The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
The Walrus Mutterer: Episode 73
This was unpalatable food and she knew she must carry it inside her forever
Manigan laid both his hands flat on the walrus’s head and took a deep breath. “The story goes: The walrus needed a name.” Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus needed to be remembered.” Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus was old and knew that when he died he might be forgotten, and all his wise guardianship would be washed away and wasted.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus knew that being forgotten was like a bright ice-wind, white and cold. By now the Old Gentleman was staring at me and I knew I had him mesmerised.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus feared the emptiness, the infinite emptiness of being forgotten. I could see that fear in the Old Gentleman’s eyes too.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus did not want to be lost in time.”
Dmm. “The story goes: Wandering.”
Dmm. “The story goes: Lost in time.”
Dmm. “The story goes:…” Manigan left a long pause. “Forgotten.”
Dmm. “The story goes:…” Again a pause, and Manigan said: “This is where the wind and sea join in and tell their part of the story, for they know all about forgetting. They helped the Old Gentleman to understand it.”
A bond
He waited and they listened to the fire breathing like the wind and crackling like the sea on sand. Eventually, Manigan nodded, and the drum spoke. Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus needed a name.” Dmm. “The story goes: A name gives immortality.” Dmm. “The story goes: A name is a bond with the namer that lives on beyond death.”
Dmm. “The story goes: A name is written into the heart.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus knew that if he had a name, he would not be lost in the iced wind of time.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus will do anything to avoid that.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The void.”
Dmm. “The story goes: Anything.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus needs to escape the void.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus asks to escape the void.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus seeks to be remembered.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus pleads to be released from being forgotten.”
Dmm. “The story goes: The walrus blinks.” “Did he blink?”
“He blinked.”
Rian remembered what Badger had told her, the stories within stories within stories, of which this was the innermost tale, like a capercaillie stuffed with a seagull stuffed with a cuckoo stuffed with a sandpiper stuffed with a wren. And inside the wren, what is there? The name.
Manigan shifted one hand off the walrus’s head and gestured down the animal.
“The Old Gentleman gave a sharp flap of his rear flippers and all the other walruses knew what that meant. Those that were awake headed for the water, which woke the others, and in the way they do, they stampeded to the safety of the sea.
“But the Old Gentleman stayed with me, because he wanted to be remembered.”
Dmm. The drum urged him on.
“The story goes: The walrus is given his name.” Dmm. “The story ends.”
Dmm. There was silence.
Dmm, the drum demanded.
“The story ends.”
Dmm. The drum sounded greedy. Manigan paused.
Struggling
Rian could tell he was struggling with an old vow, revealing what he must not say to anyone else except the next Mutterer. He took a deep breath.
“I wrote his name in sand with the point of my spike. It is a simple name, just one letter. But Old Gentlemen like him do not read well, so he had to study it for a while. And then he blinked again and I wrote it on his heart.”
“The name?”
“His name.” He nodded. “What is his name?” Shadow’s voice was a cold stone.
Rian closed her eyes. Surely they shouldn’t force him to reveal such a magic secret? But she couldn’t keep herself from watching Manigan for long.
He sighed. “Old man.” He patted the walrus gently on the head and its whiskers seemed to move as if it would speak.
“I promised you would be remembered. Here are my witnesses. The name I gave you is the only name I have to give. His name is I.”
He bent down and wrote a symbol in the dust on the floor with his finger, a line with five perpendicular slashes across it, a yew leaf, the second letter of Rian’s own name.
She looked at the walrus. Its name was part of her own. “Death,” said Shadow. “Iadh, last letter of the alphabet, the tree of death.”
“Aye,” Manigan smiled wryly. “Now you know.” Rian felt her stomach churn. This was unpalatable food and she knew she must carry it inside her forever.
Dmm, the drum said suddenly.
“The story has ended,” Manigan said to it, softly. “Iadh, the great and noble walrus, will be remembered.”
Dmm, the drum agreed, and then for a while only it spoke, a slow pulse, as everything in the chamber absorbed and ruminated on what they had heard. Its slowing heart beat ebbed into the stones.
Duh Dum.
Duh Dum.
Duh Dum.
Miserable
The fire was dying, hungry for food. When the drum stopped, Rian looked at Shadow and Manigan to try to gauge what she should do about it, but she couldn’t make out what they might want.
Shadow seemed locked in a drum-induced trance. Manigan just looked miserable, his hands now taken off the head and hanging limp beside him, his head drooping.
She took it upon herself to feed the fire. It was the one thing in the world she could do. Some small sticks first, which she coaxed to life with her breath. Flames flickered and darted and seemed to stir Manigan.
He rubbed his face and smiled at her. He looked so young in the firelight she wanted to stroke him. She put three bigger sticks onto the little blaze and sat back while the fire tasted them.
“I ask the sea spirits for advice. I ask the Old Gentleman for forgiveness. I ask the Death Stone for mercy.”
He touched the three-faced stone lightly, then put his hands back on top of the walrus head.
“The Old Gentleman’s friends had left him to his naming ceremony, because they are polite and perhaps also a little scared of me.
“Bonxie and his men slaughtered them. I had told them not to. There was blood in the sea. Spears. It was wrong. I shouted at them to stop.
“There was nothing else I could do. They made a sacrilege of the muttering. I am ashamed to be a man among such men.”
His voice was cracking, thick with emotion.
More tomorrow.