Manannan Trilogy

by Michele McGrath

  “You don’t have to leave,” Aneirin answered. “You’ve given me enough help so the harvest is a good one. Also you’re a fine hunter. No need to think we will go hungry this winter, if you want to remain. There’s enough for all.”

  “We’d be glad of your company,” Elin said. “It’s lonely in the darkness, when the gale is howling outside. I’ll miss you if you go.”

  “This weather will break soon, that’s for sure,” Olaf said, turning and looking at Niamh. “We must start tomorrow if we’re to go at all. Our boat’s hidden some distance away and we’re a long way from the island.”

  “If you wish to leave, I’ll be ready,” Niamh said, but she did not manage to keep the reluctance out of her voice.

  “You don’t want to.” It was a statement not a question.

  “I hoped McLir would come. If we leave now, we may never see him again and we have so much to thank him for.”

  “He’ll understand.”

  “There’s another reason why I think you shouldn’t go on a long journey just yet,” Elin said slowly.

  “Oh?”

  “Look at her face.” Elin pointed to Niamh. “She’s blooming. Her skin is soft and her eyes sparkle. Have you missed your courses?” she asked.

  Niamh flushed and lowered her eyes. “Only once.”

  “Is that usual with you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve seen you being sick in the morning. Do your breasts tingle?”

  “A little.”

  Elin smiled and turned to Olaf. “It’s early yet, but if Niamh is carrying your child, let it be born here. A first child is an unknown and some women have difficulties. If you stay, I can help Niamh and McLir may also arrive. A long journey through rough seas could cause her to lose the baby.”

  Olaf turned to Niamh, a smile lighting his face. “Is this true? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I think so, but, as Elin says, it’s too early to be certain. I would have told you as soon as I was sure.”

  Olaf took her in his arms and kissed her. Then he looked at Aneirin. “If you mean what you say and you’ll have us here, we’ll stay with you until the baby is born.”

  It was settled then. Niamh unpacked the few belongings she had begun to put together for the journey. Her sickness left her, but she kept missing her courses and she realised with delight that she had finally conceived. Elin had made her keep a tally of the days by scratching marks on a piece of wood. The new moon had come and gone three times when she went out to find Olaf and told him she was sure.

  “So even one-handed I can make a child.” He laughed and she laughed with him.

  “You use it more every day.”

  He lifted his arm slowly and flexed his fingers. “I’m able to do better than I ever thought I would again. I might even be able to hold a shield and use it in a fight without making a fool of myself.”

  “God forbid! Would you want to?”

  “Fight?”

  “Go raiding again with the others? Take your rightful place among your own people?”

  Olaf looked at her, an arrested look in his eyes. “Until this moment I hadn’t thought about anything else, but now...”

  “Now?”

  “I’ve seen that there are other ways to live. Aneirin and Elin are happy here with their children. He’s a strong man, even though he has never been a warrior.”

  “Would you want to live as they do?”

  “I don’t know. It’s something I must think about.”

  “Olaf, I love you. If you wish to return to your people, I’ll come with you, but the life of a warrior is a hard life. I know that you loved it, yet I’ve seen you in pain and near to death too often. It’s not the life I wish for my child. If this baby in my belly is a son, I would ask you to teach him some other skill. Edan Ragnarsson is a Norseman and has fought in many battles, but his father had him trained as a metal worker. He can fight, although he doesn’t do so often. Please give our son a life such as his. I beg you.”

  “And if I don’t, you won’t come back with me?”

  “I’ll never leave you, whatever you may decide. I would be easier in my mind if I knew that my son didn’t have to suffer as much as you have done.”

  “It may be a girl.”

  Niamh smiled, remembering that the Guide of Souls had prophesied a daughter, and wished hard. “If she’s a girl, the question doesn’t arise and I’ll train her in what she needs to know.”

  “If it gives you peace, I promise that our son will be trained for other things but he must learn swordplay and archery, for his own sake. He has to protect himself. A man who can’t fight is easily killed or enslaved. But he’ll also be a worker in metals or a farmer or a fisherman. Does that content you?”

  “Thank you. My mind will be easier now.”

  26

  Samhain had passed but still McLir did not come.

  “He’s never stayed away so long before,” Elin said, worriedly. “Perhaps something has happened to him.”

  “He’s a clever man. He’ll come when he’s ready. You’ll see him soon enough. Be patient,” Aneirin consoled her.

  Solstice came and went and the year turned before a message came at last, telling them that McLir was well and would come soon. Elin breathed a sigh of relief and loaded up the messenger with all the remedies McLir had requested.

  “I hope he comes before the baby is born,” Niamh thought, but she rarely said anything. In the deepest parts of her mind, she added, “I would like him to see his grandchild before we must leave here.” She spoke quietly to the messenger before he left,

  “My name is Niamh. Tell McLir that I am with child and the baby will be born when the hawthorns are in blossom. Tell him and him only.”

