Authors: Robert Holdstock
We closed the gates and Urtha ‘crossed’ them with two swords from among those found in the ruins. He wrapped each in a strip of the grey and purple cloth that was the clan colour. This done, we returned to Argo and her impatient argonauts.
Jason had set up two braziers before the figurehead of Mielikki. There were traces of burned flesh and vegetation, and deep cut-marks on the planking of the hull. Jason himself was in a dark mood, heavily and darkly cloaked, and unshaven.
But he brightened slightly as we came aboard, and even approved the hounds, though he was concerned as to what they would consume.
Should I tell him what I had seen? That shade of his son? In the absence of an explanation, it seemed prudent not to do so, but he quizzed me anyway. He could always read my eyes. He knew I was disturbed.
So I told him of ‘fierce eyes’.
His only comment was to approve of the fact that I, too, seemed to have a hidden past.
Within the hour we were rowing downstream to the sea, there to cross to the marshy outlets of the Rein; and begin the long river journey to find the Great Quest, which had now been gathering for more than two seasons under the watchful eye of Daanu.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
River Song
With all the argonauts back on board, keen-hearted Argo slipped her tethers and turned in the stream, catching the current and drifting, oar-guided, back through Urtha’s land to the blighted land of the Coritani. When we came to the place where Cucallos and Borovos had gone ashore and disappeared, Jason dropped the stone anchor, turning Argo’s prow to the shallows where she was held fast. Manandoun and Cathabach went ashore to search for their brothers-in-arms, while aboard the ship we blew horns all day long until the land seemed to echo with our futile calls. The two men returned later, shaking their heads. They clambered back on board.
Niiv saw a solitary swan and snared it; she used her own talents to whisper to the bird and sent it flying low over the woods and hills, circling wider, searching for the lost men, but at dusk it too came back to the river and flopped exhausted into the reeds.
Soon after, to a cheer from Argo’s crew, Borovos came out of the wood and stood at the river’s edge. He was tired and dishevelled, his face grimed.
‘I agreed to sail with you, Jason, but I ask to be freed from that promise. I’ll continue to search for him. Modrona alone knows what has been going on here! If I find him, I’ll try to catch up with you, to keep my side of the bargain.’
Knowing well that in the absence of his cousin’s body, Borovos could not possibly abandon his search, Jason agreed readily. ‘Is there anything you need?’ he asked.
‘Faster legs, stronger sight,’ Borovos answered. He raised his spear, then turned and ran back along the path in the wilderness. Niiv released the swan from its spell. Then Jason ordered torches lit and the anchor weighed. Argo drifted on, Elkavar at the prow and Rubobostes at the tiller. By the next evening we were passing below the rotting forms of the wicker giants and hoisting sail to fight against the grey swell of the sea before us.
* * *
Soon after this, Pohjolan Argo entered waters that would have been familiar to the hidden Spirit of the Ship, memories of old, from Jason’s second expedition, when his sons had still been infants. On that voyage Argo had hugged the cliffs of Urtha’s ancestor’s land (Jason not daring to enter what all Greeklanders believed to be the realm of the dead) before crossing this same sea to the estuary of the river dedicated to Reinu, mischievous, dangerous, seductive Reinu, who waited in different guises at each bend in the stream, below each rock overhang, at each tributary, ready to snare the unwary.
Broad waters and wooded banks gave way to towering cliffs, and foaming rapids that tested Argo prow and stern, keeping Rubobostes, on the tiller, taut and tired as he guided the ship between the leering, looming stones. On the shoreline, the grey, the great and the grim watched us from their thatched sanctuaries, but as in Alba, this land was deserted. Nothing but mist, wraith and the haunting, singing voice of Reinu herself gave evidence of life.
Urtha’s mood darkened the further east we sailed; each burned-out village, each silent jetty, added to his desolation, enhanced his anger. The man who had been such rowdy, cheering company on the first part of our voyage now rowed or sat in silence, often in his battle kilt, stripped to the waist, face and chest smeared in spirals of the blue dye that marked him as a man approaching combat. Sometimes, when the oars were shipped, I saw blood on the wood where his hands had gripped more tightly than was needed to haul against the flow of the river.
