Melcorka gasped as the vision came to her. She saw the black cloud dissipate from the Loch of the Monster, and the people of the Caledonian Forest discard their cannibalism. She saw the Moss-men drop their weapons and prepare to guide travellers across their watery domain. She saw the cat-people release their cats to the wild and throw their claws into the sea.
Peace had come to Alba and the Jarldom of Thorfinn.
“We did it, Bradan,” Melcorka said.
“We did,” Bradan said, “and the High King owes us a favour.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
They sat on sun-warmed boulders, with the clouds fragmenting along the green hill-ridge beside them and the burn laughing as it descended to the fertile land below.
“This is where we shall build our house,” Melcorka looked out to the foot of the glen, where the sea loch lapped at white sands, and Catriona bobbed in the lee of a natural breakwater. “Here, where the land meets the sea. Here we shall raise our family, and here we shall greet visitors as friends, whether we know them or not.”
“It is the Alban way,” Bradan agreed. “The grass is sweet for cattle, the soil is rich for crops, and we are on the highway for travellers by land or sea.”
“This will be our home,” Melcorka said, “and here you will create your library of books and discuss history and philosophy and the meaning of the stars with all the scholars of Alba and beyond.”
Standing, they began the easy descent to the green glen, with the gentle air of Alba cooling them and the cry of oystercatchers calling them home. A grove of rowan trees waved in welcome, the red berries a cheerful sight.
“I will place Defender above the fireplace,” Melcorka said, “and hope that she slowly rusts from disuse, for Alba has become a peaceful place.”
“That is a good thing to hope,” Bradan tapped his rowan-wood stick on the ground. “May God grant peace to Alba and every other nation under his sun.”
As Melcorka stepped on to a small knoll, the sun cast her shadow before her, with the hilt of Defender forming a long cross on the ground. “There,” she said, “on that patch of holy ground, there we will build our house.”
“And here, in this corner of Alba, all good people will be welcome, as long as they come in peace.”
“And if they do not,” Melcorka touched the hilt of Defender. “I shall have something to say about it.”
Historical Note
True Thomas, or Thomas the Rhymer, or Thomas of Ercildoun (c1220-c1298) was a mediaeval seer from the Scottish Borders. He is said to have foreseen the death of King Alexander III as well as many other events. However, there is no known record of his travelling backwards in time to the early 11th century, Melcorka's era.
King Malcolm II, Mael Coluim, sometimes known as Forranach, the Destroyer, did defeat the Northumbrians at the Battle of Carham in 1018 (some say 1016) after many people had observed a comet in the sky. By all accounts, Mael Coluim was a ruthless king, the High King of Scotland, while Owen the Bald of Strathclyde was a sub-king under his rule. Malcolm ruled Alba – Scotland – for an impressive 29 years, at a time that other nations exchanged rulers with the regularity of a revolving door.
The Royal Storm. At one time, many people believed that a mighty storm heralded the death of a king. When a member of the royalty was elderly, or gravely ill, people would look upwards during wild weather and wonder if the heavens were preparing to accept another entrant. Given the number of wild days in Scotland, there must be many Scottish royals up there.
The Bass Rock sits at the entrance to the Firth of Forth, the great bight of the North Sea that gives access to Edinburgh and the south coast of Fife. It is still the home of an enormous colony of gannets and has a fascinating history. Although there is no tunnel from the landing stage to the upper surface, there is a tunnel within the rock.
Thorfinn the Mighty, Jarl of Orkney, also existed. Orkney was the centre of a Norse jarldom or earldom, which was often at war with its Scottish neighbour and frequently sent expeditions to fight in Ireland or England. The frontier between Alba and the Norse Jarldom was fluid, depending on who was in the ascendancy at the time, but when Mael Coluim was High King, it was somewhere around the Moray Firth.
The story of the Loch Ness monster is too well known to relate here, but although many people think the legend was created to aid tourism, the loch had an evil reputation long before Scotland sought summer visitors. According to one (unsubstantiated) source, people once sacrificed animals and children to something in the loch, and sometimes saw a dark cloud drifting over the surface. Many Scottish lochs and rivers have legends of strange creatures, with a water horse being standard, and some rivers have a reputation for taking one person, a sacrifice, a year. The Spey is one such, and the Tweed another. Since the sacrifices ended, the salmon catch seems to have lessened. Strange, that…
The Cu Sith, the green fairy dog, was another mythological creature. It was a large dog that haunted the slopes of some Highland hills. If the traveller heard it bark three times, death was inevitable.
The evil eye was a much-feared thing in the Celtic world and probably beyond. I added to it with my grey men, but the fear was genuine enough.
The Cu-Saeng was a legendary monster that hunted and killed people across northwest Scotland. As nobody who saw it ever survived, nobody knew how it looked.
The Flanders Moss existed as a vast swathe of bogland across the waist of Scotland. Most was drained in the 18th century and is now fertile farmland, although a small segment remains and can be visited.
Caithness and Sutherland were once
