We washed in the stream, laughing like children, splashing water at one another. He came close again, raising me up to wrap my legs about his waist, broad as a tree trunk and muscled as a bull. He slid me down gently onto himself and we made love again.
As night fell, he built a fire and killed a deer for us to eat. The juices ran from my mouth and he licked them from my naked breast. We stayed there in that glen for sunrise after sunrise, until I was too sore to walk and he was exhausted. Then we lay even longer, kissing and telling stories of our lives.
Those had been the happiest of days. I return there still, when I close my eyes to sleep.
It was his wife who discovered us, up in a cave in the hills where we had made our home. She waited until he had left to hunt, then came with her warrior women. They held me down and drew their knives across my face. Yet even in my pain I refused to give up. Over and over I told them that I loved him and that they might as well kill me sooner than take him from me. Eventually, Emer relented. She left me in a heap on the floor, holding my tattered face in my hands. That is how Cú Chulainn found me. He fetched water from the stream and healing herbs, and set about mending my wounds. I could not bring myself to look at him for the shame. He was the greatest warrior who ever lived, and I was no fighter.
“Your wife deserves you more,” I told him.
Emer appeared at the cave. When Cú Chulainn saw her, he went to strike her down, but she ducked beneath his arm and held her dagger towards him, even as she walked towards me.
“Stand up,” she commanded, and I did so. “It appears I have spilt the blood of a god, for you heal even faster than my husband’s touch.”
“I wish it were not so. For I would bear the scars of my love willingly.”
Emer’s eyes flashed back to her husband, such anger there.
She cursed him and spat.
“You love him enough you would die for him?” she asked.
“I would.”
“Then you are welcome to him. I fight for him because he is my husband, and it is my pride that is wounded. I would fight alongside him, but die for him? That I could not say with such certainty.”
With that, she sheathed her dagger and left.
Cú Chulainn held me that night, but I could not make love to him. My face hurt and my heart hurt more. As he slept beside me, I watched the sunrise through the cold morning mist and gently untangled myself from his arms. Taking the shape of a gull, I flew for home, never once looking back. I knew that if I did, my resolve would melt. I loved Cú Chulainn as I had loved my own husband once. Yet I knew that Emer’s generosity would not last. A woman can offer away her husband for a night, but a lifetime? No, she would kill me someday.
When I returned to the sea, I found my own husband waiting. He was pacing the great hall, his expression that of a man who’s been robbed.
“Where have you been?” he asked, coming towards me and holding my face to his own. “What has happened to you?”
As he traced the thick scars with his finger, I could not hold back my sorrow. I fell to my knees and confessed everything.
At first, I thought he might drown me, or cast me out upon the waves without direction. Instead, he took me up in his arms and placed me in my bed, with the covers tucked about me. I remained there unmoving for a long time. With no sunrise or sunset, I could not say how long. When Manannán returned he asked whether I had loved Cú Chulainn as much as him. I shook my head. I had loved Cú Chulainn more in those summer days beside the pool. Yet Manannán was my husband. My home.
“That is as well,” he told me. “For Cú Chulainn looks for you, and should you choose to leave me, I feel I have no right to keep you.”
His words were softer than I had ever heard.
“Why is that?” I asked.
“I knew that I hurt you with every woman I took to my bed, yet still I did it. I drove you from our sanctuary. If it had not been Cú Chulainn you found, it would have been the arms of another. I am simply glad you fell for one who was worthy of you.”
I rose from my bed and pressed my hands to his face.
Cú Chulainn and Emer drank a potion of forgetting, made for them by the great Druids of Mona. For his part, my husband drew his cloak of mist about my shoulders, that, should Cú Chulainn ever remember, he would never be able to find me – nor I, him.
Yet there, on the small cluster of rocks that formed Carraig na Ron, I realised that I had been afraid of the wrong wife.
