The secret is safe here. You must trust us. Do you trust Rian?” “With my life”

The space was open and huge. The song echoed around inside it. Rian noticed that her toes were taking her weight and her legs were crossed over them. She uncrossed them and pressed the whole flat of her foot into the earth, allowing her body to make contact with the ground and sitting upright as Danuta had taught her to do when using her voice.

She breathed deeply, slowly, following the breaths of Shadow’s singing.

The music evoked the sea’s motions, the sloshing of waves, the glide of a swimming creature, fluent in the dance of water.

When it stopped, Rian leaned forwards, fed three more sticks to the fire and sat back.

Manigan got to his feet and went to stand beside the head of the walrus. “It’s time to bid farewell, old friend.”

He touched the top of the wrinkled skin on the skull. “Come and say goodbye.”

He gestured to Kino and Badger who got up and patted the giant creature, muttered under their breaths, then turned and strode, without instruction, out of the temple.

Ceremony

They could be heard rattling belts and weapons in the ante-chamber, briefly, then the door banged.

Their rapid exit made Rian see that they were happy to be out of there. Yet there was nothing she wanted less.

Now the real ceremony would begin and neither Manigan nor Shadow seemed to be indicating she should leave.

Indeed, Shadow looked relaxed on her bench in the centre of the space, directly facing the door, with Rian on her right, the walrus and Manigan on her left.

The firelight cast dancing shadows on the curved vault of the chamber and on the clutter of jars in the shelved booths: containers of the dead, no doubt, fragments, relics, memories.

Other walruses? Perhaps. Forgotten people, almost certainly.

Manigan pulled the stone head out of its bag and set it on the bench beside him, with the Sage’s face towards the walrus.

“Tell what happened.” Shadow’s voice was so much deeper and more powerful than the singing sound she had made, Rian looked up at her. She was commanding, even though relaxed. “Say everything the sea spirits need to hear.” Manigan had his head bowed. “I cannot.”

“You must.”

“I am the Mutterer. I cannot tell the muttering. It is secret.”

“If you do not tell us, it will die with you.”

“I can only tell the next Mutterer.”

“The secret is safe here. You must trust us. Do you trust Rian?”

“With my life.” He half turned towards her and Rian almost fell off her stool with the power his eyes directed at her.

She felt naked. How could anyone look so beautiful? He gleamed in the firelight.

“But I cannot share the muttering with anyone except my successor.”

“Perhaps she is it.”

“No. It will be a boy of my blood. It is foretold.” “You can tell us. It is safe.”

He shook his head and rubbed his hand over his hair as if his head hurt.

“I will tell all that I dare. May the sea spirits guide me.”

Then he put both hands on the head of the walrus and began.

Safe passage

“Old man, here is the story of your ending. May it not be the end of your story. May I not lie or tell halftruths. May the great spirit of the North bless this telling.

“May Mother Earth forgive me for my killing. May the sea spirits make your soul-journey as noble as it deserves to be.

“May I say all I can to help you find the safe passage to another life and may I say nothing that should not be said.

“May the dead here listen and help us to understand what we have done and how to heal the damage that we have been part of making.

“May the living hear and speak and learn and know how next to act.

“We seek only to appease and to prevent any further wrong-doing.” He paused.

“I am the Mutterer. I am duty bound to answer a request for help by those who seek to hunt a walrus. We were sheltering on Fair Isle.

“Jan Bonxie came and asked me to guide a hunt on one of the northern Seal Isles.

“We set out this morning at first light and found the walruses on a spit of sand. There were 10 of them, guarded by this old gentleman.

“I had explained to Bonxie and his men how we would proceed, so I did as I always do.”

This was not his normal story voice, not the rambling, striding locution Rian had learned to love to listen to.

This was a formal report.

He was choosing his words carefully. He was spelling out the events piece by piece in simple phrases, as if speaking to people who may not fully understand his first language, or speaking to a child. Or as if he was a boy.

“I landed and prayed. The Old Gentleman was on guard, the others resting.

“I approached slowly and once I was within earshot I began the muttering.

“I told him the story and as I told, I crept nearer.” “Tell us the story.” Shadow raised her beater and lowered it.

The drum spoke: “Doom.”

Manigan shifted, his shoulders hunched. His voice shrank to a dark monotone.

“The story goes: This is a story about a walrus.”

Single beat

Shadow gave a single beat and Manigan nodded. “The story goes: Once upon a time there was a walrus.”

Again the deep voice of the drum responded as if pegging the story phrase into the earth.

“The story goes: The greatest walrus that ever was.” The drum spoke again. Doom.

“The story goes: This is the tale of the walrus who saved the day.”

Doom.

“The story goes: He was your ancestor.” Manigan paused. “And then I said: ‘Are you listening to me? It’s about a walrus. Open your eye and blink once if you understand.’”

Shadow held the drumstick up. “Did the walrus blink?”

“He blinked.”

“Go on.” She hit the drum.

As the story went on, the drum gave an “mm” of understanding to each phrase, as if absorbing it into the stones.

More on Monday.