“How can you say that?” asked Cormiac. “You never saw the Romans in battle. They defeated your own father.”
“They did not. Vercingetorix was tricked into surrendering.”
“I was there, Labraid, I know what happened.”
“I was there, too.”
“You were still in your mother’s womb.”
“But I knew things,” Labraid insisted. “Can you prove I didn’t?”
“I suppose not.”
“Well then,” said the other triumphantly. “And I’ll tell you something else, too. If we had the Romans here right now we could beat them.”
“Albion is infested with Romans,” Cormiac replied, beginning to sound irritable. “Why don’t we send for them and test your theory?”
“That’s enough!” I snapped. I did not like the way the conversation was going. We walked on in silence for a while then, though my head was not silent.
Albion and Hibernia, I thought, two islands like sisters in the sea. If Albion was infested with Romans, what infested Hibernia?
The pass through the mountains yawned just ahead of us. The mountains were not very high compared to those I remembered from…No.
We are truly home, Ainvar.
The pass climbed gradually, narrowing as it went, until it was only a pathway on the lip of a deep defile. Water cascaded in sparkling streams from the rocks above and tumbled into the gorge below, where it became the little river I remembered so well. When the pass reached its narrowest we had to proceed single file. I led the way, holding my torch aloft. Brandishing it almost like a weapon. Behind me, Labraid and Cormiac began to talk again. Their voices echoing from the stone walls were the only sounds I heard.
Until the whistling began.
My torch sputtered and went out as if it had been doused in water. The mist—where had it come from?—closed around us.
I stopped so abruptly that Labraid bumped into me. “Look out!” I snapped.
“Look at what? What’s going on?”
“It’s started again. The mist. And the whistling.”
“What whistling?”
“Don’t you hear it?”
“No.”
“Neither do I,” said Cormiac.
“But you do see the mist?”
“I see low clouds sinking down onto the mountains. That often happens when I’m out hunting.”
If I was the only one who could hear the whistling, then something was trying to communicate with me alone. Remembering the name that had been whispered in my ear once before, I called, “Eriu?”
“What?” said Labraid. “Who are you talking to, Ainvar? There’s nobody here. Are you drunk?”
The exasperation Labraid engendered in me exploded. “By the rocks and the rivers! Cormiac, take him back the way we came.”
“I won’t leave you, Ainvar.”
“I’m not asking you to leave me, just remove this fine fellow for a dozen spear lengths, will you? And keep him there.”
In the all-enveloping mist I could not see the brief scuffle that ensued, but there was no doubt who won. I could hear Labraid being frog-marched back down the pass, protesting indignantly until a large hand was clamped over his mouth.
Then there was silence except for the whistling. It did not sound as if it came from human lips. A less sensitive person might have assumed he was hearing only a ringing in his own ears. But I knew better.
“Eriu?” I called again.
The whistling was replaced by a voice. A silvery, rippling voice, almost sexless; almost female. “Who seeks Eriu?”
“Ainvar,” I replied as steadily as I could.
“Who is Ainvar?”
Old habit dictated my answer. “Chief druid of the Carnutes.”
“Who are the Carnutes?”
I replied with a question of my own. “Where is Eriu?”
A nacreous light suffused the mist. It could not be moonlight, for the moon had not yet risen. When I held my hand close to my face, the moisture on my skin glistened like jewels. “I don’t understand.”
“There is nothing to understand, Ainvar of the Carnutes. I am here. I am in the Otherworld. I am Eriu.”
At her words a jolt passed through my body as if I had been struck by one of the white-hot javelins of Taranis. The mist thinned, allowing me one tantalizing glimpse of a brilliant chaos where one color was all colors, where all shapes were one shape, where the sheer intensity of being surpassed mortal experience. I staggered, unable to cope with the overwhelming sensations flooding my senses.
The veil of mist descended again, protecting me from sights not meant for mortal eyes. With an effort I regained my balance. Then I felt myself…change. I could not see the walls of rock on either side of the pass but I could feel them through the pores of my skin. I could hear trees murmuring in the night wind on the far side of the mountains. I could taste the sweet pure water in the most distant rivers. I was part of all of these, and they of me.
Rapt, transported, I stood exulting.
Here was validation for one of the principal tenets of druidry: belief in the unseen. In the presence of mystery and terror I was not afraid.
“Ainvar.”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand?”
“No. But I accept.”
“As we all must.”
“Your people…” I hesitated to name them.
“Yes?”
“Do they mean my people any harm?”
“The Carnutes?”
“We are the Gael now,” I told her.
The mist turned cold. Moisture began to freeze on my skin.
“Lads?” I called out uneasily. “Are you still there?”
There was no answer from Cormiac and Labraid.
“I am still here,” said Eriu. “Before the Gael invaded I was here. When they have gone I will be here. Nothing they have done can drive me out.” If the voice had come from a human throat, those words would have been spoken through clenched teeth.
Druids believe that existence is finely balanced between Chaos and Pattern. Both are necessary.
By her own admission Eriu spoke from the Otherworld.
Yet she was with me as well. When I drew in breath I inhaled Eriu. When I put down my foot I touched Eriu—who had every reason to hate the conquering Gael.