Manannán mac Lir
I had good reason to dislike my wife’s sister, yet in this, no reason to distrust. She had been one of the few to refuse my bed, back in the days when Fand and I were first fasted. My wife was fair and fortunate, whereas Bé Chuille trailed chaos wherever she trod. I propositioned her one drunken night. She laughed in my face and poured wine over my head. I’d thought her such a good sister for that, until I came to realise her tastes savoured a different flavour.
She bedded our son Gaidiar before he was even full grown. When my wife found out, she wept for seven weeks and swore she would have her vengeance. The sea above rocked and swayed, a thousand sailors sent to their deaths whilst she grieved for our boy’s lost innocence.
“I am a man, mother,” he would say. “And I will marry her!”
I admired my son’s determination, even as I mourned his weakness. He thought himself strong, fighting for his lady love, unaware that his lady love played him for a fool. The Witch of Lámhfada traded in heartbreak, taking her pleasures where she fancied. Wherever she spread her legs, she left behind ruined kingdoms and weeping wives.
I sent Gaidiar away to Mona, to the shadow women there, that he might learn the power in womanhood and take up a sword, rather than flowers, against it. Yet still Fand was not content. I feared she might bring the sky down upon us if I could not calm her.
“I want her dead!” she screamed. “I want her to pay for her betrayal with her life.”
“You would have me murder her? To kill one’s own sister is a truer wrong than she has committed.”
“Then I would have her wish for death.”
In truth, my wife scared me, for I had never seen her vicious as that. Fand was the summer breeze to Dianann’s winter storms and Bé Chuille’s autumn chill.
What was I to do? Where all before had come and gone, she had remained constant. For that alone, I owed her much.
I invited Bé Chuille beneath the waves that final time, to talk with her sister and seek amends.
Instead, I passed her a poisoned cup.
I watched her face fall as her tongue traced her lips.
“What have you done to me, brother?” she asked, her voice that of a girl.
“What does it feel like?”
“It feels as though my strength is fading. As though I grow weak.”
“Weaker with each passing year.”
“You have made me mortal?”
Fand seemed displeased that her sister had guessed the curse and stolen her chance to proclaim it. “You are young and beautiful now, sister of mine, but soon your beauty will fade.”
And, oh, how it had.
This bent hag before me was no more Bé Chuille than a fistful of ice is a flowing river. I had ferried many old women to the lands beyond the sea and it hurt my eyes to look upon them. Far better to be snatched in the bloom of youth, and to remain ever so that way in memory.
Yet, for all that had passed between us, I knew she had the truth of it now. Though Cú Chulainn had died hundreds of years past, tied upright to a standing stone by his own entrails, there was one who would not let him go.
During his life, that mighty warrior, who some proclaimed a son of Lugh, had taken many lovers. Almost as many as myself, and more had he lived longer. There was the sister of the Scottish Shadow Witch, Scáthach, who he had taken after battle and forced upon her a son. There had been his true wife, Emer, and my own wife, Fand. There had been the man he loved most of all among his kin, Ferdiad, who he eventually slew with his own ha
nd.
Then there had been her.
The one whose name is never spoken.
The woman who came to him and offered her sorcery.
“For as long as I am by your side, you shall never lose a battle.”
“And why would I need the help of a woman in battle?” he had laughed. He who should have known better, raised by the women of Mona.
“I am no ordinary woman.” She smiled, twisting her flame-red locks between her fingers. “Let me show you just how good I am.”
“And why would you help me?”
“Can’t you see?” she asked, drawing close enough to kiss. “I love you Sétanta, Hound of Culann.”
Pushing her away, the warrior laughed again. “You’re brazen, I’ll give you that. But of women, I have hundreds, and as for battle, I have never lost yet. So I thank you for your offer, but I return your cup unsupped.”
Her face grew as scarlet as her hair.
“You would deny me?” she asked.
He smiled, and swept her away with his hand.
“You would deny me?” she asked again.
This time, the chill in her voice caught his ear and he turned.
