On the Edge of Darkness

He turned back to his sister. ‘Your children are both talented, Gemma, which is as well. As soon as this monk, this Columcille, has gone back to the west where he came from, we shall have to chase the Jesus god from the land. They shall help us do it.’

That way she could be used.

And contained.

And her blood, as the child of kings, could sweeten and purify the earth defiled by the man sent from the Jesus god.

4

‘Adam, where have you been?’

Thomas Craig had spent the whole night searching the hill. Unshaven and exhausted, he stopped, leaning heavily on his walking stick, trying to recover his breath.

‘Father!’ Adam had been sitting on the sun-warmed rock, overwhelmed by sleepiness, too tired to face the long walk back to the manse. ‘I’m sorry.’ He scrambled to his feet, suddenly frightened. ‘I –’ He hesitated. ‘I got lost in the mist. I thought it better to stay put –’

‘You thought it better!’ Thomas’s fear and exhaustion were swiftly turning to anger. ‘You stupid, thoughtless, arrogant boy! Does it never cross your mind that I worry about you? Did it not cross your mind that I might have a sleepless night and spend the time searching for you?’ The guilt, the self-punishment with which he tormented himself endlessly, was taking more of his strength each day.

‘I did not think you would notice, Father.’ Adam took a step back, though his tone was defiant.

‘You – you didn’t think I’d notice!’

‘No, Father. You haven’t known whether I’m there or not for months.’ Somehow Adam maintained the courage to speak. ‘You haven’t noticed me at all.’

He held his father’s gaze. Overhead a buzzard mewed plaintively as it rode a thermal higher and higher over the hill. Neither of them looked up.

The silence stretched to one full minute, then another. Adam held his breath.

Abruptly, his father’s shoulders slumped. He sat down on a rock and threw his stick down at his feet. Rubbing his hands across his cheeks he sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’ He kneaded his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right, of course. I’ve behaved unforgivably.’

Adam sat down some six feet from him. He said nothing, his eyes fixed on his father’s face. His fear and defiance had changed to a strangely adult compassion for this tortured man.

At last Thomas looked up. ‘You should come home. Get some food.’

Adam nodded. Slowly he stood up. He was stiff and tired, and suddenly he was starving.

The sound of screams to which he woke were his own. Muffling his face in the pillow he stared out of the window at the rags of ivy which danced round the frame, tapping the glass and blowing, in green and cream streamers, in the brisk south-easterly wind.

He had eaten a huge breakfast under the watchful eye of Jeannie Barron and then on her instructions made his way upstairs. He had only meant to lie down on the bed for a minute, with his book on butterflies in his hand, but overwhelmed with exhaustion and his own frustration and confusion, he had fallen instantly asleep.

The dream had been terrifying. He had been swimming underwater. At first it was fun. His limbs moved with ease and he had been staring round, eyes wide, watching the streaming green weed and the swift-moving brown trout in the dark water. Then suddenly she was there in front of him. The hag. The ugliest face he had ever seen, grotesque, toothless, her eyes bagged, surrounded by carbuncles, her nose broad and fleshy, her hair a tangled mass of swirling watersnakes. He had opened his mouth to scream, limbs flailing desperately, and swallowed water. He was drowning, sinking, and all the time she was coming closer and she was laughing. And suddenly she wasn’t the hag any more. Her face was Brid’s face and her hair was Brid’s hair and he was staring at her naked body, reaching for her breasts even as he drowned.

He sat up in bed, clutching his pillow to his chest, still fighting for air, and realised to his miserable embarrassment that he was sporting a huge erection. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed he ran to the window and heaved the heavy sash up. Sticking out his head he gasped for air. He stayed there until his breathing had calmed and he was himself again, then he turned back into the room. He wondered if his father had heard. He was not to know that downstairs his father had closed his ears to the boy’s tormented shouts, and sitting at his desk in the ground floor study had felt the hot slow tears trickle down his own cheeks.

