In the Region of the Summer Stars

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  ‘Lord Brecan is a powerful chieftain,’ Conor allowed, reaching for another cube of perfectly cooked lamb. He licked his fingers. ‘You have been fortunate.’

  ‘That is not a word that comes easily to my lips,’ she replied.

  ‘No?’

  ‘All this fighting and warring—it never ends. Does it not make you tired? Do you not yearn for something better?’

  ‘I do, my lady. In my heart, I know there must be a better way.’

  She regarded him shrewdly. ‘Those are not the words of a warrior.’

  Conor did not know what to make of that comment, so he ignored it. ‘The Scálda will not cease until they have rid this island of every tribe and clan. They mean to erase the memory of the Tuatha dé Danann from Eirlandia.’

  ‘But they will not be defeated,’ Sceana said bluntly. ‘There are those among us who believe this endless war has already been lost and that we must make the best of it that we can.’

  Conor hid his surprise at this reply by adopting a careless air. He tore off a bit of bread. ‘Those are not the words of a queen,’ he said, chewing thoughtfully.

  Sceana sighed. ‘Talk of war and fighting fatigues me,’ she said. ‘Brecan talks of nothing else, thinks of nothing else, believes.…’

  Her voice trailed off and Conor wondered what she had prevented herself from saying. ‘Is that why you live in the Women’s House?’

  The playful spark rekindled in her eyes. ‘I choose to live among my ladies because, unlike my war-hungry husband, I prefer…’ She paused and, picking out a honeyed plum, put it in her mouth and chewed, before adding, ‘A gentler life.’

  The queen filled their cups once more and then, rising, held out her hand to Conor. ‘Come, my champion, let us finish our meal in more intimate surroundings.’

  In Conor’s opinion they were already intimate enough, but he knew that to refuse such an invitation would not advance his purpose, nor did he wish to create an enemy where he might secure an ally. All the same, he knew he could not risk the wrath of the king: If Conor ever found out he had made love to his wife, it would be Conor’s head on a spear over the fortress gate, not the queen’s.

  Accepting her hand, he rose and allowed himself to led to one of the booths that lined the wall. Like the others, it was separated from its neighbours by cloth hangings that could be so arranged as to allow more or less privacy between bed places. Each booth contained a pallet heaped with rushes over which furs had been laid and the whole covered with linens to form a cozy nest. There were large cushions of goose feathers scattered around, and tall beeswax candles on iron stands in each corner, casting a dim and wavering light over all.

  Queen Sceana pulled him into the bedchamber and down onto the cushions. ‘Sit awhile,’ she said invitingly. ‘Take your ease.’

  She reclined opposite him, invitingly close. Conor pulled a cushion between them, and balanced his cup on it.

  ‘I do not think I should be here, my lady,’ he said.

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think?’ she asked, sipping from his cup. ‘I think it is the duty of the queen’s champion to protect her in whatever way she deems appropriate.’

  ‘Do you need protecting?’

  ‘We live in perilous times,’ she replied, setting aside the cup. ‘We all need protecting—especially at night when we are … most … vulnerable.’

  So saying she loosened her sash, pulled it away, and allowed her robe to fall open. Conor saw the flawless white flesh and the graceful curve of her breast, and the sight warmed him more than the mead he had drunk. She reached for the cup and, watching him over the rim, drained it, and then leaned toward him, opening the robe even more. Cradling the back of his head in her free hand, she drew him to her in a kiss. Conor felt warm mead fill his mouth.

  His mind spun as he swallowed down the sticky sweet liquid. When she released him to catch his breath, he caught the playful gleam of reflected candlelight in her eyes. ‘I feel safer already,’ she said, her voice becoming husky and low with longing. She opened her robe a little more, as if to cool her body, exposing a smooth flank and hip to Conor’s view.

  Conor had seen enough. He took a last gulp from his cup and, setting it aside, made a lunge toward her. He seized her in a lover’s embrace and drew her down beneath him, planting another kiss on her delicious lips. She made a soft mewing sound and gave herself up to his passion.

