Alba: The Great Dance of Leaving and Returning

By Rennie Walker

Talitha, old and of birdbone body, great healer and the wisest of all, teaches the Weaver Women of Alba the Sacred Dances. She waits for two of her group to join her in Inverness and has sent out the Call to them. One a man and one a woman – who have been lovers before. In a previous life. But they are late, and the time available for their sacred service to Alba grows shorter with each turn of the Moon.

Talitha dances upon the Great Loom itself and sees all Threads that point to the growing dangers. It is the year 839, as the Nazarenes name and tally time, and a handful of years before Scotland emerges into history. The Kingdom of Alba the Beautiful stands at a crossroads. The Tribe of Alba the Beautiful - King Eoghann, Ard-Rigd of Alba and his Queen Caisseaid, Talitha, the Weaver Women of Inverness, Mora and Duancan, Soay, daughter of Caisseaid, and the mysterious and magnificent Golden Boar of Alba, and all the others of Eoghann's kingdom - face threats, from both the Scots kingdom of Dal Riada and the Norse berserkirs. Alba is the last kingdom in all the Brit Islands not heartful in its praise of the Nazarene Church, but which still follows the ancient ways. And there are those, as yet unknown to Eoghann and Talitha, weaving plots to change this. Finally and forever.

Talitha teaches all that she knows of the Sacred Dances to the Weaver Women of Alba the Beautiful - Eo and Enya, Lorna and Lahleain, Deardreaith, Moireaichd, and Mora. And they in turn give Service to King Eoghann, the people of Alba and Mother EAerth Herself. And through the unfolding towards the Last Battle of the Tribe of Alba the Beautiful the Weaver Women feel joy and sorrows, the touch of Love and fire, intuitions and premonitions, and are coursed by dreams from the Golden Boar of Alba and by the touch of the Sacred Dances themselves, particularly the Dance of Showing the Memory, which presses itself upon them so that they might remember ... their past together ... and their Purpose.

In the kingdom of Dal Riada Kenneath, son of King Alpin, feels in his heart that he will become King of a new kingdom, Scotland. He remembers fragments of teachings told him by Moireaichd of Alba and he uses those fragments to try and see clearly into the near future and discern right action from wrong action.

Meanwhile the Norse reivers, led by the shaman Night Raven are being drawn into a plot to play a part in destroying Alba.

And so the heartland and the shores of Alba the Beautiful become the backdrop and the foreground, both, to this sweeping story. A story that is mystic, shamanic, romantic, and heroic. A story that is all about Love of Mother EAerth and all upon Her Breast, endings (of lives and kingdoms), how to live a life of honor while all the time becoming more and more aware that each of us is just one Thread of Life Woven upon the Great Loom of All Things.

For as Mora declaims to those who would destroy Alba the Beautiful "I fight against all rape of Mother EAerth. The Dances that take me are Woven of Love itself, and were upon the Breast of Mother EAerth before the Time of women and men." In this manner the Weaver Women Serve Alba the Beautiful, the magnificent Golden Boar of Alba and Mother EAerth Herself.

War seems inevitable and Talitha, and her great boon companion the Golden Boar of Alba, prepare the Weaver Women to march by Eoghann’s side in the coming last battle of Alba the Beautiful. But there is much to teach and time may be too short.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rennie Walker
• Release date: Jan 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301597567

Rennie Walker

Rennie Walker was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. His first novel is the mystic and shamanic fantasy Alba: The Great Dance of Leaving and Returning, set in the years 839 and 840, in the land that would later be known as Scotland. As a young man, and later though not so often, he travelled many journeys through the heartland of Alba the Beautiful. As he describes himself - "I am a Story Finder, Story Teller and Novelist." He is also the author of the collection of poems - Gathering Stillness: Reflection upon Reflection - poems in the traditions of Ashtanga Yoga, zen buddhism, Sufism, Religious Science and more. He lives in northern California, with his wife Kathy and varying numbers of cats.

Book preview

In the year 840, tallied as the Nazarenes understand and tally the turning of the years, the Kingdom of Alba stood at a crossroads. Stretched upon a crossroads said some, like the Nazarene Himself was stretched upon a wooden frame. To the west the small Scots Kingdom of Dal Riada had been a source of foment through the four centuries of its life. To the east and north the Norse reivers had been plying their dark and bloody ways for nigh on three generations. To the south lay Northumbria and Strathclyde, both quiescent against Alba for many years. But not necessarily forever. For they were Nazarene and Alba was not. And to the south also lay the Disputed Lands. King Eoghann, Ard-Rigd of Alba, High King of the seven ancient kingdoms of Alba, so elected by the ways of the Tanistry, ruled from his seat in Inverness. Alba was the last kingdom in all the Brit Islands which was not heartful in its praise of the Nazarene and the church of His followers, but which still followed the ancient ways.

* * * * *

PROLOGUE

We dream that endings are so and what they seem. But it is only one Dance turning onwards into another. The old woman looked down upon the desert floor far below. Her whisper was hoarse, for all of them were parched.

It was darkening fast, since the bloody sun had slipped from the edge of the world many beats of the heart ago. Lights moved down there. Distant. Two wedges of small and flickering lights, to the east and south. A few widely dispersed between the two masses, and moving to and fro between. The lights were far enough distant that there were no sounds. Yet. Of shouting, of metal upon metal, of dogs straining to chew what they could scent and horses and camels champing to catch what they had chased for so long, of bloodlust wet and raw and heaving in open throats. Soon she and her companions would hear all these. For a full turn of the Moon the chase had run its course. And the course had run to its end. But the old woman shed no tears.

She stood straight. Unmoving. Her hair in a topknot danced lightly with its own spring. For there was no wind. Not here, not in the vastness of the high desert beyond all travelling, and not at this turn of the year. She glanced up at the sky. The stars were out and burning fiery bright, and the last blood in the sky had turned to dusty brown. Night swept across the land. She smiled then. A touch. But presence full. Of course, there is no Moon. For this is the night when the eye of the Moon is closed. As was the night when the battle was lost and the chase begun.

