Taster's 32

Do I believe that my mother's fetch appeared at Nether Ness? If I told that same story here in the scriptorium and changed the details, saying that she had reappeared emitting a strange glow and holding a copy of the Bible, my colleagues would accept my version of events without hesitation. So why would not the farmers of Snaefells be just as convinced that she had reappeared? Farmers can be as credulous as priests. There is hardly a soul in that remote farming community who doubts that Thorgunna came back to haunt the stingy farmer at Nether Ness, and while there might be an earthly explanation for the happenings at Nether Ness, until this explanation is supplied I am prepared to accept the supernatural. During my lifetime of travels I was to see many odd sights that defy conventional explanation. Within a few years of my mother's death I too encountered a fetch, and on the eve of a great battle I had strange and vivid forebodings which proved to be accurate. Often I've witnessed events which somehow I know that I have seen before, and sometimes my dreams at night recall events that are in the past, but sometimes they also bring me into the future. The facility for seidr is improved by apprenticeship to a practitioner, but there must be a natural talent in the first place, which is nearly always a question of descent. Volva and seidrmanna come from the same families down through the generations, and this is why I have spent so much time writing of the strange circumstances of Thorgunna's departure from this life and the hauntings: my mother gave me neither affection nor care, but she did bequeath to me a strange and disturbing gift a power of second sight, which occasionally overwhelms me and over which I have no control.

'And you believe this?' Marco glanced at Su-Ling.

'Why not? I am not a Christian but I recognise your Christ as the Lord of Light. You must believe what Brother Raphael says to you.'

She chose her words carefully. Marco had never heard such a beautiful voice: calm, tinged with laughter.

'Spiritual truths are like human truths: they can be manifest in many ways, take many forms - but that does not mean they are not the truth. Surely you agree with that, signor?' She'd understood Raphael's use of the Italian title. 'Would you not agree that the sky at night is beautiful? A lily in full bloom beautiful? A galloping mare beautiful? Snow on the mountain peaks beautiful? So it is with truth. I do not fully understand some of the terms Brother Raphael uses but I recognise the truth he speaks.'

Feeling slightly chastened, Marco bowed in acknowledgement. Sanghra smiled, Kublai chuckled deep in his throat. He was looking at both the Buddhist nun and the Franciscan as if they were a favourite son and daughter. Marco's heart warmed to the Great Khan: a ruler of power, of great personal majesty and charisma, yet there was something childlike about him. The Supreme Lord of Cathay sat like a small boy fascinated by a storyteller. The Khan took out a pearl-encrusted fan and gently wafted it, inhaling the perfume it exuded.

'Continue, Brother Raphael. I have heard your story before but it's more fascinating in the retelling.'

'Azrael is limited,' the Franciscan continued obediently. 'He needs to be housed in a human soul, a human body ...'

It didn't seem so terribly evil, what she was doing. The bones were, after all, only bones. She remembered how Galiena had explained it to her in that maddening, superior sort of way, as if she didn't know anything at all. 'My dear,' Galiena had said, making it sound as if she was saying "you slut", 'he is dead. Died long ago. So this will be no harm to him. He is with God. Isn't that what you believe?' And the long, ovate, down-slanted eyes had glinted, reminding her of a snake. 'And if he is with God, he can have no need for his bones.' [...]

The words echoing hollowly across her memory, she tiptoed to the shrine and, with surprising audacity, reached out and touched the box. There was no resistance. She put her hand to the latch and, with no more than a slight clicking, released it and lifted the lid. This was ridiculously easy. She peered into the gilded depths and saw the bones there, neatly arranged, not as if he had died, not as if he was in a coffin, but fumbled all together to fit. 'Surely it is not customary to open the reliquary to see if he is in there. No one,' that had been Galiena's final, convincing argument 'No one will look for the bones. Why would they? And therefore they will not know that they are missing.'