  While she was thus occupied, Conor hooked his foot around one of the tall candles and pulled it down onto the bed. He kept Sceana busy with nuzzled kisses while willing the candle flame to take hold.

  He gave her one kiss and another, and was diving in for a third when the queen whispered, ‘Do you smell something?’

  ‘I smell only the scent of your enticing perfume, my queen.’

  She pulled back a little and sniffed. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Nothing that should disturb our pleasure.’ Conor leaned in for another kiss. She turned her face, so he kissed her neck just beneath her jaw.

  ‘I smell something burning.…’

  ‘Only my desire for you—’

  She pushed him forcefully aside. ‘Something’s burning!’

  Conor leaned back and looked at her. ‘Perhaps—’ he began.

  ‘The bed is on fire!’

  He looked around, saw flames pooling at the bottom of the bed and licking at the cloth partition. The rushes and furs of the bed itself were beginning to smoulder. Conor leapt up and, seizing a cushion, batted at the flames—an effort that succeeded in fanning them to greater life.

  ‘You’re making it worse!’ shouted the queen. ‘Get water!’

  He fled the bower and went in search of the water stoup, calling as he went, ‘Fire! Fire! The queen’s bower is on fire!’

  Ladies came running to his cry. ‘Bring water!’ he shouted, pushing the first one to reach him away again. ‘Hurry!’

  He ran back to the queen. The flames were now racing up the cloth partition and had almost reached the top. He pulled the queen from the chamber and then leapt in, seized the hanging curtain, and pulled it down. He then stamped on the burning cloth. Clouds of smoke filled the chamber and spilled out into the house. More women came running to their aid. One of them carried a bucket of water.

  Conor grabbed the bucket and rushed back into the chamber. He waited a moment or two, and then doused the flames, creating even more smoke. He shoved the bucket into the hands of one of the ladies and sent her for another. ‘Get out! Everyone!’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Do not breathe the smoke.’

  While her ladies led the queen away, Conor poured another bucket of water over the end of the bed, and then one more for good measure. In all, the damage was slight—but the bed would not be fit for sleeping that night. Nor, he imagined, would anyone care to stay in the house until the stink of smoke and burning fur could be cleansed away.

  The flames extinguished, Conor stood by and thanked all the gods that he could name for his deliverance.

  Fergal

  Of the voyage to Tír nan Óg and the island of the faéry, I will say only that it was accomplished with a speed and ease that seemed a dream to me then, and a dream now as I think on it. Though Gwydion assures me there was no enchantment cast upon the sea to smooth our passage through the waves, the voyage was so swift it could not have been otherwise. One moment we were gliding out into the deep grey waters of the Narrow Sea, green sails full bellied and gulls keening and wheeling above us … and the next we were sailing into a sea mist rising from the water in a silvery fog so thick and dense as to form a very wall.

  The faéry ship slowed as it approached this stronghold of silvery mist and passed into it. The wind died. The bright green sails emptied. I stood at the upswept bow and watched the clouds close in upon us. The fog crept along the deck and twined around the mast and slackened sails. I felt it cool and damp against my face and hands. I folded my arms across my chest for warmth and stood gazing into the haze.

  ‘I am sorry to be leaving you alone
,’ said Rhiannon, coming up silently beside me. ‘But I have been helping my father understand the nature of your friend Donal’s ailment, and what Gráinne and I have done to keep him alive.’

  ‘Your father…?’ I said, casting a glance back to where the other faéry were gathered at the stern.

  ‘Lord Gwydion,’ she said. ‘He is my father.’

  ‘Then you are not the queen? We thought—’ I glanced at her face and it seemed even more lovely to me than before—her skin whiter, her eyes a deeper blue, her hair, if possible, even darker. Perhaps, knowing that she would soon be among her own people again so brightened her spirits that she fairly shone with an inner glow.

  ‘I know,’ she said lightly. ‘It makes no difference—except, perhaps, to my mother.’

  I nodded and turned back to the cloaking mist, wondering how we could make much headway in such obscure weather.

  ‘It will not last long,’ Rhiannon told me. She possessed the knack of knowing my thoughts before I could speak them out.

  ‘The sea fog?’

