The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (34 page)

‘He always believed, during
those early heady days after our inceptions, that Wraeththu would become
something marvellous. He said we were still covered with the dirt of our
humanity, but that eventually it would fall away from us, revealing new skin,
as althaia reveals the new skin of a har. Hara could sense it in him, this
connection with the natural world. They called him Silver Swan.’

‘The song!’ I said, unable to
keep the words in. ‘Somehar sang it to me, about Peredur...’

This time Medoc merely smiled at
my interruption. ‘When the silver swan returns to the old domain, then the bell
of Gwyllion will have throat again, but that day will never birth, for silver
swan lies in the earth.’ He spoke the words rather than sang them. ‘Somehar
wrote that after his death.’

He sighed deeply. ‘What we
learned was that Peredur could bear his life no longer. He wanted only to die,
yet could not. The gruesome fact was he had
half healed.
He couldn’t be
the har he believed he should be but was trapped in his ruined and barely functioning
body. Nowadays, of course, he would have been nursed effectively, so as to have
a full and productive life. We’ve learned so much, but then... We had no
Gelaming... no true understanding of our abilities. All Peredur knew was that
he was helpless; viciously blinded, unsexed, crippled, constantly in pain, hidden
away, dependent on others for everything. All the wonderful potential of his
new life had been murdered by Vivi. He asked Mossamber to let him go... no,
more than that. To be merciful. You know what I mean.’

Medoc paused and again we could
hear everyday sounds beyond us, outside: that beautiful day.

‘They made a ritual of it, at
midsummer, what we call Cuttingtide today. We didn’t witness what Mossamber did,
nor even heard how it happened. We turned away from it, never tried to find
out, because Kinnard said if we knew, if
he
knew, he would have to kill
Mossamber himself. But despite not knowing how, we knew the time of it.’ Medoc
again had to pause as memories came back vividly. When he spoke again, his
voice was jagged.

‘On that night, we built a fire
outside the Mynd and sang sad songs. Hara came out of the twilight to join us. Somehar
rang the bell in Gwyllion, in the old church, though there was not much left of
it even then. But at midnight, the bell fell. It died. The har who rang it
could have been killed; it just fell like a stone before him. Didn’t even
crack. Yet was silenced.’

I couldn’t think of anything to
say, my mind was numb. Rinawne looked as if he’d just witnessed a murder; his
face was sallow.

‘I can’t say any more,’ Medoc
said, ‘not now. Please excuse me...’

He rose from the table and left
the room without another word.

For some moments, Rinawne and I
sat in silence.

‘It’s like a cairn,’ Rinawne
said at last in voice that was barely more than a whisper. ‘We discover stones
to build it, one by one. A monument.’

There were still questions I wanted answering. Why
had Arianne’s body never been found? Presumably somehar would have visited the
tower not too long after her death. The body should surely still have been
there. And also... the bell. When the silver swan returns to the old domain,
the bell will ring again. While the song spoke of a day that would never come,
did it not also convey a different message? Could the end of the curse be as
simple as returning Peredur’s remains to the Mynd? I couldn’t speak my thoughts,
because – to say the least – it would have been inappropriate at that moment.
Grief hung in the chamber like a gaunt ghost, even though Medoc had left it.

‘He still hasn’t told us about
the curse,’ Rinawne said. ‘Do you think he will?’

‘I believe so, yes. The
impression I get is that, painful though this is to him, it’s a purge.’

But Medoc did not return to us
in that room. After some minutes had passed, his son Wenyf came to us. I don’t
think Medoc had told him anything, because he appeared cheerful and courteous,
as if this was merely a social visit on our part. ‘My hostling wishes me to
show you around,’ he said. ‘Have you finished with your lunch?’