The next day was the Sabbath. Adam had not wanted to go to the kirk. He had hung back on the path as the congregation had filed into the old stone building, wondering if he dared duck out of sight around the trees and run down through the kirkyard to the broad slow-moving river. Then Jeannie had come, Ken at her side, and somehow they had swept Adam inside with them and into the manse pew. Adam sat motionless, his eyes on his father’s snowy-white bands as Thomas stood above him in the pulpit. The boy was shaking. If his father could not see what was going on inside him, God certainly could. Adam was terrified. His skin was clammy with guilt, his hands clutched between his knees, his scalp crawling with terror as he thought about Brid and his dreams and what he had done. And slowly at the back of his mind he began to wonder if what his mother had done had been as bad and whether she like him would go to hell.

As they stood for the hymns he found his mouth was dry and his voice came out as a thin squeak. When the service was over, his face was so white he was able to slide away pleading a headache without even the observant Jeannie questioning the truth of the matter.

Thoughts of Brid filled his every waking moment. Alternate guilt, fear and obsessive longing, which at night in bed turned to dreams of lust and in equal measure self-loathing, were with him constantly. He returned to the stone again and again, but he could not find his way back to her village or to the cottage. Frustrated and impatient he found himself sobbing out loud as he raced back and forth amongst the trees. But every time the hillside was empty save for the occasional herd of deer grazing on the lower slopes, and thwarted he had to go home to a lonely, unenthusiastic supper and a cold bed where he dreamed of her again, shame-facedly scrubbing the treacherous signs from his pyjamas with his handkerchief so that Jeannie wouldn’t see when she did the washing.

Broichan sat for a long time staring down into the embers of the fire. Beside him Gemma and Brid had watched as he consulted first the streaming clouds, pink and gold from the setting sun, then the fall of the ogham sticks which he kept in a bag at his waist, and finally the deep red stone set in gold which hung from a cord around his neck. Now at last, the auguries clear, he raised his head.

‘Brid.’

The two women jumped. Gartnait was not with them. He had departed earlier with his bow to hunt.

An imperious finger decorated with a carved agate ring beckoned Brid to her feet. ‘It is decided. You will return to Craig Phádraig with me. We ride at dawn.’

‘No!’ Brid’s cry of anguish echoed above the sound of water from the burn and the crackle of the dying fire, and spiralled up towards the clouds.

Broichan rose to his feet. He was taller than her by several hand-spans and his eyes were like flint. ‘You will obey, Niece. Pack your belongings now, before we sleep.’

‘Mama –’ Brid threw an imploring look at Gemma but her mother refused to meet her eye.

‘You must do as my brother says, Brid.’ Gemma’s voice, when she spoke at last, was shaking.

‘I will not go!’ Brid’s face reflected livid colour from the dying sun. ‘You cannot make me. I have power too.’ She drew herself up to her full height and held Broichan’s gaze. ‘I can bind the storms, and I can ride the wind. I can hunt with the wildcat and run with the deer. I can catch and keep a man!’ She veiled her gaze hastily. She must not let him read her thoughts, must not let him know about Adam.

Broichan stared at her thoughtfully. There was something like a small sardonic twitch of humour in his eyes as he held out his hand and without seeming to move caught hold of her wrist. ‘So, little cat, you think you can duel with me,’ he murmured. ‘Such confidence, such foolishness.’ He seized her chin in his other hand and forced her face close to his, his eyes boring into hers. ‘Peace, little wild one. You are my servant and you will obey me.’ He reached for the translucent red stone ball in its golden setting and held it for a moment before her eyes. In seconds the eyelids began to close and she became still.

‘So.’ Broichan pushed her towards her mother. ‘Put her to bed, then pack her bag. I will take her tomorrow at first light. She shall ride in her sleep across the saddle like a bag of oats and at Craig Phádraig if she disobeys me I shall chain her by the neck like a slave.’ He turned the full force of his gaze on Gemma’s terrified face. ‘I do not allow disobedience, Sister, from any of my family. Ever.’

Adam had finally given up all hope of seeing Brid again when he met Gartnait on the mountain. He followed Brid’s brother and stood watching as he stooped and, picking up his chisel, squatted at the foot of the stone to work on a curved design. It was, Adam saw suddenly, a graceful, very realistic serpent.

‘You must go back.’ Gartnait spoke without looking up at him. Both he and Gemma could remember some of the English they had learned.

‘Why?’ Adam was suddenly tongue-tied with embarrassment.

‘It is not safe. You will be seen. Brid was careless.’

