1Robin Dreaming.

 Robin dreams of 3 moons rising; silver & bronze & gold. They are tucked like lint into the pocket of the sky & though they sing each to each there is no~one to hear. She dreams  a winter wind snapping & snarling down frosted valleys. She stands on the weidway under a net of stars with ice like shards of glass spiking the grass. Her feet know the way, moving surely from standing stone to standing stone between the shadows & always there is this anticipation.  This time.  This time it will end well. 

 In her dream Robin wears her jeans & one of her brother Ben's thick  fisherman's jerseys, thicker & warmer than her own, & because it is a dream & all things are possible, she is snuggly wrapped in Lal's 2nd best cloak, the blue one that is like a summer sky. Her fingers pluck @ the broken threads where the pin has caught, feeling the coarsness of the weaving & the oily slick of lanolin.  Her jeans & sneakers are never warm enough & the cold pricks like needles though she has pulled Lal's cloak up over her head & pinned it with Ari's dented tin pin. The air is cold with the smell of coming snow & the wind makes the shadows dance till she comes @ last to the brae, ducks her head under the lintel & steps down into the fire warmth of burning peat & the earthy smells of dry stone, wet wool drying, tallow, bitter rue & the iron smell of blood. Lal's boots are drying by the hearth.  His harp hangs on the wall but Lal is not here.  He is never here.

Robin can say that Lal's skin is the soft brown of milky coffee, his eyes a startling light green, his hair dark & a little long with 1/2 a dozen kill rings knotted through it but though she knows  these things about him she cannot see him. It is as if he has disolved into her dream, fading away until all she is left with are disparate pieces that never make a whole. 

Still the brae is familiar & welcoming. Ari's cap lies where she has tossed it on the hearthstone, with the string she uses as a cats craddle. Diarmuid's cloak hangs neatly from it's peg on the wall for he is a neat man & his wine cup is upended on  the wooden tray beside the earthernware pitcher of honey mead. Robin can not see Lal but Diarmuid & Ari she can  see quite clearly in her minds eye ~ Ari bird boned & tiny, her wild mop of red curls, her sidelong smile,  & the way Diarmuid's brows rise when Ari lies to him & Robin's heart lurches unexpectedly. Every time, every single time, she expects to find them here where they have always been, wrangling as they have wrangled since the day The Keeper of the Baddas lost patience completely & tossed Ari as novice to the satarist, Diarmuid ap Barrakee. It ended badly.

For a moment Robin hesitates. The room echos with the light insousiant cadences of a Barddas trained voice.

I am not sorry & you will not make me say I am.

Oh, Ari, Robin thinks, He deserved better. And for just a moment, through the drift of smoke & shadow, she seems to see the questioning tilt of Ari's small vixen face, the wry twist of Diarmuid's mouth because when all was done & dusted they only had each other. The missing them is an ache that Robin does not know how to ease.  There is no`one to tell. All the people who could understand are dead. Or should be.  Robin is never sure.

And the thing with this dream is not that it never changes, though Robin tries every time to alter it & make it into something else, but that it is so very real. She can smell the smoke that stings her eyes. The dirt scuffs under her feet as she crosses the floor. The rough stone catches on her fingers & when she reaches out for the harp on the wall, Lal's harp & not a very good one, a splinter snags her thumb & there is the smell & taste of blood & the dream ends. 

Even in her dreams Robin is tenacious. She begins again, dreaming three moons rising: silver, bronze, gold. She dreams the winter wind snarling down frosted valleys.  Her feet find the weirdway & she begins to walk...

***

Remember, Gran can be tart, you have the home advantage. It is not meant kindly & Robin, studying her bare feet on the verandah floor, sighs softly.  What Gran means is: behave yourselves. Do not shame yourselves. Easier for Ben, who @ 17 is out of school & gone 7 days a week on the White Heather & not expected to help. For Robin it is different. There are 2 small children, neither of whom she has met, & a much older brother, all arriving to stay @ Moongabbin, & all needing to be warned to stay away from the rooster, stay out of the mud, leave the bees alone & it will be Robin who will have to do it.  Gran does what she always does, ensconces herself on the side verandah with her turps & thinners & canvases & pointedly ignores the bellowing screams that arrive with Podge who is 2 & unbearabley spoilt because, the poor dear, has lost her mother. 

