Caldecott The Eye of Callanish

1. Auflage 2001
ISBN: 978-1-84319-314-2
Verlag: Mushroom eBooks
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 180 Seiten

At the beginning of the twelfth century on the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland, a young girl, Mairi, is persecuted for being in league with the Devil. She believes that she is able to communicate with the ancient people who built the temple of Tall Stones at Callanish.
Mairi is aided in her escape from her persecutors by Neil and the hermit Brother Durston, who we first met in Weapons of the Wolfhound. On the way they face many dangers and frightening situations. But just who are these ancient people that Mairi is communicating with? Neil is fascinated by the search for Truth ... and at the same time terrified of it...
The Eye of Callanish is the sequel to Moyra Caldecott's Weapons of the Wolfhound.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Caldecott, Moyra

Leseproben

Chapter 2
The Nocturnal Ride
By the time he reached Kirkoway, Neil had recovered his composure. But just in case there was any lingering shadow of influence from the weird Stones, he tethered Flame and went into the tiny grey church that stood on the hill overlooking the village. He knelt on the cold stone floor in the dim interior and prayed for protection from evil spirits. The figure of the dead Christ hanging from a cross overshadowed the whole place. The silence was heavy and he was as glad to leave this place as he had been to leave the Devil’s Stones. Outside he found Flame surrounded by interested children, nervously and shyly stamping and tossing his head, not sure whether to trust the many small hands that were stroking and pulling at his mane and tail. Neil took his bridle and led him away, the children excitedly accompanying him, only too happy to point out the house where the owner of the white horse lived. It was a woman who greeted Neil when the children shouted at the door, and when she heard that he was interested in buying the white mare she apologized for her husband not being at home and invited him in. The children tried to crowd in after them, but she chased them away with a show of fierceness. They scattered, laughing and chattering, eager to spread the news of the arrival of a stranger in the village: a stranger who asked about the white mare. The woman looked older than she was. Her face was tired and sad and as she moved she hunched her shoulder in a way that suggested that she was used to fending off sudden blows. He soon noticed that she was unwilling to talk about the mare and decided to leave the subject until her husband returned. He watched her stirring a huge iron cauldron of mutton broth that hung over the central peat fire, and thought how lucky he was to live in a house with many rooms. The steam was rising into the thatch and the smell pervaded the whole cottage. He established that her husband was a freeman with a smallholding of arable land and grazing for four animals, unlike the other villagers who were mostly fishermen. The loch came close in against the hill on which the church stood, to make a fine sheltered harbour. The couple had one daughter, but the woman seemed as unwilling to talk about her as she was to talk about the white mare. Neil began to wonder how such people could own a Norman horse? Even the tough, stocky little Island horses were almost unknown in villages as small as this, but a horse bred from the stock the Normans had brought from France would be very rare indeed. Such animals were usually only to be found belonging to one of the great Norse lords or a family such as his own — descended from a chief’s family and the daughter of a Norse jarl. Neil was beginning to be impatient with the long wait when he heard the clatter of hooves outside. As he moved to the door to see who it was, he fancied the woman gave him an anxious look, but he soon forgot her completely as his eyes took in the scene in front of the house. The heavy grey clouds that had hung over him during most of his journey that morning had lifted and a shaft of light illumined the white mare and its rider. Nothing he had heard had prepared him for what he saw. The steed was quicksilver and moonlight, the rider a young woman of extraordinary beauty, slender and graceful, hair of midnight and eyes of midday. The two, rider and mount, were so perfectly in harmony with each other that Neil knew then, in his heart, that he could not bear to separate them. He heard the woman move behind him and felt her push him aside as she came to stand at the door. ‘Where have you been?’ she cried, and her voice was both angry and frightened. The young woman looked at her mother and then, without answering, looked back at Neil. He felt awkward, clumsy, and as though he owed her some kind of explanation. He stepped forward, but found that he could think of nothing to say. Her gaze did not waver. Whether she had heard what he had come for or not he could not tell. Her eyes were wary, but not hostile. He walked over to her and touched the white mare’s nose. Nervously she twitched away from his hand. The girl murmured something and stroked her ears reassuringly. