“What is it?” I asked, turning it over in my hands.
“A druid rod. A gift of the earth and the air. It holds within it the power to grant one wish, and only one. It will give you that which you most desire. Make your wish and cast its tip into the ground.”
So many questions filled my mind. I opened my mouth and began to speak, yet the words fell thick from my lips as though they were too heavy to be heard. As I stared upon the woman, her form began to shimmer. It grew transparent and I could see through her to the rock behind. The deafening sound of crows returned, until I screwed shut my eyes and covered my ears once again.
*
I awoke, safe in my bed at Sidhe Fionnachaidh, bathed in pale light from the early morning sun. I reached out my hand but Lir had already left my side. His warmth lingered a little on the pillow and I clung to it as the dream faded. I felt a sense of dread. In my dream, I had been granted the power to change my own destiny, and now that power was gone. Stolen from me by daybreak.
I thought perhaps if I closed my eyes, I might be afforded another few moments of that beautiful dream. As I buried my face into my pillow, I felt something firm press against my cheek.
Beneath the sack of soft down, my fingers closed around a wooden shaft.
Fionnuala
The night of the full moon, I had a terrible dream.
I found myself alone in the woods at night. The moon was bright above me and the ground was soft, cushioning my feet. All about the wild birds sang and I felt content, at peace. Far off I heard a wolf cry, and the throaty roar of a stag answered, but they seemed very far away and no danger to me.
As I walked, I chanced to look behind and saw that beautiful wild lilies had bloomed were I trod. For a moment, I wondered whether I had inhabited Ainge’s form in my sleep, for it was said that the Dagda’s daughter had the same gift to draw life from the earth.
Then a shadow fell over the moon. I thought perhaps it was a cloud, yet when I looked up the moon was still there, as bright and bold as ever.
The further into the woods I walked, the more often that shadow seemed to fall across the moon. No matter how hard I tried, I was never quite quick enough to see what caused it. Not until I decided to sit myself down upon a fallen log and watch.
A crow.
Just one at first, then many.
As their wings swept across the treetops, they threw down shadows upon the land. It was strange, I thought, that crows should fly at night.
Then they began to swirl, caught by the breeze like fallen leaves, tunnelling down towards me. As I looked to the ground, the shadows they cast formed feathery fingers, reaching towards my ankles.
I screamed and took flight, racing through the woods like a doe, pursued by these great black birds, until I fell on my knees in a clearing.
At the centre of this clearing was a pool, some sacred spring that welled up from beneath with no stream to feed it or carry it away. The crows were soon upon me, circling and spinning faster and faster. Scrambling across the ground, my white shift muddied and torn, I reached for a rock. As I drew it back to throw at them, I glimpse my reflection, and froze.
My face was not my own. Mirrored in the surface of that silent pool, my nose was long and flat, my forehead a pommel of black flesh, and my skin covered in down as bright as the crows where dark. I did not recognise myself, and the horror of it was enough to wake me.
When I opened my eyes, Fiachra and Conn were beside me, one tucked beneath each arm, their worried faces staring up.
“Are you all right, Fin?” asked Conn, his small voice bringing courage to my heart that I might calm his fear.
“Yes, my love,” I replied, stroking his hair.
“Did you have a bad dream?” Fiachre asked.
“Yes, it was nothing but a dream.”
“What did you dream of?”
Thinking for a moment, I found the images fading. There had been a wood, and a spring, but beyond that I could remember nothing. Nothing except the face of a swan.
“I do not know,” I replied. “Such things are best left in the shadowlands. Better forgotten than brought into the world with words.”
They snuggled against me and soon we were fast asleep.
*
Some weeks later, when my dream was all but forgotten, my father decided to hold a great feast at our fort. He said that he was tired of riding about the country greeting this lord or that, and instead wished to invite them together to eat with him. That way, he said, it would be many moons before he needed to leave his home again, and he wished to spend that time with his children and his wife.
My father had agreed to invite the Cauci and the Manapi, whose own children were numerous, with many the same age as the twins. He invited Bodb and our kin from Sidh-ar-Femhin, Blind Sile and the Nagnatae, Luiseach and her father Laisrean, the Darini and the chieftains of Dún Fionnachaidh, the Fort of the White Field, and, at my request, an invitation was extended to the clan of the Red Rock.
The preparations were arduous. I hardly saw Sorcha from sun-up to sundown, for she spent all of her time with the other women of the fort, burning wood for charcoal, digging the mead pits and grinding flour on the quernstones. The farmers came from across our lands to deliver the fattest of their cattle. Those who could not control their hounds were sent to the woods to hunt, as anything that might worry the sheep into providing less milk, or the hens into laying fewer eggs, was to be discouraged. The smell of fresh bread must have reached the savages across the sea, for they sent thunder and lightning our way to mimic the sound of their rumbling bellies. The rains did not stop us though, and by the time our first guests arrived the clouds had scarpered and the sun smiled down upon us once again.