The old woman turned abruptly, without seeming to move, and the firelight danced full upon the colours freshly painted on her face. She stepped towards the blaze and her long shift, green the colour of the new desert grass after the rains, billowed like a dream behind her. She hunkered down and faced her companions. Seven women, two men. All less than a third her age, save the older man near her age, it seemed. All in the fullness of their prime.

She spoke, softly, and as present and ephemeral as flames made of memory. We dream that endings are so and what they seem. But it is only one Dance turning onwards into another. The Weaving does not lose us. We are always Woven on. You are all Threads, my beloved friends. When the body dies we are Woven on. For we are Weavers of the World. And so we are always Woven on together. But you know all this. You have learned well.

She paused and looked at each of her companions in turn. She gave her deepest smile to the old man. Then she pressed the palms of her hands together over her heart, in the Shape of Honoring. We live in the One World of the Many Worlds. I have tried to teach you, in this life we have lived through together, as much as I can of the Mysteries of the One World and the Many Worlds. We can only know these Mysteries when we die to every dream of who we are. And then we can meet the Mysteries. We can Dance with the Mysteries. You will become the Mystery itself in the end. The World that we see, and the Worlds that we do not see, the World that we know, the Worlds that we do not know, the Worlds that we may come to know, and the Worlds that we will never know, all of these are Woven. But you know all this. You have learned well.

She paused and nodded to them tenderly. Looked again across at the faces of her companions, Dances of flaming dreams. She crinkled her eyes. And then she smiled. A soft and lambent smile of Love. A Love that burned. Like a star expanding. And upon this sea of Love she spoke on, burning them all with each and every word. Branding them. It is a warrior’s life that we lead. Ours is the constant struggle between the Soul and veils that want to dream forever. Dreams are ignorance and ignorance begets all sorrow. We are the ones whose task it is to remember. Remember this. This memory is Truth. And this Truth burns dreams. We will meet again! My Weaver friends. I have seen so. I know so! And we will continue with our work together.

But! ... how will we know each other? It was the youngest of the women who whispered through the firelight and across the shimmering world of dreams high up on the desert plateau.

The old woman turned to her. Ah. Beloved. Our worldly names will be different. These bodies, of course, too. But we will know each other. Light knows Light. And always Love knows Love. And One knows One eternally. Memory knows itself. Beneath all changing there is no changing. Until the end of the Weaving itself we will be Woven. Together. Always together. The land will be called Alba. Alba the Beautiful. Where? I do not know where Alba lies. And when? The time will be after the closing of these bodily eyes forever for these bodies.

Soon. Another of the women whispered across the fire.

Yes. Soon. We will be separated by the closing of our eyes in each our last moment. With the dawn they will come for us. I have seen it so. I know it so. They are the dark and we are the Light. They are the forgetfulness and we are the remembering. Oh, my beloved friends, I feel the onward, eternally onward, moving force of the Thread that each of us is!

It will hurt. The youngest whispered again. And with eyes brimming with light and tears she glanced across at the young man. And a tear fell from her face. He sought out her eyes with his own. And gave himself for a moment to what flowed between the two of them.

The old woman nodded. And then Soulfire blazed from her eyes. She stood up. Soon! So it is Woven! Until then we shall Dance. The Great Dance of Leaving and Returning. The greatest Dance of them all. The greatest Rememberancer of them all. Come! One more time, my eternal friends! One more time. Until the eyes of the body open again. So that we may remember each other and that next time awake more quickly. Love to you, now and to come! In the land that will be called Alba the Beautiful! Let us Dance, then! Dance together once last time as these Threads! Let the Dance begin us!

The nine stood up and assembled into a crescent Moon. The nine faced the old woman. She smiled again and bowed her head to them. Then she raised both her arms, thin as birdbones, above her head and let the Dance take her. She slowly Danced a turn, with the Dance and within the Dance. And the others took the first step, in unison, of the Great Dance of Leaving and Returning. The greatest of all the Dances of the Weavers of the World.

* * * * *

Part I – The Gathering

* * * * *

CHAPTER 1

Winter ~ Northern Alba ~ One Turn of the Moon before the Silver Solstice. Anno Domini 839, as Calculated and Named by the Nazarenes

Sunrise a few beats of the heart away. Any heart of any creature that carried a beating heart.

The huge boar stood on the mountain top looking east towards the coming of the Sun. The wind was bitter, from east of the north, and the snow crisp on the earth. The wind found, somewhere nearby, a crevice of some kind cut into the crags below and a keening song played around the animal, in long rising and falling shrieks and breathy whispers. The boar blinked and then blinked again. It stood in frozen snow up to its knees.

The star Tailsa, the Boar’s Eye, hung above its head, shining silver blue. The boar’s face shadowed and painted by starlight did not move. If any were close enough to see, there was an ocean of lights shining from within the farthest depths of its eyes. But none were. Still it did not move.

The first curved sliver of fiery red rose over the far horizon. The Sun’s rays broke upwards and outwards from all edges, surfaces and curves that had held it contained within the Night. The great boar blinked again, and shook its head slightly from side to side. The first rays from the Sun hit the animal. The boar’s face revealed itself as golden. All around it the frosted snow glinted all the shades of gold, sparkling like a platform of stars.

The Golden Boar of Alba raised its head, shining with gold now, opened its mouth, and sang.

The song from a time before any history of women and men. Sung once every year on this day, one turn of the Moon before the Silver Solstice. The great creature held the notes long and moved its tongue and throat so that the song carried layers of sparkling overtones. A song never heard by any in Alba except for Talitha. The Golden Boar of Alba sang as the full roundel of the Sun crossed over the horizon and up into the first reach of the sky. Then the Golden Boar of Alba began to Dance.

As the magnificent creature Danced upon its stage of sparkling stars it looked down into the shadowy lands that lay below it remaining untouched by the beginning of the day, still singing. The Golden Boar of Alba began to circle in its Dance, seven times in one direction and then seven times in its opposite. Its Dance ended. The Golden Boar of Alba turned and faced the North, the direction from which the Sun never came. It stopped and stood still. It opened its mouth one last time, and keened. Then it bowed its head to the direction of the north, acknowledging that this year, counted and named as women and men count and name the phenomenon they called ‘Time’, and which is accepted in a different way by such as the Golden Boar, would be its last year in the realm of Alba.