‘Why is it so wrong for me to be here with you?’

Gartnait glanced up at him. His tanned, weather-beaten face was dusty from the stone chippings, his strong hands callused but gentle on his tools. He leaned forward to blow at the work and rubbed at it with his thumb.

‘Your father serves the gods. That is how you found the way.’

Adam frowned. ‘There is only one God, Gartnait.’

The young man squinted at him and then down at his handiwork. ‘The Jesus god? His followers say there is only one god. Is it he your father serves?’

‘Jesus, yes.’ Adam was uncomfortable. Jesus and Brid – or Brid’s brother – were incompatible.

‘Yet how can you believe this when all around you the gods are there? Brid told me you and she saw the Lady in the waterfall.’

Adam blushed to the roots of his hair. Surely Brid would not have told her brother what had happened between them? ‘It is what we are taught. Only one God,’ he repeated stubbornly.

‘And yet you have been taught the way. How to walk between our world and yours.’ Gartnait leaned closer to the stone again, the tip of his tongue protruding between his teeth as he concentrated on an intricate corner, lifting the hard stone with his sharpened blade as though it were a flake of mud.

‘No one taught me to come here.’ Adam frowned. ‘I found it by myself. Though sometimes I can’t find the way – I don’t know why.’ He was feeling more and more uncomfortable.

Gartnait sat back on his heels. He stared at Adam thoughtfully. ‘That is because the way is not always open,’ he said at last. ‘It has to be taken when the time is right. The moon, the stars, the north wind. They must all be in the right place.’ He smiled gravely and changed the subject abruptly. ‘Brid likes you.’

Adam blushed again. ‘I like her.’ He turned slightly to stare back down the hillside. ‘Where is she?’ he asked as casually as he could.

‘She has gone to work with our uncle. He is teaching her.’

Adam felt a sharp pang of disappointment – and fear. ‘I was hoping to see her. How long will she be working for him?’

‘Many years. Nineteen.’ Gartnait gave another of his slow smiles. ‘But I will tell her you came.’ He looked up again. ‘A-dam, do not go to look for her. She has gone to Craig Phádraig. You cannot find her. Do not try. And she must not try to see you either. It is not allowed. Broichan would kill her if he knew she had been with you. He will not allow anyone to travel between our worlds as you have travelled. It is only for the few. And she is not for you, A-dam.’ He hesitated as though wondering whether to speak further. ‘Brid is dangerous, A-dam. I who love her, say that. Do not let her hurt you.’ He struggled to find the right words. ‘She studies the ways of the wildcat. Her claws can kill. If you see her again she will surely, in the end, bring death. Death to you and to me and to Gemma.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Adam’s bitter disappointment was edged with fear. ‘Why can’t I see her? Why can’t I travel here? What is so wrong?’ He concentrated on the one piece of Gartnait’s statement he truly understood. ‘I bet you’ve been down to the village where I live.’

Gartnait gave a sudden snort. His eyes were humorous slits of silver and he looked for a moment very like his sister. ‘I went once. Only on the hill. I do not have your courage. I did not go down.’

‘Well, can I at least go and see your mother?’ Adam fought back the misery which was threatening to overwhelm him. ‘I want my knapsack.’

Gartnait frowned, then he nodded, relenting. ‘Brid hid your things when our uncle came. I will show you. Putting down his tools he stood up, dusting his hands. He glanced at the canvas bag on Adam’s shoulder and grinned. ‘You have chocolate cake?’ he asked mischievously.

Biting back his tears, Adam smiled back and nodded. ‘And for Gemma too.’

They ate it by the fire, washed down with weak heather ale from the silver jug.

‘What is Brid studying?’ Adam asked at last. His precious knapsack lay at his feet.

‘Poetry and music; prophecy and divination and history and genealogy,’ Gartnait replied, all words, Adam realised, as Gartnait stumbled through them, miming with his hands, which he and Brid had used over their months together. ‘It takes many years of study.’

‘She must be clever.’ He knew that already.

‘She is. Very.’ Gartnait frowned again. How clever Adam could not begin to know.

‘When is she coming home?’

Gemma smiled. ‘He is so sad his friend is missing.’ She was speaking to the air above the fire.

Adam felt himself growing red once more.