Blind Sile was the first to arrive with her people. I pitied the loss of her sight, yet what she lacked in vision her mouth made up for, I could listen to her stories all night. We were giddy with excitement by the time the Cauci and Manapi arrived, closely followed by my grandfather’s colourful banners.
“Ailbhe!” I cried, hammering my hands against the side of her cart that she might step down quicker.
The twins came running too, for we could hardly contain our joy at seeing the face of her red-cheeked babe.
“All right, all right. Give your aunt a moment to breathe. It’s been a long journey,” Eoghan said, stepping down to help his wife.
“Here he is,” she said, pulling back the swaddling to reveal a large, healthy boy. “Your cousin, Bevan.”
“He’s just a baby,” Fiachra said, turning up his nose.
“As were you, once,” I reminded him as we laughed.
“Can I hold him?” asked Conn.
“Once we’re by the fire and settled,” Ailbhe replied, tucking the cloth up about her son whilst her husband helped the men collect their bags.
“We’ve saved you the best hut,” I told her. “It’s on the south side, sheltered from the wind. There’s a large fire and such beautiful weaves. It was one of my mother’s favourite rooms.”
We were silent for a moment then, as Ailbhe had not visited our fort since her sister last drew breath.
Bevan offered up a happy gurgle, followed by a magnificent belch, and we all fell to laughing again.
“Who are they?” I asked, shading my eyes against the sun.
Far off in the distance, caught in the wake of my grandfather’s men, came a small band of horses with bright red banners. I could not make them out from so far.
“The Fianna. They travelled with us from Sidh-ar-Femhin.”
Aodh
I ran down the hill so fast, I practically collided with Cumhaill’s horse.
“Welcome! Welcome to my father’s fort!” I called, pushing my way between their flanks until I found the chestnut colt with the red-haired warrior atop it.
Caílte swung down and threw his arms around me, slapping my back as though we were already kin.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” I said, squeezing the breath from him.
>
“Aye, well our brother here said there’d be food and ale,” Cumhaill said, loosening the girth on his mount.
“That there is, and enough to feed you all, though we’re short on huts.”
“We’ll pitch camp outside the fort, and I’m sure you can find a bed for this one,” he said, patting Caílte’s shoulder as he passed.
We just stood there and grinned at each other until his horse stamped its foot, demanding to be free of its saddle.
“Let me call the stablehands and get these seen to,” I said, reluctant to leave him. “I’ll be back in a while.”
That night was the best of my life. The wine flowed freely, the scent of roast hog on the fire made a thousand mouths water, and the dancing continued until the first rays of light broke the bright red skies to the east.
I was not awake to see the dawn. Caílte had returned to the crannóg with me. We swam beneath the stars and dragged our dripping bodies to my bed, warmed by the fire and our naked flesh pressed against one another. That night we spent the first of many together as warriors. I was no longer shy of my love for him, nor him for I. We held each other like Cú Chulainn and Ferdiad, and in the morning, lazy in the fullness of our love, we kissed until our mouths were dry.
“I must speak with your uncle,” I told him on the third day. “I want to join the Fianna, for I never wish to be parted from you again.”
He smiled at me, lying there in the long grass beneath Anamcha’s tree.
“There is more to being a warrior than fucking,” he told me.
“Aye, I know that, but I can fight, you’ve seen me.”
“Yes, you can fight.”
“Well enough? Tell me true.”
“Well enough,” he agreed. “And you can ride a horse and swim.”
A thought crossed my mind then. “That race, last year at the Feast of Age. Do you remember it?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, guarded.
“Did you let me win?”
“Let you win? I tried to drag you back.”
“Why?” He was silent for a long while, weaving a stem of grass between his fingers. “Tell me why you did that.”
“Because I knew it would make you angry enough to come first.”
“Against who?” I asked, frowning.
“Against any of us. I held you back, you kicked me away and you won.”
“And you fell behind.”
He shrugged and rolled onto his stomach, examining the shape he had left on the ground.
“You did that to give yourself an excuse to fall back, and to give me the determination to beat Garratt of the Red Rock?”
His silence confirmed my suspicion.
“Why?” I implored again. “I would have beaten him anyway!”
“Aye, but you would not have beaten me.”
I was angry at him now. “What makes you so sure of that?”
He rested his weight on one arm so that he could flex the other.
“I’m strong too,” I said, hurt, “and quicker.”
“You think?”
“Aye, I think.”
He grinned and reached across for me, but I rolled away. Getting to our feet he launched towards me, and again I ducked out of his grasp.
“You’re as slow as a mule,” I shouted.
With that, he picked up a stone from the ground and threw it, catching the side of my shoulder. I looked down in shock, rubbing the soreness from my skin. Whilst I was distracted, he took five paces and was almost upon me. As I turned away, he caught my other arm and spun me back towards him. We wrestled for a moment, falling to the ground beneath the tree, where he pinned my arms above my head and rested his weight upon them. Lowering his lips to mine, he planted the softest kiss.
“You still have a lot to learn,” he smiled.
“Then let me learn with you. Let me follow you, teach me, I’ll become whatever you ask of me.”
He sighed and rolled off, lying there, one arm resting across his eyes.
