by Anna Ciddor
But Ket was glad they couldn’t. He gazed uneasily at the frozen, contorted shapes of the roots. Faelán had told them that pine trees no longer grew in Ireland. This one had lain in the bog for thousands of years, and now here it was, exposed. To him, the pit seemed like a grave that had been broken open. Caught on one knotty protuberance was a brass earring and Ket hoped it was an offering to appease the angry Spirits of the Marsh.
‘Hey!’ yelled a voice.
A strip of crimson cloth came dancing towards them on the breeze. Nessa jumped up to catch it and turned to look. ‘That’s come from my place,’ she cried, waving excitedly to a ringfort where women were tying coloured buntings to the palisades that crested the ramparts.
‘Fáilte, fáilte,’ called the women.
As the two friends crossed the ditch and entered the yard, dogs leapt and barked in greeting.
‘Nessa!’ cried her mother, bouncing towards them. Nessa stood stiff and awkward while Egem embraced her. ‘My, you grow taller every time I see you! But look at you, you’re too thin.’ Ket eyed his friend and saw that Egem was right. Nessa’s cheeks were hollow, her chin almost as sharp as a knife point. ‘You don’t get enough to eat at that place,’ tutted her mother.
Nessa shrugged. ‘It’s winter,’ she said. ‘We’ll find more to eat when the warm weather comes. But tell me, what are you hanging up all those coloured rags for?’
‘The king, of course. He’ll come past here on his way to the chieftain’s,’ said Egem, stroking Nessa’s arm. ‘Come inside, both of you.’ She began to shepherd them towards the house. ‘I’m sure you’d like something to eat.’
‘Yes please!’ said Ket.
Nessa and Egem bustled into the house, but as Ket reached the doorway, he stopped short, surprised by a feeling of uneasiness. It was a long time since he’d been inside a house. Then the sound of Nessa’s happy voice, the warmth of the fire and inviting smells of cooking called out to him, and he hurried through the door.
Egem placed wheaten bread, a jug of honey and a dish of butter in front of them. Ket closed his eyes as he bit into the crust, savouring the salty, creamy taste of the butter.
Nessa nudged him, and broke off a piece of bread to toss on the burning peat – an offering to the Spirit of the Hearth. Ket coloured, embarrassed that he had forgotten.
‘Did Tirech get his payment?’ asked Nessa, brushing crumbs from her lap. ‘Did Gortigern give him the calf?’
‘Of course not.’ Egem snorted. ‘Gortigern refused.’
‘But he can’t refuse. It was the brehon’s order!’
Egem shrugged. ‘That bully does what he likes, and what can Tirech do?’
‘Well he can’t just let Gortigern get away with it! I’m going to see Brehon Áengus. He can do something!’ Nessa shoved her food aside and stood up. ‘Where’s Uncle Tirech now?’
‘With the other men, busy mending the road for the king,’ said Egem. ‘But . . . here . . .’ The plate wavered in her hand as Nessa charged out the door.
‘Thank you!’ Ket grabbed a slice of bread in each hand.
As he stepped out into the fresh, cold air again, he felt a quiver of relief and looked eagerly around, checking the clouds, the wind, the position of the sun. He could no longer feel comfortable hemmed in by walls and a roof.
The ringfort stood on the crest of a hill. From here, low drystone fences stretched beyond the ramparts, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. They enclosed the pastures where cattle and sheep grazed, the orchard, the vegetable garden and the crop fields, bare now for the winter. On the slopes beyond, there were other ringforts dotted about, and Ket and Nessa could see small figures toiling on the trackway that ran between them. The men were splitting oak logs to lay across a bed of brushwood and stones. The steady thump-thumps as they beat the wedges into the logs drifted up to the ringfort.
‘There’s Uncle Tirech,’ cried Nessa, pointing. ‘But come on, we’re going to see the brehon.’
Brehon Áengus chewed a haunch of mutton as Nessa spoke, then laid down the bare bone, and heaved a contented sigh. His whiskers and round cheeks were shiny with grease.
‘Well now,’ he pronounced, ‘if Gortigern the Intruder has not paid his fine, Tirech must give notice of distraint. I must accompany him as witness.’ The lawgiver picked up a brimming mead cup and drank deeply.
‘And then, does Uncle take the calf?’ asked Nessa.
‘Oh no.’ Áengus thumped the cup down, and wiped his dripping moustache with the back of his hand. ‘Legally, Gortigern will have five days to respond. He may choose to settle the matter at once, or he may give a pledge to signify his willingness to settle the matter in the future.’
