I went back to Owain’s and drank until I blacked out. In the morning I woke on the rocks again, this time my cláirseach lay beside me, the strings cut and the frame splintered.
“What in hell…” I squinted, and a shadow fell across me.
“Looking worse for wear there, sailor.”
“Brendan the Navigator!” I scrambled back, lifting my head to look at him and instantly regretting it.
“Well, don’t sound so surprised. I assume it was me you were looking for last night?”
“Not really. I was just on the streets, singing my song. Why, did you like it?”
He gave me a knowing smile and reached out a hand to help me up.
“Oh, God,” I whimpered, leaning forward with my hands pressed to my knees, trying to slow the spinning in my head.
“A blasphemer?”
“Sorry Brother, it’s just a little early—”
“Then forgive me, I should not have intruded.” He turned to leave.
“No, wait!” I cried out.
“It has been many years since I knew for myself, but I believe, when one’s head is hammering as yours, it is better to whisper.”
I nodded and slumped back down.
Brendan squatted beside me, producing a small bottle from his sleeve.
“Here,” he said, “try this. It should make the pain go away.”
Downing it, I thanked him and rubbed my eyes.
“Sorry you find me this way.”
“From what I’ve heard, it is how you are usually to be found.”
I lowered my gaze, ashamed.
“If you could sing me one song now, what would it be?”
I fumbled with my broken instrument, resting it upon my knee.
“I know a beautiful one about Brigid saving the soul of a lost maid.”
“I think I may have heard that already.”
“There’s one about Columba’s conquest of Alba.”
“A pious man, indeed. And also a dear friend. Though I think you already knew that.” He looked at me shrewdly. “Holy as these songs are, what is the song you long to sing? What song would you have all the world hear?”
“Whatever song is at the bottom of the cask.”
“Ah, I see. You have run dry of songs?”
“The flame is somewhat dampened, yes. I know all the songs of the saints, and those of ancient Rome and the Irish gods, and I know the songs the fisherwives sing and the songs the bakers knead their bread to. I know the songs that mothers sing to babes, and I know the songs that make men blush, but—”
“They’ve all been sung before.”
I met his eyes and he smiled kindly.
“You’re looking for an adventure, is that it, lad?”
“I’m still young, Brother. I’m young but I feel old. Every night I sit over in that house there, and I sing the same stale songs over and over, and I drink so as I can forget them. So as they’ll sound fresh again next day.”
“You want something of your own to sing about?”
“Forgive me, but I’ve heard of the places they say you’ve been.”
“No doubt you heard I’ve been to Mag Mell, the fairylands beyond the waves?”
“Is it true?”
“Aye.” He nodded slowly. “I went and came back changed.”
“When I heard you were coming, I did what I could to get your attention.”
“Well, you have my attention now. What is it you would ask of me?”
“Take me with you. Wherever it is you’re sailing to next, let me come. Let me record your great deeds and your heroic adventures. Let me sing songs of your conquests.”
He looked at me for a moment, then doubled with laughter.
“Heroic? Great deeds?” Slivers of silver leaked from his eyes as he wrapped his arms about his sides. “Oh, lad! I fear you shall be sorely disappointed.” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, collecting himself. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to laugh, only I am an old man now. Heroic nowadays is rising from my bed without cricking my spine.”
“You still look hardy to me,” I said, grudgingly.
“Perhaps. I don’t think I’m in my grave yet. But, lad, I’m not the—” He stopped then, a thought furrowing his brow. “Now there’s an idea,” he muttered to himself.
“What?”
“Say I knew of something you might like to sing about. How do you think you would fare, away from all this?” He spread his arm to encompass the harbour, with its ale houses and brothels.
“When I have song – true song – I don’t need anything else. It’s like air to me. My water and my wine.”
“I sail tomorrow morning. Meet me here at sun-up. If you don’t come, I’ll take it you changed your mind.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
Fionnuala
And so it was we followed the priest across the stretch of water to Inis Gluaire. Brendan took a small boat with a large white sail. Aodh and Conn flew close above, whilst Fiachra travelled on his lap, wrapped in a soft cloak.
“This place of man is dangerous for you,” Brendan told us, the night he and Sister Cecilia pulled our brother from his fever. “You were brave to come to me, for I saw fear in your eyes on our first meeting. It is a privilege that you would allow us to help you, yet there are many others in this world who might have turned your weakness to their gain. Once you are fit enough to travel, I will take you to a place of safety. A place where you will be free from torment, where men may never again cause you harm.”
“Does such a place exist?” I asked.
“I know of an island to the west. West enough that old magic still reigns.”
“How can you speak of the old ways when you worship the new?”
It was then that he told us of his travels in his youth and how he had come to find himself shipwrecked upon the shores of a beautiful island.
“I thought at first I had washed up in Heaven, for the fruit there was fat and full of juice. I thought perhaps it was the Garden of Eden, and I was too afraid to eat of it. Then beings came to me. They spoke in voices sweet as angels. They bathed my wounds and dressed them, and in the morning I was completely healed. When I asked where I was, they told me it was Mag Mell, one of the islands beyond the waves, where neither death, nor age, nor illness subsist.”