The day crept on. While I was fascinated with
seeing the workings of Harrow’s End and enjoyed everything Wenyf showed me,
Rinawne was fractious and fidgety and could barely keep up a pretence of
interest. I knew he wanted only to talk more with Medoc, find out about the
curse. What was the use of us knowing Peredur’s history if the narrative
stopped at the part that would be most useful to us?

As dinnertime drew near, and
Wenyf mentioned the family would like us to dine with them, Rinawne’s patience
snapped. ‘I need to speak more with your hostling,’ he said. ‘It’s why we’re
here. Could you ask him for me, please, if that’s not too much trouble?’

Wenyf was taken aback by these
words – and their tone. ‘I will, of course, ask...’ He glanced at me, and I
made a discreet gesture to indicate I understood his surprise. Hienama to
hienama.

‘Thank you,’ Rinawne said,
‘unless you can tell us what we want to know?’

I put a hand on Rinawne’s
shoulders. ‘Hush, now. Don’t be an unruly guest, Rin.’ He really did have the
capacity to spoil everything.

‘I don’t know what you discussed
with my hostling,’ Wenyf said, trying not to sound stiff. ‘What was it?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said
quickly. ‘We can perhaps talk with Medoc again after dinner.’

‘It’s clearly important,’ Wenyf
said. ‘I’ll speak to him for you, make sure he knows.’ He indicated the stretch
of the gardens. ‘Please explore where you like. You’ll hear the bell for dinner
from here if you don’t wander too far.’

Rinawne wasn’t happy. After
Wenyf had left us, he said, ‘We
can’t
stay for dinner. I have to get
back. Seeking Reaptide sites isn’t a good excuse for being away, once it gets
dark.’

‘You go back,’ I said
impulsively. ‘I can stay. Perhaps it might be better if I try to speak with
Medoc alone.’

Rinawne eyed me coldly. ‘Well,
much as I want to say “we’re in this together”, I can’t make such assumptions
with you. I suppose it makes sense for you to stay.’

I felt like leaping up and
punching the air, as a harling would who’s just been granted his dearest wish.
Or maybe it was just relief.

‘Shall I go to the tower after
dinner?’ Rinawne asked. ‘See if your visitor’s still there?’

‘Yes, good idea,’ I said. ‘If
she is, it’d be good for her to see somehar. She’s been alone all day.’ I
paused. ‘If she is there, Rin, please be careful what you say to her about
today.’

Rinawne expressed a snort. ‘You
think I’m stupid, don’t you?’

‘No, I just think you trundle in
sometimes, when a careful tread is more appropriate.’

Rinawne shrugged. ‘I guess
that’s true.’ He sighed. ‘Well, I’d better get going, otherwise I’ll be late
home.’ He hugged me briefly. ‘Good luck. I hope to hear lots of interesting
things from you tomorrow.’

‘I’ll be over,’ I said.

Chapter Nineteen

Dinner at Harrow’s End was a far more raucous
affair than meals held at the Mynd. For a start there were around two dozen
hara present, not all of them family, but members of the estate staff and
various guests. The dining room was a vast hall in the centre of the building
on the first floor. While the Wyvachi favoured subtly-flavoured foods, artfully
arranged, Wyvern cooking was more along the lines of heaps of meat and
vegetables thrown into immense serving bowls, from which diners helped
themselves. One sauce, a gravy made from the meat, was provided in brown jugs
that were interspersed among the tureens. Wine and ale were consumed in
abundance. I was seated next to a har who worked in the stables. He told me
Hercules was a fine horse, but then went on to recommend various dietary
changes for him.

‘He... just eats in the field
where he lives,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

The har gave me a “look”. ‘Try
what I said,’ he advised patiently, ‘then ask if it’s enough.’

Medoc sat at the end of the
table, far away from me, with his chesnari and sons, but he acknowledged me by
raising his tankard to me several times during the meal.

At the end of it, after huge
bowls of milk pudding had been brought in and devoured, Medoc stood up. He
gestured to me and I rose from my seat, went to him.