Robin eyes her with distaste knowing that Sophie is never going to be able to cope with Podge. Cobby is all cautious sticky out hair & freckles. The dogs alarm him. He is allergic to the cats. He has never seen an outdoor dunny before or a wooden range ~ or a generator ~but is prepared to be charmed by all Moongabbin's eccentricities. This makes him far more likeable in Robin's eyes than Nicholas, who @ 16 falls uncomfortably between Ben & Robin & takes the only spare bedroom because Ben is away too much to care about sharing with Cobby. Robin minds very much having to share with the obstreperous Podge whose sticky fingers can leave nothing of Robin's untouched.

With Gran for ballast the unweildy ship that has become Moongabbin might have managed but it is now that Gran finally dies & Moongabbin becomes Robin's. Robin, being more like Gran than Sophie, digs in her heels. She will not sell Moongabbin.  She will not rent Moongabbin.  She will not leave Moongabbin. It is now she begins to dream, the chaotic dreams of grief & loss. 

The first time she dreams the wold it is high summer & the drone of bees fills the air.  The grass is greener than Australian grass & not scorched by the sun. The sky is a softer blue, cloud shadows herding acoss the hillocks like grazing sheep. The sun lies somulent across a land heavy with sleep. It is the first time Robin walks the weirdway, her curious fingers tracing the interlocked patterns on the standing stones: weird & unbelievable animals out of mythos, helmeted warriors with long spears & short legged horses, horned gods & sheila na gigs. 

When she comes to the brae she doesn't hesitate. She pushes the heavy deerskin aside, ducks her head under the lintel & steps down into smokey dimness.  She has expected the brae to be empty. It is not. They are all there though in those first apalled moments all Robin can think of is the awfulness of bursting into someone's private home as she has just done. They turn towards her & unsure Robin hesitates struggling within her dream to change something, anything, anything to assuage the hot rush of blood up her face & avert the curious assessing gaze of so many eyes.

What stops her from abruptly turning & fleeing back the way she has come is Ari~ Or rather Ari's hair, which is the dark red of blood & a chaotic tumble of knotted curls. Hair like that should come with freckles but Ari's face is pale & unblemished. Her eyes are maliciously amused as if she knows exactly how embarrassed Robin is & finds it hugely amusing. Her brechan is too big & bunches unbecomingly around her middle; her boots have holes in them. She looks like a fisherman's waif; she is not. She is a scion of the blood, a Bardass trained satarist & Elyion's Dreamer but Robin mistakes her for a child. 

In the awkward silence a voice says: Please, do come in. Have a seat. It is the first time Robin hears a Bardass trained voice pitched to carry thus far & no further, resonant, beautiful, like the speaker, a man used to attracting the gaze of women & used to being obeyed. Though she doesn't want to Robin edges unwillingly acoss the floor  & perches on the edge of the hearth. 

A different voice says: You've screwed up royally this time, Ari. The voice sounds more exasperated than cross & as he steps out of the shadows into the firelight Robin relaxes for Lal is comfortably ordinary. Ari & Diarmuid are all sharp cheekbones & sharper tongues, too clever by half & much too well trained but Lal is ordinary. He gives Robin a lopsided grin as Ari shrugs. 

No' ma doing, Little Man. The words are derogatory, the tone is not. Lal grins good naturedly & squats beside Robin on the hearth. He smells of the fresh outside air & a little of peat smoke & a little of the wolf hounds he breeds for the Ri & the hands resting on his knees are the broad capable hands of a practical man with sword callouses across the palms & short broken nails.  Ari's nails are long for the harp playing & Diarmuid uses tin nails he keeps in a small wooden box in the pocket of his harp bag. These are the things Robin remembers afterwards but not how she learns them.

