Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

FIFTEEN

Allba wore around her neck an amulet in the shape of a bird. She never took it off, even when we were making love. The bird was her companion, she said, and she asked why I did not wear my own. As a man I should carry it on a cord looped round from my neck and under my arm, so that the talisman hung within my armpit. 'Are you so brave that you risk travelling alone?' she asked. 'Even my father does not do that.' I thought she was talking of a good-luck charm and I made a joke of it, telling her that I had a dozen talismans in my trade pack and was well guarded. It was one of the few times I saw Allba angry. She told me not to play the fool.

When I asked Rassa why his daughter had reacted with such intensity, he asked if I remembered where I had first joined the siida. 'The fishing had been very bad in that place,' he reminded me. 'The fish had gone away. They were still there, but they were not there. We had to move to where another sieidde would accept our sacrifices.'

'How could the fish be there and not there?'

'They had gone away to their own saivo river. I could have followed them, or sent my companion to plead with the water spirit who sent them there. But if the water spirit was still angry, the fish might not have returned.'

The saivo, according to Rassa, is a world which lies alongside our own. It is a mirror of our world, yet more substantial and in it live the spirits of the departed and the companions of the living. These companions come into our world to join us as wraiths and sometimes we can visit the saivo ourselves, but we need our guardian wraiths to guide and protect us.

'Our companions are animals, not people,' Rassa said, putting aside the wooden bowl he had been carving. 'Every Sabme has one - whether it is a fox, a lynx, a bird or some other animal. When we are very young the drum tells our parents which creature is to be our saivo companion through life. Occasionally the wrong choice is made and then the child gets sick or has an accident. So we ask the drum again and it indicates a new companion, one that will be more suitable. Since Allba was a baby her saivo wraith is the bird whose image she wears.'

'Among my people,' I said, 'there are fylga, the fetches. I have seen them myself at times of death. They are our other-persons from another world. When they appear, they resemble us directly. Do you mean that I have an animal companion as well?'

Rassa reached across to where his drum lay on the ground. It was always close to his hand. He placed the arpa on the taut drum skin, and without even closing his eyes or singing his chant, he gave a single hard rap on the drum with his forefinger. The arpa leaped, struck the wooden rim and bounced back. It landed on the outline figure of a bear.

I chose to doubt him. 'How do I know that my companion is a bear?'

'It was decided for you at the time of your birth.' 'But I was born on an island in the ocean where there are no bears.'

'Perhaps a bear entered the lives of your parents.'

I thought for a moment. 'I was told that when my father first met my mother, he was on his way back from a voyage to Norway to deliver a captive polar bear. But he had handed over the bear many weeks before he met my mother, and anyhow the bear died soon afterwards.'

'You will find that the bear died about the time you were born,' said Rassa firmly. 'The bear's spirit has protected you since then. That is your good fortune. The bear is the most powerful of all creatures. It has the intelligence of one man and the strength of nine.'

Before the sun vanished below the horizon for winter, Rassa suggested that if I wanted to know more about the saivo I should enter it myself. I hesitated. I told him that my experience of the other world had been in brief glimpses, through second sight, usually in the company of others who also possessed the ability, and that sometimes the experience had been disturbing and unpleasant. I said I was doubtful that I had the courage to enter the spirit world deliberately and alone. He assured me that my spirit companion would protect me, and that he himself could assist me to pass through the barrier that separated us from the saivo. 'Your second sight shows that you already live close enough to the saivo to see through the veil that divides it from us. I am only proposing that you pass through the veil entirely and discover what lies on the other side.'

'How do I know that I will be able to return?' I asked.

'That, too, I can arrange with Allba's help,' he answered.

He woke Allba and me long before dawn the next day. He had already lit a small fire in the central hearth and cleared a space at the back of the tent. There was enough room for me to sit cross-legged on a square of deerskin. The hide was placed fur side down, and its surface had been painted with the four white lines in the pattern that I had known from throwing the rune counters and the Saxon wands. Rassa indicated that I should sit within the central square and that Allba would squat facing me. 'As my daughter, she has inherited some of my powers,' he said. 'If she is near at hand, you may meet her in the saivo.'

Allba's presence gave me more confidence, for I was feeling very nervous. She untied the small leather pouch she wore on her belt when she went on her hunting trips and shook out the contents onto the deerskin in front of me. The red caps with their white spots were faded to a dull, mottled pink, but I could still recognise the dried and shrivelled mushrooms. Allba picked them over carefully, running her small fingers over them delicately, feeling their rough surface. Then she selected three of the smallest. Carefully putting the others back into the pouch, she left two of the mushrooms on the deerskin, placed the third in her mouth and began to chew deliberately. She kept her eyes on me, her gaze never wavering. After a little time, she put her hand to her mouth and spat out the contents. She held out her palm to me. 'Eat,' she said. I took the warm moist pellet from her, placed it on my tongue and swallowed. Twice more she softened the mushrooms and twice more I swallowed.

Then I sat quietly facing her, observing the firelight play across her features. Her eyes were in shadow.

Time passed. I had no way of judging how long I sat there. Rassa stayed in the background and added several dry sticks to the fire to keep it alight.

Slowly, very slowly, I began to lose touch with my body. As I separated from its physical presence, I felt my body trembling. Once or twice I knew I twitched. But there was nothing I could do about it and I felt unconcerned. A hazy contentment was settling over me. My body seemed to grow lighter as my thoughts relaxed. Everything except for Allba's face became indistinct. She did not move, yet her face came closer and closer. I saw every tiny detail with extraordinary clarity. The lobe of her right ear filled my vision. I detected the gentle blush of blood beneath the skin, the soft fuzz of hair. I wanted to reach out and nibble it in my teeth.

Suddenly there was no ground beneath me. I was suspended in a comfortable space. I knew that my body was there with me, but it had no importance. Without any sensation of movement I was in an endless landscape of trees, snow and rock, but I felt no cold. I glided over the surface without contact. It was as if I was riding on a gentle air current. The trees were a vivid green and I could examine every leaf and wrinkle of the bark in minute detail. The snow reflected the colours of the rainbow, the crystals shifted, merged and rippled. A small bird flew up from a bush and I knew that it was Allba's companion. Between two trees I glimpsed the upright form of a white bear, close, yet not close. It was standing upright, its two eyes gazing at me with a human expression and motionless. I heard someone speaking to me. I recognised my own voice and replied. The conversation was reassuring. I felt peaceful. A bear, dark brown this time, appeared to one side of my path, head down, lumbering and swaying as it walked along and our tracks were converging. When the animal was in touching distance, we both halted. I felt the brush of a bird's wing against my cheek. The bear slowly turned to face me and its muzzle beneath the eyes seemed to smile.