“You are a beautiful woman,” he told her, “but my mind is on the battle ahead. I fear I would make you a poor lover, squandering the gifts beneath your dress.”
“You make a grave mistake, Cú Chulainn.” It was then that he saw her shadow cast before her, tall and black, wings spread wide. “If I cannot have your love, then you shall have my hatred.”
As the woman turned into a raven, the warrior knew his mistake. He had shunned the hand of The Morrígan, the Phantom Queen of the Aos Sí. A woman who never forgot and never forgave.
True to her word, she cast against him in every battle. The scent of sage woke him each morning, and the stench of carrion haunted his dreams. She had no care for Emer, who had long since taken lovers of her own, and ceased loving Cú Chulainn as a wife ought. She paid no mind to Aífe, sister of Scáthach, for he had taken her by force. Yet in Fand, Cú Chulainn found true peace. The daughter of a goddess as old as she. A rival worthy of her enmity, yet shrouded in a cloak of mist so thick that none could ever find her.
The Morrígan’s blood throbbed with rage, for she was the only one who understood Cú Chulainn in the grips of ríastrad. A madness flowed through her that both loved and despised in equal measure. She knew no middle ground.
“She could not harm Fand, and she could not harm you,” Bé Chuille said. “So, she sought to harm all those close to you. She destroyed your father’s house.”
Fionnuala
When I awoke a swan, thick mist remained all about me, and I was alone.
“Oh!” I cried out. “The three I loved, my brothers who slept under the shelter of my wings! Until the dead come back to the living, I will see them no more.”
My grief was such that some nights I felt the twins’ warmth beneath me, and Aodh at my breast. I woke weeping on those frozen rocks. The mist was so thick that at last I came to wonder whether it was I who had drowned, and my brothers who sat out there on the sea, mourning my loss. Each night I sang to call them home, yet they never came.
The mist grew bright and the mist grew dark, and eventually I could take no more. Everything I had loved had been taken from me: my mother, my father and my brothers. If I were not already dead, I reasoned perhaps I should be.
I bent my neck to the salty sea and began to drink. Thick, gulping dregs of ocean water.
Only, the water tasted sweet.
Again, I dipped my neck and tried to purge my flesh of its soul.
This time the water tasted sharp as wine.
I drew back, peering into the depths.
A four-sided cup began to rise, attached to a pale, slender arm, followed by a long face with wide brown eyes and a grey-lipped mouth.
“You are thirsting?” the creature asked in a sing-song voice. “Fresh water, wine, milk or mead. Whatever you desire you can sip from this cup.”
She placed the cup upon the rock and hauled herself beside me. Her breasts were large as a wet nurse’s, her stomach and thighs mottled silver-black. When I looked to her feet, I saw they intertwined to form a seal’s tail.
I had heard stories of the selkies, yet never seen one. They were as ancient as the Aos Sí, half-human, half-seal. They spent their time following the trade ships between Éire and Alba, singing them to the rocks and rescuing the sailors, as was their pleasure. Selkies were only ever women, and those they saved only ever men. Their children were born either selkie girls or human boys, nursed in the depths or left on the shore by the doors of fishermen’s wives.
“Here,” she said, holding up her hand to show me the little dried fishes she held there.
They were the finest meal I had eaten in memory. I gulped them down and drank milk until my stomach ached.
“I have lost my brothers,” I told her, when at last I drew breath. “Please, can you help me to find them?”
“Perhaps,” said the selkie. “I may know where they are.”
“Then I beg of you, help me. You don’t understand how very much I love them. We cannot be parted.”
“Let me go and look,” she said, slipping back into the water.
“No, wait!” I cried, not wishing my one companion to leave me.
I saw the selkie’s tail splash once on the surface of the sea, then she was gone. The mist slowly began to clear, as though pulled along after her. Suddenly, I could see where I was. Far, far in the distance, I could make out cliffs like a seam of white thread on the horizon. The sun was setting behind them, casting the waves in brilliant gold and blue. It was so beautiful.
