“And so, we take our final journey?” I asked.
Manannán nodded, his own face covered by his cowl, his strong arms exposed as he took an oar in each hand.
“I haven’t a penny to pay you, sweet brother.”
“Then pay us with kindness,” my sister spoke. “When you reach the shores of Tír na nÓg, and set foot beyond the ninth wave, where even we may not follow, you will meet again with one who meant the world to us.”
“And I will tell him I am sorry—”
“Do no such thing,” Manannán instructed. “The dead do not remember. Give him no cause to know that he was ever unhappy.”
“Love him,” Fand told me. “Love him like there was never another.”
“I will try,” I said. “Yet I doubt my withered flesh would bring him joy.”
My sister smiled then. Such a funny, sad sort of smile.
She reached forward and held my hand before my eyes. With each stroke of the oar my skin became tighter, my nails whiter. I felt my hair fall once again about my shoulders, glossy as a raven’s wing, spun with bright-blue jay feathers.
“Fill his days with every kindness,” she told me. “Find what it was you once saw in each other, and savour it. One day we will all be together in that place, sister of mine. One day, not too far from now.”
Fionnuala
The twins and I had been flung from wave to rock. We were all but dead when Aodh returned to us, his feathers preened, his head high as though no such storm had come to pass.
“Sister,” he sighed, spreading his wings across me.
“You’re alive,” I managed. “Yet I cannot bear another attack. Should Aoife return—”
“She will not return,” he told me. “That is an end to it.”
For three days and three nights he nursed us with milk from the enchanted cup and with little silver fish. When we had regained enough strength to feed ourselves, he told us of the mighty battle that took place. How he was sure that Aoife would swallow him whole, how she had pleaded with him over and over to come to her, and how she had raised the wind to imprison him when he tried to flee. He told us how the sea raged, how lightning tore through the clouds, and how the great witch Bé Chuille had eventually been slain by a demon of the air.
I was sad for Bé Chuille, truly I was. I knew that it was for her sake that we had survived upon Sruth na Maoile. Without her words of shame, her sister Fand would never have sent us food or drink. Our own brother Manannán would have watched from afar and ne’er approached. As a woman, she had her faults, I had seen that look when first she set eyes on Aodh, and I understood why she was not welcome beneath the waves. Yet, as a sorcerer, she had proven herself a reliable friend.
Even though she was gone, Manannán and his wife continued to open the gates of Tír fo Thuinn to us each full moon. For a few hours of their time, and a few days of ours, we took on the shape of children once more. We played by the fire, feasted at table, and listened to the stories Fand would tell. She no longer frightened us. Her grief for her son, and I suspect her sister, turned her soft towards us. When we returned to the rock we often found fresh parcels of food, brought by selkies and sea-dragons in the black of night.
With Aoife gone, the waters seemed warmer. During the summer it was as though the sun barely kissed the horizon before waking next morning. The rise was gold and blue, the set flame-red. When snow came, it no longer bit as it had before. It turned the rocks to glittering piles of quartz, and the sea silver as a sword.
More and more we saw ships upon that blade, edging their way between Éire and Alba. With each passing year they became larger, faster, longer. When storms raged and the selkies sang them to the rocks, they would come to us with gifts of bronze, gold and silver. We built our nests of fine fabric and lined them with jewels. We were the richest islanders in all of Éire, with nothing to spend our coin on.
One night, after a summer storm, we woke to find three men beside us on the rocks. One had thick ginger hair and a red gash across his forehead which spoke of misfortune. My brothers helped me to roll him into the water so that the sight of him would not distress the two surviving. The first of the living was a gaunt-faced man, late in years. His chestnut hair had been tied in a braid as thick as his arm. It reached to his knees with lengths of seaweed caught about it. The second was no more than a boy, sandy-haired as the twins.
We fed them from our own beaks and sheltered them from the rain with our wings until they stirred. At first, they thought themselves in a dream, thrashing about as though still aboard their drowned ship. They reached out and called for lost shipmates until we sung them to sleep. With each singing, they woke a little calmer.