‘Come to my living-room,’ he
said. ‘I’m sorry your friend had to leave before I could finish our talk.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘He
had to return to the Mynd because of business... and...’

‘Because Wyva didn’t know he was
here,’ Medoc finished, smiling.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, in all honesty, I’ll feel
more comfortable continuing the story to you alone,’ Medoc said. ‘I could tell
Rinawne didn’t like a lot of what he heard today.’

‘He’s pureborn,’ I said, ‘and
from what I can gather, until now his life has been easy and uneventful. He
was... shocked.’

Medoc grimaced. ‘These things were
clear.’

Before we left the room, Medoc
insisted I meet his immediate family, some of whom, of course, I’d met briefly
at Cuttingtide. Thraine, the chesnari, asked how long I’d be staying. ‘Just
overnight,’ I said. ‘I have work waiting for me at Gwyllion.’

‘Your training of young Myv
amongst it?’ asked Thraine, meaningfully.

‘Yes, amongst it...’

I think Thraine would have said
a lot more, but at that point, Medoc made our excuses and herded me away.

He led me to a low-ceilinged yet
airy room next to the chamber we’d spoken in earlier. This was more of a family
room, and I could tell he shared it with them from all the clutter left lying
about. A pile of lean cats lay tangled in contented sleep on the long sofa and
two hunting hounds were sprawled out on the rug before the empty hearth, which
was flanked by two armchairs.

‘Would you mind if I took notes,
tiahaar?’ I asked. ‘If that makes you uncomfortable, please say so.’

‘No, do as you wish. You should
have said if you wanted to earlier.’

‘I have a good memory,’ I said,
‘but remembering two long conversations might stretch me a little!’

Medoc smiled and indicated I
should take a seat beside the hearth, while he went to fetch us drinks from a
sideboard between the windows. He opened the panes upon the evening.
Sweet-scented air, slightly cool, drifted in. ‘It must’ve seemed stupid, me
running off like that earlier,’ he said. ‘I apologise.’

‘Please. No need to,’ I said,
taking out my notebook and pen and ink. ‘It must be harrowing for you
remembering what happened.’

Medoc smiled, glancing around
the room, ‘And here we are at harrow’s end! You want the full story. Now you
shall have what’s left of it.’

‘I appreciate this,’ I said. ‘I
know in some ways you hate to speak of it, but I hope in others it provides a
release.’

‘Well, our skeletons are kept
neatly in their cupboards,’ Medoc said, his words again mellowed by his gentle
smile. ‘They are polished bones, brought out occasionally so they don’t
accumulate dust or start to rot and cause problems.’

I returned his smile. ‘Then I’m
ready to continue the ritual viewing.’

Medoc sat down opposite me. ‘One
thing’s for sure, Meadow Mynd will always be haunted by knowledge of the past, but
those of us who lived there in the early days of the Wraeththu era just got on
with our lives. We established the community, built trade links with other
phyles in the area. We reclaimed some of the ruined towns and villages and
rebuilt them, leaving others to be swallowed by the green, nature’s devouring
wave. We salvaged what we could from what humanity had left behind, discarding
all that we felt should be forgotten.’

He took a drink, stared at the
iron grate where in winter time logs would burn. Perhaps he saw a fire there,
from long ago. ‘In those days,’ he continued, ‘procreation was rare.’ A glance
to me. ‘Well, of course you know that.’

I nodded. ‘I’ve always thought
this was a deliberate act of nature, because – let’s face it – few hara at that
time would have been suitable parents.’

‘Yes, very true. But then, once
we’d learned more about ourselves as hara, so nature gave concessions and the
first harlings began to appear. Do you remember how miraculous and strange we
used to think that was?’

I laughed at the recollection. ‘Very
much so. Somehow, we blundered through. Hienamas were thrown into dealing with
delivering pearls, as if we were experts, yet we had no more knowledge than the
hara in our care.’

