Song of Ireland

by Juilene Osborne-McKnight

  Eriu nodded. “Then this is well. We will learn much.”

  “The experience will ask much from you. It will exhaust you, render you incapable of speech or movement for some time after you have returned.”

  “Very well, we will work independently then, each of us alone. The one who goes will teach the others.”

  “There is more.” Airmid hesitated, then leaned her head back against the chair. “Have you never wondered why your husbands are no longer with you, why they did not live many millennia, as most of the Children of the Braid do, why they died younger than most?”

  “They were much older than we, Ancient,” said Banba. “We … assumed … oh, Mother, I begin to suspect what you will tell us.”

  Airmid nodded. “There is a price to pay for the access of memory. This is why the Brothers kept you from it. It is a price of time. We do not simply view the past; the Lia Fail allows us to relive it, to shift into that time with those people, to see as they saw, to know as they know. Such access requires a price. Such access changes us at the level of the Braid.”

  “And the price is a price of years,” said Banba softly.

  “It is. That is why the stone has remained under glass for all these years since the Brothers passed, why they asked me specifically to keep it from you.”

  “They protected us,” said Fodla softly.

  “How many years?” asked Eriu.

  Airmid sighed. “I do not know. Oh, you will live long, surely, longer than the Fir Bolg, longer than these who come. But your lives will be shortened with this learning, with this traveling through time.”

  “We have no choice, Ancient. Invaders come to our shore. Our people require our wisdom. If that is the price, I will pay it.” Eriu’s hand rested on the speckled stone.

  “No!” Banba raced forward, slapped her hand down upon Eriu’s. Fodla followed, her eyes resting on those of each of her sisters. “We are a Triad. We live together and we die together. If there is a price, we pay it together,” said Banba.

  “Whatever it is,” said Fodla softly.

  Airmid stepped among them. She nodded. “I too have had just this dilemma, when my decision had upon it a cost too much to bear. Will you heed the wisdom of an old physician?”

  “We will, Ancient,” said Eriu softly.

  “Then learn here in short bursts, in small snippets of time. Allow yourself recuperative time between the journeys. Think about what you have learned and how you may apply it to the Danu. In this way, you may minimize the damage, but hear me clearly. You will not stop it. Do you understand?”

  “We do,” said Eriu. “Leave us now that you may not also be affected.”

  The door in the rock shivered open, closed behind the Ancient.

  Eriu pressed down upon the surface of the speckled green stone, twisted the stone to the right twice. A soft whirring sound arose from the great altar stone at the center of the chamber. All around the Sisters the walls shimmered and came to life. They were standing in a great forest, the trees towering above them like sentinels, a breeze moving the leaves. On the path before them were two men, still as paintings.

  “Nuada Silver Arm!” Fodla exclaimed.

  The little man with his cap of cloudy curls and his high curved ears was completely unaware of their presence, though the Sisters were standing on the path, the wind shifting their curls, the smell of the forest all around them. Beside Nuada was a much taller man, his features more like the dwellers of the Green Orb, his hair a deep red-gold.

  “Bres the Beautiful. Why did our people not see his unlikeness to us from the first?” asked Banba. “He is as much like the Danu as these new arrivals.”

  “Because our people would have been the last to judge him by his appearance, that having been the standard by which we were judged. Among us was the safest place for his treachery.”

  “He was aptly named, wasn’t he?” said Banba.

  “How so?”

  “The Beautiful. For is he not?”

  Fodla chuckled softly. “You do like the look of these humans, Banba.”

  Banba shrugged. “I did not say that he was good. Only that he looked good.”

  “But look how small Nuada is; he cannot quite reach four feet.”

  “There had been less intermarriage then, Exiles to Penitents, and none yet with humans.” They all looked at the two men side by side. “Well, almost none,” Fodla amended.

  “Sisters, shall I make the third turn?”

  Banba and Fodla nodded solemnly.

  Eriu twisted the speckled stone. The forest began to sigh and move. Before them, the two men ran softly along the path. The Sisters had stepped back in time a thousand years.