“What is your name?” Conn asked of the boy.
“They call me Aodh Aithfhiosach. Aodh of the Quick Wits,” he replied, half in a stupor.
“Where were you sailing to?” I asked.
“Home, to Banna in the north of Éire.” Aodh the Quick Witted sat up a little and rubbed his eyes with his fists. “Swans?”
“I see how he earned his name,” my brother laughed.
“But—” the boy’s face was pale beneath the moon. His companion woke with a start, spluttering across the rocks. “Fergus,” the boy whispered. “Fergus, wake up.”
With a groan, the older man opened his eyelids and stared at us.
“Fergus Fithchiollach,” I whispered, reaching to pluck a leather purse from about his neck. As the thong snapped a handful of wooden counters scattered about our feet. “It is you!” I cried.
“That voice—”
“It is me, Fionnuala ní Lir! These are my brothers.”
Fergus laughed, a gritty sound through his salt-scrubbed throat.
“Well, I never.”
“Have we died?” Aodh Aithfhiosach asked.
“No, lad. Did you never hear the tale?” The boy looked at him blankly, so Fergus proceeded to tell it – the story of our lives. We sat silently, listening. The story was far shorter than it had taken to live. It spoke nothing of the love we bore for our father, of the love he had once felt for Aoife, or of the Fianna who had been our protectors for so many years. Neither did it speak of Bé Chuille, or Fand, or our brother Manannán. It was a simple story, all being told. The story of a jealous stepmother and her unfortunate stepchildren. A story that might be told to second wives to warn them of the consequences of withholding compassion.
“And these are they? The Children of Lir?” The boy’s eyes widened as he reached out to stroke my neck.
“What of our homeland, Fergus?” I asked. “We have not spoken with a single man of Éire in almost a hundred years. Pray tell us, what of our father? What of your cousin, Ailbhe, and her husband Eoghan? What of their son, Bevan? What of our grandfather Bodb Dearg and his queen? What of Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warriors?”
Fergus’s eyes fell and he took to coughing again. “Gods, woman. Would you let a man catch his breath? I have flint in my pocket, is there nought to make a fire with on this forsaken rock?”
He had breath enough to tell our legend, yet his tongue failed when it came to my family. I became afraid of what he might say, and embraced the distraction of building a fire to delay the bad news. He took dry flint from an oil rag and we set light to one of our nests, using my plumage as kindling.
The two men settled down beside the blaze, rubbing their hands and passing the cup between them. I saw that Aodh Aithfhiosach drank milk, for it left a moustache on his upper lip, whereas Fergus’s teeth were stained with wine.
My brothers and I sat silently by.
“We have a little cheese and bread,” I offered. “And a plentiful supply of fish.”
Young Aodh accepted our food, yet Fergus refused.
“It’s bad enough I’m drinkin’ wi’ ya,” he said. “If I eat I’m sure to be damned forever.”
Aodh Aithfhiosach looked at me over his hunk of cheese.
“We are enchanted, we do not enchant,” I assured him.
“Stil
l,” said Fergus, “sorcery like this, who’s to say what it might do?” He continued to sup his wine until the flames died to a dim crackle. “I won’t lie to you,” he said, eventually lifting his eyes to mine. “The world you knew is much changed.”
“A shadow rises in place of the sun?” I ventured.
“What? No.” The creases of his face formed rivers of shadow. “The sun still rises, child—” He caught himself, looking at me hard. “How can I even call you a child?” he asked. “You sound like the Fionnuala I once knew, yet that in itself is strange. How can you possess the voice of a child after all these years?”
We had no answer for him, and his companion was too engrossed in his food to offer an opinion.
“What of our father?” Conn repeated.
“Your father was half mad with grief after you left,” he told us. “He retreated to Sidhe Fionnachaidh with what remained of his men.”
“Caílte mac Rónáin, did he go with him?” our Aodh asked.