  Yet more messages arrived, but McLir did not come and the word was that he was far away. The days passed. Spring came and the beginnings of summer. The weather was kind and Aneirin took it upon himself to teach Olaf all he knew of farming. Olaf repaid him by taking him fishing and showing him how to build a boat which could sail on both the river and the sea. Between them they brought back meat for the pot and many things that grew in the woods, so they were well fed. Olaf found new ways of carrying out old tasks. Although he still favoured his right hand, his other one became stronger. It no longer pained him and he could use it more than he had since his first injury.

  The children thrived. So did Niamh, although she found it difficult to do some of the things she had always done, as the baby within her grew. She spent more time near the house, doing household tasks and brewing salves, and less time searching out the special plants that McLir had ordered.

  “Soon, now,” Elin told Olaf one evening. She had been watching Niamh all day and noticed how painfully she walked. “Your child is eager to be born.”

  “And I am eager to get rid of this heavy burden,” Niamh said, overhearing them.

  “It’ll be worse before it is better,” Elin told her with a grin, but her eyes were anxious.

  A stabbing pain roused Niamh in the middle of the night. She gasped and then bit her lip to repress a groan, so as not to wake the others. But Elin had heard her and came over, rubbing her hand across Niamh’s belly. The muscles rippled against her touch.

  “By this time tomorrow, you’ll be holding your child,” Elin promised.

  Then everything happened at once. Torches were lit, water set to heat and a knife was sharpened. Niamh saw it all in a kind of mist. People came and went. She was given water to drink and Elin washed her down, when she said that her skin was on fire. All this occurred as she fought with the pains that wracked her. At first they did not come close together and she could recover before the next one hit. Then they came closer and she had time only for a few dazed breaths. She could not tell who was with her, although she heard people speaking around her and to her. Olaf’s voice, worried and tender, Elin murmuring encouragement, Aneirin and someone else, whose voice she also knew. Not the children. A man’s voice, deep, with the lilt of her o
wn people within it. She sensed he was near her and forced her eyes to open. His face was blurred through her tears and the strain of her fight, but she knew him.

  “You came,” she muttered. He answered her, but she had no idea what he said. Pain was all around, on every side, not even time for a breath between.

  “Push! Push!” Elin pummelled her on the arm as she shrieked the words into her ear. “Now!” Niamh pushed. “Again!” Niamh felt something wet slither out of her, between her legs. “Pant! Pant!” She panted. “Push again, almost over now.”

  Blessedly the pain went away. Niamh slumped back into someone’s arms. Suddenly a baby cried. Her baby?

  “You have a beautiful daughter,” Elin said, putting the screaming bundle into her arms. Niamh looked into her daughter’s green eyes, one finger stroking the downy softness of her cheek. She had a daughter, just as the Guide of Souls had once foretold. What strange destiny awaited this frail little being? Instinctively Niamh tightened her arms around her at the thought.

  “What will you call her?” Aneirin asked next day when they were all together.

  “I don’t know.” Niamh’s eyes sought Olaf’s. “We only spoke of boy’s names. I was so sure she was a son.”

  “She’s more beautiful than any boy,” Olaf said with a laugh, “so she should have a beautiful name.”

  “She has Emer’s eyes, as green as the grass,” McLir said and Niamh turned to him. “Call her Emer to honour your mother. She was beautiful too.”

  “What do you think?” Niamh asked Olaf.

  “My mother was called Hrafnhildr.” Olaf said with a laugh. “She always hated it. Emer has a pleasanter sound.”

  And so the baby was named Emer. Niamh recovered rapidly from the birth and the child thrived. Elin told her she was lucky and that the birth was easy for a first child.

  “Heaven preserve me from a difficult one then,” Niamh said and Elin chuckled.

  McLir stayed with them for several weeks. No one came to ask for his services and he spent his time making medicines, teaching Niamh his skills and taking long walks into the forests with his dog. When she was able, Niamh left Emer with Elin and went with them.

  They did not go far, for Niamh still tired easily, but far enough so that the others could not overhear them. One day they sat down on a mossy log and talked.

  “I have taught you all I can in the time we have had together, Inion, and this book will tell you more.” He put into her hand a small hide-bound book.

  Niamh looked at it in awe and turned the pages, covered with his spidery writing. “But Athair, I can’t read.”

  “Others around you can. Renny learned to read from me and the priests have taught many. When your own knowledge fails, perhaps you may find the answers you need in what I have written down.”

  “Thank you, Athair, I will keep your book safe and cherish it.”

  “When the time comes, give it to your daughter.”

  “I will.”

  Silence fell between them for a few moments, then McLir broke it and there was sorrow in his voice.

  “At the new moon, your daughter will be old enough to travel,” McLir said. “I think you should leave here then.”

  “Aneirin and Elin don’t want us to go. They say that they would be pleased if we made our home with them. We’ve been very happy together all this winter.”

  “Nevertheless you must leave,” McLir replied. “You are my daughter and Emer is my grandchild. I have told you Sétanta’s tale and of his promise to kill everything I love. His son and my other enemies would delight in harming both of you. It’s dangerous for you to remain in a place near where I am known to be.”

  “But no one knows where you go when you leave here.”

  “You and Olaf found me, when I thought I’d hidden myself well. The rumours you followed will have spread further by now. It’s only a matter of time before other people come to find me.”