If any were close enough to see, a stream of tears welled and then fell from the great creature’s eyes, onto the frosted, golden-turned, snow. But, none were. The Golden Boar of Alba shook its head, shaking the last of its tears away. It walked silently down the slope of the mountain, northwards, into the deep shadows there. And slowly, slowly disappeared from view.

* * * * *

A figure, indistinct and still of the Night, stood on top of the rise. Below him the glen was a purple haze in which a few figures moved, shadowy, without substance of bone, without hard contour. Vague, ghosted shapes.

Dawn. The last stars shimmered to remain as the soft light of the coming day washed across them in a flood, silver and celeste, carrying away their backdrop of empowerment.

The man stood still facing east. He held the hilt and pommel of a two-handed sword, its point resting in the stony soil. Waiting. He was Norse. His helmet lay at his feet, and his long hair, braided and bound in a thick ponytail, hung down his back. His beard, too, bushy and braided into tails. He wore a long cloak, brushing the ground, for it was a bitter, frozen morning and had been a frozen night. On his cloak, across the spread of his shoulders, was emblazoned a raven with wings spread, carrying a two-headed axe in its claws. From the axe dripped blood. And the eyes of the raven, if anyone ever came close enough to see, were bloody red, and the pupils were skulls.

A few sounds drifted up from glen. The Norse berserkir frowned as each sound came to his ears. Still he looked to the east, his lips moving in prayer and invocation. The Sun peeked. And then rose. The first rays of light sped and hit the Norseman, bathing him in soft orange and removing the last vestiges of the Night.

He smiled. A thin smile. Grim. A reiver’s smile. Merciless. He swayed his muscles into life, balanced himself and slowly raised his great sword high above his head. Its blade burned and shone, as if it were a molten snake of liquid gold running and shapeshifting with the blood of the slain, their number far beyond any tallyman’s collection.

The berserkir felt the rush of energy from his men below, sweeping upwards in a soundless roar. He felt their eyes. He felt their breathlessness. He felt their waves of thoughts. And he felt the resonance from their lust. With the slightest of movements of his whole body in exquisite balance, he gave a turn to the shimmering blade and shone the reflected light down into the glen, sweeping over and over, with only the merest turn of hip and heel, the eyes and faces of his men.

The Norseman felt ecstasy running like flames through him, just as his great sword ran with fire. He felt the ecstasy pushing upwards from his men like a sudden rush of storm. He felt their hunger and lust for battle and vanquishing.

He grinned hugely. He looked straight east and addressed the risen sun. "I, Halfdan Bloodbeard, of my ship Raven’s Seith, feel what they feel. I feel it for I lust for it. Like them!" His voice to himself was rough. He turned a touch again and played the Sun’s burning fire, now too bright to look into, over and over across the still shadowy deep of the glen where his men stood wraith-like, all faces and eyes upturned towards him.

Halfdan placed the point of his sword into the earth and held the balance of the weapon with a light hold of his fingers. He turned his head and shoulders a touch to face north of east. It is time to return to my vessel. I am told … by the one whose orders I accept. A passenger … a strange passenger. For who … who … seeks passage with the likes of … us … the scourge of all under Asgaord whom we choose to scourge? Yet … my master … my mentor … has ordered certain. I do not know his name. I know he is Nazarene. And has business … Halfdan shook his head. With the one whose orders I accept … this year … and may be … not the year that is to come thereafter.

* * * * *

There will be spangles of frost tonight. Talitha spoke aloud, watched her breath merge with the drizzle. Perhaps even before the last light of the Sun leaves the evening sky yet to arrive.

It was late afternoon, and the dome of the world held a drear sky of sodden ashes, almost unmoving such was the limpness of the wilting wind. The air was grained with wetness, a hanging fine drizzle finer than the finest mist. It was becoming sharply cold.

The few cries of birds, raven and blackbird in the main, were hollow, heavy with the emptiness and weariness of having tholed the first stretch of winter. Talitha walked steadily, acknowledging the stiffness in her old bird-bone body, and the chill now touching her bones, but acknowledged over that her purpose, and her true Substance.

She was dressed perfectly for the turn of the year. She had chosen her thickest winter cloak, a jagged pattern of brindles and ochres, rather like the feathers of some mysterious great bird kin to the eagle, with its lining of oiled linen, larch green, turned to the outside. Upon her small, frail, hands she wore gloves of thinnest doeskin, and over these mittens of bear fur, with eye of bear copied in glass sewn one on each palm. The claws of the bear Talitha had dipped in molten silver and sewn onto the wristbands of the mitts. Her feet were becoming numb with cold, despite the layers of lambswool stockings, doeskin socks, and winter boots of boarskin, with the fleece to the inner. Her overtrews and her jerkin were willow green and gave a flash and a slash of color from another season, and world, as she strode.

Upon her back was a triangular goatskin bag, which held all that she would need. Her sheepskin hat, with the face-flaps, was a touch grubby, but it was her warmest.

Talitha stopped and rested. She was upon the first slopes of the hills. She stilled herself. Looked upon the sea that was the watery, shape-shifting land before her. Ah! Alba the Beautiful. I have lived a long life here. So long before the others came to join with me.

The light from deep within her gaze shifted and turned wider. She set her bag down at her feet and moved both her hands together, still mittened and gloved, into the Shape of Statement. Ah! I feel the agedness of this beautiful body. And I give deepest thanks for it. I feel the frailty of this form. And I give deepest thanks for it. I feel the fragility of this bird-bone body now. I have been well served by it and I give the deepest thanks. Ah, so scrawny is my bird-bone body now! But I am Dancer and this body Dances beautifully. I give deepest thanks. The Dance still loves this body, this body the Dance, and this body is perfect, and always will be, for the Purposes that the Dance seeks to create cause, and thus effect, upon Threads of the Weaving itself. I Dance because I am Danced. So I become Cause. Touch Threads and create effects upon the Thread. Such is my life. I give deepest thanks.