Fergus scratched his shoulder and shrugged. “I couldn’t say,” he replied. “I wasn’t there.” This absence of news seemed to strike my brother harder than any story of hardship or sorrow might have done. “All I know is that he locked himself up there and admitted no one. It wasn’t until Bodb went to visit on him that things worsened.”
“Worsened?” I asked.
“Aye. Well, he was the King of Éire—”
“Was?” Fiachra asked.
“Is. He is the King of Éire, after all. He didn’t take kindly to Lir refusing his hospitality. Honest truth, I think he was feeling bad about what happened. Him wedding Lir to two wives who brought him to grief. He wanted to make amends, but Lir would hear none of it and Bodb would not leave without an audience. He laid siege to Sidhe Fionnachaidh and tried to starve your father into civility.”
I was so shocked to hear this that I thought to take flight rather than listen to more.
“Your Caílte mac Rónáin put in an appearance then,” he said, smiling at the way Aodh’s head rose upon its slender neck. “He’s taken up with some cousin of his at Sidhe Aedha, down in the Valley of the Three Waters, where the Siuir and the Beoir and the Berba meet. After your father no longer had need of him, he left the Fianna and went hunting for boar. They say he supped each night at the table of Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh—”
“Who is he?” Conn asked.
For a moment, Fergus looked puzzled and then he sighed. “Aye, I s’pose you have nae heard of him. After Blind Sile died, he united half the South. Been lording it over all of ‘em for years now, growing fat on ox and fine wine. Anyhow, this Ilbrec was keen to please the King, and joined his men to your grandfather’s siege.
“One night, your father sent down two of his finest men. His brown warrior and his black. He sends one against Ilbrec, and one against Bodb. The Red King meets them both with a double-headed axe, roaring like a bull. Yet the warriors pull back after a moment and bend the knee. They tell him Lir has taken leave of his senses, only they don’t see that Lir is right behind them. He challenges Bodb to single combat. Two kings, fighting the battle one of them has always yearned for.
““I wouldn’t fight you then, I won’t fight you now,” your grandfather tells him. “I am and always have been the rightful King of Éire. I pity you your grief, and I share some blame in that, but Lir, this madness must end.” Only, your father wouldn’t listen. He took Ilbrec’s spear right out of his hand and levelled it at Bodb—”
“Our father wouldn’t do such a thing!” Fiachra said.
“Aye, the father you knew wouldn’t have, but time changed him.”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“Well, Bodb cast aside the spear with his axe and took up a mighty rock in both his hands. He looked fit to brain your father with it, but instead he flexed his thick muscles and shattered it right there, above his head. “I will not fight you!” he told Lir.”
““Then name your champion!” said your father.
“That’s when Caílte stepped forward.”
I heard Aodh’s intake of breath.
““Look me in the eye,” Caílte said. “Have I not been your faithful servant these past years? Have we not broken bread together, grieved together? I stood by you, Lir, through all your troubles, but I will not stand aside whilst you threaten the King of Éire. If you wish to, then it is I you must fight, your friend.””
“Please, I beg of you, what became of our father?” I asked.
“What of Caílte?” asked Aodh.
Fergus levelled his gaze at my brother, chewing the side of his cheek as though tasting his words. Then, all of a sudden, his mouth split into a wide grin and he laughed.
“Don’t you worry, children. They are all safe. All of them. Your father, your grandfather, Caílte and Ilbrec, and the Fianna. All safe and in one place, there at Sidhe Fionnachaidh, enjoying the Feast of Age.”
I laughed too, we all did. Relief washed through me to think that those I loved were reconciled. That our father had been too tired to fight, too honourable to raise his sword against a friend. To think that they had settled the matter and sat down to feast, there at his fort, awaiting our return.
“Now, tell me,” Fergus said, wiping a tear from his eye. “How do we get off this bloody rock?”
Manannán brought Wave Sweeper, yet they refused to board, for they knew the legend of that boat, and where it travelled. In the end, Fand’s host of sea birds stole a raft from the mainland and flew it to Carraig na Ron with ropes of woven grass in their beaks.