  She waved a hand to indicate the vapours flowing all around and over us. ‘It will not last. We will soon leave it behind.’

  ‘You know this?’ I asked. Truly, nothing should have surprised me about the faéry race, for they are uncanny odd. Yet, the idea that she might know the whims of the weather did turn my head.

  She laughed lightly and put her hand to my arm. ‘No, I am not a phantarch to know such things. This mist and wrack—it is one of our island’s many protections.’

  ‘It is always here?’

  ‘Most always, yes. Sometimes a storm will drive it away for a day or two—then Ynys Afallon can be seen by any ships that happen to be passing. We are most vulnerable then.’

  She raised a long-fingered hand to the close encircling wall of soft, shifting cloud. ‘Look! Even now it is coming to an end. We are almost through it.’

  As she spoke, the sea-grey cloak began to wear thin, tearing away in shreds to reveal a calm and glassy sea, gleaming in the light of a late summer sun. Where the time had gone, I cannot say. But there, in the near distance, rising from the water before us, were the green hills and steep crags of an island.

  ‘Behold!’ said Gwydion, coming to stand beside us, ‘Ynys Afallon in the Region of the Summer Stars.’

  He stood head and shoulders above me, and no one ever called Fergal mac Caen a small man. The lean and slender bodies of the faéry folk make them seem even taller still; however, it is not their only height, and grace of movement and face, but the depth and solemn wisdom in their every glance and manner that show they are no mortal race.

  ‘I did not know this island was so close,’ I said, for it seemed that we had crossed the sea in no time at all.

  Gwydion looked at me with a curious expression.

  ‘So near to Eirlandia, I mean.’

  ‘It is neither near,’ explained Gwydion, ‘nor far away.’

  Now it was my turn to be confused. ‘A middle distance, then?’

  ‘It is as far as the farthest reach of the ocean, and as close as your dearest thought,’ he said.

  ‘You sound like a druid, now. So you do.’

  ‘I would like to meet a druid,’ he said. ‘Rhiannon assures me they are excellent men and women. Her praise for Talgobain and Gráinne are unstinting.’ The faéry king glanced at his daughter, and then looked at me with his pale green eyes and said, ‘Thank you for returning my Rhiannon to us.’

  ‘Without her, none of us would have survived,’ I told him. ‘I am sorry that your lady Tanwen did not.’

  At this, the light went from his eyes and he turned back to the island. ‘She will be mourned.’

  After a moment, the king of the faéry put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘That is for another time. Tonight, you will be my guest and you will sit at my right hand at the feast to be given in your honour.’

  ‘It was Conor’s doing mostly,’ I told him. ‘And I would be a false friend if I did not tell you it should be him standing before you and feasting at your table, not me.’

  ‘And yet,’ said Gwydion, ‘you are here and he is not. Our Great Mother orders all things to her will—and this is how it is.’

  They left me then to prepare for making landfall and soon our sleek boat slid into a wide, sandy bay. Guiding the vessel with sweeping strokes of the steering oar, the pilot brought us to berth in the shadow of a towering headland which sheltered a stone wharf; two other ships were harboured there, each larger than the one that carried us. Three faéry stood waiting on the quayside—two men and a woman; the men were dressed in long siarcs the colour of midnight, and the woman wore a scarlet gown that glimmered like water as she moved.

  The moment the ship kissed the quay, the faéry woman ran forward and, without waiting for the vessel to be secured, came aboard and took Lady Rhiannon in a fervent embrace. With hair so dark it shone with blue glints, and braided with strands of silver to match the silver torc around her slender throat, she was, to be sure, as much like Rhiannon as could be—her sister, so I thought—a mistake soon corrected.

  ‘Daughter, I cannot tell you how glad I am,’ she said. ‘I feared I should never see you again.’

  ‘Nor I you, Mother,’ replied Rhiannon.

  ‘But here you are, home safe at last.’

  ‘Home and safe—thanks to this man and his stalwart friends.’ She turned and held out a hand to me. I stepped forward and Rhiannon took my arm and pulled me to her. My arm tingled at her touch. ‘This is Fergal mac Caen of the Darini.’ To me, she said, ‘Fergal, I am pleased to present my mother, Arianrhod, Queen of the House of Llŷr.’

