by Erin O'Quinn
“A Liam, mo ghrá, I have a question for you.”
He turned his laughing eyes to me. “What is it, little Cat?”
“Alva is acting like she is, ah, in season. Ready. Is that normal?”
“Not ready in the winter, a Cháit. Wait until…longest days of spring.”
“Well, we will have to tell that to NimbleFoot. He says he is in love.”
Liam and Michael laughed with great good humor. “Ye cannot tell a stud when to show his affection, lass,” said Michael.
“Ye can tell him, but he may not listen,” Liam joined in. Then both of them, seeing my flushed face, laughed louder, and I turned NimbleFoot around to walk behind them again.
I was furious with Liam for teasing me in front of Michael. But it often happened when he joined his kinfolk. I became the source of rollicking good humor. After a while, I smiled ruefully. Liam was not really making me look stupid. He was taking advantage of my ignorance, and he was having a good time. I could never stay angry with him for more than a few minutes. After all, even Bree had teased me, and I would never be angry with her!
I rode along easily in the clear, crisp air. February had come, a month I remembered from my girlhood as the end—and the worst—of winter months. We would be fortunate to enjoy this same mild weather during our journey, and so I resolved to breathe it in now, to marvel at the way the pine trees lifted and shook their needles in the graceful wind, and how the nut-seeking birds dove in and out of the blue-green branches.
Soon I was thinking back on yesterday’s maiden meeting of the Triús—soon to be known in all the land as the Terrible Trousers. When Bree and I rode up to Brindl’s teach, Swallow and Magpie had already joined her on the practice field. She was standing near one of the camán markers, no doubt telling them some of the rules of hurling.
The three of them hurried toward us as Bree and I dismounted. I saw that all of them, like Bree and I, wore woolen triús—molded to our legs and thighs, then flared out at the hips and joined at the waist with a drawstring. We all hugged each other at once, laughing and complimenting each other on our fancy trousers.
Brigid and I had brought the extra shillelaghs that Liam had fashioned for Brindl and Magpie, and I took that opportunity to present their new weapons with a bit of pomp and flourish.
“Madam Brindl,” I said sternly, “may I present your new bata, fashioned by a master bataireacht fighter, Liam O’Neill. Notice that it has more heft than my own shillelagh, rather like your spatha. Also notice how, if you seize the knob, it is the right size for a walking stick.”
Brindl tried its heft, swinging it a bit in front of herself, and then over her head. Her gold-flecked eyes burned with delight. “I like it, Cay. Please thank Liam for me. Tell him I said, ‘Go raibh maith agat.’”
I was thunderstruck. “Brindl! You are learning Gaelige!”
“Thom hears it all day at the bally trench from Liam and Glaed. Now he is giving me a few lessons.”
I hugged her again, thrilled that she cared enough to start learning the lyrical language. Then I turned to Magpie and her mischievous eyes. “Mag, I must tell you that even the master bata maker took extra time making this shillelagh for you. Notice the added twists and turns of the wood. Look at the way the blackthorn glows. And note the size, made as though you stood at his side while he whittled it with his knife!”
Magpie looked at the bata as though it were made of jewels rather than the branch of a sloe bush. She held out both hands, and I laid the stick across them.
“SoothTeller,” she said, her wind chime voice tinkling like a song, “I can easily hear the Gaelige that sounds from this wood, just as Brindl hears it from her Thom. It is telling me, ‘This is for pretty Magpie.’ Am I right?”
“Those are Liam’s exact words, you scamp. I think you could learn to speak Gaelige just by being near the clansmen. Though I doubt they would enjoy your reading their minds as you do.”
She grinned at me, her dusting of freckles seeming to jump and dance as she wrinkled her snub nose in laughter. “I do not read minds, Caylith. I read purpose.”
“Then tell me the purpose of Lugh MacLeary,” said Swallow, teasing her.
“Ah, his purpose is at least twofold. To love you, and to earn the respect of your mother.”
“What mean you, ‘at least’? What other purpose has he?”