Out to the far north-west I could see a small shadow on the water, and decided that it must be Reachlainn, where we had been when the storm hit. I tried not to dwell on that terrible event. Cresting the distance between there and here were three white spots.
I knew, even before they drew form, that they were my brothers Fiachra, Conn and Aodh.
Too fat to fly, I took to singing and singing until they reached my shore. I spread my wings to embrace them and we sang together until the stars were up.
When I implored them for an explanation of where they had been, I learned of Manannán’s keep beneath the sea. I could not hold back on my kin, and told them of our meeting, years ago.
“Why did you not tell us?” Aodh asked.
I could think of no reason that seemed worthy enough. In those days, I had only half believed it had happened myself. He had seemed so distant, so full of disdain, I saw no reason to think on him again.
More astonishing, my brothers thought they had only been gone a single night, whereas I knew the sun had risen and set many times since we parted. Without the mist to cover us, the sky became clear and cold. Each night we shivered on those rocks. I sheltered the little ones beneath my wings, and Aodh at my breast. We shared what little warmth we had.
Many moons passed in this way. We sipped from the cup the selkie left, and often we woke to find those little silver fish and fresh bread on the rocks. I told my brothers of my mottled friend and they were as grateful as me.
We took to flying by day, roaming the coasts of Alba and Éire. Sruth na Maoile was far ranging in contrast to Loch Dairbhreach. There were many wonders to see: dolphins that leapt, and whales with their tails wide as seven men. They sprayed us as we passed and we laughed, racing their shadows across the surface.
At night, the stars shone brighter than I had ever seen. They reflected on the surface of the sea when it was calm, as though we floated among them, up there in the sky. When the sun sank in the west, the whole world set aflame. I never saw such splendour. A tapestry of red and gold more brilliant than any king possessed.
Though these pleasures were scarce between frozen nights and beating waves. We huddled for warmth, yet there was little protection against the frequent flurries of snow and sleet. Even the summer storms seemed frightful, the sky a flickering lantern casting Sorc
ha’s dragons between the clouds. The tide rose and fell, and some nights it threatened to drown us all, battering against the rocks of Carraig na Ron, our island home. It was a morning after a night like that when I found Conn crying by himself.
“Conn, are you hurt?” I asked, drawing close to shelter him with my wing.
“No,” he said. “I am so tired. I can no longer remember our father’s face.”
I paused then, for my dreams of late had been filled with the dreams of swans. Of skimming the silver waves, of singing beneath the moon, of my legs tangled in the weeds, dragged down to the depths. I had not thought on our family for a long time, and when I did, I found that it was true. I could no longer remember him either. His shape was still there, though the detail grew faint.
We cried together until the sun was fully up.
Then came a winter unlike any before. The cold was so cruel as to freeze the sea about the rocks. It glittered as pretty as the salt on our down, yet bit like a razor. The chill cut from the tip of our beaks to the claws on our feet. It stuck our tongues to the rooves of our mouths and pinned our plumage to the stone. When we moved to seek shelter, we left behind feathers and a sheath of skin from our feet. The cold tore our very flesh from our bones.
Oh! To be on the sea with open sores, where the salt seeps in and stings like a nest of hornets. We were in such terrible, terrible pain. We bled into the water, our tears frozen to our faces. I lay down with my brothers, thinking there to die.
When I awoke, I found myself upon a comfortable bed, covered in a quilt of blue and green. The walls of the room were high and dripping with water, lit by clusters of luminescent shells. At the far end, a man sat bathing my feet from a bowl of warm water on his lap, his dark hood raised so that I could not see his face. Even so, I recognised him.
“Brother?” I spoke, my voice cracked with hardship.
“Fionnuala fair,” he replied, never turning from his task. I stretched out my arms to either side in wonder, opening and closing my fingers, noting that they seemed thinner than I remembered. “Remain still, you are gravely wounded.”
The Children of Lir Page 23