“We know of such places,” Fiachra told him.
“And it is because I know of that place, that I knew of you. When I returned, something of that island remained with me. I felt a sense of wonder at the smallest things, a snail on a blade of grass, the reflection of the sun on the morning dew. I felt as a child again, able to imagine all possibilities. Sometimes, if I sat still and listened, I could even hear the animals speaking to one another, the buck to the hind, the hob to the jill. I could see their thoughts and hear their hearts beating in rhythm with the world.”
“Take us there. Take us home to Mag Mell,” Conn implored.
“If only I could. After I was healed, they brought for me a beautiful boat with a horsehead prow, its eyes glowing like fire—”
“Wave Sweeper,” I whispered.
“It bore me home to the shores of Corca Dhuibhne, and I have never again been able to find my way there. I had not seen the fay folk again until that day by the river, when I saw you.”
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Your reflections. Before me, I saw swans, yet against the water I saw children. One girl, and three boys.”
“You have heard our story?”
“As a child.”
I was not upset to leave the mainland behind. I had enjoyed our life by the Dolphin’s Tail, in the days when Uaine and Aednat brought bread in the mornings, and I found the fisherwives fascinating with their constant gossip, half their news true, the other half-dreamt. Yet I was tired, also. We lived in a world we no longer belonged. Able to observe but not partake. We had heard all the stories a thousand times, grown weary of the taste of fish and bread, run dry of conversation. Brendan offered us a place of
peace, and we followed him willingly.
Inis Gluaire was green as old copper, an island sparkling with sea spray, trimmed in silver sand where it met the western ocean. It was a haven at the end of the world.
“Behold, the Lake of Birds!” Brendan smiled, holding his arms wide.
Before us, a vast machair stretched, fertile and veined with pools of water which bled into one another, swelling and draining with the tides. The sand between these fissures was the same bright white as the coast, and we could see our faces clear as mirrors, reflected back. Between us and the ocean was a sea of birds so thick you could not make out that distant blue. There were swift-wings and waders, long-beaks and lapwings. I half expected to see Fand in their midst, a great gull queen calling to her army.
We stood dumb in wonder, myself, my brothers and Aibric the bard.
“They come each evening at low tide, for the worms, but they’ll be gone come morning,” Brendan explained. “During the day you will have these waters for your own. None shall disturb you, for none live here. There are no foxes or dogs, not even mice.”
“What about me?” asked Aibric. “It’d be a queer big nest I’d need to sleep in.”
“Oh,” said Brendan, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I assumed you’d want to sleep on the rocks. There’s a nice pile over there.” He pointed to where the waves beat against the shore, then smiled. “No, for you I have set aside my own house. It isn’t much of a house, but there is a kiln outside for baking bread, and supplies of grain and flour. I’ll have a boat sent once a moon from the mainland with provisions. Should you grow hungry in the meantime, I can assure you the fishing here is very good. You’ll find a net beside the altar. There are blankets and a mattress, and even a little wine. Though I would urge you to drink slowly. Once a moon the boat will come, and no more.”
That night, Brendan sat with us by his little house until morning. We told him of our tale, and listened to many of his own. He was most interested in what our father had been like and how the Tuatha Dé Danann had lived, for by now they had slipped into legend and were inconceivable as beings of flesh and blood.
He marvelled when we spoke of the length of their lives, for the Men of Dea had lived four or five lifetimes to one of his saints.
“It is said in the Bible that men lived as long, once,” he mused, breaking bread for us. “It is said that Noah lived nine hundred and fifty years, and his son six hundred.”
“Would you wish to live that long?” Aibric asked, before remembering us. He had already consumed half the wine.
“It is no blessing to outlive those you love,” Aodh replied.
“No, I should think not,” said Brendan. “Though I would wish to live a good, long life. I have a great fascination and investment in the story of man. I would wish to see a little more of how it progresses. Tell me children, though it feels strange to call you such, what say you of the progress of our people after all you have seen?”
It was too hard to answer. I missed my family and the way the world had been so fiercely that it prevented me from looking with love upon these new people who occupied our lands.
“I do not understand them,” Conn spoke for me.
“What do you not understand?” asked the priest, leaning forward.
“They are born, they make children, and they die. Generation after generation. Yet each time they war, each time they betray in both love and trust, and each time they profit with coin as though coin made them rich. This story of man, I do not understand the meaning of it.”
Fiachra nodded his agreement. “In all of the best stories there is a hero and a villain, there is true love, a battle, and a happy ending. Yet there are none of these things in man. Heroes are as likely to be villains next day, and villains can be valiant. But love of money outshines the heart, and even when love is true, there is never a happy ending. They all lose in the end to age and the grave.”
“Lose?” Aibric laughed. “How can you say that when the glory of Heaven awaits those who have opened their eyes to its light?”
“Heaven?” Conn asked.
“Aye, Heaven,” he repeated, plucking a string on his cláirseach. “That place where we all grow wings like yours.”