I know the sacred Dances do not mind the state of this body. The Dances love me as much as I love the Dances. They still come to me, bidden and unbidden, like friend, like lover, like healer, like sage, and flow through me, carrying me through visible air, and through invisible realm, Dancing me through those realms as needed. And so I Dance upon the Great Loom itself. For I am Dancing Weaver Woman. Threads of weft, most commonly, are those that I see and touch. But in disjunctive times, when great need is called to be resolved, I have touched, and turned, warp upon the Loom itself. That is arduous and dangerous work. And that is why the Dances were created. To have a life of their own, so a place of their own, upon the Great Loom of life, and to be carriers for such as me. Weaver of the World. Talitha smiled. To me a Dance is like a pony. Though I know one … She smiled again. Who prefers to talk of the Dance as a man, in heat, to be equaled and thus to be joined with, hip to hip, and so create an ocean that is both path and destination. Ah! Moireaichd! Moireaichd of the fiery heart! How we all love you so!

The old woman let her eyes close. Weaver Woman I am. I know I am Thread. I am the Awoken Thread that knows. I came to know this. Then, I came to know that Thread endures. Birth and Death are not its end. I came to know this. Then came remembering. I came to remember that the Thread that I am had lived before, unbroken, before I was born. And before that, again unbroken. And before that again unbroken. After the task of remembering came the task of duty. I have gathered the others to me. There is much work to be done as Weavers of the World.

Oh, there is so much to teach them! So much to teach. Woman and man, and the myriad forms of the Dance between, of connections and distances. The Last Sorrow of Love. Yes! I have barely touched upon that for them. The Art of Remembering. That is imperative. They must be shown the final lore of the Great Rememberancers.

I have seen the Last Days. And I know that this is the first life that I have done so. So, I have come to know this too. Thus, I have much to teach myself also. I am Old Woman, in this bird-bone body. I am Carline. Kimmerswoman. Weaver Women. Talitha. This body, deepest thanks to it, does not have much time left to live and carry me in this form that I have, in this life. Not much time, and so much to teach.

And if all redes to me be true, then not much time remains for those who Dance this work with me in this Place called Alba. Alba the Beautiful.

Talitha returned her attention to the world. Far to her left, and below her now, difficult to see clearly because of the wateriness of the world, lay the mosshags, where the local folk cut their peat. No figures moved there. It was not the season for cutting and drying, but for using. Nearer, still on the left, and she not yet quite level with it, was a tangled brake of hawthorns, black and wet, exuding death. On Talitha’s right the bracken, all brown and shrunken, dried and rotting, stretched to where the slope parted from her sight. This was broken, here and there, by large swathes of brambles spikily entwined, and by clumps of tall, winter-beaten thistles.

She picked up her bag and returned to her walking. When Alba the Beautiful dies to winter, it is a rich and succulent death. Such a harsh land, yet the life that flows within it is strong. Wiry and enduring. Mother EAerth is indeed fertile and constantly replenishing Herself for us.

Talitha was almost at the crest of the slope. Just a few paces before her, at the top edge of the path, she spied a cluster of tiny, peeking, fresh green brairds of snowdrops.

Early! Talitha smiled. The new life shone brightly against the old and past life all around it.

Talitha crested the rise, and turned to her left, following the flow of the path. She walked the path, around the crag of rock that gave out of the land. Turned the corner past it. And paused. There before her, about fifty of her own steps distant, stood the apple tree, alone, surrounded by a ring of broom and whin. A sacred tree to those who lived here. Not to her. A sacred place. Though not to her.

Wrongness! Something is amiss! And then she saw what it was that was so very wrong. The ground beneath the sacred tree was littered with long-rotted apples. They had not been harvested the previous autumn to make the morat of honey, mulberries and apple that the local folk used to celebrate the giving of Gratitude.

Talitha walked forward slowly. Dark brown balls, black in places, pulp collapsing in upon itself due to its own weight and rotted softness. A carpet of neglect and desolation. One huge apple, three times or more the size of Talitha’s fist, still hung upon the tree. Too rotten even for the scavenger birds to eat. For a moment it looked like a skull.

A small bird was darting betwixt and between the branches of the tree. Its chirrup plaintive and wintry reached Talitha’s hearing. Talitha’s eyes became moist. She pulled off her mittens and then the doeskin gloves, and crushed them into the deep placket sewn upon the hip of her winter cloak. She chirruped softly, and held out her right hand, fisted except for her extended index finger. Talitha chirruped again, soothing, caressing. The little bird ceased its darting to and fro, and perched upon a twig near to the hanging apple.

A robin. Talitha smiled softly and chirruped again. The robin fluttered its wings, hesitated, and then flew down and landed upon Talitha’s finger. Talitha brought the small bird, its frame trembling, close to her lips and gently breathed warmth upon it.

And then she whispered to it. Little one. Little great soul on your Great Journey. Peace be still. You are Loved. Oh how much you are Loved I cannot even tell it to you. I have food.

Carefully she moved her other arm and that hand found the pocket of her jerkin and the oatmeal farl that sat there. She broke off some crumbs and fed the little bird. It ate hungrily.

She squatted down, robin still on her finger, and kibbled the farl with her left hand into a pile of coarse crumbs on the ground. She set the small robin down beside its meal. Then she walked backwards through one of the breaks in the ring of whin and broom. She paused. Raised her hands together and touched the palms to each other.

Little soul, great in stature, thank you for your rede to me. I rede your rede, take heed, and seek to find the end of that laid plain before me. Blessings on your Journey, Protected you are, as all Threads be, and kin you are to me! Safe Journey, great soul in little form, Soul-on-your-Journey!

Spoken loudly, her blessing faded. The little bird looked up and straight at her. And then began to eat.

* * * * *

Talitha waited until the robin had eaten its fill and had flown to perch somewhere. She took off her goatskin bag and her cloak and hat, and laid them down.

She walked under the tree. Around its bole. Three times, and then three times in reverse. She raised her arms, her fingers searching for, and finding, the threads of what the tree knew and could not tell. And then her fingers made the pose. She let the Dance come to her, take her, and then Talitha circlespun around the tree. And then a second time. And so she came to know all of the little that the sacred tree could tell to her. She let her hands fall and cup her belly. Then let the Dance of Knowing slip its touch from her. And the Dance faded away.

She looked up at the last apple. No wind. Suddenly, the last fibers of life, which held it, broke, without a sound. The apple fell and splattered onto the pulpy carpet of the rest.