  “Look where before us comes a man of the bags.” The voice of Bres was sarcastic, nasal.

  “You will treat him with respect, Bres. He is a man of the Braid, no matter his station.” Though he was head and shoulders smaller than Bres, the voice of Nuada was commanding, confident. He walked toward the approaching stranger, held up his hand.

  “Welcome, man of the Fir Bolg. We greet you as newcomers to the Green Isle. I am Nuada; my companion is Bres.”

  The man was taller than either of them, stocky and dark, his brows beetled together and heavy, his body covered with dark hair. He eyed them both, but the weight of his suspicion fell obviously on Bres.

  “I am Sreng. I ask what you will demand of us. More corn? More cattle? The firstborn of our children?”

  “Why would we want such thing?” Nuada’s voice was puzzled.

  “It is what the Fomor ask and more.” He gestured toward Bres with his chin. “Are you not of them?”

  “I am of the Danu,” said Bres. “I do not know these Fomor.”

  “You will. They will ask the same of you. Your cattle, your women, your children. All in thirds. As if they think of thirds as fair.” He snorted.

  “They dwell here?”

  “You really do not know?” asked the Fir Bolg. “Would that we did not. They are sea raiders from the north. But they maintain a stronghold just offshore on Tober Mor. A better location from which to fleece us naked, I suppose. They are a bottomless well of demands; the holds of their ships must be huge and hollow.”

  “This from a man who makes his boats of dirt bags.” Bres spoke in heavy disdain.

  “The leather of our bags is bog-tanned,” Sreng said, his voice defensive. “Until you know the bog, do not ridicule its ways. The ships of our tribes do not sink.”

  “Tribes?”

  “We are three clans, Fir Bolg, Fir Domnan, Fir Galioin. And you?”

  “We are one. Children of the Danu. People of the Braid.”

  “Danu?”

  “She is our Mother. Weaver of Worlds.”

  “How is it that you speak our language? I was told that you had come in cloud ships. I thought that we would not understand each other.”

  Nuada was silent. It would not do to mention the pulsing triangles beneath their tunics, rendering the languages intelligible. Nor would they speak of the cloud ships, those giant triangles, now carefully hidden in the lakes and under hollow hills. Even Bres did not know of them, his mother, Eri, having only returned to the tribe some years ago.

  Nuada inclined his head politely. “We have learned your language that we might negotiate.”

  “Nego?” The Fir Bolg got lost in the word, stood staring.

  “We come to you with a proposal for your people.”

  “Propose as you will.” Sreng gave a shrug, as if the proposal were of no matter.

  “We would share this green island with you. Your people would have the north and we the south.”

  “Why would we agree to such a thing?”

  “We would provide three gifts: We have some skill at healing; that we would share with your people. We have some skill at defense; we would assist you in defending against these Fomor. Last, we have some skill with the land; we will assist you with provision.”

  “I shall take this to our people. Meet us tom
orrow at the Plain of Mag Tuiread.”

  “This is not a place that we know.”

  “It is the Plain of Many Towers. There we will give answer.” Sreng of the Fir Bolg turned and moved away into the forest, a lumbering, silent beast.

  “How strangely he responds,” Nuada said.

  Bres smiled. “I did not know your Greeks, but I would venture to say he is not one of them.”

  “As different from them as night is from day.”

  Bres tapped the side of his head. “Very little up there, Nuada. Trust me. They will respond with force. That is what they know. He has looked at you. You are small and slight and weaponless. He will judge that you are defenseless as well.”

  The Chamber of Memory darkened; for a while the Sisters sat silent in the darkness.

  At last Eriu sighed. “What have we learned, Sisters?”

  “Bres was no fool,” said Banba.

  “No,” said Eriu thoughtfully. “Perhaps in what we saw, there is wisdom for us.”

  “How so?” Fodla tilted her head toward her sisters.

  “We agree that these new Invaders are warrior people?”

  “They bristle with swords and daggers. It is the logical conclusion,” said Banba.