Fíachu had spoken of being “cursed with dark skies from morning to night. Infants are born dead and the limbs of children wither. Rain turns to sleet, snow turns to ice, grass freezes, and cattle starve.”
Had he been describing one method by which the Túatha Dé Danann took revenge? With their mysterious powers could they do even more dreadful things?
Horrifying thought.
By joining a powerful tribe in order to protect my people, I had made them subject to Eriu’s anger. A sacrificer might have been able to placate her, though I doubted it. Besides, I was no sacrificer. All I had was my head.
Think, head; think as you never thought before.
“The Carnutes were destroyed by a conqueror in a land far away,” I said to Eriu. “In order to survive, my clan needed a place to hide. That’s why we came here in the first place. Because we were hungry to belong to a tribe again, in all innocence we joined with the Gael. But we’re not your enemies, Eriu. Believe me, we are not your enemies. We merely ask to be accepted by this land.”
“Why?”
“Because it feels like home.”
The mist swirled around me more thickly than ever while a judgment was being made far beyond my ken. I realized how truly I had spoken. My body was married to Briga—and Lakutu, and Onuava—but my spirit was wed to Eriu. I could not say when it had happened. That first moment on the beach? Perhaps.
“Eriu?”
“Yes.”
“Are we accepted?” I held my breath. When she did not reply immediately I took a daring chance. “May we stay here under your protection?”
After a measureless moment the answer came. “You may, as long as you pay the pr
ice.”
“What price do you ask?”
“Remember us,” whispered the voice. “Remember us.”
I bowed my head. “We will.”
All at once the mist blew away on a warm wind and there stood Cormiac and Labraid, an exact twelve spear lengths from me.
“Whatever is the matter with you, Ainvar?” Labraid demanded to know. “Why are you staring at us like that?”
chapter XI
THE CHOICE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH IS MERELY ANOTHER CONFRONTATION with the Two-Faced One. Neither victory nor defeat last forever. What matters is the style, the triumphant beauty of those who fight their best no matter what the outcome.
Alone in the mist I had fought a battle that no one else saw. The noblest warriors do not always win. Force of will is not enough. Success and failure are determined in the Otherworld.
On this Lughnasa night, Ainvar of the Gael had dealt with the Otherworld. And won.
I returned to Briga as proudly as if I carried an enemy’s head on a pole.
This time I made no effort to explain what had happened. The wild and wonderful magic of Eriu was too personal to discuss with anyone. She had spoken to me and to me alone. The undeniable fact of her existence was my private treasure.
Cormiac and Labraid simply thought I had taken too much drink. I let their story stand.
Only two who were present that night would ever know the truth. And one of them was no longer human.
I had regretted our lack of a bard to recount the stories of Gaul. But that, I realized, was a working of the Pattern. Gaul was the past. Our future would take a different shape.
The following morning I said to Dara, “You’ve learned a lot from Seanchán. You know the sagas of the Milesians almost as well as he does, but you must do more. Reach beyond his limits.”
Dara furrowed his forehead in the customary way. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Travel the length and breadth of the Plain of Broad Spears. Sit at the feet of every bard. Listen closely and remember everything you hear.”
He looked at me aghast. “Everything?!”
“Everything you hear about the Túatha Dé Danann,” I specified, to his obvious relief. “When we were fighting the Romans, we tried to learn as much as we could about the enemy. I suspect the Fír Bolg did the same when they were fighting the Dananns. Some of that knowledge must survive, woven into the legends of any Gaelic clan the Fír Bolg married into.”
“How can you be certain the Fír Bolg married Gaels?”
“Because life calls to life,” I told my son. “Set out at sunrise tomorrow and don’t come back until you’ve gleaned all there is to know about the Túatha Dé Danann. Listen, memorize, carry it within you like a brimming cup. Don’t forget the smallest detail.”
“Why are you asking this of me, Father?”
I set my features in stone so he would make no mistake. “I’m not asking. I’m demanding.”
Never before had I used the word “demand” to one of my children. We are free people. We do not respond well to demands. Yet on that day I made a demand of Dara, and to his everlasting credit, he obeyed.
Briga was not entirely happy about seeing her firstborn son leave us again. That night she fed him all his favorite foods and made a fuss about arranging his bed just so, as if these small, womanly touches would hold him. She and I both knew better. Someday some other woman probably would try to hold him close in a similar way, but if a man has wings he must fly.
Dara left at the next sunrise. I waited until I was certain he would not turn around and come back prematurely; children can be unpredictable. Then after moonrise I went out under the vast bowl of the sky and walked among the whispering trees. Among the oaks. “Eriu,” I said softly. “We will remember.”
A lark began to sing nearby. Larks do not sing at night, but this one did; a paean so beautiful it made my throat ache.
I became acutely aware of every leaf and branch. Even the tiny insects scurrying underneath the bark were known to me. It was as if I were part of the earth herself.
Menua had told me, “Druidry is inclusion, not exclusion. To be druid means to be part of, not apart from.”
I was druid. In spite of everything, I was still druid. That was my personal gift from Eriu.
