GROKEN - by Robert Eldon - Chapter 2

We're posting the second instalment of Robert's tale 'Groken' today

It's a sort of explanation section and may or may not work so well, what do you think?

The letter tries to evoke an older style of writing - maybe Buchan-esque?

CHAPTER TWO:

The light never fails in summer in these latitudes, so later that evening Bron sits in front of his tent reading the old leather bound notebook handed to him by his parents’ solicitor on the day the will was read. He has read it so many times he could almost recite it from memory.

Bron,

If you are reading this then your mother and I have not survived to your twenty-fifth birthday, for we had agreed that on that day you would be told the story I set out below.

It is a story that as a writer I have long wanted to relate, the genre within which I never got to write. It was my knight errant episode, when I cast off the shackles of academia and became, for a brief moment, like the heroes of the battered dog-eared adventure books I took out from the library as a child, “Biggles” or “Dick Barton” or more appropriately for the tale I’ll now tell “Richard Hannay”.

Your mother and I told you that we were both orphans. That at least was true.

I never knew my parents, they died when I was very young. I was brought up by my maternal grandmother, and she said little about either of them. My grandmother came from the far west of Ireland and as a girl had spoken only Irish, a language in which she would tell me tales of heroes, kings, and gods.  We were very poor, but I was bright and worked hard, and at 17 had the opportunity to go to university. By then my grandmother’s health was failing, and we desperately needed me to earn money. So I applied for and secured an RAF scholarship that enabled me to attend one of our more respected provincial universities and gave me a salary (out of which I could send some funds to my grandmother) with the proviso that when my studies were over I’d accept a short-term commission.

When I completed my degree - Archaeology / specialising in Celtic and Norse studies, and with my grandmother by then passed away, I asked that I be allowed to stay on to take a doctorate. The military agreed on the proviso that during that period I also studied the Baltic languages.

Once I’d got my Doctor’s gown, I was summoned to a MoD facility just off Whitehall for assessment and a medical. For some reason part of the assessment was to see how susceptible I was to ‘suggestion’ techniques such as hypnotism. The assessor reported me very unsusceptible, ‘a very poor subject for a hypnotist,’ he declared. This trait subsequently turned out very useful as you’ll learn.

 I was commissioned into the RAF’s Intelligence wing and after a short but intensive period of training in Scotland I was posted to the Vastrafolk islands far up in the north Atlantic. They flew me to the base there to join a team at a top secret listening station. We were pretty isolated. The base commander wasn’t keen on us fraternising too much with the locals and they for their part kept their distance from us. The work however wasn’t arduous and there was plenty of free time, in which I began to explore the rich variety of archaeological sites on the islands.

In my wanderings, I came upon Alvanaes, a remote farmhouse, standing on the northern bank of the Skarafjord immediately opposite a place called Huldagarde, which, according to local legend, was the home of the last of the ‘Hidden Folk’ on the island.

An elderly farmer called Frandsen lived there with his grand-daughter, a pale willowy girl, of about 17 with long blonde hair and very light grey eyes. Her name she said was Anna, though I noticed that sometimes old Frandsen would address her as Nanna, as if she were named for Baldur’s wife, who threw herself on his funeral pyre after he was slain. I began to spend many of my free days, even nights, at the farmhouse.

The place had many attractions of which Anna was not the least. We got on well, perhaps the fact that we had both been raised by a single grandparent gave us some empathy and many evenings we sat together by the fjord-side and talked of the islands.

One day Frandsen took me out to the edge of the fjord and showed me the remains of an ancient church. He told me that the church had been built there so that the Hidden Folk from Huldagarde could attend services on Sundays. Frandsen swore that in his own grandfather’s day one of the hidden people would join the fishing boat when it went out, work his shift, collect his share and then row back to Huldagarde.

Although people on the fjords were supposed to have converted to Christianity nine hundred years before, Frandsen claimed that many had, for a long time, stuck to the old pagan ways. Later that evening when we were alone in the old burial ground besides the church, Anna lay down on the grass and showed how they had been  buried – ‘like a Christian, head facing the sunrise ----- but with one foot pointing off to Valhalla just in case”.

I asked her if there were any heathens left on the islands. She laughed and said ‘Yes, grandfather and me for a start!’ And then she led me behind the farmhouse and showed me an altar made of driftwood, with the skulls of seals and stags fastened to it.

