The Greener Shore

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “Then what good are you?”

  Briga said it with a laugh, but I wished she had not asked me that question.

  We would not go hungry. Grannus and young Glas kept us supplied with game. The river teemed with fish unfamiliar with the craftiness of man; laughably easy to catch. There also were edible roots and herbs, wild soft fruits, and delicious mushrooms. Yet we would have no more bread made from the sort of wheat I had eaten all my life. I never appreciated it until I knew I would not taste it again. At night I began dreaming of crusty loaves hot from a stone oven.

  We wanted more than subsistence, however. We longed for what we had possessed in Gaul: our culture, our way of life. I began thinking of ways to restore a semblance of it to my little band. One way was through art; the art of the craftsman.

  Perhaps I had been hasty in refusing to offer a prayer of thanksgiving to the Two-Faced One. Without him we would not be alive today. Perhaps, my head suggested, I should ask the Goban Saor to carve another when he had more time.

  One of his first tasks was to make a churn for Briga. He was using only wood from the oaks. “Wise wood makes wise butter,” my grandmother used to say.

  As we re-created our community, many of those old sayings came back to me; came back to all of us. We think we build new lives for ourselves but we build on old foundations.

  My senior wife was very particular about her butter. Churning was never done during the dark of the moon. The milk must be no more nor less than three days old. Cream was carefully skimmed from the top of the milk with a wooden spoon, poured into a cool stone bowl, then covered with a strip of clean linen to allow it to ripen. The result was a butter so delicious it could be eaten by itself. The children were fond of scooping a treat out of the churn when no one was looking.

  So was I.

  Halfway up the valley stood a solitary dead tree. Bees had colonized the rotten cavity, but whenever we tried to gather their honey the creatures went wild. Both Grannus and Damona were badly stung. Then one day my small daughter Gobnat walked up to the tree and casually thrust her arm into the cavity. Briga gave a shriek of alarm, but her fear was ill-founded. The bees were charmed by Gobnat. They would let her take a handful of honeycomb dripping with golden sweetness whenever she liked. We put honey onto almost everything until the novelty wore off. My clan was delighted.

  I had another reason to rejoice: The druid gift had appeared anew.

  Not everything was lost after all.

  As the wheel of the seasons turned, we surveyed our handiwork with pride. Our roofs were snugly thatched with reeds from the stream. Firewood was stacked against the north wall of the lodges to break the wind. We had sufficient butter and soft cheese and salted meat to see us through the winter. For anything else we must apply to Cohern. That too had been part of our agreement.

  As the autumn evenings drew in upon us, and in the darkness before dawn when only druids are awake, I brooded on our situation. We had a place to live but no real freedom. Cohern was adamant that we not wander beyond our allotted space. “That’s all your clan’s entitled to, Ainvar. If they stray outside its boundaries anything could happen.”

  “Would one of the other tribes attack us?”

  “Anyone might attack you,” Cohern had replied.

  So here we were. Penned in by mountains, with no view of the far horizon. Penned in. Penned in.

  I regretted having agreed so readily. A druid with a wise head would have made a better deal. But I was no longer a druid.

  Fraud, Cohern had called me, as if he knew my deepest fears.

  When Briga got out her shears and razors and offered to restore my tonsure, I declined. “I’ve decided to let my hair grow. If druidry is in bad odor here, it might be best not to proclaim ourselves so visibly.”

  “As you wish,” said Briga. I think she was secretly pleased. In spite of all that had passed between us, and her own demonstrable gifts, she still had misgivings about the Order of the Wise.

  Letting my tonsure grow out did not change my true self. Druids are always drawn to trees, which is one of the early indications of a druid spirit.

  Superficially the Hibernian autumn differed little from summer. The days were shorter and cooler, but the trees stubbornly held on to their leaves for as long as they could. The grass stayed green. Change was revealed in small ways. The velvet covering the deers’ horns was stripped away by repeated, ferocious assaults on the trees, until the branching antlers were transformed into a warrior’s magnificent headgear. The bellow of rutting stags reverberated through the forest.