“Tír na nÓg?” my brother asked, uncertain.
Aibric let out a hoot and slapped his thigh. “Haven’t you heard, little brother? Paradise has been moved.”
Brendan shot him a dark look and emptied his cup onto the grass. “You are frightening them. Heaven has not been moved.”
“Tell me again, why you are here?” I asked, and Aibric’s laughter left him.
It was Brendan who answered. “I invited this young man to come with us, so that he might draw fresh water from the well for you, and help you to catch fish. In return, I thought perhaps you could tell him your story in its entirety, that he might record it for all of time. I am starting to think I should not have done.”
“Please don’t say that,” Aibric beseeched. “I am sorry, truly I am. I have been drunk so long I forget how to be sober. Really, it would be a great honour to record your story.”
“We shall think on it,” I told him. “It is almost dawn and we are tired. If we do not return by the next moon, you can take the boat back to the mainland.”
With that, we took flight across the machair in search of a soft spot to rest. I tucked the twins beneath my wings, and Aodh at my breast, and we slept.
Aodh
I awoke with cool air against my back, and knew that something was wrong, for Conn usually slept with his own head against that spot. As I twisted my neck to look for him, I disturbed Fin, and her own movement woke Fiachra.
“What is it?” she asked.
We had slept the entire day through. It was such a relief to rest where no men or wild beasts lurked. Those years of sleeping fitfully, waking to each noise on the water, had tired us more than we had known. The sky was starting to darken already, and a crescent moon glowed soft against the twilight.
“Where is Conn?”
We moved apart and began calling his name. When no answer came, we spread our wings and swept across the island. The stars were full-out, and the birds all flown, by the time we found him, floating alone on the sea.
“Conn, what are you doing?” his twin asked, emotion thick in his voice. “We thought you had been taken.”
Conn did not answer, he simply paddled away.
“Conn, speak to us,” Fionnuala tried, moving close and extending her wing.
“Don’t,” he said. “Let me be.”
Tears landed against the surface of the water, distorting his reflection.
“It’s what the bard said, isn’t it?” Fiachra asked. “That joke he made about paradise?”
At this, Conn turned on us, his beak open in a silent cry.
“I don’t want to die!” he said. “I don’t want to die and to go away to a place where no one we love is there.”
In the face of his terror, we fell silent. What could we say to comfort him, when his fears were our own? The world we knew was gone. Manannán had not come to see us in all our time at Irrus Domnann. The rituals the Men of the World undertook for their dead were unlike any we had known. All of our people and all of their ways were but a memory.
“You won’t be alone,” said Fin. “We’ll be together.”
“I want my father. I want Sorcha and Ailbhe and Eoghan.”
And I want Caílte mac Rónáin, I thought.
My face crumpled as I turned away.
“He’s right,” Fiachra said. “We know nothing of this new god. They don’t come back like we do. When they’re dead, they stay dead. One life, one lifetime. I heard the fisherwomen talking when they came back from church. Something about salvation and sin, about how a man’s heart gets weighted. Like the laws of Eochaid mac Eirc it was, but all written down.”
“Aye, we know nothing of this new god,” Fin conceded. “So, let us make it our duty to learn.”
“From who? The only god Aib
ric worships is his wine. There are no books here, and if there were we could not read them.”
We did not sleep that night, but floated beneath the silent stars, each lost in our thoughts of those we had loved so many hundreds of years past. Sometimes we would share stories with one another, to bring back their faces and remind ourselves of their smiles.
Come daybreak, we were surprised. On that morning, and every morning after, we found a pail of fresh water beside Brendan’s church, along with bread and fresh fish. Brendan had taken the wine, but left us a goat. Some mornings there was milk sweetened with honey. Aibric never disturbed us when we came to eat. He remained indoors or walked out across the island.
Each night, whilst the birds feasted, we could hear him singing his songs. He had brought a flute and a cláirseach, and a board of strings which he plucked with his long nails. Some evenings he would sing loud and lively, stories of the Roman invasions and the tribes of the East who drove them back. Other nights he would sing slower, of the saints and their good deeds. We huddled close to listen to these, for his songs were our books, our way of seeing into the heart of that new world. He even sang songs of Brendan and his journey to Mag Mell.
One night, he sang a lament so heartbreakingly sad that we wept. It was the story of Deirdre of the Sorrows. Deirdre was born to the King of Ulster’s storyteller. On her birth it was foreseen she would be a great beauty, but that she would bring about the destruction of a kingdom. The soothsayer told her father to put her to death, but she was saved by the very king she would later destroy.
Intrigued by the story, and by her beauty, King Conchobar raised her to be his wife. He won her gratitude and her favour, but never her heart. For she had fallen in love with the great warrior Naoise and they eloped to Alba to escape Conchobar’s wrath.
They lived happily there, eating of the fruits of the forest and fishing in its streams. Though exile weighed heavily upon them, for they had left all those they loved behind, and ‘tis better to be a beggar in your own lands than a king in another’s.
The Children of Lir Page 31