A couple of days researching at the library in Thörsvik, the island’s only town, revealed that the area around the Alvanaes had a dark reputation. Most of the isolated farms had been abandoned over the years and the families had moved into the hamlets at the head of the fjord or Thörsvik itself. A recurring theme was tales of young girls going missing on their way home from work or school or market in the evening. The tales went back into history but some were quite recent.

All this made me ever more fascinated by Huldegarde, I tried to get Anna to speak of the Hidden Folk and what might lie on the other side of the water. But she would never speak of them and urged me never to try to cross the fjord.

Sometimes on my visits to Thörsvik I’d encounter Anna, in to do some shopping. I never seemed to see her with folk of her own age. She was always alone, and though she was greeted politely by the locals on the street, no one ever seemed to stop to pass the time of day with her.

So, I started taking her to the coffee shop at the local bakery. I noticed some of the locals looking at us and muttering to themselves, but put it down to the resentment they always seemed to show to men from the base.

Once, when it came time for her to take the bus back to Alvanaes, I asked whether I should accompany her, as I was concerned about her walking alone from the bus stop to the farm. She frowned and said ‘Oh, I’ll not be alone.’ Obviously, I thought, her grandfather shared my worries and met the bus.

One morning after I’d stayed the night at the farm, I came down to breakfast to find Anna had gone out and Frandsen seemed very disturbed. I asked him what had so troubled him, but he was strangely reticent and kept looking out of the window across the water as if afraid someone out there was listening.

I decided the time had come to see for myself what lay on the other side of the fjord. So the next week, instead of going overland to the farmhouse, I hired a small boat in Thörsvik rowed up the fjord and landed on the Huldagarde side. I started to climb the steep hills up towards the summit, wondering what lay on the other side of the ridge. Suddenly I was surrounded by a host of short, stocky men with pale skins and red hair. I was knocked to the ground and my hands and feet were bound. Then I received a kick to the head and became unconscious.

I awoke in a long cave-like dwelling. My assailants were gathered at the other end of the room talking in a language that to me seemed some ancient form of Irish – I recognised many of the words but I kept this knowledge to myself. One of them (who seemed some kind of elder) approached me.  We discovered that we had another common tongue – the old man could speak a kind of Old Norse.

In that tongue, the elder told me something of the history of his people. How their ancestors had been brought as slaves to the islands from a land far away. How they had escaped their captors, and survived by hiding away in the remote moors of the farthest islands. But they had a problem, their race tended to have only male children and therefore they needed to acquire girls regularly for its continuance, hence the abductions over the centuries. When I said surely this lead to conflict with the local farmers and such, he smiled and said ‘There are arrangements that suit both sides.’

Our conversation was interrupted by another of the red-haired men. Gesturing towards me he said, ‘He is that Outlander who visits Alvanaes. Machndoch will wish to speak with him.’ He smiled. It was not, I felt, a smile that promised me a happy outcome.

The two left me alone. I knew that I must make my escape before this “Machndoch”, which if my Irish served me right meant ‘young man’ or more likely ‘young chieftain’, returned. There was a peat fire burning in the middle of the room. I crawled towards it, and turning on my side managed to hold my wrists and the hide ropes that bound them over the flames. The pain was intense but I managed to hold the ropes there just long enough for them to burn and I was able to break free of my bonds. Trying to ignore the pain in my hands, I slipped down the passage and out into the moorland. As I cleared the ridge I heard my pursuers coming after me. Desperately I ran back to my boat and managed to push off and start rowing back to Alvanaes.  The ‘Hidden Folk’ pursued in their own craft and arrows landed near my skiff.  Landing on the Alvanaes side, I raced up the banking and gained the safety of the house. As I made it inside, Anna slammed the door shut and put down the bar. Of Frandsen there was no sign, Anna said he’d gone to town, so the two of us sat out the night.

At dawn Frandsen returned. I was determined to make my escape, and implored Frandsen and Anna to leave with me. Frandsen refused – saying he had no quarrel with the ‘Hidden Folk’, ‘We have an understanding, between their folk and mine, we get along,’ he said. I asked Anna to go with me for I remembered the tales of abducted girls, but Frandsen insisted she must stay. Then he signalled to her to bring me a drinking cup filled with a strangely perfumed herbal mixture. ‘Drink this,’ she said, ‘it will help you recover.’ Once I’d drunk the potion, Frandsen said, ‘you will remember nothing of this when you go back to your base, the potion is strong and it will wipe all memory of the ‘Hidden Folk’ from your mind. I have told them this is what we will do and they won’t pursue you any further, but it’s best you don’t come here again.’