‘I know... Well, around thirty
years after Peredur’s death, Kinnard found he was with pearl. None of us
realised it for a while, not even him. I knew, because he’d told me, that he
and Yvainte had
experimented
with aruna, because they wanted to have a
harling, yet their success took them by surprise. But once the pearl was
confirmed by our hienama, our hara rejoiced. Here was the living proof that
Wraeththu were truly the inheritors of the earth. We would continue once
humanity had vanished completely. That is, in fact, a moment in a har’s life
that’s as pivotal as awaking from inception – or it was then.’

‘I know. The first time I saw a
pearl I couldn’t quite believe it. Even watching a harling crawl from its
broken covering some weeks later seemed like something from a fairy tale, part
wondrous, part grotesque.’

Medoc took a long drink, pulled
a comical face. ‘I felt the same. Squeamish! Anyway, Kinnard’s pearl attracted
the attention of hienamas and tribal leaders near and far, who wished to study
the phenomenon, to acquire knowledge for their own hara. A kind of peace
reigned in Meadow Mynd. It was like...’ Medoc’s expression became wistful, ‘...the
tranquillity after an atrocity has taken place and the storm of grief has
passed.’ He sighed. ‘It was a delicate peace, but we cherished it. We lived in
something like a capsule of time, in an Alba Sulh that had perhaps only existed
in the dearest dreams of men. The fields grew high, the summers were long. We
learned to love again.

‘When news of the pearl was made
public, Kinnard and Yvainte were praised and adored, almost like religious
figures. Congratulatory messages came in abundance, but none from Deerlip Hall.
This didn’t surprise us. We understood that Mossamber would feel bitter – the
chesnari he loved had died under terrible circumstances. He and Peredur would
never have harlings, the ultimate expression of love. But bitterness is one
thing, resentment another. Some of us were under no doubt that Mossamber wished
the Wyvachi ill and were convinced he did not want us to experience happiness.’
He put the fingers of one hand against his lips, again staring silently at the
grate for some moments. I let him have his silence.

Eventually, he said, with an
emphatic gesture, ‘This is what I think: the earth
had
changed during
the Devastation. Energies that had lain dormant awoke, because they were no
longer suppressed. Hara embraced the ‘other’ as humanity could never have done,
not even those who were drawn to it. Perhaps Mossamber did his own etheric delving
at that time. Historical griefs had soaked into the soil; buried but not wholly
dead. My belief is that Mossamber was
partly
responsible for what
happened next, even if unconsciously. But I need to be clear that I have never
wholly
blamed him, no matter what others thought.

‘I understand,’ I said. ‘That’s
what I’ll record.’

Medoc nodded. ‘Good. Anyway, Kinnard
delivered his pearl in the early summer. As far as its care was concerned, all we
had to go on was hearsay that pearls took several weeks to mature, like eggs,
and had to be nurtured in the same way. Daily, hara went to inspect the pearl, from
the family to the hara who worked in the fields. Kinnard either lay with it in
bed or, when his strength had fully returned, carried it around with him
strapped to his body.’ Medoc narrowed his eyes. ‘We could perceive it
growing
,
the uncoiling life within it. So strange...’

Again a pause.

‘The weather changed as the
pearl matured. The summer haze was extinguished by heavy rainstorms and gloomy
air. Many of our crops were ruined. The river burst its banks and seethed over
the meadows. Further towards the sea, it lunged destructively through villages.
Dozens of homesteads were flooded. But we were determined not to see bad omens
in these disasters. Summers
could
be bad. This had happened before and
would happen again. We would cope with it.’

Now Medoc leaned closer towards
me, lowered his voice, as if somehar – or something – might hear him.