‘She will not come back to you, A-dam.’ Gartnait spoke firmly. ‘She must serve her people now. She is no longer a child. And that is for the best.’

‘But she will come back to see you?’ Adam could feel the cold hard kernel of misery in his stomach growing steadily larger. He looked from one to the other desperately.

Gemma leaned forward at last and with a quick glance at Gartnait she smiled. ‘Poor A-dam. Perhaps she will come to see you. After the long days come, after Lughnasadh. I have told my brother he must bring her to see me then.’

And with that, not seeing Gartnait frown and shake his head, Adam had to be content.

At first he found he could put her out of his mind by concentrating on his school work, at least during the week. His days were spent in study, his evenings after the long drive and cycle home were spent in homework. Often now his father was there in the evenings, attempting to entertain his son with stories of the parish, with extra books bought in Perth and once or twice invitations to go, father and son, to meals with parishioners further up the glen.

Each weekend Adam would climb to the stone and each time he would be disappointed. No Gartnait. No Brid. In his loneliness he sat on the mountainside feeling the wind stirring his hair, his bird book and binoculars beside him, his sketchpad on his knee, and alone he would consume the cake he brought with him each time for Brid.

‘So, Brid, your power is growing.’ Broichan was standing behind her on the summit of a small hill overlooking the great loch out of which poured the River Ness. He had been watching her from behind an outcrop of rock, listening to the ringing incantation, watching the thrusting, bellying cloud split at her direction overhead and stream away to the north and to the south, leaving the black rocks of the hill bathed in golden sunshine.

With a start Brid lost her concentration and the clouds veered back on course. There was a sizzle of lightning, a sharp crack of thunder. Broichan laughed. ‘I still out-magic you, Niece, never forget it!’

‘But you don’t out-magic Columcille, I hear.’ Brid threw her head back and laughed. She was energised by the storm, strong, invincible. ‘He banished the beast you put in the loch to destroy him. The whole court has heard how he brought you close to death as a punishment for your treatment of one of your slavegirls and only saved you with his magic healing stone when you gave her up to him!’ It was starting to rain. She raised her face and welcomed the feeling of ice-cold needles on her skin, missing as she did so the fury of her uncle’s expression.

‘You dare to speak to me of Columcille!’

‘I dare!’ She almost spat at him. ‘You have taught me well, Uncle. My power is indeed growing!’ And soon, when I have learned enough I shall go home to A-dam. She veiled her thoughts carefully from her uncle, with a little smile. She had seen Adam in her dreams and in her scrying ball of crystal and she knew that she had him in her snare. He would wait for her, forever if need be.

‘Poor little cat. So confident. So foolish.’ Broichan’s voice was soft and velvety. Its menace brought her to her senses abruptly. ‘Don’t ever cheat on me, little Brid.’ He held out his hand to her and against her will she found herself drawn to him. ‘If you do, I shall feel obliged to give you a demonstration of my powers.’ He smiled. ‘Your brother, I think. My gatekeeper. His job is nearly done –’

‘You wouldn’t harm him!’ Brid hissed at him.

‘Indeed I would. My powers are unstoppable, as Columcille will discover when I recall the monster I put there to devour him.’ Broichan smiled again. ‘Beware, little cat. Stay obedient. Stay careful.’

He glanced up at the storm as he released her and turned away, leaving her standing where she was, her long white tunic and woollen cloak drenched to her skin. As he disappeared from sight the sky shuddered under a new bolt of lightning which hurtled past her and buried itself in the boiling, hissing waters of the loch.

The summer holidays came at last. Adam grew tanned and sturdy and once again, tentatively, he began to be friends with Mikey and Euan in the village.

He had been to kick a ball on the field behind the kirkyard with the boys after his supper and was walking back, late, up the street as the luminous dusk hung over the hills. In the distance on the west-facing side of the mountain he could see the sunlight still glowing on the dark cliffs, turning them the colour of pink damask. Where he was the shadows were dark. It was the sad time of day; the time that always filled him with melancholy. Kicking at the stones on the path he made his way reluctantly in at the gate and was brought up short by a hiss from behind him.

‘A-dam! Here! I wait for you.’ The piercing whisper made his heart leap with excitement. He stared round, confused. ‘Brid?’

‘Here. Here.’