However, the potion had no effect on me.

When I got back to base my burned hands were dressed by the MO. I made up some story as to how I’d been injured, which he seemed to accept. Over the next three days I found it hard to concentrate on my duties, my mind constantly returned to Alvanaes.  I was wracked with guilt about leaving Anna at the farm. Could she become an abduction victim? My curiosity about the ‘hidden folk’ grew – why had no-one discovered them before? – Why were there no learned papers about Huldagarde?

Someone once said that chivalry is a man’s desire to protect a woman from all men save himself. If that’s so then it was both academic interest and chivalry that drove me back to the farmstead.

When I got there, I discovered Frandsen drunk in the kitchen – he was weeping. Anna had been taken away the previous night by the ‘Hidden Folk’ – ‘She’s gone,’ he said, ‘I always knew Machndoch would take her one day, but not yet, not so soon!’

I determined to rescue Anna. A foolhardy confidence (which you’d see as completely out of character) had come over me. I was a trained military officer, I was armed with my revolver. I felt sure I could deal with the ‘Hidden Folk’ and after all, what else could I do, Anna was in danger. I set off across the fjord. 

When I reached the far shore I found myself surrounded and was quickly overpowered.  My assailants bound my hands and blindfolded me and lead me back over the ridge to their camp. But they did not search me nor take away my revolver.

Once more I found myself in that same long dark building. That first evening the elder visited me again. We talked a while and before he left he loosened my hands so I could eat the meagre food ration he’d brought me.

Once he’d gone I managed to free my legs as well and began silently to explore the building. I found a door out onto a corridor leading to rooms cut back into the hill. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I looked into the first room to see Anna asleep on a mat, covered with some kind of animal skin. I was about to call out and wake her, when I heard someone coming along the passage from the far end and had to scramble quickly back to my own room.

The next day the elder returned. He explained that it was their ritual every thirty years or so to sacrifice an island woman to their deities. But their religion forbade that any of his people might slit her throat. It must be done by one of her own kind. Now Anna had been given to them and I had fallen again into their hands. Their priest said the gods had spoken, that the omens were propitious. Anna would be the sacrifice and I would be her slayer. Then another, dressed like a shaman, came in. He drew out from his cloak a large nugget of white gold on a leather thong, which he spun before my eyes. Obviously he intended to hypnotise me, so after a few seconds I pretended to enter a trance while he intoned in Irish. After what seemed an age the shaman murmured, ‘now he will do our bidding, now he must obey our commands. Come we must prepare the ceremony, best we do it quickly whilst Machndoch is away. He will not take kindly to us slaying his chosen woman.’

Soon after I was taken into a large chamber, which blazed with light from a hundred torches. Anna, dressed in a pure white gown with her yellow hair dressed in an ornate style, had been tied to a stake in front of a kind of altar. She seemed all too aware of what was going to happen, and she stared at me in horror as I entered the room. The shaman led me to the altar. He handed me a knife and pulled back Anna’s head so that I might slit her throat.

Suddenly there was an interruption, a young man, taller and broader than anyone else I’d met in Huldagarde, his hair long and red, his skin pale, his eyes green, burst into the room. His attire made him look like a warrior from some child’s picture history of the Iron Age. This I thought must be Machndoc. Speaking in their Irish tongue he shouted ‘This stops. You cannot take her, she belongs to me. I have coveted her many years, and waited long ‘til I brought her here to be mine and bear me a son. She is not for your sacrifice. Set her free.’

Priest and warrior faced each other. The rest of the ‘Hidden Folk’ retreated down the passage. The four of us, Anna, Machndoch, the priest and I, were for a moment isolated at one end of the chamber. I looked at the warrior. The thought of Anna living with this man, bearing his children here in this earth barrow like some wild animal, sickened and enraged me. A red mist descended. Whilst the warrior and the priest argued seemingly oblivious to my presence, I took my chance. I had the sacred knife in my hands, I plunged it into Machndoch. He slumped to the ground. The priest lunged towards me, but he was old and frail, and a simple blow dealt with him. He fell to the ground, his neck broken.