No~one seems terribly surprised by Robin, an oddity that should have bewildered her but does not. She is free to gaze curiously around the brae while Ari uses her belt knife to hack through her knotted boot laces. No~one finds that peculiar either.

 There is an ample stone dresser against the back wall holding dull red Darvishian pottery: plates & bowls & small handeless cups. There are two fat beeswax candles, unlit, a wooden comb with broken teeth, a blue bowl of rings & bangles & necklaces in silver & bronze & gold, a tinder box with flints, a ball of yarn spiked by bone needles. It is Diarmuid who knits. It is considered a manly accomplishment.  The dresser is flanked by great stone storage bins with wooden lids.  There are 2 beds recessed into the stone walls, one neatly made, the other a tangle of blankets & no prizes, Robin thinks, for guessing who sleeps where.There are peats stacked neatly beside the hearth with a goodly pile of driftwood & a griddlestone though Robin has never seen one before & does not know that it is used for cooking drop scones & oat cakes, flat breads & sometimes meat or vegetables, though meat is rare. More often the big black kettle is used for those. There are shelves stacked with wicker baskets holding potatoes, carrots, onions & apples & pegs on the wall for lute & lyre, wooden flutes, finger cymbals & in the corner Diar's standing harp because this is a bardass brae. The fidchell has it's own small table & board, the red & white pieces waging a bloodless war across its chequered spaces.

Do you play? Ari asks. Lal shakes his head in warning; Diarmuid stills but Robin does not play & shakes her head. Ari drops her knife with a clatter & her eyes are suddenly very fierce under their tangle of curls, green but not light & kind like Lal's. Ari's eyes are darker than stormy jade, bright & feral & wickedly cruel but after a moment she picks up the knife & begins working the broken point into the shrunken knots of her laces again. Robin can see the waterstains like tidal marks on her boots & Diarmuid says: You are going to have to show her...

Lal rolls his eyes. Have & should & must are words that almost always make Ari prickle in a way that reminds Robin uncomfortably of Podge but Podge is 2 & though fierce her tempers aren't a match on Ari's for Ari, trained in the satire, knows how to weild words like a knife while keeping her temper leashed to her will. Diarmuid knows this.  He sighs softly & spreads his hands. His voice becomes softly cajoling. It is a tone Robin recognises.  It is the tone she uses to wheedle Podge into doing something she does not want to do ~ but Ari is not Podge. She scoops cap & string from the heath & is gone, the deerskin slapping crossly behind her. 

This is not how dreams are supposed to go. Lal spins the stout red queen round on her square watching Diarmuid cautiously & Robin is aware, suddenly & acutely, that Diarmuid too has a temper & if anything it is worse than either Podge or Ari's though he has far better self control.

There is Kerri, Lal offers.

Kerrigan is not a Dreamer, Diarmuid snaps.

He can dream enough for this, Lal says carefully but , Kerri is Dannen & ~ unreliable. I should know...as indeed he should. Diar is acerbic. Kerrigan is responsible for Ari though Robin does not know that then & when she does she is bewildered.

But why?  I mean, if she didn't want to come...

Politics. Diarmuid is dryly amused but Robin is no wiser. It is Lal who enlightens her, explaining bluntly all Morrigu's subtlities were lost on Ari.

Ari would've killed him, Lal says of Morrigu's marriage proposal, & we'd have had the war to end all wars, though that would probably have amused Morrigu. She is not nice to know ~& as Robin was to learn that was a terrible understatement.

But now, in this moment, the first dream whirling about her ,very little of anything made any sense @ all. Worse, struggle as she might, Robin cannot shift the dream. Her dream remains solidy real moving inexcorably to it's preordained climax & none of it has anything to do with Robin. Or so she thinks.

