sea herself pulled me from the sandsthe day I went romping with the selchies, they got in the big boat thattakes four men and a bowman in normal times, and pulled me back fromthe clutching tide. Oh I was a trouble and a plague.
Butnever was I so much as when I came of age to wed. That summer, after myblood flowed the first time and Mairi showed me how to keep myselfclean—and no easy job