Talitha pressed her palms together. Several drops of sweat sat on her brow. She whispered. Oh skull of apple flesh I bade you rede to me. And you did rede, but what you rede was little to my need, and would not fill a thimbleful of what I need to see. I thank you skull of apple flesh, and I thank you sacred tree, for those who would tend you, turn of the year, have ceased to tend to thee, yet I must know what did befall those who did not come to thee, to make morat for the solstice dance. Instead they did not appear. Yet you have rede all of you to me.

And in that moment Talitha felt watched.

She rotated her belly, heels and the rest of her body following, and turned. Twenty or so steps behind her stood a large, grey, wolf. Its eyes were rimmed red, as if some dreadful sunset was flooding there, mouth crammed full of some bloody and fleshy mass, streaks of blood upon its muzzle and blotches upon its throat and chest.

Talitha raised her right forearm, and held the palm of her hand, spread and open, towards the wolf. She knew it, an old she-wolf, Fol Ar’Gaid, its aura running with confusion and fear.

Talitha whispered its name. Fol. Soul to me. Fol. Soul to me. Your Thread is your strength, your eyes to me. Soul Fol Ar’Gaid to me. Her whisper unwound like a mist and flowed and touched the old she-wolf. Its expression changed. Softened. The dreadful reds swimming in her eyes immediately lost their edge of claw and shred.

Something moved on the back of the wolf. Rising, like one of the creatures of the Loch of Neaiss from its dark waters, a raven rose and stood tall. It outstretched its wings. Its eyes burned bright crimson. The raven eyed Talitha. Then it folded its wings and hopped forward to stand atop the crown of Fol Ar’Gaid.

All the while watching Talitha, with eyes of bright blood, and with the she-wolf whimpering under her, the raven reached forward and down with its beak towards the wolf’s left eye.

Talitha made a sudden pass with both her hands. The feathers on the raven’s nape jerked stiffly. It shook its head. Talitha made another pass and stepped forward. The raven fluttered. Made a grab for what lay held in Fol Ar’Gaid’s muzzle, pecked and pulled at a gobbet of flesh from the mass, and took off. Without circling or looking back, it flew in the direction of the settlement that cared for the tree and brewed the morat.

Fol Ar’Gaid shook and trembled all over. She whimpered. The old she-wolf laid her grisly bundle on the earth by her forepaws. It was squirrel. She whimpered again, loped over to Talitha, and lay down at the old woman’s feet. Talitha knelt and laid her hands strongly down upon the wolf’s shoulders. And Fol Ar’Gaid spoke what she knew into Talitha’s hands and so into the circumference-less orb of Talitha’s mind and Heart. And Fol Ar’Gaid knew so much more than the apple tree.

Talitha spoke softly, but steadily, to herself. Norsemen. Pillaged and then wintered at the village here. Not all killed. Old women for cooking. Young women for lust. That is your way, so different from the tribe of Alba.

Talitha pressed warmth and stillness down into Fol Ar’Gaid. Then she looked up at the sky, saw the fleeing of the light and the frosting of the air. I have spent long time here, and Night now tangibly lours cold and maybe bitter.

Talitha scowled at the sky. There was one more thing that she might come to know from the old she-wolf. She listened again into the place that Fol Ar’Gaid told from. But it was faint, too faint Again she looked up. The Dusk speeded. She must make a move. She could not stay here. Nor at the nearby village.

She leant forward and whispered into Fol Ar’Gaid’s half-cocked ear. She opened her goatskin satchel, took a couple of spiky leaves from a tiny linen bag, crumbled them in the palm of a hand and bade Fol Ar’Gaid lick her hand until all were gone. I have to meet with the Weaver Women! And I will take my beloved friend with me. She is not safe here.

She hefted the goatskin bag onto her back. The old she-wolf stood up with her, yawned and stretched, and waited patiently for her. Talitha strode onto the path, Fol Ar’Gaid at her side. She was heading for a long-standing shepherd’s hut. It would be long dark when I arrive there. And will there be peat and kindling? I do not know. But it will be safe from any Norse, for it is only a place known by shepherds. I have no food left. Talitha smiled an open smile. For, an old woman carries always the least of things. Fol Ar’Gaid’s own deep heat will keep me warm if there is to be no fire to heat us both.

Talitha felt the frost beginning to rasp in the air. She shivered. Then leant down and patted her companion. Fol Ar’Gaid’s looked up at her. There was Lovelight shining in the old woman’s eyes.

* * * * *

The fire held bright and heat-giving embers in the tiny shepherd’s hut. Fol Ar’Gaid lay close by it, grey muzzle upon her left paw. The old she-wolf snored slightly, a whistle hidden within each serene out-breath.

Talitha lay on the other side of the hearth. She too slept. The other breathing came from a pair of wildcats, lying together near to the door. The old woman’s eyes danced beneath her eyelids.

Talitha dreamed.

Three pitch black ravens, one huge and the other two smaller, flew across the Night. They covered the stars above them as they flew. Their wings did not move as they flew. And as their flight moved past, the stars in their wake took an age to find their true brightness again.

Talitha moved a hand and painted them white. The three birds stopped their flight. They turned to her and the largest one spat at her. Talitha moved and the spittle disappeared into the distance of Dream. The white paint fell off them, and they turned from the direction they were flying in and disappeared, into the distance of Dream directly away from Talitha. As they disappeared the largest one cawed: Death! Death!

The old woman awoke. Her breathing was steady and strong. Talitha opened her eyes. The light within them was steady and strong. She coiled her body and spun out of her palliasse and sat on its edge. She pressed the palms of her hands together. She gazed into the near distance in front of her, intent.

Her whisper was soft. Where are my two? I see your two, Dark One, whom I do not know but now know I need to! New to me. And new to Alba the Beautiful. But my two. I have sent out the Call. They are to join with us all, in Inverness, in the Meet-Hall of King Eoghann. They are Weaver and I miss them so!