  “Then Aneirin, Elin and their children are in danger too!”

  “Yes. It was foolish of me to visit them so often. Elin is such a good nurse and I needed her. It was only after you came, I realised I had put them at risk. That’s why I stayed away from you so long last winter. Once I’ve seen you leave, I’ll take my ship and go far away from this land, never to return. I’ll leave word behind me to tell my pursuers which way I’ve gone. With luck, it’ll lead them away from here. I’ll warn Aneirin to be on his guard. They’re merely people who have worked for me and may be overlooked, if the gods are kind.”

  “Then why can’t we stay with them?”

  “Because you’re my blood kin. Theirs is a lesser risk. If you stay, you increase their danger. No one knows you for my daughter back on the island. In such a quiet place, you, too, may be overlooked. The searchers know I left there long ago and haven’t been heard of again. They’ll search here, not there.”

  “There are so few people who know you are my father.”

  McLir smiled sadly. “Olaf knows, Renny knows. They would never betray the secret, but you may have been overheard and there are others. The people in my brother’s rath know and some of the sisters who rescued you. Tongues wag inadvertently and my enemies have long ears. You can’t be sure the secret isn’t known to them.”

  “Then we must go. We can’t repay Aneirin’s and Elin’s kindness by putting them in peril.” Niamh sighed. “Could they come with us, do you think?”

  “Ask them, but I think you’ll find that Aneirin won’t want to leave the land he’s worked on or his own people.”

  “Surely if danger threatened them?”

  “They’ll know they have a refuge with you, as you’ve had one with them.”

  “I’ll miss them and you too. I wish you would come home with us,” Niamh said slowly.

  “You know that can’t happen.”

  “Never?”

  “Perhaps some day, if the gods are good to me — but not this day or soon. Many years must pass and, even then, I don’t think I can ever go back to any of the places I’ve lived before.”

  “Renny said that too. You told her you could never come back to the island.”

  “It’s kinder not to hope, when the chance is so unlikely.” McLir stood up and reached out his hand to her. “Come. It’s time we returned. Tell Olaf tonight what I’ve said.”

  “The whole story? I’ve never spoken of it to a soul.”

  “Tell him the truth, but warn him that your safety depends on his silence. He must also make peace with his own kin, so he can call on them at need. They can warn him if anyone comes asking for me or for you, and he will know what to do to protect you.”

  Niamh nodded. “I’ll tell him, but leaving here will be hard.”

  “Very hard,” McLir agreed, “but you must be ready to sail before the autumn gales.”

  Time seems to speed up when you do not wish it to do so, or so Niamh found out. Hours seemed to pass rather than days, before she had to make her goodbye to McLir. As McLir had expected, Aneirin did not want to leave his home unless he was forced to. He was sure that he would find out if people came looking for them and he would take precautions. McLir did not tell him the full story, only that Niamh’s name had been linked with his in the past. She and Olaf might be a danger to his family if they stayed. Aneirin and Elin disputed that, but McLir was adamant they must leave. So they parted from these good people, with the promise of meeting again, if they ever had to find sanctuary away from their own land.

  Everyone cried and Niamh begged her friends not to come with them to the river, for it was hard enough to leave them as it was.

  “I will never forget you,” she said as she hugged them all.

  “Neither will we forget you,” Elin promised.

  Her words were echoed two days later as Olaf and Niamh stood on the riverbank waiting to board their boat.

  “Will I ever see you again?” Niamh said to her father.

  “In dreams, in the mist, in the face of your daughter.”

  “In reality?�
��

  “Not in this life, I believe. Live happily and don’t fret for me.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “You must. Our tale is told and only memories remain.”

  He bent down to kiss the baby sleeping in Niamh’s arms. Then he took from his robes a large green stone and gave it to Niamh.

  “Give this to Emer when she has seen twelve summers. Tell her to keep it safe. May it be a light for her in dark places and always lead her home.”

  Niamh turned the stone over in her hand. Tiny veins of silver criss-crossed the shiny surface.

  “What is it, Athair?”

  “A talisman that once belonged to your grandmother and her mother before her. I should have left it behind me for you, but in the sadness and upheaval of leaving, I forgot you might need it when you grew older. Your dreams may have been more peaceful if you had held it in your hand. I doubt that such dreams will come to you again. Certainly they never did to my mother after I was born, but Emer is your child. It is probably that she, too, will dream in her turn.”

  “God forbid!” Niamh frowned and hugged her child closer.

  McLir smiled. “I agree, but it is wise always to be prepared. If she does not inherit the ability, pass the stone on to any of your descendants who do.”

  He kissed Niamh on the forehead.

  “Goodbye, daughter. Tell Renny that you have seen me and the things that I said when we parted are still in my heart.”

  “I will. Goodbye, Athair, I will never forget you no matter how many years I live.” Niamh choked on her tears.

  “Take care of them,” McLir said to Olaf.

  “Always.”

  “Your gods go with you.”

  “And yours with you.”

  Olaf and Niamh boarded the skiff and the current took them downstream. All too soon a bend of the river hid the tall figure of her father from Niamh’s eyes. She never saw him in life again.