Her jade-green eyes grew wide, and she unaccountably looked at me. “SoothTeller may tell you. I cannot.”
Swallow regarded me with puzzled eyes. “Caylith, what other purpose does Liam’s brother have? You and he are close, so perhaps you know.”
“I think, my darling friend, he means to marry you. But that is only a wild guess.”
We both smiled with delight and hugged each other. “Now, ladies,” I announced, “let us meet on the great expanse of Brindl’s camán field and learn how to wield these cudgels.”
When at last I had returned from our shillelagh practice yesterday, it was later than I would have liked. Liam was already home, so I had no chance to have supper ready for him. “Liam,” I had told him as I kissed him, “I will make us a vegetable soup—perfect for a cold afternoon.”
I walked to the corner where our weapons were leaning, intending to return my shillelagh, and he followed me. “Not yet, Cat,” he said. “We make soup later. Now bata.” I stood near him while he leaned and seized his burnished shillelagh. “Come.”
We walked out together, to the rear of our teach where the circle of dark stones stood. “Tell me your first lesson today, Cat.”
“Very well. Tá go maith. I told them the most important thing was to gather themselves into a center of awareness. To stand watching their opponent, but to keep an even sharper eye on themselves, their own prejudices and intentions.”
“Show me.”
I stood with my shillelagh lowered, even loose, in my right hand and my eyes bore into his. I watched his deep brown eyes change as the shadows changed, and I saw my own reflected in them. I could read their purpose—-to understand my opponent, and to be the first to strike. My own purpose became his, and suddenly I knew that my first strike would also be his.
Neither of us allowed a breath to be seen, even while breathing very deeply. And the moment of attack came as though we were one. Both of us leapt toward the other, and our shillelaghs touched and caught together as though lodestones. We stood that way for a long moment, our cudgels raised and crossed, our eyes searching each other. At last, each of us slowly lowered our weapon.
I knew my eyes reflected his passion exactly, and we kissed as though our mouths had sought the other all our lives. “Finn’s thighs, Cat, I need ye,” he said, husky and low. And then we were kissing with a frenzy that made my mouth ache, and his hands seized my breasts as though he would not let go. He gathered me into his arms and strode for the door of our teach, and in moments I was lying on our bed, splayed among wild animal pelts, and he was stripping off his breeches.
I struggled with my triús, and he helped me, pulling them down to my knees while somehow finding my breasts under my deerskin tunic. “Suck, suck me,” I demanded. He lifted the tunic over my head, and then he pulled each breast into his mouth one by one. He bit and suckled first one, then the other. His mouth, first gentle, turned hard with remorseless desire. At that moment it was what I wanted and needed, and I told him. I moaned my yearning to him, and I seized his hips hard, my nails biting into his skin.
I was writhing and moving on the bed, and yet somehow his mouth did not falter. Then, instead of straddling me, he turned me over. I felt him penetrate me from behind, and I shouted, inarticulate, needing release.
“Tell me. Tell me,” he said roughly. He was sliding in and out, holding me in a kneeling position, and he stopped, teasing me with anticipation, waiting for my response.
I told him, I told him again and again what I needed, and he did it. We climaxed the same way our weapons had met—at the same exhilarating moment, both of us crying out our pleasure.
Afterward, I lay with tears running down my face, finally feeling the pain of his deep penetration. “You…hurt me, Liam.”
He kissed my lips very tenderly, for they, too, were swollen from his rough kisses. “Love hurt,” he said.
It did not seem strange at all to relive last night’s passion with Liam, all the while watching him in the saddle some ten feet ahead of me, riding easily and laughing with his cousin. I wondered then how much of my physical discomfort was intentional, his way of telling me not to make plans without him again, his way of showing his own emotional hurt.
He had applied the soothing powder later, but it was with almost taunting eyes and lips twisted in a part smile. I resolved to make him part of my plans next time I devised an adventure. After so many years of being on my own, it was not natural for me to include others in my plans. Perhaps a bit of love ache would help me keep in mind that I had a formidable warrior for a husband. My mouth curled in an expression of secret love at the very moment he turned back and looked at me, smiling, too.