He could see her now, crouching behind the stone wall in the shelter of a clump of rhododendron bushes. ‘I wait for you at Gartnait’s stone and you not come.’ She was taller than last year, her hair braided, her figure fuller. She was dressed in a tunic as she always was, but this one was richer, embroidered, reaching down to her ankles, and her slim arms were adorned with gold bangles. ‘Come.’ She put her finger to her lips and smiled. It was the same impish grin that he remembered, though the face was more mature, the eyes less light-hearted.

With a glance at the forbidding blank windows of the manse he ducked behind the bushes out of sight and crouched beside her in the darkness under the glossy leaves.

She pressed her lips against his cheek. ‘Hello, A-dam.’

‘Hello, you.’ He hesitated, embarrassed as he felt her hands pressing against his chest.

‘Is your father there?’ She was whispering and he could feel her hair tickling his face.

‘I don’t know.’ There were no lights on in the house that he could see.

She had found his hand. Grabbing it she pulled him to his feet and they stood together, peering out across the grass. ‘Come.’ She gave a small tug at his wrist.

The gate could be seen from his father’s study. He glanced again at the dark square windows and his courage failed him. ‘This way,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll go over the back.’

They ducked hand in hand into the shadows beneath the apple trees and ran round the house towards the regimented rows of potatoes and onions. Skirting the beds of vegetables, Adam led her to the pile of cut logs stacked against the wall, and out of sight of every window in the house save that of the empty kitchen he pulled her up to scramble over the loose stones and jump down onto the soft springy grass at the edge of the lane.

By the time they had reached the steep climb through the wood beside the burn they were both out of breath and laughing.

‘Quickly, quickly, my mother will have food.’ Brid’s hair was slipping from its braids. Far above them the stone was still in sunlight. It was strange to stand in the shadowed valley and see the distant illumination like a spotlight. Adam stopped, looking up, and he shivered. ‘I hate it when the glen gets dark before the mountain. I always want to be up there, where I can see the setting sun.’

‘We go up.’ She looked at him closely, her head to one side. ‘You are growing big, A-dam.’

‘So are you,’ he retaliated. They both smiled and suddenly she had turned and set off ahead of him at the run. He was after her in a flash and had caught up with her before she had gone a dozen yards. They were in a small mossy dell, sheltered by a stand of silver birch. Somewhere out of sight Adam could hear the trickle of water from a hidden burn.

It was she who pushed against him, nuzzling his neck with her lips, she who, fumbling with his buttons, undid his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, she who fondled and stroked his chest till he lost his breath in the back of his throat and was galvanised at last to reach for her body through the embroidered gown. With a throaty laugh she undid the girdle at her waist and with a small wriggle let the garment fall to her feet, leaving her naked in his arms, dragging at the belt which fastened his shorts.

This time they took longer, savouring one another’s bodies, touching each other with gentle exploratory fingers which only gradually grew more urgent until at last Adam pushed her back and threw himself upon her, feeling his whole being expending itself between her lithe, compliant thighs.

When it was over they lay in sleepy contentment for a while. Then she slid from beneath him and climbing to her feet picked bits of moss and fern from her body, completely unembarrassed as she walked across the clearing to the stream which she found running through the rocks. Cupping the water in her palms she washed herself, then she turned. ‘Now you, A-dam.’

Spent, he lay back on the grass. ‘Not yet. I want to rest.’

‘Now, A-dam.’ He remembered the stern tone, but not in time. The double palm-load of icy water caught him full in the face.

He only caught up with her as they reached the stone. Laughing, he imprisoned her against it, a hand on either side of her shoulders, not letting her wriggle away. ‘A kiss for a forfeit.’

‘No, A-dam. Not here.’ Suddenly she was afraid.

It was his turn to be stern. ‘A kiss, Brid, or I won’t let you go.’

‘No, A-dam.’ She tried again to wriggle free. ‘Not here. We will be seen.’ She was angry. Her eyes narrowed and he was astonished at the sudden change in her expression.

‘Seen?’ He did not release her. ‘By Gartnait?’

‘By the god.’ She looked defiant.

‘Oh, Brid.’ Irritated, he released her and stepped back. ‘You think there are gods everywhere. I’ve told you it isn’t true. There is only one true God.’