The noise had brought back the rest of the tribe. Pulling out my concealed pistol, I fired two shots hitting two more of the ‘Hidden Folk’. The rest scattered back into the darkness.

I used the blood-stained knife to cut Anna free. Free of her bonds, she bent over the dead warrior with a strange look on her face, and removed a pendant hanging from his neck, which she hid in her gown.  ‘Quickly,’ she said, ‘there’s a passage at the back. I’ve seen the priest use it.’ We set off down the passage. The ‘Hidden Folk’ began to follow us and I fired the pistol again.

The shots were causing the roof of the chamber to collapse. Part of the roof and part of the tunnel began to fall trapping our pursuers. We broke out into the open air and started to run for the fjord. Some of the ‘hidden folk’ ran along the ridge trying to cut us off but a couple more shots sent them scurrying for cover. We reached my boat and rowed back to the farmhouse.

We reached the farmhouse to find Frandsen and a group of local men standing outside. The men ordered us into the building. Sitting by the door we could hear them arguing, Frandsen was shouting at the men. Then to my alarm, through the window, I noticed that three of the ‘Hidden Folk’ had joined the group.

Darkness fell and Frandsen came into the farmhouse. ‘You must get away,’ he told us, ‘the men want to hand you back to the ‘Hidden Folk’ for they will not anger them.’ He looked at Anna, ‘they say that you belong to the ‘Hidden Folk’, that I must keep my bargain, you must be returned.’ Turning to me he said, ‘and you have killed a priest, the ‘Hidden Folk’ demand justice, a blood payment. Nothing can save you if they ever get their hands on you again.’ Turning back to Anna he said ‘We must part here. Quick, take the track over the hills and don’t stop ‘til you reach the base. Go and never come back.’

Anna had grown up on this land and knew every inch of it. She lead me up a path that would take us up the mountain and over to ‘the base’ and freedom. As we reached the top of the hill we looked back and saw that a large fire was burning in front of the farmhouse. Something was being dragged towards it by the three ‘hidden folk’. To my horror I realised that it was Frandsen and that they intended to throw him onto the blaze alive.

I made to go back, to help him but Anna stopped me. ‘There is nothing you can do for him now. He knew this would happen. He did this to save me, don’t let his sacrifice be in vain.’

An hour later, back at base, I told the Commander our tale.

‘I’ve already had a call from the local magistrate,’ he said, ‘he says you had some kind of row with the grandfather of a local girl.’ He looked towards Anna, ‘I suppose this is her? You killed him and then you and the girl set fire to the farmhouse to cover your crime. The magistrate wants you both sent back.’

‘But they’ll kill Adam,’ said Anna.

‘And they’ll send Anna back to be a sacrifice or else to be a brood mare.’ I cried, ‘You must help us!’

‘I don’t want trouble,’ said the Commander, ‘either with the locals or with your superiors in Intelligence. This place is supposed to be top secret. We want no publicity. I’m getting you both out of here tonight.’

An hour later, we were on a transport plane back to Shetland.

As we sat in the plane your mother took charge. ‘I knew you’d come back for me,’ she said, ‘that’s why I gave you a harmless draught rather than the potion my Grandfather intended. But I never thought you’d take three days to come or that Machndoch would act so fast or do what he did. And I expected you to come with reinforcements from the base, to drive Machndoch and his people away and free me from my Grandfather’s bargain, but of course, you had to be like the hero in those old stories of yours and come alone to save your “damsel in distress”’.

‘Now listen to me,’ she continued. ‘We shall never return to the islands nor speak of these events to anyone. The people of the island will never press a murder charge. Too much about the ‘Hidden Folk’ and the islanders’ arrangements with them would come out.’  Finally she smiled, ‘And now like a hero, you may claim your prize, I am all yours. After all you won me in mortal combat, and now you must protect me for life.’

When we got back to the UK the Ministry stepped in and arranged a new life for us, well away from either secret bases or ancient pagan halls.

Some years later we were told that the people of Huldegarde had been driven out by the island government. They had fled, scattered across the globe. Later we received the documents attached to this journal which show that in the weeks before his death Frandsen had made a will stating that a vast tract of land, on both sides of the Skarafjord, including Alvanaes and Huldegarde, was to be placed into your mother’s name to be held in trust for her eldest son. So now, Bron, that magical and fearful place is yours. Do with it as you will but take care, and try not to think too harshly of me.

Adam Turner