  During our first autumn I set out to explore the slopes from which we took our timber. Trees are equally beautiful when clothed in leaves or standing bare, with their spirits naked to the sky. They feed the eyes.

  The extended family of trees and shrubs consists of four ranks, ranging from the most noble to the most humble. Some of the trees I knew in Gaul did not grow in Hibernia. Either their gifts were not required in this climate, or others with similar abilities had been substituted for them.

  Nature ever strives to maintain balance.

  Among the noble trees, primacy was claimed by the oak, the wise and mighty chieftain. With my first sight of an oak in Hibernia something had eased inside of me. I had been like a child who lost its father and then found him again. The world, which had been tilted, came aright.

  Other members of the Hibernian nobility included the yew, which kept its foliage throughout the year and therefore was the tree of death and rebirth. We druids would make our staff from yew wood. The red berries of the holly recalled the Great Fire of Life. Hazelnuts contained a wealth of hidden knowledge, while hazel twigs could find underground water. The prolific ash was the symbol of good health. The long cones of the native pine emulated the shape of the human phallus, thus embodying fertility. Last but not least among the nobility was the apple, whose freely given fruit was invaluable.

  In the second rank were hawthorn and willow, birch and rowan, elm and alder and wild cherry. Although commoners, they were revered as hardworking and productive. The third rank comprised blackthorn, which is valued for its sloes, elder, aspen, juniper, spindle-tree, arbutus, and the shrubby white hazel. Lowest of all were the “slave trees,” yet even they had value. Bracken was used for making soap and bleaching linen; likewise, brambles, heather, bog myrtle, furze, broom, and gooseberry all had contributions to make. The Source created them; we respect them.

  As the days grew still shorter I began to spend more time inside my head. Briga’s rescue of Labraid was haunting me. When I tried again to question her about the incident, she turned my words away with a laugh. “It isn’t important, Ainvar, I don’t even want to think about it. Please, let it go.”

  At day’s end my little clan liked to gather around the hearth in my lodge before retiring to their own beds. The fire on our hearth never went out. Briga considered tending the fire to be a sacred rite, as it had been for our ancestors in a much colder climate. Fire was heat; fire was life. If the fire was allowed to die, calamity could follow.

  Sometimes my people talked among themselves. Sometimes we were content just to be together while the stars wheeled in the cold sky and the friendly fire warmed our bones.

  One evening Briga asked the seer, “Can you see far into the future?”

  “How far? Tomorrow? Or next season?”

  “How about…the future of my grandchildren’s grandchildren. A hundred generations from now.”

  My senior wife was being fanciful, as she sometimes is, but Keryth took her seriously. “Give me your hand, Briga.” Keryth ran her fingers up Briga’s wrist and closed them tightly over the place where the blood pulsed most strongly beneath the skin. The seer gave a slow, thoughtful nod and closed her eyes. Her breathing gradually became deeper. She might almost have been asleep, but her grip on Briga’s wrist remained firm.

  Slowly, the atmosphere in the lodge changed. Tingled like the air before a thunderstorm. We sat very still, scarcely daring to breath
e.

  Keryth was working magic.

  “One hundred generations,” she murmured. We waited. The seer’s eyes rolled beneath her eyelids. She drew a swift intake of breath. “They think they are rich. But, ah! They are poor.”

  “How poor?” Briga asked. Knowing my senior wife, I knew she would want to help; to find some way to alleviate poverty a hundred generations in the future.

  “They have many possessions,” Keryth told us. “I never saw so many things. Countless man-made objects whose purpose I cannot even imagine. Yet the people are starving.”

  Briga was alarmed. “Have they nothing to eat?”

  “They have more food than they can ever hope to eat,” Keryth said from that distant place where she was viewing through other eyes. “They build immense lodges to store the excess in, and still throw away enough to feed a hundred tribes. Their problem is not a want of food. The grandchildren’s grandchildren are starved for what we have in abundance.”

  “I don’t understand. We have nothing in abundance.”