Ullanna, I noticed, kept a cool and careful eye on him, and insisted he accompany her to the shore when she hunted. Invariably, though he might leave grim-faced, he returned laughing, even bragging at his prowess in the chase, a touch of the wilful exaggeration that must have played its part in elevating him, during his combative youth, to the noble rank he now held.
It was to Ullanna that he talked about Aylamunda, though I eavesdropped at every opportunity. I think he knew I was listening. No doubt he assumed I wouldn’t want to hear it all again because to me he talked of his sons.
No mention of the ‘twin demons’ now; no mention of his sons ‘tearing the land apart’. Behind the invective had been admiration, and a certainty that his boys, when men, would have overseen the land with fairness and ferocity in equal measure, with an eye to beauty and a mind to necessity. And what more could a father ask, he asked me, though he needed no answer.
Urtha could have been describing himself at that moment: in his heart, the beauty that had been his family, and all his hopes for the future. In his mind’s eye, the grim necessity to avenge the death of so many dreams, and of two people in particular. It would be a short, fierce hunt: for Cunomaglos and the others of his
uthiin,
even now greedily waiting for the spoils of Brennos’s quest.
And he was envious of Jason.
‘He has come back from the dead with a chance to find a son who’s still alive. Lucky man. I must die before I see my son again.’
‘But there will be a new lifetime, after this. In Ghostland. Urien will be waiting for you. And Aylamunda will be there.’
‘Yes. But perhaps on different islands.’
He was too gloomy, and the ghostlands of the Celts too complex, for this conversation to have continued with any confidence.
* * *
The Germanii, Erdzwulf and Gebrinagoth, recognised the river now. They scanned the water ahead of Argo, shouting instructions to Rubobostes and the rowers. They knew where there were safe havens, and where it would be wise to put up our shields. But the call from Brennos to join his Great Quest had largely stripped this waterway of danger, and we berthed on mud banks, hunted inland from gravel shores, and risked very little except the tusks, teeth and claws of the creatures who freshened Michovar’s copper cauldron.
With Erdzwulf and Rubobostes, Jason prepared a map of our journey, using charcoal and sheepskin. He called me to the bench where he was marking our route.
‘I know you travel a circular path. I also know you often veer from it. Have you veered down this river before?’
I told him that I hadn’t. He gave me a long, hard, disbelieving stare, then shrugged. ‘Nevertheless, you may recognise a part of the land, and you can correct us if we get it wrong. Now…’
And he proceeded to mark our journey, starting by drawing the island of Alba in the west and the ocean he called the Hidden Sea in the east. The Hidden Sea was circular. Colchis, where we had stolen the fleece and Medea had entered Jason’s life, lay on its farthest shore.
‘From Alba to the Hidden Sea … a lifetime’s walking: a hundred mountains, a thousand forests, marshes that could swallow the moon herself. But two rivers cross that land. Is that correct, Rubobostes?’
‘Indeed,’ replied the Dacian thoughtfully, ‘though I have only ever heard of this Rein, never seen it.’
Jason drew the two rivers, the Rein flowing west towards Alba, the Daan flowing east towards the Hidden Sea, but each river rising in marshes and forests in the heart of the land.
‘And passing close together only seven days’ walk apart.’ He stabbed a finger on the crude map. ‘That is the task for us. To carry Argo across that bridge of marsh and forest, between the waters dedicated to angry Reinu and fragrant Daanu, and then we’ll be there. Sniffing at this Brennos’s heels! We carried her before when we were beached on the Libyan desert, do you remember, Merlin? A giant wave,’ he explained to the others. ‘It struck us and carried us two days inland, leaving us high and dry and at the mercy of the sun. We nearly died. But the desert gave up its own dead, long enough for them to visit our dreams, to mock us into
living
again. We found the courage to drag Argo back to salt water and continue our journey home.’
I remembered the incident well, though the huge wave that had swept us inland had not displaced us by two days, more like half a day; and no desert dead had visited
me
in my dreams. I said, ‘Argo was smaller then and you had more men on board. We had more shoulders to help the dragging.’
‘We’ll do a count of shoulders later,’ Jason said with irritation. ‘Now: for the details…’
And between them, they sketched what they remembered of the curves and rapids in each of the waterways, and I watched and became confused, because Time changes even hills, and I realised that much that I had once known had gone, though it lived in my memory.