We had been riding all day, and I saw by the angle of the sun that we would be stopping in less than one hour. Tonight I would send a signal fire with my own signature, telling any nearby clans that we were coming. I thought there would be either Murphys or MacCools out on the rangeland to read our smoke. I would welcome them, and perhaps learn valuable information from them also.
Even while thinking about a signal fire, I noticed a great conflagration off to the northwest, close to the Lough Foyle. Turning NimbleFoot, I cantered back to join Brother Jericho, riding gingerly on bright-maned Macha.
“O Brother, can you tell me the meaning of that great bonfire in the distance?”
Brother Jericho looked up from his meditations. At least, I thought he was meditating, from the withdrawn look on his face. “Fire? Ah, yes, that looks to be around the small bally of Glas-stiall, a sheep herder’s township. I think today is the first of February, Caylith. Thus that fire is one of the many bonfires lit today, all across the island, in celebration of the festival of Imbolc, also called Oimelc, sheep’s milk—coming of the spring.”
“Spring? But winter just started in December.”
“We live now in a different culture, Caylith. To the people of Éire, today is one of the four great feasts. This one is named for the running of sheep’s milk in the mother. The quickening of the milk means that the newborns will arrive soon. It marks the slow emerging of new life under the snow and ice. Without the cold and death of winter, how can we appreciate the warmth and rebirth of spring?”
“Is this one of the beliefs that Father Patrick is trying to suppress?”
“To a certain extent, yes. He does not want the people to turn their back on the old beliefs. But he wants them to see the old ways in the new light of Christ’s bright coming. For instance, the Bishop feels that the feast of Oimelc, dedicated to the goddess Brigit, should be associated with Christ’s mother instead.”
“So the lighting of fires is important in Éire.”
“Very important. They are a means of purification. They are an earthly representation of the sun itself. Yes, very important.”
“Brother, can you tell me a little of Father Patrick’s plans? You told me a few days ago that he intends to return to Tara for the lighting of the paschal fires. Is that another feast of the pagans? I thought it meant Eastertide.”
“Ah, you show you have a keen memory, Caylith. Yes, he intends to travel to Tara at the same time as the high king is lighting the great fire of Beltane—to many, the most important festival in all of Éire. It marks the beginning of May, the first day of spring. By happenstance, it is also our celebration of Christ’s resurrection and rebirth.”
“Why would Father Patrick travel all the way to Tara? Why would he not light a great fire at Emain Macha, at his own large monastery?”
“First, the monastery at the Hill of Macha is already the site of a huge bonfire, never allowed to die, for it is the symbol of the Trinity itself. But second, Cay, never forget that our Bishop has come here to convert the pagans. Patrick must not allow the druid rite of Beltane to overshadow the miracle of Christ’s rebirth. Thus his own fires, I am sure, will be bigger and brighter than those of the Ard Rí, the mighty Leary, lit on the legendary Hill of Tara.”
“I sense danger in that direction, dear Jericho.”
“And I also, dear little friend. My thoughts are on it night and day.”
I wanted to tease him out of his sour mood. “Were you thinking about it when I rode up—or about certain festerings brought about by riding my fearless steed?” I knew that Jericho, never an eager rider of horses, suffered greatly from saddle sores. I also knew that he was loath to take any kind of healing potion. The tenderness, as he saw it, was but a small reminder of Christ’s own deep suffering.
Jericho flushed and turned his head. “I, ah, I am much given to meditation.”
I had made up a small pouch of healing powder just for him, and I handed it to him. “You may choose to ignore this. But if you use it, you may be in a less painful frame of mind to contemplate the life of our Lord.”
I turned NimbleFoot with a slight jerk of the rein, and I cantered up to join Liam and Michael, grinning. The monk had taken the powder without thanks, but without refusing it, either.
And so we ended our first day on the rough, pitted road to Limavady.