  “We have time,” Keryth replied. “We have space.”

  She said nothing more. After a while she opened her eyes, bade us good-night, and went to her bed. But I lay awake long that night, trying to imagine a world starved of time and space. Surely there could be no worse fate.

  I would prefer to be slaughtered by the Romans.

  ONE MORNING BRIGA TOLD ME SHE NEEDED A STONE. “THERE ARE stones everywhere,” I pointed out. “Help yourself to any of them.”

  “No, Ainvar, the stone must be of a certain size and shape. It has to be rough-surfaced, flat on the bottom, and larger than a newborn infant, but not quite so large as a newborn calf. Too big for me to carry anyway. If you will bring me a stone that answers to that description, the Goban Saor can carve a hollow in it to make a quern.”

  “Why do you need a quern? You told me yourself that we can’t grow our wheat in this climate.”

  “No, Ainvar,” she repeated, “but other grains do grow here. If Cohern will sell us some seed corn, we’ll plant in the spring and harvest in the autumn, and make meal and flour. For that we’ll need a quern.”

  I swear those wide blue eyes of hers could already see the grain standing tall in the field.

  I went in search of a suitable stone.

  The stones of Hibernia had unusual qualities. Some of the larger boulders hummed beneath my hands and made the hairs stand up on my forearms. Once or twice I drew back my hands as abruptly as if I had been stung by bees.

  What strange force dwelt in this land? Was it benign—or malign? I still did not know, but for the sake of my people I worried. Lying beside Briga, who always slept soundly, I worried.

  Night, do your simple duty, I thought. Close my eyes and extinguish the tiresome fire in my head.

  COHERN’S CLAN DID HAVE A SMALL AMOUNT OF OATS AVAILABLE, which the clan chief regarded with surprising contempt. It was evident he thought meat the only proper food for a man. Even given its scarcity, the price he set on the grain was outrageous. He demanded we promise our entire first crop of lambs. “Plus, I’m going to need more warriors as soon as your young lads are ready,” he said pointedly. “Arm them, teach them to fight. Make them practice every day.”

  I returned long-faced to Briga.

  She was undeterred. “Didn’t Cohern say that our valley was at the edge of his territory?”

  “He did.”

  “Then we can assume that another clan’s territory lies beyond those mountains. I suggest you visit them and ask if they will sell you seed corn.”

  “Cohern has forbidden us to leave here, Briga. He says it’s dangerous.”

  “Do you believe everything he says? Did you encounter any danger when you set out to find him?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Well, then. There you are. Cohern’s a poor man with a poor clan and no control over much of anything, so he’s trying to control us. Don’t let him.”

  “What if he’s right?” I asked, recalling the Armoricans’ nervousness on the beach.

  “What if he’s wrong?” she countered. “That’s much more likely. No one has raised a hand to us so far. There’s no good reason why you should not take a little journey and attempt to do a little trade.”

  “But I’m not a trader, I’m a—”

  “You’re a man who needs seed corn.”

  “I’m the chief druid of—”

  “That was then and this is now,” she said bluntly. “But you do have the highest rank of any man here, which makes you chief of our clan.” She reached up—a long way up, for she is small and I am tall—and put her hands on my shoulders. “It’s your responsibility to provide for us, Ainvar.” A softer, gentler voice, but all the more powerful because of it.

  I had been clinging to the old way of thinking about myself because it was comfortable, and familiar. Briga had survived the losses that unmanned me by being as stalwart as stone, as resilient as river. Which of us was the leader now?

  Her blue eyes fixed on mine. “Go up the valley to the gorge, Ainvar. It’s a pass through the mountains.”

  chapter VI

  THE SHORTNESS OF THE DAYS WARNED THAT WINTER WAS ALMOST upon us. Yet the weather denied it. On the morning I set out in search of seed corn a gilded light slanted across meadows still vibrantly green. An exaltation of larks serenaded a cloudless azure sky. The breeze was almost as warm as fresh milk.