The old kimmerswoman breathed, and whispered seven times seven words of prayer on her breath. She crossed the palms of her hands over her Heart. I rede to myself, and I rede myself true. I have sent my Call ‘cross Mother EAerth for the two from before to join us at last. I rede myself clear and I rede myself thorough, for the work to be done begins tomorrow. One from afar, one from near, I can tell from the echo return’d to me. Seven we will be, women in green, and myself the eighth, teacher of Weaving. And the ninth, a piper, our only man. I will not keep these women chaste, for their own pleasure they can … Talitha smiled hugely. … manage, and any sorrow that might come is their teacher. Love is Great Rememberancer. To Inverness! I Call them. To Eoghann’s Meet-Hall. There we will meet. There we will gather. To renew acquaintance with our Dances together. And they will remember. For we are Threads that cross Warp of lives. It is the same fight, only our bodies are chang’d.

Talitha smiled. I sense their Threads. I will walk upon the Weaving tomorrow and perceive their Threads.

And then she frowned. And you Dark One, new to me. I sense you did not want to be seen. I will hunt your Thread and come to know thee.

Talitha glanced over at the fire. In its orange glow, and the last of its heat, the two wildcats that rested nearby watched her intently. They both growled softly. In unison. The old woman nodded to them in acknowledgement.

* * * * *

CHAPTER 2

Mora dreamed.

It was Night. Somewhere. Some realm. Some realm somewhere. Thick and windswept Night. Mora wore a chaplet on her head, braided tight, of heather and whin in bloom. Her face was smeared with bright, fresh green moss and she could still feel the cold moistness of it. She was dressed in a long loose garment, like none she owned or had ever seen. A billowing shift of young willow green. Her feet were bare. She stood upon a moor, rolling and endless, and above her the sky was a riot of scudding and tumbling grey clouds and carried a faint luminescence which gave all the light that there was. She was surrounded by a circle of vague forms, dancing. About twenty or so, tugging and jerking wildly under the changing swirl of the wind. Mora looked closely. They were stones! Pocked and covered with stains of lichen. Mora looked more closely. Something moved and beat within them, like the pulse of coursing blood or the pumping of a heart.

They are alive. Something made whispers of words that she could hear.

Mora felt afraid. The fear grew and became huge like a pressing and falling sky. She had felt this terror before. She had dreamed this dream before. Many times.

So old! So old!

Whispers. These whispers came from the stones! Mora screamed. Her body lengthened in stiff and stretched pain with the effort. But no sound came from her. Other whispers grew. She did not want to hear! She was afraid! Afraid more than the stretched substance of her life could bear. The whispers became the beating of a choir of drums. Mora clutched her hands to her ears.

No! No! No! She tried to run. But could not move. Terror and eyes and ears. That was her nature. All that she was. Mora knew what the whispers were saying. But she did not want to know! She had heard them before! And had not wanted to know then. I do not want to know! Mora strained to run. She felt threads snapping in her heart. She screamed, stiff and long, with the pain of each one breaking. Please let me run!

Mora bent over and threw up. What came forth was not spew but a thick liquid that looked like the living surface of the stones around her. And then she looked at her feet. Where her vomit had touched her feet and lower shins the skin was cracking, peeling and burning away with tiny smokeless blue flames. Under her old skin was a new one. And it was a skin of stone, pocked and lichened and all roughness smoothed away with the eternal passing of the wind that blew between the stars before the Earth was born. And under the new skin was a new life beating! The cracks in her flesh seamed upwards. Her knees. And then past her knees. Her thighs. And upwards. Towards the delta of her womanhood. The whispers were becoming clearer, as a peal of bells or thunder turns to words in a strange tongue.

The cracks opened ever upwards. And through the host of whispers, and her own screams which made threads of pain snap, and the agony of her body stretched like a drum skin with the effort of her resistance, she saw a figure walking straight towards her. Made of shadow. Shadow without shadows upon it. Hood and cloak. She had seen it before also. Many times. How many more could she endure? Mora fainted.

The waiting that lay outside Time passed.

Mora was flying. The terror had gone. The whispers were gone. Not even silence remained. The Night was the same. Cloudy, wild, faintly luminescent. She could not see Mother EAerth below. Mora looked at her hands stretched out before her. They looked normal enough to her. And yet ... sometimes she thought she dimly and fleetingly made out a pulsing stony skin showing for an instant under the surface of her own. And then gone.

Something changed. Mother EAerth appeared below her. Shadows, forms without line or strict delineations, shiftings, shades. The sea. The shore. A cove. Its lines and dimensions totally true to the three-day crescent waxing Moon. And then Mora was standing at the middle edge of the low rise just above the cove. Behind and on either side of her was endless, rolling moor, coursed and harried in all directions by the wind, stretching until it melded into and became one with the Night. Everything was covered with deep snow. The wind was wild, but the snow did not flurry. Such a storm, but she felt no cold.

The Night makes things. Things are made of the Night. Mora was talking to herself.

The Night is Great Rememberancer! Remember the Rememberancers? Remember the Rememberancers! Mora was being talked to.

Still she felt nothing. No fear. She was glad for an instant. She had no thoughts. Mora watched. Watched and waited outside Time.

On either side of her were great banners, taut and slashing in the wind. Mora did not need to turn her head. She knew the near ones well. She had dreamed of them before. Often. Mora watched. Watched the stone basin that lay cut into the crescent stone platform. Watched the dead body, without any motion, under the water of the basin. It was a man. She did not recognise him. The dream had never shown her a body in the basin before.

Movement. Mora turned to her left. It took no Time. An animal moved. Bulky. Dark. It had come from the endless moor behind. It reached the edge of the short, steep slope down to the shore. The creature stepped its bulk slowly through the deep snow.

There are many worlds. Mora was talking to herself

That is so. Mora was being talked to.

Halfway down the slope the animal stopped, turned its thick neck and raised its face towards Mora. It was a boar. Huge. With a golden face. Mora knew that she knew its name. She felt scared again. She had never dreamt of it before.

I can remember, but I do not want to. Mora was talking. It did not sound like speaking but Mora was glad, for such a small instant, because she had made the words. However they were sounded and wherever they chimed. The golden-faced boar nodded.

I can know, I do know. But I do not want to. The great boar nodded again. Mora watched the animal for a long time. Some glints and spangles danced between their eyes. Knowing turned tangible. Then the huge creature turned back to its path and resumed its slow descent. Mora felt the fear growing.

I will come this time! Mora could not catch any intent of hers to speak. Mora stepped forward, onto the deeply drifted slope. She could not recall wanting to. She had never done this in the dream before.