  “Then perhaps we should make a first show of force.”

  Fodla gasped.

  “No, Sister, I do not mean to harm them. Only to show force, that they respect it and are wary. That they will think us many more in number than we are.”

  Fodla shook her head. “Force did not work for our ancestors. Do you not remember? Take us to the Plain of Mag Tuiread. Let us see.”

  “Perhaps we should wait a little,” Banba said, her voice unsure.

  “And if the Invaders come to shore while we are waiting?” asked Fodla.

  Eriu nodded. She twisted the speckled stone.

  15

  Fog moved among the great megaliths on the plain.

  “So this is what they meant by many towers,” Nuada said. “These that were built by our ancestors.”

  “Or mimicked by these ponderous Fir Bolg? It is not likely, is it? Surely they must have seen our ancestors as gods,” said Bres. He examined one of the great pairs of stones, then whispered, “Our ancestors, Nuada. See where they have left passage to the world below.” He pointed at a raised triangle on the stone with its interlocked spiraling braids.

  Bres was carrying a Scythian shortsword from the weapons horde deep below the earth. The piece was a museum piece, taken from the wall, but it suited his greater height. Nuada and his companions, diminutive men with caps of cloudy silver hair, carried replicas of Greek spears made shorter and lighter for their small size. They came up among the great stones, crossed under a lintel. Nuada raised his spear.

  “I salute the Braid who binds us.”

  Bres snorted. “Your Braid won’t bind you to these folks, I can tell you that with certainty.” He gestured with the shortsword.

  Ranged up on the plain were hundreds of Fir Bolg. They carried heavy broad spears. They were garbed in animal skins, the men covered with hair from their faces all the way to their feet. Many of them were toothless, heavy-lidded, and beetle-browed.

  “Sreng!” called Nuada. “I return with our proposal.” The sound bounced around the great circle of stones, echoed eerily between the lin-teled dolmens.

  Sreng did not step forward from the crowd. There was a general shifting and moaning among the Fir Bolg. Behind him Nuada could hear the silver buzz of alarm as it passed among the Danu.

  “Do they not remember you?” someone whispered in Danaan from behind Nuada.

  “They seem not to wish to.” Bres’s voice was heavy with its usual sarcasm. “Or perhaps they are a race of folk whose memory lasts for less than a day; they do not look as if they could hold much, do they?”

  His remarks brought a silver wave of laughter through the ranks of the Danu. As if the laughter were their signal, the Fir Bolg gave off a mighty roar and charged at the Danu.

  What ensued next was almost impossible to follow, the cloudy curls of the Danu nearly obscured by the fog and by the hairy presence of the larger Fir Bolg. At times there was the sound of metal on stone, at times screams, though the watching Sisters could not have said from whom.

  Suddenly there was a scream of rage and pain. The picture narrowed, rushed toward a dolmen, focused. Nuada. He stood with his head tilted back, an expression of agony on his delicate features. His right arm had vanished at the elbow. Blood was spurting everywhere in arterial streams.

  One of the Fir Bolg raised the severed arm and lifted it high into the air. It dripped blood down into his hair and across his face. He shouted something in his guttural tongue. Behind him the Fir Bolg began to make an ululating sound, a warble that could only signal victory. Suddenly Bres was beside Nuada. He stripped off his cloak, wrapping it hard around the tiny leader.

  “We go below!” he shouted.

  “We cannot abandon our people!” Nuada screamed.

  Bres yanked hard at the cloak, pulling Nuada with him into the dolmen space. His hand reached out to the rock and smacked it hard. There was a flash of white light, a shape like a blue ovoid that thinned and vanished. Where the two had stood, there was nothing.

  On the Plain of Mag Tuiread the assembling Fir Bolg ceased their warbling. Many began to hold up their right hands, to make signs in the air, their eyes wide.

  It was the opening the Danu required; they rushed among them with their sharp light swords. The screams of the Fir Bolg were now screams of pain.