“If it were up to me, I would without hesitation. But Cumhaill is head of the Fianna, and you won’t win him round with a kiss.”
Aoife
I wrapped the druid’s rod in sealskin and buried it beneath the rug in my private hut, yet I carried it with me in my mind everywhere I went.
One wish.
That was what the Phantom Queen had gifted me, one wish and one wish only.
I thought on it every waking moment and dreamed on it each night. What could I buy myself with that one wish?
During those first few days of the feast, I sought out Mother Moira, for the cunning old woman must have known what awaited me in the Widow’s Cave. Yet every time I passed by her hut, the door was closed. Even though her broom rested with the handle up, I approached and knocked all the same. When no answer came, I let myself in and looked around. The animal heads on the walls stared down passively and the hearth lay unkindled.
Guennola asked everyone she met, from the women weaving their looms to the boys shovelling pig shit from the animal enclosures. No one could recall her whereabouts, though some said she may have gone to the woods to escape the festivities, for she was known to enjoy her own peace.
If that were the case, I reasoned she would return once the clans had dispersed, and then I could ask her advice.
At first the wish seemed obvious. What else should I want but a child? The one thing I had craved since my marriage to Lir? Yet doubt played at the edge of my mind.
One wish.
Why waste such a precious gift on something I might yet procure for myself? After all, I had followed the old witch’s words. I had baked a cake of the whitest oats, bound together with my husband’s hair and salted with the earth. I had consumed the cake and drunk the wine. Perhaps that in itself was enough to conceive a child.
It was in this way of thinking that my eyes came to rest on Nyle of the White Field. At first I thought it were a trick of the light, for he looked so much like Lir I almost called out to him by the wrong name. His face was as noble, his hair as long and dark, his nose just as straight. Only, he was not blessed by the cup of youth, his years truly were small in number.
As I watched him dance with Sorcha, laughing and bending his neck to speak with her, he chanced to look up. Our eyes met briefly, and he knew that I watched.
My plan was a simple one. If I could not conceive a child by my husband, and if his son would not oblige his own bloodline, then perhaps there was a third way. After all, he looked so much like my husband that any child would be accepted without question. It was not that I wished to deceive my husband, but that every beat of my heart cried the word mother in my ears. Both of my sisters had been blessed, my own loins could surely bring forth life. Only my lord was at question, for he was a pureblood of the Tuatha Dé Danann. His body may seem youthful, but his years were beyond counting. Perhaps his seed had turned to saltwater like the sea he had once loved.
A second, seductive thought sang to my soul. If I could conceive a child, there would remain one wish left to me. It seemed a poor act to throw away such a wish without careful thought. A spell such as that required patience. Whatever I wished for needed to bring with it a bountiful harvest. For if I were to have a child, what might I want him to inherit? The son of the King of the Sea would be heir to this windy fort atop its hill, yet the heir to the King of Sidh-ar-Femhin would inherit all of Éire. He might prove to be the greatest king ever known.
That was what my wish might buy me.
The next night, I sought him out. Nyle stood by the fire, his chest barely covered by a scrap of goatskin, his hands holding a cup of mead whilst he studied the flames. I approached and took the cup from him, surprised to taste crushed apples against my lips rather than sweet honey.
“Can I fetch you something stronger, my lord?”
“No, my lady. I do not consume that which blunts my mind.”
“I don’t think I have ever met a man so dedicated to clarity of thought.”
He smiled and
took back his cup, draining it.
“If we cannot think straight, we cannot see straight. And I wish to miss nothing of your beauty.”
I almost laughed at how easy he made it. To my mind it was a sign that the gods had already blessed our union. My thoughts ran ahead of me to a suckling infant not yet born, cradled in a reed basket, wrapped in sheepskin and sung to sleep each night at my breast.
Looking around, I saw that our company held no such ideals of sobriety, and that we were the centre of no one’s attention.
“Will you come with me, somewhere we can talk together?”
“We are talking together now,” he smiled. Reading the uncertainty on my face, he continued. “It would be an honour to be the sole ear to your conversation.”
I whispered directions to my hut and made my way into the crowd. I danced and joked and even kissed my husband on his lips before melting back into the night to find my wild warrior. As I entered my room, slick with the heat of the fire, I found him sitting on my bed, his legs parted so that the bulge between them drew my eye.
Allowing the cloth to fall across my door, I saw Guennola’s slim shadow step across it and knew that she would keep watch for me. She was the most loyal of all servants, and I could always count on her discretion.
“What would you like to speak about?” he asked. “What could I say that would please you?”
“Say nothing,” I told him, unfastening the strings at my shoulder and allowing my dress to fall, exposing my breasts.
“My lady, I think you mistake me for your husband,” he said, though his eyes never left me.
As I approached, he leaned back, allowing me to kneel between his legs. I kissed the mound there and felt it push against my lips. A soft gasp escaped him and I undid the strings of his braccae, reaching to free his manhood. I caressed it gently, taking the fullness of it in my mouth, licking along its shaft until it glistened.
The Children of Lir Page 14