For nights after they left, our dreams were filled with strange feasts. We were sat at our father’s table at Sidhe Fionnachaidh, with all of the chiefs of the old tribes about us: Blind Sile, slurping from her bowl, soup trickling from her gap-teeth, mottle-bearded Laisrean with his beautiful daughter Luiseach, still a fair maid with long flowing locks. The Cauci stood upon the table, whirling their blazing sticks, occasionally setting fire to one another’s beards and laughing as they transformed into sprites, dancing from one dish to the next, leaving bowls of flame in their wake. We all laughed at table, the juice of suckling pig and braised goat greasing our chins, the wine warming our fingertips and turning every word to jest.
When we woke each morning on the cold stone of Carraig na Ron, we wept bitterly, for we missed our family and our old way of life something fierce.
*
Some years after our guests had come to disquiet our dreams, a night came unlike any other.
The air had once again turned bitter, and we had taken to flying between Reachlainn and the mouth of the Banna before settling each night in our nests. This helped to stretch our wings, and brought a sweet warm ache to our muscles that helped us to sleep as soon as our eyes closed.
As we turned for home, Fiachra cried out, for all the horizon was a red glow. A hundred miles ahead the sky was a blanket of black smoke, as though someone had set the whole of Britain aflame. We were forced to swoop low to avoid being blinded, yet the closer we came, the thicker the smoke. Within that hot horror, a thousand women screamed, babies cried and blood drenched the sea below.
The next morning, a dark shadow rose in place of the sun.
As the tide pulled north, it took with it a hundred charred bodies, faces twisted in pain. Amidst them were rags of white, which had once been druidic robes. We wept as children passed, their entrails snagging seaweed. Dogs and cows and horses followed, bloated like rafts upon which a swarm of sand flies set sail. The stench was sickening.
“Don’t,” Fiachra told me, as I tried to cover his eyes with my wing. “We were children once, but no longer.”
For three full moons the gates of Tír fo Thuinn remained closed to us. Though the moon filled the cups and rings on our rock, no caiseal awaited us beneath the surface. When Manannán eventually came to wake us in the cold mist of dawn, his blue eyes no longer shone.
“Forgive me,” he said softly. “I have not slept in a long time.”
“What kept you from
us?” I asked.
“So many dead…”
“Tell us, brother,” Aodh implored. “Tell us what has come to pass.”
“It is Bé Chuille’s prophecy,” Fiachra said. “The Witch of Lámhfada said this day would come.”
“Aye,” Manannán replied, trailing his fingers through the silent waters beside the rock. “It is as she foretold.”
Then, our brother did something I had never dreamed possible.
He wept.
His shoulders hunched upon themselves, he hung his head beneath that black cowl, and began to sob.
This scared us more than all that had come before. A thick veil of fog enveloped us and soon Fand was there, beside her husband. She took him in her arms, drew back his hood and stroked his hair.
“Hush, my love,” she soothed. Looking at us, her eyes were full of tears. “It is Mona. The Mother of Cymru has been slaughtered whilst she slept.”
All eyes turned in the direction of that island, though we could see nothing through Fand’s cloak of white.
“Why?” I asked.
“Twenty years past, the tribes of Britain were at war. Verica, King of the Atrebates, sought help in defeating his enemies, the Catuvellauni.”
“Help from who?”
“Why, from our friends, of course,” Fand said bitterly. “Those whose wine we drink at table, whose ornaments adorn our wrists and necks. Whose oil burns in our lamps and brings us light.”
“The Romans?”
“Aye, the Romans. They came when beckoned, they slaughtered the Catuvellauni, then they slaughtered the Atrebates, and they have not sheathed their swords since.”
TIME
From Moel-y-Don to Tal-y-Foel, the Blood Coast congeals. Rocks shine like rubies until fire chars them black. From Bryn-y-Beddau, the Hill of Graves, to the wailing Field of Bitter Lamentation, the ghosts of Mona roam. The Roman, Paullinus, who vested such carnage upon that holy place, turns east to slice down the Queen of the Iceni.
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