Chapter Five

The Return

They forced marched for four days before finally reaching the border. The young warrior had met with shepherds who had passed on the news of the raid that had been carried out by the men of Urigoiti. There at the border to greet them were 150 Basque warriors, cheering and waving their weapons. After a while, the pursuing Visigoths reached them, took one look at the Basque force and turned back. There followed several days of feasting and dancing. On the fourth day Inaki began to have disturbed nights. For a week he had a recurring dream. He could not remember it clearly, but he had woken repeatedly in a sweat for the last few nights. For the first time he did something that his uncle had not taught him. He went up into the wooded hills and gathered some mushrooms. He sat by a pool in the woods and ate them. He looked deeply into the pool.

For sometime nothing happened. Then the pool became darker and the light filtering through the trees changed into intense colours, brighter than anything he had ever seen. The waters of the pool suddenly cleared. The first thing he saw was the warrior he had killed. He came out of the cloudy pool, a white cloudy, misty image, with opened arms that passed over his head. The next image was more menacing. At first he could not make it out. Only the hands were clear, with long, thin fingers and curved sharp nails, clawing at his face. Then he saw the silver jewellery on the wrists: those silver bracelets of exquisite craftsmanship worn only by the Sisters of the Moon. It was an evil of a kind he had never experienced. He came round in a sweat. At the end of the week he told Aguirre that he had to return to his mother. Aguirre made no comment. He had noticed a change in the boy. He had a mysticism about him that he had only seen in the faces of deeply religious men or women. At fourteen he was now a man. The year was 772 AD.

It took Inaki a lunar month to return home. As he passed through the villages, he found them alive with rumours. The world around them was covered with dark and gathering clouds. To the west all the talk was of impending war. To the east the rumours of Charlemagne’s intention to invade remained uppermost in men’s minds. The clans of the Basque country remained peaceful and tranquil, but people were in a state of high alert and extremely vigilant. There was fear, also, of the unknown.

As he entered the small community of farms, people hardly recognised him. He had changed so much. If it had not been for Storm it would have been hard for them to recognise him at all. The man that entered their lives again, was a stranger. The change had been so marked. However, anyone that had ever known Storm never forgot him. His mother, seeing him at a distance, wondered for a moment and then ran to greet him. She hugged him. Then she looked deeply into his face. She saw his father there, and remembered the pain. How he had grown! Taking him by the hand she led him inside his uncle’s house, sat him down and put out some food.

She said: “Tell me everything.”

Between mouthfuls, he related all that had happened. When he talked of Storm his eyes glowed with pride. He passed lightly over the events of the raid and didn’t speak of the pool, not wanting to worry his mother. At that moment a form filled the doorway. Storm stood and growled.

“I see the monster’s back,” a voice said.

Inaki was not sure if his uncle was referring to him or Storm, or both.

“Where have you been for such a long time?” said the old man gruffly.

“Let him eat and rest, there will be plenty of time for questions later,” his mother said.

The old man turned sharply and left without another word. The authority of the mother was unquestionable in a Basque family. Although the men held the position of head of the house, it was the women who held the real power. In Basque society women played an important part in governing the family. Inaki inwardly smiled to himself. It was a little like the social order of wolves. The women were dominant. The two social systems were not dissimilar.

The Basques were an inter-related group of people from common ancestral stock. Each family formed part of a clan and while some lived in villages, many lived in solitary homes in the mountains. However, they shared a common name. Once a man or woman gave their name, a Basque knew immediately which village, area or clan that person belonged to. In most cases he or she would know personally some of its members. Inaki’s family name was, on his mother’s side, Etxebarria. This made him a Guipuzcoan, the largest of the seven Basque clans. In this way, Basques were bound one to another and shared commonly held rights and duties. Government was by assembly to which every man of fighting age had a right of membership. If a man did a wrong he would be judged by the assembly under the Sacred Oak tree, and if found guilty would pay compensation for his crime. Blood crimes were paid for with blood, but these were very rare amongst the Basques. In times of war, a chieftain would be elected with powers of life or death. Once the crisis was over he would revert to a common man, with the same rights and duties as the rest.