  Having no adult warrior to be my guard of honor, I took my eldest son. It was unthinkable that I go alone. Not because I was afraid, but because of my rank. My first encounter with another tribe must demonstrate that I was a person of importance.

  Dara had not yet shown any evidence of a warrior spirit. I hoped it would surface if needed. Teyrnon had given him a spear and made him promise to return the spearhead undamaged. “And don’t let it drag on the ground!” the smith admonished.

  As we left our little settlement I glanced over my shoulder. A shaft of brilliant sunlight illumined the cluster of lodges, turning their thatch to gold. In front of the largest lodge stood Briga. When she saw me looking back at her, she touched her fingers to her lips.

  Sometimes the biggest words are said through the smallest gestures.

  As we reached the head of the valley the sunshine faded. A cool wind, scented with rain, swept down from the mountains, making me glad of the woolen cloak Briga had insisted I wear. She was the only one of my wives who worried about such things.

  No sooner had we entered the gorge than we were enveloped in a thick mist. We had to make our way forward step by step. I warned Dara not to fall into the river running through the bottom of the gorge. The water chuckled like a happy child, yet was deep enough and fast enough to drown someone.

  Hibernia was a crystal with a cloudy heart. A radiant jewel that could turn dark and morose, reflecting the two sides of Celtic character.

  I decided that I would not ask the Goban Saor to make a new image of the Two-Faced One. Instead I would request a carving of my senior wife. Briga rejected the Two-Faced One. Her totally integrated spirit chose to see only the radiance, and moved toward it instinctively. That, I told myself, was the image we should keep with us.

  Briga was right; the gorge was a pass through the mountains. At the far end of the pass the mist lifted abruptly. We gazed out over densely forested foothills that gave way to a broad plain with a river glinting in the distance.

  Walking downhill was pure pleasure.

  From the toes of the foothills I observed that the plain ahead was crisscrossed by cattle trails. Well and good, I told myself. A large number of cattle is a reliable sign of prosperity, and a prosperous tribe is sure to have enough seed corn to sell some to us.

  Dara and I walked on, occasionally speaking of this and that; a father does not always know what to say to his son.

  “Over there!” Dara cried suddenly. He pointed toward a low hill to the north, divided from a spur of the mountains by a belt of forest.
I squinted to sharpen my vision. A number of objects on the hill did not appear to be natural formations.

  “That might be a large clanhold,” I said. “Let’s hope they’re friendly.”

  Drawing nearer, we could see that the base of the hill was encircled by an earthwork embankment. A deep ditch, formed by the removal of soil to build the embankment, provided a protective barrier. The embankment itself was surmounted by a timber palisade.

  “That,” I told Dara, “is how a fort should be built. Eminently defensible, nothing like Cohern’s ramshackle affair.”

  An earthwork causeway spanned the ditch, leading to a large gateway in the palisade. The gate was ajar.

  “Hold your spear properly,” I said to Dara, “and try to look like a guard of honor. We want to make a good impression.”

  My son fidgeted with the spear until I approved of the angle. Then we strode forward. An ambassadorial delegation of two.

  The lookout’s platform above the gate was unmanned. Apparently the occupants of the stronghold did not think anyone would be foolhardy enough to threaten them. When we passed through the gateway we discovered another ditch on the inner side of the embankment. The causeway extended across this second ditch as well, and from its farther end a muddy track, deeply churned by hooves and wheels, led up the hill.

  Adjacent to the trackway was a pen holding seven or eight horses. They were smaller than Gaulish horses, but finely made, with elegant heads, and muzzles so small a woman could cup one in her hand. Large, liquid eyes watched as we passed by.

  A number of lodges dotted the hillside, clustering around a larger lodge at the top like chicks around a mother hen. The doors were made of heavy oak planks hung on stout iron hinges. Abstract, curvilinear shapes formed of silver and copper wire had been inset in the timber door frames. They resembled the decorative designs used in Gaul, but these people were more ostentatious. Similar designs had been painted in bright colors on every possible surface.

  “Look at the giant dogs!” Dara exclaimed in a voice filled with wonder.