‘Cheer up, Merlin,’ he said to me suddenly, with a wide grin, interrupting my dream. ‘Can you see any flaw in the plan? Have we missed anything, do you think? You can see what I propose for our ship.’
To row as far up Reinu’s river as possible, then carry Argo overland for seven days, maybe more, to where the waters of Daanu began to deepen and could take the draft of our vessel. Then to row with the current, south and east in the direction of the Hidden Sea, until we came to the forest where Brennos was gathering his warrior horde, ready for invasion.
‘You’ll need wooden rollers,’ was my feeble contribution. ‘To drag the ship.’
‘Rollers…’ Jason scratched his beard. ‘Well, yes. We’ll have to get them from trees, I suppose. The round trunks should be useful. Are there any trees in the forests between the headwaters of our two rivers, Rubobostes?’
‘I’m told there are,’ the Dacian answered, ‘though of course, this could just be rumour.’
And they all laughed.
Jason furled up the skin, half watching my forlorn features. ‘Don’t look so concerned, Merlin. I’ll have you back on the Path before long. This isn’t the first time you’ve ventured away from it, after all.’
As ever, with Jason, I revealed too much of myself, putting into words a thought that had been lingering with me since Ghostland.
‘Something tells me my time on the Path is coming to an end.’
‘Something,
eh?’ Jason and Rubobostes exchanged an amused glance. ‘Well, there’s certainly no arguing with that.’
They’d probably been drinking. There was no other reason I could think of at that moment for this levity.
* * *
But he came to find me later, where I crouched in the hold, as close to the entrance to the Spirit of the Ship as I dared without invitation. The moon was full and high and Argo glowed silver as she rolled on the current. Cathabach was singing quietly as he held the steering oar, waiting for dawn, for up-anchor, for the deepening journey.
‘How is she?’ Jason asked as he hunkered down beside me. He proffered a flask of wine and a sweet biscuit, which I declined.
‘Who? Mielikki?’
‘I’d expected her to be more troublesome.’
‘She doesn’t own the ship,’ I reminded him. ‘And she’s aware that there is something else aboard, something she doesn’t like.’
‘Probably me,’ Jason muttered. He was in grim mood; but in a way that was not like Jason. I was curious. We stared at the darkness in the hull, smelling frost and summer mixed and fluid, the seepage from that other world.
‘I’d have thought you could come and go as you please,’ he said provocatively.
‘I guard my life, and bide my time,’ I reminded him.
‘Ah, yes. Staying young. Not too many favours.’
‘Not too many favours,’ I agreed.
‘Hera limited her favours to me,’ he rambled on, ‘when we went for the fleece, for Medea, when we fled and killed that poor boy. Remember? When we travelled the world. Limited her favours.’ His brow deepened as what he remembered caused him pain. ‘But you know, she always made it clear what she would do, and she didn’t trick us. This Pohjolan witch…’
‘Sssh! Witches can hear, and witches do damage. Mielikki so far has been a good guide, and a good help.’
‘For you, perhaps,’ Jason said sharply.
He was certainly drunk, though our supplies of wine were very low. He was brooding; and yet also concerned. And there was a strange gleam in his eyes.
His references to Hera were accurate (but then they should have been, since for him they were only twenty years in his past!).
Hera, travelling in the Spirit of the Ship, had advised and directed our first journey, and had told Jason no lies. She had helped us through the clashing rocks, guided us to the harpy-tormented blind man, Phineus, put words of love in Medea’s ears to help her betray her father and her people. But when Jason and Medea had dismembered Medea’s brother, throwing the pieces of his body over the stern to delay her avenging, pursuing father, Hera had withdrawn from the vessel. That had been an act of violence too much for the goddess whom Jason had persuaded aboard. Argo was ice-hearted at that moment, without a guardian, but she was a ship of memory, and older memories, older guardians, had come back to her. Argo loved her captain, no matter who that captain was, no matter what deeds were done from the shelter of her womb.
And no deed had been so badly done as that killing and cutting and savaging of the youth, his sister contriving the plan to keep her father at a distance since he would have to bury every piece of his son he found, while Jason and she fornicated and frolicked their way to freedom, along the winding flow of the Daan, the river we were soon to join again.