The union of the seven clans formed the Basque nation, and in times of war a council of seven chieftains led them. In their religion, every clan worshipped its own Gods, but they all shared a common central deity; the moon. To some the Basques were known as the Moon Worshippers. The sacred oak was their ancestral father. They were the children of the Gods, the First Race. Marriage was monogamous and the wedding ceremonies followed pagan marriage rites. At them a single male dancer would perform a tribute to the bride; acknowledging her position as the direct descendant of the Earth Mother and her unquestionable position at the centre of the family.

As the weeks grew into months, Inaki and his uncle formed a close bond for the first time. It was based on the further instruction that the uncle now began. He had recognised the potential of the boy at an early age, but had not found the means to motivate him. Now he found that the young man was more than willing to learn and he, for his part, changed his approach. He started by explaining the functions of a Nagusi.

“We are not born, we are chosen.” This he had said one day to Inaki.

“If we accept the calling, we take on the responsibility that comes with the great gifts that we are given. We have the power of life and death in our hands.”

He explained that the responsibilities of a Nagusi were essentially to heal and to find out the position of an enemy and to safeguard plants and animals.

“Because most men are ignorant, we have given the plants and animals divine status. There are reasons for this: first, because they are a gift from the Gods and carry the spirits of our ancestors, and secondly, to protect them through fear.”

“Is that honest and right?” Inaki asked. Like most young Basque men he had a deep sense of justice.

“Probably not, but what is in this life?” said his uncle with a smile, “and it works,” he added.

To carry out his calling, his uncle explained, he would learn more about the efficacious and therapeutic properties of the plants that they collected and he must learn about the workings of men’s minds. It was not enough to cleanse the body; the mind had to be expunged as well. For if the spirit and the mind of a man could not be harnessed in the healing process, then he would not get well. What was more; the spirit could overcome what medicine could not. He had to know more about the two great religions that threatened their culture and their beliefs. These were Islam and the Holy Roman Church. For without this knowledge he would be powerless to refute their poisonous teachings.

“Always remember,” he had said to Inaki, in a very serious tone, “knowledge is power and ideas transform men.”

Inaki never forgot those words. They had the ring of truth. Over the months that followed Inaki received further instruction into the secret arts. He learnt of the plants that could heal and those that were deadly to man and animals. The antidotes were few. Inaki soon realised that man led a precarious existence in a hostile world to which his contribution was, in many cases, to make things worse. It seemed to him that man was his own worst enemy. Occasionally, Inaki would express his thoughts in words.

“Uncle,” he would begin, “don’t you think that we should destroy all the plants that are deadly?”

“Why?”

“So that we might have a safer world,” replied Inaki.

His uncle took a stick and from the iron nails that were driven into the beams of the hut, he took down plants, herbs, and mushrooms from a pot. He laid them with great care onto the table and gave the stick to Inaki.

“Which of these would you destroy?” he asked.

Inaki looked at the dozen or so fresh and dried plants and mushrooms.

“First seven are easy,” he said, “since they are the deadliest. I would destroy the Star-of-Bethlehem, the deadly nightshade, and the poison oak, the yew, the oleander, the wisteria and the hemlock and of the mushrooms all but the shaggy mane and the amanita muscaria mushroom.”

“Your choice is interesting but ill-informed. Let us examine them in turn, young man. The Star-of Bethlehem is poisonous but parts of it can be used to cure pain in the arms and heart; the same is true of the deadly nightshade. The poison oak is the earthy seat of our great God and deserving of veneration. The yew, although every part of it is poisonous, gives us fine bows to hunt with. Furthermore, it is the sacred tree of the Asturians. The oleander and wisteria give us beauty and peace, although, they are as you rightly say poisonous; their scent soothes the mind. Would you destroy beauty and peace? The hemlock, though deadly poisonous, has properties that can be used to help sleeplessness and troubled minds. What is more, you have not even considered the mandrake root, the most powerful root of all. It shrieks when you pull it out of the ground, but it can cure madness and has other secret properties. Now there is something to marvel at. But we will come to that some other time. Your choice of mushrooms is the most interesting. You have used the amanita muscaria mushroom already?”