She does not know these people.  Who they are, where they have come from, why she & they are there & even where there is remains a great unsolved mystery.  So she watches dispassionately as Diar gathers handfuls of his thick honey coloured hair into a scalplock & ties it neatly with a leather thong. The stubble of his shaven head glints in the firelight. His long generous mouth thins grimly. Lal shakes his head.

You know you can't make her.

For answer Diar crosses the room  to his harp & unlaces the pocket that holds the small box of tin nails & 3 long ribbons: black for the satire, blue for an Ollamh, crimson for the Mordredd.  Robin is to learn you can tell a lot from Bardass ribbons.

She is still my novice.

Not when it comes to the Dreaming, Lal says. You are going to need Kerrigan for this.

Robin is to learn that Diarmuid is, above all things, an eminently reasonable man. He needs to be. Ari is rarely reasonable.

And you know where he is do you? 

Ari...

Yes. Ari. If you can't be useful Lal...

I am very useful, Lal mocks. I've just stopped you making an almighty fool of yourself. Again. Diarmuid's eyebrows hike in the way that is to become disconcertingly familiar but in his own way Lal is too self assured to be put out by Diar's quiet sarcasm.

Look, I don't want to be patching you up again because Ari's turned feral & tossed you to Dana like an old bone. The girl's a menace but she holds the Dreaming.

Morrigu has a lot to answer for, Diarmuid says quietly. He held up a prematory hand to forstall Lal's protest. She still has nightmares. And Lal is silent. Robin, who understands nothing, watches as he begins to spin the red queen on her square again.  Round & round.  Round & round. Diarmuid quiety folds the ribbons in half & pins them to the left shoulder of his jerkin then begins to sort through the blue bowl on the dresser for rings to put on his fingers. More than one way to skin a cat, he says laconically.

Robin has had enough. She does not like this dream which seems too real yet makes no sense. She slips unnoticed from the heath & sidles through the door into the fresh air.

The shadows have grown longer & the late afternoon air, caught between the day's heat & evening coolness, is richly heady.  For a moment Robin hesitates, unsure of her direction, then begins to walk. There seem to be more standing stones than she remembers, crowding together as the light begins to fade.  A tiny prickle of fear begins to blossom in Robin's mind. What if she is lost here?  What if she can never find her way out? What if her dream is real?  She begins to move faster, darting from standing stone to standing stone. The shadows rear & plunge. The wold reaches out forever. Robin stretches her eyes wide open but there is only the wold, the long grasses bending before the evening breeze, the reeling shadows & the tall stones dark against the sky & she cannot make it go away.

When she falls it is not because she trips in the twilight. It is because Ari has stuck her foot out & brought her down hard. She is perched like an angry little gargoyle atop a markstone & even in the half light Robin can see the furious glitter of her eyes.

You're no' ma dreamer, she says.  What ha'e ye done wi' ma dreamer? 

Robin is winded & angry & her palms are stinging from trying to break her fall. 

Good, she snarls. I don't want to be your dreamer! And to her surprise Ari begins to giggle.  It is an infectious sound, uninhibited & delighted.

Has Diar pinned on his ribbons yet? She asks without the funny accent & Robin finds herself giggling. And rings on all his fingers? There is silly he is. She shakes her head solemnly disconcerting Robin further with her mecurial mood change. She slipped of the markstone, no longer a wilful child or an angry gargoyle but something older & far more feral. Robin knows she should be afraid but there is both authority & an infinite gentleness in the look Ari gives her.

You should not be here, she says. Go home.The push Ari gives her is gentle enough but Robin hits the floor hard. She is tangled in bedsheets & mosquito netting & Podge is bellowing blue bloody murder. Robin reaches for the lighter on the night stand & lights the candle because the generator gets shut down @ night. Podge's bellows give way to a desparate hiccupy sobbing & she stretches out her small arms to be picked up. Robin is too relieved to be cross but as Podge snuggles against her chest Robin freezes. She is wearing her sneakers & all her clothes smell of peat smoke.