  Suddenly the snap of white light with its ensuing blue moved among two dolmens at the far side of the plain.

  Bres and Nuada appeared between the standing stones. On his arm Nuada wore a silver appendage that resembled a hand on a long shining gauntlet of silver, covered with shimmering triangles and spirals of color. He held it forward; the silver fingers curled and unfurled. When they had reached full extension, one finger snapped forward an arc of blue light. A dozen Fir Bolg fell, stunned and wounded, to the ground.

  The battle was over. Those Fir Bolg who were still of sound body, who were closest to the edge of the stone ring, ran for the forest, their high gabbling screams ringing behind them. Those who were wounded curled into themselves on the ground, clung each to the other. Hairy men sobbed and scrabbled backward on hands and knees as the Danu approached them.

  Nuada stepped into the circle. He tapped the triangular crystal etched with twining vines at his neck. In its depths, a rainbow shimmered and coalesced.

  “Hear me, men of the Fir Bolg,” he called. “Fear us not. We will heal your wounds. Be still and unafraid.”

  Suddenly white light and blue ovoids snapped between every portal in the circle. The physicians appeared, the long white robes wafting in the breeze, their hands gloved, faces covered. They moved among the wounded, easing pain, their huge eyes assessing the wounds, slender fingers working. When the field surgery was organized, Nuada called again.

  “Come before us three men, one each of the Fir Bolg, the Fir Domnan, and the Fir Galioin.”

  Sreng came forward then, accompanied by two companions.

  Nuada said nothing for a moment, assessing the threesome.

  Sreng bowed his head before Nuada. “You were so small, Nuada; I judged you weak. I did not know that we fought with gods.”

  “No gods, just men of the Danu, weary of exile.”

  A crafty look passed across Sreng’s face.

  “Then we will agree now to your proposal. We will divide the land with you north and south.”

  “It is too late for that, Sreng,” said Nuada. He held up the silver arm. “You must now bargain for less, for you bargained falsely at the first.”

  Sreng was silent.

  Nuada regarded the three men. “What is Sreng’s territory?” he asked at last.

  The second man spoke. “Sreng and his tribe bespeak Connacht. We call them the Tribe of the Bogs, for it is stony country and full of bog, though the fishing is good
.”

  Nuada nodded. “Then that shall be the territory for all three of your tribes in perpetuity.”

  The three men eyed each other, their looks uneasy.

  “You will have to learn to get along among your tribes,” Nuada continued. Though it was easy enough to read their looks, even for the Sisters these many centuries later, the men of the Fir Bolg seemed surprised to be so easily read. The third chief, still silent, made a sign in the air.

  “But this, we of the Danu, will promise you. We will not make war on you again as long as you keep to your territory, nor will we build our cities there. The hunting and the fishing will be yours. We will trouble none of your women, nor ask of you grain or children or cattle.” Surprise ran over the faces of the three Fir Bolg chiefs, and they glanced at each other again. “Finally, when your children are sick or ailing, we will offer the services of our healers.”

  “Why would you do this for us, Nuada Silver Arm?” asked Sreng.

  Nuada shifted his position, cradling the silver arm in his good hand. “You too are Children of the Braid,” he said softly.

  A long silence pervaded the chamber when the pictures had vanished. The Sisters were still. Fodla rested her head on the arm of her chair. At last Eriu stirred.

  “And so he became forever known as Nuada Argetlamh,” Eriu said. “Nuada Silver Arm.”

  “How noble he was and how wise,” said Fodla.

  “At last I have found my true love,” Banba sighed.

  At this all three sisters burst into laughter, hiding the sound behind their hands.

  “When do you not find your true love?” hissed Fodla. “It is too bad that both of these have passed into the Braid.”

  At her statement, all three grew silent momentarily. Eriu sighed.

  “There is no point in dreading what might befall us. We must think only of the safety of our people now. And we have learned much, Sisters.”

  “We have learned that Nuada tempered punishment with promise,” said Fodla. “And that he required consequences for actions. There was a wise ruler indeed.”