I have been before. Mora knew she was speaking to the boar.

Yes! You who are not you has been before. And she knew it was the boar that replied.

Mora reached the stone basin and stood close by the left shoulder of the Golden-Faced Boar of Alba. The basin was full near to the brim with water. The man was gone and the basin was empty. Mora felt terror now. Terror churning and becoming faster, unspinning.

But I must step in. Mora spoke, in the strange dream-speaking way

You may. You must. It is time.

A single star shone in the water, reflected from the stormy sky above. Bright. White-blue. Steady.

This star helps me remember.

It is Great Rememberancer. Mora was answered.

Mora sank to her knees on the soft snow. Panic, like talons of sea eagle clawed at her throat, catching on tendons, cartilage, pulling her back from the water’s edge.

I am scared! This time I will!

It is only Death. This time you will. Mora was answered.

Mora whispered the name of the Golden-Faced Boar of Alba. And toppled herself forward into the water.

The waiting that lay outside Time passed.

Mora was standing on a hill, looking down upon the lights of Inverness. She had never been to Inverness, for it was far travelling from her home. But she knew it was Inverness. The sky was still the same stormy rush of faintly luminescent clouds. Mora enjoyed the feel of the wind blowing through her flesh. Three figures walked up the slope towards her. Hoods and long cloaks. Mora watched. The terror had gone. She extended her hand to the first and opened her palm upwards.

You are Death. And I know you. Mora looked deep into the darkness of Death’s hood. She watched long upon the face of Death. She whispered. The movement of the words lay not in her throat. True friend! I will Dance with you again. And again.

Mora turned to the second figure. Looked deep into the darkness within the hood. It was old woman. Ancient. Mora watched. Watched the old woman’s eyes shine and lips move.

I am the Caller and you the Called. You have heeded the Call. Time has turned and we are to meet again. Our work is never done. You are the Thread that does not end. The listening came not from her ears.

Mora smiled. She knew this old woman so well. In a time and place deeper than the waters of this dream.

The old woman made words again. You are Called.

To Inverness?

To Inverness.

The third figure stayed its distance, but looked at her from the emptiness of its face. Mora stared. She thought she saw something move there. Some feature forming. A man. Some memory trying to return to her, as an owl to the roost. But the dream slowly faded. To nothing. And she lay in the nothingness. And then being and awareness faded. Slowly. Slowly.

* * * * *

Mora awoke. Just breaking the surface. Groggy. She was covered in sweat and the curls of her long blond hair were matted on her brow and nape. Exhaustion pressed upon her. Am I really awake? I hope so. But … I feel different. Something … something has changed within me. New and faint as a distant star. She sat upright, suddenly rigid. I remembered more of the dream! It has never reached this far! Never! She looked around her small room. Dark. Dawn is still far off.

Mora kicked her feet out of her bed. The old woman! Inverness! I have to go to Inverness! I have to! I will! I will. Springtime. No, before! I cannot wait. The ... old woman … she can not wait too … I believe.

Mora closed her eyes. She gently put her feet back under the sheepskins and blankets. The young woman smoothed her hair with both her hands. She sighed, and deflated, sank back down onto her bed. Ah. Mora sighed again. But … but first … I must leave this forsaken fisher village of less than a hundred people … home to me … all my life. Mora swallowed hard to stop tears rising. How … how can I … tell my father? Gods who dole out courage … or not. Just he and I all my life. No other. He must need me for … I am all he has lived for. Mora swallowed again. Tears began to run from her closed eyes. But I need Inverness! I believe … feel so. For … in Inverness I need to find something. Mora shrugged her shoulders. What? A life? May ... be. A life that I have not yet even begun … to live. And a life which … waits … I feel … for me … urgently. Impatiently!

Sleep chanted to her. Mora checked that the new star of intent was still strong within her. It was. So she dived back into sleep. Mora swam and searched for the dream. But the dream was gone and no trace of it left and no thread of it to pull on. And in her sleep Mora wept. And in her sleep she longed. Wept and yearned for something that was beyond the understanding of it. A lover. Yes, she longed for that Dance. She had felt whispers recently. Whispers that told her of the eternal Dance of the ecstatic rounds and turns between woman and man. Familiar whispers. But more. A love. An ancient love, big enough to contain the world. Yes. She needed that. Friends. But more. Companions of the Heart. She was lonely this life. Strong. But lonely. Yes. She needed this. Them. A task. Yes, there was a task. A purpose. Yes. Remembering was knocking on her door. And did not go away. There was something she had waited for all her life.

Mora muttered in her sleep. Love. Friends. Task. Remembering. Love … remembering. Mora wept and yearned. Yearned with a heart that was so big.

The heart so big Mora was inside it.

* * * * *

A solitary drum sounded. Deep. Slow beats. Slower by far than the beating of any heart. Death’s rhythms. Death’s dance. Death’s time. The thump of it filled the cove.

Six figures stood in a straight line on the slate platform, a stretched arm apart from each other, watching the heavy serpent sea, to which is dispatched the soul of traitors against the Kingdom of Alba. The six stood motionless, well wrapped against the cold. The wind snatched at their cloaks like spirit wildcats fighting and harrying. The snow, flurried and reflighted, stuck to beards and hair and did not melt, and crystals of ice glistered, star-like, on the metal of sword and armour. King Eoghann, Ard-Rigd of Alba, was garbed in robes of ceremony. A long woolen tunic, purple, from throat to ankle. A heavy cloak made of squares of white and black bearskin, which reached to the backs of his knees. Around his neck and across his upper chest King Eoghann wore the silver chain of Ard-Rigd, the entwined links of it worked with veins of scarlet enamel in finely etched lines, so that it hung like a quiescent and other-worldly serpent upon him. Its weight equal to that of a five-day old lamb. King Eoghann wore his square shield, chequered grey and cream, with its boss matching the scarlet enamel of the silver serpent chain, upon his left forearm. And upright in his other hand he held a tall spear. All the other five kings who stood with him were similarly attired. All stood as still as the dark stones which surrounded them.