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he said at last. ‘What do you call her?’ For a long while the girl sat perfectly still, staring at the mare’s silver mane. Her mother had gone back into the house and they were alone in a cocoon of silence which separated them from the rest of the world. ‘She’s called Moon-Metal,’ she said at last in a very low voice, ‘because...’ And then she paused. ‘Because?’ he prompted. ‘Because she came to me at full moon... shining like silver.’ He was puzzled by this, but not surprised that the mare had come into the family by extraordinary means. ‘And your name?’ he asked gently. ‘Mairi,’ she said simply. The way she said it reminded him of a song he had heard as a child — a song left over from the days when the fires were lit regularly on the beacon hills. They heard a rough voice shouting and looked round to see a huge, thickset man with a red face bearing down on them. ‘My father,’ Mairi said quickly, and all the light seemed to go out of her face. Without a word of greeting to him she touched Moon-Metal’s flanks with her heels and walked her away round the side of the cottage. Neil found it difficult to believe that Mairi was the daughter of this uncouth giant and the faded wisp of a woman in the cottage. She might have had something of the cast of her mother’s features perhaps... for there was still some evidence left in that tired face that the woman had once been beautiful... but there was nothing of her father in her, and it would seem by the haste with which she had left at his approach there was no great affection between them. ‘You have come to see the mare,’ the man growled as soon as he was near enough. His eyes were deeply suspicious and there was no welcoming smile on his lips. ‘I have,’ Neil said quickly. ‘I heard that she was for sale. But if that is not true...’ ‘Who said it was not true?’ snapped the man. ‘If the price is right...’ ‘Your daughter seems very fond of her. I would not want to...’ ‘My daughter has no say in the matter!’ the man said sharply. ‘The mare is for sale.’ Neil was silent. He wished that his family had never heard of the white mare. ‘Perhaps... if I had some idea of what you considered a fair price...’ ‘All in good time,’ Mairi’s father said, his harsh voice softening a little. ‘Do I speak to a man without a name?’ Neil told him his name and his father’s name, and his grandfather’s name. ‘From Uig... from beyond the high peaks?’ ‘Yes.’ He was glad his family was recognised. It would make it more unlikely that he would be cheated. ‘You have come a long way, second son of Lorn.’ ‘The fame of the white mare has spread a long way.’ The man’s eyes narrowed. He looked hard at Neil. ‘What have you heard?’ ‘Of her beauty... of her speed... that she is descended from a Saracen horse brought back by the Normans from the holy crusade.’ ‘And that is all?’ ‘Is there more?’ The man was silent, his face closed and thoughtful. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘There is no more.’ * * * * Neil did not see Mairi in the afternoon. She sat silently with them while they drank some of her mother’s unappetizing broth and ate some flat, sour bread, but disappeared as soon as she had cleared away the bowls and platters. Her father, Braden, insisted on showing him the white mare himself. Neil noticed that she was ill at ease when handled by the man and shied away nervously, but seemed calmer with himself. Braden pulled heavily on the bit and spoke to her roughly. To spare her suffering Neil asked to ride her and was grudgingly given permission. As he rode through the village he dreaded meeting Mairi, wishing that he could speak with her about the mare before he was forced to make a final decision. It struck him as he rode about that this was one of the most unfriendly villages he had ever visited. Everyone he met stared at him, but no one greeted him. If he smiled and waved they were prepared to nod in response, but none chose to speak to him or to welcome him as a stranger should be welcomed. Even the children who had been so friendly before, ran to see him as he passed by, or gathered in groups to stare after him, but there was something in their way of looking at him now that puzzled him. It was as though they were waiting for something to happen. Once she was over her shyness with him the silver mare was a pleasure to ride. He took her away from the village and galloped her towards the open moorland, glad to be away from the brooding shadow that seemed to hang over the village. The mare had grace and speed and sensitivity. He wished he could ride away home there and then and not have to face the girl’s sorrow and the man’s greed. He changed his mind several times — at one moment determined to leave the mare with Mairi, at another, coveting the beautiful creature for his sister. He remembered how her eyes had shone so much at the thought of the mare that her family had teased her by asking whom she would cherish more, Sir Kenneth, her bridegroom, or the white mare, her steed. The sea, now that the light had broken through, was patched with silver, the deep grey water holding innumerable shining mirrors to the sun. From the height of the moor he could see the islands...