“How did you know?” said Inaki in a startled voice.

“I didn’t, I guessed that you had,” said his uncle, “from the change in you.”

“Oh!”

“We will return to your choice of the mushrooms in a moment,” continued his uncle, “having wiped out our religion, and our most effective weapons and some of our most important natural medicines, you then miss the most deadly of all the plants.”

He reached down to the table and picked up a bunch of, what looked like, wild cherries.

“The seed of this plant crushed, diluted and reduced to a powder produces a poison that the Romans first discovered. A speck of it will kill the largest animal or man. It is the most deadly poison that I know of. It must be treated with great care.”

Inaki looked at the floor, humbled and downcast.

“I see that I have still a great deal to learn,” he said in low voice.

“That you have, my boy, but let us go back to your choice of mushrooms. When and why did you use them?”

Inaki explained his troubled dreams and gave an account of his experience by the pool.

“Well,” said his uncle, “it is only a matter of luck that you did not lose your mind completely or your life.”

“How’s that?”

“These mushrooms are the greatest and most dangerous of the gifts that we have from the Gods. We use them to communicate with the Gods, to find our enemies and to gain insight. They can be used to interpret dreams, but this is when they are most dangerous, since you have the least control and the revelations can burn your mind out. They make you vulnerable to your enemies, opening your mind, so that your thoughts can be read and demons sent to plague you. They can drive you insane. You were lucky, for two reasons; the spirit of the warrior you killed wished you no harm and passed through you to his resting place. The Sisters of the Moon are a far more serious matter. For some reason they wish you harm. The small amount of the mushroom you took did not give them enough time to penetrate your mind.”

“What do you know about the Sisters of the Moon?” asked Inaki in deep shock.

“Only that their past is shrouded in mist and mystery. Legend has it that they come from a lost time. We have been told that their sect came with the Romans, holding high office in their religion. They were powerful. Leaders and generals would come to them to listen to their prophecies. They say that they could provide another service, the annihilation of enemies or rivals. Then the plague came. It swept through the country. Famine reached such extremes that the Sisters of the Moon were seen devouring their own children. This led to such revulsion that they were banished. They fled to the mountains of Aragon in the high Pyrenees. For a long time nothing was heard of them, except rumour. Then as the wars began they started appearing again. They were seen scavenging the battlefields, of which there were many. They stripped the corpses of anything valuable, killing those that weren’t dead and eating the flesh of those freshly killed. Later, for some reason better known to them, they began caring for the wounded in battle. They made a name for themselves as healers and they began to be welcomed in villages. However, strange deaths followed soon after they had departed.”

His uncle fell silent, deep in thought.

“How could they be implicated after they had gone?” asked Inaki.

“Now let’s us look at your second choice of mushroom,” said his uncle, apparently ignoring his question. “The shaggy mane is a delicacy which was much appreciated by the Romans. It has some interesting properties. Once eaten it is harmless, unless you consume wine within five days after you have eaten it. Then it reacts and forms a powerful poison in the body. Death quickly follows. The Romans favoured it as a way of killing unwanted guests and enemies since they died days after they had left thereby removing suspicion from the killers. Furthermore, it only grows in forests in midsummer which happens to coincide with the most important ceremony of the pagan calendar and when the Sisters of the Moon make human sacrifice.”

Both men fell silent, mulling over what had been said and deep in thought. Eventually, his uncle spoke.

“The time has come when you will have to leave and seek the Nagusi Patxi.”

“Why?” exclaimed Inaki, with hurt in his voice, for he did not what to leave or go anywhere.

“Of all the Nagusi he has the greatest skill in the hidden arts of the magic mushroom,” said his uncle. “He will instruct you in the hidden arts. The time has come for you to move on. Have you ever trapped or caught a small bird, Inaki?”

“Of course I have.”

“Well if you tie a thread to one of its legs and let it go, can you tell in which direction it will fly?”

“No, uncle.”

“Using the mushroom is the same. Without the proper training, the direction or where it will take you is out of your control. If he accepts you, make sure you pay attention,” his uncle said sternly. “What he will teach you could save your life.”