In front of them, cut into the slate, was a deep oblong basin filled near to the brim with newly carried sea water, and with a cut sluice, stopped, leading down to and under the lapping of the waves. All through the night while it had snowed deep and long, yet again, from first owl’s hoot until first touch of day’s light, Dudanbrach, late King of Fidach, had laboured, under the sole guard of the other six kings of Alba, with a copper bowl to fill it from the sea.

The drum beat on. Slow and deep as if it were eternal and it was those present who were the fleeting, evanescent ones. It was a brumous dawning. All life seemed thin and translucent. Worn enamel upon the hard and cold silver of a winter world. The haar which had come with the ending of the snow was light and distant but gave no horizon. So, the world was made small. Three bowshots whimseyed together until the world became ragged, faint, turned to icy smoke and was gone. Winter was hard-fisted upon the land, forged as hard as a smithy’s very anvil, and the thole of it endured for days beyond enduring and tallying. The hardest winter that any could remember save the very oldest. Pitiless in its harshness and become frightening in its interminable length. The Sun turned, the Moon turned, and winter lay immobile in its constancy.

The sea was grey, painful grey, cold enough to burn the skin. And slow and long. As if it were thickening to turn to ice. The gulls were out and about, their cries made of rasping ice. And distant. From the world on the other side of the drumbeats. The air was cutting cold, edged as shark’s fin slitting through the green deeps of the One Ocean faster than even two ponies together could run. Carrying the tang of the sea and the salt of the sea particularly strongly, it seemed, this morning. The wind sweeping from a direction to the north of east, whence it often swept and from far frozen lands, that none knew of, that none had even heard tales of, but all knew must be lands of darkness and ancient ice, close by the edge of the world. The haar left the world as the light grew. And then the Sun rose, embers and bloody, huge and round, from the far grey edge of the Northern Sea. And with it the wind rose in temper, again, and brought the next lash of the storm with a thick black line of snowclouds appearing just above the horizon, already giving chase to the orb of the sun.

Upon the grassy rise above the cove the watching figures all stood still. As stones. Visitants. As the song of the drum was the host. Each wreathed in the mist of his or her own breath, which hung and swirled as brume, making faces strange and unknown, until slowly the wind took it all into the world of the air, and thence to the sky. At the foot of the rise, where it flattened and made a small plateau just above the shingle and the burnmarks of winter stormtides, stood twenty stones of black granite, smoothed by hand and then buffed by weather of generations now untallied. In the shape of a crescent Moon about three days into its waxing with its two horns pointing out to the greyness and distance of the Northern Sea, that small stretch of the One Ocean which covered all the world and held the lands of the world while it so willed above the water, so that all the elements could meet and dance and life be Woven into being and play. Upon each stone on its seaward face was carved a boar the size of a warrior’s chest. Some of the boars were standing still. Some, rippling with life, head low to the earth, snorting. And others with dander high and shoulders bristling. In the very centre of the crescent lay a square of slate slabs, each of its sides the length of four tall men. On this stood King Eoghann and the other kings of Alba.

The drum beat on, the only eternal pulse in this small world. Death’s dance. The rhythm of it the portent of His footsteps. And the distant, closing sound of them. Either side of the crescent Moon of stones the banners and flags that stood there, poles forced with difficulty into the winter-forged earth, were tugged this way and that by the wind straight off the sea, soon to be storm again. The largest banner showed a huge boar, face golden and starry Night for eyes, standing upon a sea of sky blues and silvers with the shapes of the waves formed out of crescent Moons. Another showed a goose, aureate like the soft morning Sun of spring, with its head turned straight backwards, standing in a cavern beneath the earth, a moor of bright yellow gorse above its head. And another, a Weaver banner, was of a woman in a long shift of willow green dancing atop the skin of a frame-drum. And the watchers watched all this. A motley host of the people of Inverness. Young and old. Children. Babes carried. All wrapped in plaid and cloak against the sharp and crystal wind.

Dudanbrach, late King of Fidach, flanked by two soldiers, walked from around a wide spar of rocks set on the northern rise of the small bay. Dressed in a simple robe of raw wool, beltless, barefoot, his hands bound behind his back with boarskin cuffs cut from a newly killed animal, the fresh blood of it smeared and frozen down his wrists. The gore was daubed without pattern over his face and his hair was slick with it. Stepping slower than the beating of the drum, Dudanbrach made his way down the snow-covered slope to the waiting kings. The wind seemed to tug and tear more wildly around him than anywhere else on the shore and flurries of snow hawked and harried him like tormenting ghosts. The whole man’s body was drawn and dried and pinched with the cold. White. Life small. Frost, like rime, caked his eyes and mouth and the hem of his simple robe.

He reached the stone platform. Stumbled and almost fell. Then stumbled again, and did so, landing heavily on his knees. With an effort, which showed painfully in his face, he pulled himself to his feet, fighting against his dearth of balance. He stopped and stood when he was by the sea side edge of the water-filled basin and faced the six kings. Wretchedness showed on his face. Remorse also. Fear, confusion and complete lostness. Dudanbrach took a deep, frail breath. Sighed out. And, at last, while the drum beat on and on, raised his eyes from his feet where they gazed at nothing, and looked at King Eoghann, Ard-Rigd of Alba. Empty. Dudanbrach’s eyes were empty. His life was ending and had already gone from them.

You may speak, you who have no name of ourkind now. You who know no one, for no one now knows you. Kin you were. And King. Married to one of the ancient and unbroken line of the tribe of Alba. And now you are not of the tribe of Alba, not of the Kingdom of Alba. Not of this world anymore. You may speak. So that all gathered at this place, which also we give no name to, may hear. King Eoghann spoke slow and loud, his words carrying far above the drum so that all the watchers could hear.

Dudanbrach’s eyes moved for an instant and flashed with the light of life. The dullness faded from them, to be replaced by the presence of the man he once was. He licked his sorely chapped lips and swallowed hard. Nodded.

There was a slight movement in the throng just above where the disgraced king had walked by to the crescent platform. A woman moved, slowly making her way through the massed crowd to the front. All who looked upon her face, or heard her whispered entreaties, made a narrow space for her to slip through and pass onwards. She reached the front. With bare and frozen hands she clutched to her breast a thick winter cloak of fluffy black wool with an empty white roundel woven on the back of it. Magga. Magga, of the ancient line of Alba, carrier of it, and Queen of Fidach.

Her