  The queen stepped forth, seized both my hands in hers, and, looking into my eyes, said, ‘My gratitude is boundless, lord Fergal. As mother and queen, I thank you for returning my heart’s treasure to me.’

  Momentarily lost in the wonder of the fairest face under heaven—surpassing even the matchless beauty of her daughter—I could think of no suitable reply and instead, muttered, ‘I am no lord—only a warrior.’

  Seeing my embarrassment, Rhiannon quickly said, ‘Mother, we have brought a wounded man for healing. He is fearfully ill and hovers even now at death’s threshold. I have promised all the aid and skill of our physicians to heal him.’

  Queen Arianrhod turned her eyes to me and said, ‘What is your friend’s name?’

  ‘Donal,’ I told her. ‘Donal mac Donogh.’

  She reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘We will do for him what we would do for one of our own—that is to say, everything in our power. If healing can be achieved, and his wound overcome, it will be done.’ She pressed my hand again and then, taking her daughter by the arm, led her away, their heads pressed together to speak more private thoughts.

  Lord Gwydion had undertaken to move poor Donal onto the quayside; with the other men and Rhiannon’s attendant maidens, they gently lifted him on his litter and carried him onto the island. We then started off; the queen and princess led the way, then came the men bearing Donal. I followed close behind. We walked inland from the sea and soon struck upon a well-trodden path through a wood that seemed somehow more than a wood—trees are trees, after all, and bushes and shrubs the same—similar and strange at the same time. Though, if anyone had asked me, I could not have explained any better than to say that I felt as one who has entered a forest for the first time and all that met my eye was new to me, and strange. Even the air was peculiar, for it seemed to chime with a bright music that tantalized the ear just on the edge of hearing.

  I also had the distinct feeling that we were being watched. I glimpsed no watchers, but out of the corner of my eye, every now and then, I sensed a furtive movement, the flick of a shadow, or the shiver of a single leaf on a branch as when a startled animal has fled.

  How long we walked, I do not know—not long, I think. Yet it was almost dark when we reached a wide clearing—a valley meadow in the heart of the wood. At the far end of the vale, a sheer wall of tumbled rock over whic
h spilled a lively stream that pooled at the bottom of the waterfall to form a lough before gathering itself to run off into deeper forest. Around the pool and hard against the rock wall stood a number of graceful buildings with high peaked roofs thatched with river reeds and deep eaves sheltering wide platforms lined with benches and chairs and tables. Two of the larger houses stood on stone pillars sunk into the water so that they half stood out over the lough. Yet, for all their generous size, the dwellings did not seem enough to house an entire faéry tribe. Nor did they—as I soon discovered.

  For, upon reaching the little lough and passing by the first of the dwellings, we proceeded around the water marge on a wooden walkway that followed the shoreline. The faéry carried Donal on his wattle bed to the foot of the rock wall where the waterfall splashed into the lake. Here we stopped before the largest of the houses and I thought we would enter there, but we did not.

  Instead, Gwydion moved to the end of the walkway and, raising his hands, made a subtle motion in the air and the curtain of water parted and I saw an opening—the mouth of a cavern hidden behind the waterfall. There were steps concealed among the rocks leading up to the cave. We climbed the steps and entered the cave. At first glance, it seemed more or less like any other cave: a room with a low roof and bare rock walls. A few paces farther in, however, we came to another opening—this one closed by a large round stone carved with odd runes and swirls and marks like branches of a tree.

  Queen Arianrhod stepped forward and, with a simple sweep of her hand, caused the stone to move aside with a low rumbling sound to reveal another chamber beyond—a chamber unlike any in all Eirlandia.

  33

  Queen Sceana and her maidens were still cleaning up the mess from the fire in the Guest Lodge when the king and his travelling party returned to Aintrén. Since the mishap was more inconvenience than disaster, Lord Brecan took little interest in the matter and instead busied himself with more pressing concerns—in fact, he had hardly brushed the dust from his cloak before he began arranging another journey.