Bird of Passage by Catherine Czerkawska Page B

he could wash his fingers. Now there was another magic thing about Dermot: anything he might touch would have the scent of honey upon it. He cooked the fish, and then he said to Grania, would she like a morsel, and it smelled so good that she took up a piece of it and put it in her mouth. She thought it had a strange taste for a fish. She took up the bowl of water where he had dipped his fingers and put it to her nose. As soon as she did that, she could smell the powerful honey in it, and she knew that the stranger was Dermot. By then, she was tired of the earl, who had not been by any means what she had thought he might be, so she went to Dermot  and threw her two arms around him and kissed him.
    The earl of fairyland leapt up with a roar and attacked Dermot, but Dermot killed him, and he went away from the Dun. Grania followed him, all the way down to the seashore, and she called to him and called to him, but he would not turn round. The corncrake was calling in the reeds, crek crek he was calling. And the heron was flying over the water. And there was Dermot, sitting on a big rock. And Grania said “Are you hungry Dermot? I will feed you. I have food and drink enough for both of us.”
    Dermot said “Give me a piece of your bread, Grania.”
    She said “Where is a knife, that will cut it?”
    Then he said to her “Why will you not search for it in the place where you sheathed it last,” meaning the wound that she had given him in the leg, and at that she was overcome with shame. She went to him and she drew the knife out and gave it back to him, and that was the greatest shame that any woman ever had, when she realised how she had betrayed this man and wounded him, and now wanted him back again.’
    There was a moment’s silence. It was always like this, thought Kirsty. It was as though her grandfather had conjured up images from the sea and the land around them. It was a kind of magic; he took the memories of the island, the sticks and stones, the shells and feathers and water, and transformed them into words. It was an old skill and few could manage it like Alasdair.
    After a while, Finn said ‘That tune…’
    ‘What tune?’ asked Kirsty.
    ‘The tune that the earl played… are there really tunes like that?’
    ‘A melody to enchant a woman? Of course,’ said Alasdair. ‘There are all kinds of fiddle tunes that are as old as the hills, and some of them have been passed down from the fairies themselves. I’ll let you hear it, if you like.’
    Back at Dunshee, Alasdair invited Finn into the kitchen. Isabel was away on a shopping trip to the mainland with the minister’s wife and the ladies of the Guild, so there was nobody to object. Alasdair got the old fiddle down from its nail, tuned it up, and played a plaintive melody, which he said was a fairy song .
    ‘I would like…’ Finn began, and then hesitated.
    ‘What would you like?’ asked Alasdair.
    ‘Nothing. No.’ He turned to Kirsty. ‘Can you play that?’
    ‘The fiddle?’ She shook her head.
    Alasdair laughed. ‘Not for lack of encouragement. I always hoped she would try, but she has no patience with it. None at all. She sings sweetly enough but she is no musician. Why? Would you like to learn, Finn? My wee Kirsty will do nothing but make pictures.’
    Finn coloured and looked down at the floor. ‘I couldn’t do it.’
    ‘Why couldn’t you do it?’
    ‘I’ve no brains, mister.’
    ‘Who told you you’d no brains?’
    ‘They tell me at the school. Plug ugly and pig ignorant. That’s me.’
    There was a sudden silence in the room. Alasdair gazed at Finn. Kirsty could see that he looked very angry. But not with Finn.
    ‘Why would you say that?’
    ‘Because it’s true.’
    That’s what they always told him. And he was glad of it. It was safer that way. Nobody looked twice at you if you were plug ugly and pig ignorant. One of the herd. That was the trick of it. That was the way you survived. Look what happened if you were