Chapter 18:
The Nether Parts
As Michael made our fire, he told me more about the roving clansmen. “Do not be disappointed, lass, if our kinfolk do not see our signal. Even if this is the first day of spring weather, they will not be herding cattle onto the pastures yet. Chances are, they are holed up in their little huts, waiting for the grass to green.”
“And yet, to hear Ryan tell it, the drovers are on the range night and day, sleeping with their charges.”
He grinned, piling the kindling into an interlaced pyramid. “Yea, lass, methinks Ryan does sleep with his nose in the nether parts of his milk cows.”
Liam brought the tinderbox, laughing. “To make sure she gives the best milk…very old tradition.”
I left to find my smoke blanket, wondering whether all the clansmen were bawdy all the time when they congregated. When I returned, I asked Brigid in a low voice, “Why do they always speak with such vulgarity when they are together?”
She smiled up at me from her cross-legged position near the fledgling fire. “You know, Cay, the drovers really do, um, blow a bit into their cows to stimulate the milk giving. Our husbands are telling a very tiny bit of truth, for once.”
I stood with my smoke blanket and a large pile of dry weeds I had pulled from the sun-filled slopes. “Then I would know more about the cattle and the life of a cattle herder. What is the attraction—aside from their sweet nether parts? What are the rewards?”
“Now, lass, send your signal now,” said Michael.
Ryan Murphy had taught me the technique on our trip from the Lough Neagh to Derry. The fire had started to crackle and grow. I seized a handful of weeds and poured a small amount of water onto them, making them a bit wet, and I threw the damp, tangled mass onto the flames. At once, the fire began to emit deep gray smoke. I let it rise until it was a dark column. Then I seized the blanket by the edges on one side and flapped it in the fire once. The column became a dark ball of smoke. As soon as it became a thin line again, I flapped the blanket again, and once more a ball of smoke rose. That was my signature. Caylith is here, it said. Come to me, O friends and kinfolk.
“We will talk about the life of cattle barons later, lass. Liam and I are off to fell a mighty hare for supper.”
Liam drew me close and kissed me lightly, his public kiss, but his eyes were alight with the promise of more. “We leave ye to care for the horses.” Then he and his cousin were off to the cover of trees, already crouching in a hunter’s stealthy walk.
Brother Jericho and Brigid walked with me to curry the horses. They had already been unsaddled and allowed t
o browse the brown stubble that served as fodder this time of year. I saw that my pony did not seem interested in Alva now, as though earlier it had been a whim—a fickle moment now past, a trick of light and scent combined, yet now gone.
“Bree, Jericho tells me that today is the feast day of the goddess Brigid, your namesake. Does that mean it is your feast day also?”
She smiled as she stroked and curried her mare. “My Brehon father, a scholar of law and history, would not allow such a fanciful convergence of birth dates. But my sentimental mother would have it differently. Until she died, when I was around ten, we did celebrate today as my own feast day.”
“And now?” I asked.
“And now I do not celebrate it at all. Like most in this part of Éire, I date my birth close to Beltane, the great Mayday festival, the beginning of our year.”
I looked at Jericho. “Torin also dates his birth, and Liam’s, too, from that time of year. Why is it that the people of Éire do not have their own feast day?”
“Caylith, if you lived on the outskirts of a rocky promontory, or on a desolate moor, or near the turlough at the edge of a lake—tell me, how would you know your feast day had come?” He rubbed Macha’s red mane as he spoke, and she seemed to enjoy his deep voice, for she nuzzled his tonsured head and rolled her eyes.
“I, ah, I guess I would not know, O Brother. I would see the great fires, though, and I would know that an important feast was to be celebrated.”
“Exactly so, Caylith. And even if you saw no fires, you would see the snow melting, or the crops ripening, or the sheep’s milk starting, or any number of signs of seasonal change. Like this beautiful mare, you would sense the days growing brighter. And that is how the people know the seasons, and their own feast days simply become part of the celebrations.”