However, Duach Dalta, chief druid of the Laigin, had made it plain that he needed no assistance from me. Briga was gaining renown as a Wise Woman, but none of the druids from Gaul had any official position in our new tribe. We were what the Romans called “supernumeraries.” Like so many words in the Latin tongue it had a flat, final sound. Like the lid of a stone sarcophagus slamming down.
A professional class composed of specialists in the druidic arts was unknown in Hibernia, where the druids exerted little control over everyday life. The Gael were not amenable to discipline anyway. Teaching was left to mothers—and, as the saying went, “whatever a child might lick up off the ground.”
The study of the sky and its influence upon the Earth was totally neglected. When I asked the reason for this, Duach Dalta told me, “Before the before, there was a race that built great ritual centers patterned on the tracks of the sun and moon. They are gone now and the stones they raised have tumbled down. They would have been better served raising cattle.” He laughed at his own wit.
“What were those people called?”
“I have no idea,” said Duach Dalta. “If they are gone they do not matter.” I did not contradict him. He was the chief druid. Now.
In the ceremony that elevated a chieftain to the rank of king, the throat of a white mare representing the land was cut by the chief druid. The candidate for kingship then bathed in the mare’s blood. On other occasions the chief druid might sacrifice an animal or animals, but there was no separate sacrificer among the Gaels. And human sacrifice was not practiced.
When I asked Duach Dalta why not, his answer surprised me. “Only inferiors sacrifice their own kind.”
“What do you mean by ‘inferiors’? Slaves?”
Leaning toward me, he lowered his voice. “Former slaves, one might say.”
“Are you talking about the Fír Bolg?”
He nodded. “The Men of the Bag sacrificed their firstborn infants. Held them by their heels and bashed their brains out against a stone idol they called ‘Crom Cruach,’” he elaborated, flaring his nostrils in distaste. “Fortunately there are no Fír Bolg anymore, only the Gael.”
Foolishly, I went a step too far. “And the Túatha Dé Danann?”
Duach Dalta blanched visibly.
I was intrigued. Apparently the bards could speak of the Dananns, but the merest mention of them upset the chief druid. There were layers upon layers of mystery here. I comforted myself with the thought that my clan need not fear the Túatha Dé Danann. I had made a pact with Eriu.
That night in my bed I pondered the differences between Gaulish druids and the druids of Hibernia. Was human sacrifice something we were meant to leave behind? Would there be benefits to us? Or would we merely escape some unguessed retribution in the Otherworld?
The unfolding of the Pattern is endlessly fascinating.
The women of the Laigin sought Briga’s help in increasing numbers, until she was so occupied with them that Eoin and Ongus and Gobnat began coming to me if they needed anything.
I already had acquired a number of non-druidic skills. Caring for children was another new accomplishment. When Niav joined the group, I discovered that children know things that adults have forgotten. If a little girl sits crouched on her haunches, prattling in a language all her own, is she merely playing? Or is she, perhaps, communicating with the unseen? A communication that seems as normal to her as everyday conversation is to us.
I enlarged the group further by inviting Onuava’s two younger boys, Cairbre and Senta, to join us. All my children together.
The language of the Athenians contains a word, patriarchos, that means “head of the family.” It is not the same as chief of the clan, but describes
more precisely how I felt with the young ones around me.
As chief druid of the Carnutes I had been, in many ways, alone. The responsibility for an entire tribe was a heavy burden and one I could not share, any more than Duach Dalta could. But the nature of our burdens was different. In Hibernia the chief druid conducted those rituals that were of tribal significance. He did not, in spite of Cohern’s contention that druids were sorcerers, attempt the manipulation of natural forces.
I had.
And on a few memorable occasions, I had succeeded.
I could not explain how it was done, any more than Gobnat could explain how she charmed bees. True magic does not depend upon tricks, nor even upon rituals, which only serve to concentrate the mind. True magic…happens. In the moment before it happens there is a great gathering inside of one, a stillness more total than death and more intense than birth. Nothing else, even lying with a woman, produces the same rapture. Until they put my emptied husk into my grave I will hunger to experience that rapture one more time. Just one more.
No Gaelic druid could possibly understand. They were still at the beginning place. They had not been exposed to the influences that affected Gaul. For many generations travelers from distant lands had crisscrossed our territory, bringing with them new ideas and new ways of thinking. From the East in particular we druids had acquired much esoteric wisdom, which we added to the simple forest lore handed down from our ancestors.
To be druid is to learn.
In Gaul we had lived as fugitives. There had been little time to educate the children in anything other than the basic necessities for survival. Now there was time. Another gift of Hibernia.
I took my children into the forest to observe nature’s lessons as Menua had taken me. We found a glade carpeted with moss and fragrant with the sweet smell of damp soil. I invited my young companions to sit down and took my place in front of them.
“The most important thing in life is to learn,” I intoned. “To learn continually. People exist to learn—and to procreate, though we are not studying that now.”
Ongus, who found it almost impossible to sit still for any length of time, said peevishly, “Why do we have to learn? There’s lots of things to do that are more fun.”
The Greener Shore Page 13