‘And yet in our home, all was
not well. Inexplicable sounds were heard in the Mynd, curious scratchings and
dragging in the walls. Hara heard thuds and scrapings in rooms overhead while
they were on the ground floor. But if anyhar went to investigate these sounds,
they found nothing. Several of the staff reported hearing groaning sighs in the
attic corridors, sighs that followed them. Some took to sleeping in the stable
block, because they came to fear the top storey. But even the stables weren’t
safe. The horses were spooked every night, and in the yard the rain made the
cobbles rusty, as if with blood.’

Medoc shuddered, and now his
voice was hardly more than a whisper. He gazed at his hands. ‘I could
feel
him there, Ysobi, and was sure that if I didn’t concentrate very hard, every
time I crossed that stableyard I would
see
him, tied to that stake, the
blood running from him to make the cobbles red. I kept my eyes on the ground,
always. I didn’t want to see...’

He looked up at me. ‘Kinnard
refused to succumb to anxiety. He was like iron. He said to me that if Mossamber
and his kin were indeed responsible, sending evil thoughts our way, making our
house feel the way it did, then we must fight them. He wouldn’t be intimidated,
and I could see he despised the fear in me. “Medoc, if you give in to terror,
they have won,” he once said to me. “Ban this feeling from you, refuse it!’ But
the truth was, I
couldn’t
share his resolve, although I pretended to. I
was also sure Yvainte felt as I did, but he kept quiet, avoided my eyes. I
believe he knew that to voice the fear would help make it real, give it power.
I knew it too. I was afraid to speak.’

Medoc lay back in his chair,
tapped one arm of it with his fingers. ‘In those days, four Wyvern cousins who
had been incepted lived also at the Mynd. Beiryan, Caerwyn, Edryd and Meilyr.
They too had hara who were loyal to them and in this way there were factions
within the Wyvachi. The cousins weren’t shy to announce their belief that we
were under psychic attack from the Whitemanes. They claimed that Mossamber
would seek to destroy the pearl before it could offer the world its gift, and
that we could not stand idly by, refusing to admit we had a problem. They knew that
approaching Kinnard with their fears – and their ideas for solutions – would be
pointless, and so instead they came to me.’

‘“We should make a stand,” they
said, “show Mossamber what we’re made of. Instead of waiting here while he
throws haunts at us, we should ride to his domain, fight back.”’

Medoc rubbed a hand over his
face, sighed through his nose. ‘Part of me sympathised with them, of course,
and yet I couldn’t agree with their suggestion. I said that we couldn’t invade
the Whitemane domain on a whim, because we had no true evidence that the
Whitemanes wished us ill.

‘But my cousins insisted they
had plenty. They reminded me of all the slights and insults the Wyvachi had
endured over the years. For example, if any of our hara should come across a
Whitemane in the business of his day, the Whitemane would jeer and laugh at
him, make crude insulting gestures. Whitemanes openly spat on the path before a
Wyvachi. Gradually, over the past couple of years, all commerce between us had ceased,
where once there had been precarious trade. Lower ranking hara of both clans,
who had still maintained a show of friendly relations – being once brothers in
arms – now turned away from one another. If this wasn’t evidence, what was?

‘Meilyr was our cousins’
spokeshar. He was of the hienama type, if not officially so. He suggested that rather
than assaulting the Whitemane domain, the bridge between the two estates should
be shattered, since it was, after all, a symbol, a connection between the
families. Mossamber might be using its symbolism to further his aims on an
etheric level. But I didn’t think antagonising Mossamber at that time – in any
way – would be helpful.’

‘But I’ve seen the statues on
the Wyvachi side of the bridge,’ I said, ‘well, what’s left of them. Did
Mossamber have them toppled?’

‘Oh, that,’ Medoc said
caustically. ‘He did that on the day he took Peredur home. With his own hands,
or so we heard.’

I imagined then a grief-stricken
har, his strength engorged with anger, smashing those gryphons to pieces. After
he’d done that, had he fallen to his knees upon the bridge, roared his grief to
the sky? This image seemed real to me. ‘So, how did you appease the cousins?’