A serving girl offered the lawgiver a platter of cheese.
‘Ah.’ He stabbed at the large round lump with his knife, and looked at the two figures standing expectantly in front of him. ‘Not today, not today.’ He waved them away. ‘You can see I am occupied. Anyway, night is nearly upon us. Tell Tirech to see me in the morning.’ He popped a hunk of the cheese in his mouth and lifted the mead cup again.
Out by the trackway, the men had stopped work for the day. They were weary and mud-spattered, but the new-laid surface of split logs stretched before them in a long, gleaming line. Tirech raised his eyebrows when Nessa gave him the message.
‘We’ll see,’ he growled.
They watched him plod off towards his home.
‘It’s not fair,’ Nessa complained. ‘I won’t be here tomorrow; I won’t know what happens.’
Darkness was gathering and the fierce wind whipped their faces, as the two friends headed back to camp. Ket thrust forward, exhilarated by the strength of the spirits he could feel in the air. The wind carried strange scraping and thumping noises down the slope towards them.
‘What’s going on?’ panted Nessa.
At the edge of the camp, they stopped, startled. In the yellow light of the flames, the anruth were piling up stones into something that looked like a small cairn. For a heart-stopping moment, Ket thought Faelán had died, but then he saw the tall, bearded figure by the fire. The druid was holding a bushy branch in his hand and sweeping it through the air, his long hair and cloak streaming out behind him.
‘Spirits of the Ai-i-r,’ he called, his voice almost carried away by the howling of the gale.
Ket and Nessa watched in bewilderment, pulling their cloaks tight around them. In the gathering darkness, the figures of the anruth still staggered across the clearing, their arms loaded with stones.
Faelán strode forward, weaving the branch through the air, then cast it on the fire. ‘Dispel wind! Dispel!’
He stood with his arms upheld, glowering around him. The wind gave a few more fitful gusts, then ebbed away. Faelán squatted by the fire and held out his hands to the warmth. Behind him, the pile of stones was now higher than his head.
‘Hey, what’s happening? What are you all doing?’ Ket tried to grab Goll’s sleeve as he stumped past lugging a large boulder.
‘Building a house. For the master,’ said Goll shortly.
‘A house? For Faelán?’ Ket and Nessa stared at each other. ‘But . . . but . . .’
‘He’s getting old. The cold bothers him.’
‘But . . . but druids don’t . . .’
‘Come and help,’ grunted Goll, ‘instead of standing there stuttering.’
THE LONGEST
NIGHT
The morning was so icy, Ket could not feel his fingers. He tucked his hands under his armpits and sat in the darkness listening to the dawn chorus of the birds. He recognised their different voices calling from the trees around him: the plinking of a blackbird, the chirrup of a chaffinch, and then, drowning them all, the loud, persistent trill of the wren.
Weak, watery daylight crept over the world at last, and Ket spied the tiny wren perched on a gorse bush. Its feathers were fluffed out for warmth, and it was wagging its tail from side to side as it sang.
Everything around was covered with frost. S
parkling crystals whitened bushes, and crusted bare branches. Ket huffed, and his breath hung in a white vapour in the freezing air.
He glanced at the stone hut, still discomforted by the sight of a building in the middle of camp. Within those walls, how could the druid know what was happening in the world around him?
Ket turned his face to the sun, but there was no warmth in its rays. He looked at the leafless trees. He thought of Nessa’s hollow cheeks, of the brambles stripped of berries, of the bare, muddy riverbanks without a shoot of watercress or brooklime. Suddenly, he could be patient no longer.
‘Master Faelán,’ he called, ‘the sun is dying. The trees are dying. When . . . when are you going to do something?’
Around him, the sleeping figures stirred and groaned. Nessa’s head popped out of her cover and she blinked at Ket with wide, shocked eyes.
Lorccán sat up, grinning. ‘Well, you’ve really done it now,’ he whispered. ‘Master Faelán is going to eat you!’
There was a rustling inside the hut, and Ket watched the doorway nervously.
When Faelán appeared, there were dried stalks clinging to his clothes, for his floor was padded with rushes. To Ket’s relief, he was smiling.
‘Ah, you are observant, my Ket. And yes, you are right. Winter has become king. It is time for us to intervene. Today we must sacrifice the wren.’
‘Why a wren?’ asked Lorccán. ‘Why not something bigger, like an eagle? Or what about a stag, with those huge antlers?’
‘The wren is the voice of winter, and winter must be vanquished.’
Ket glanced at the creature singing happily on the gorse bush.
‘They’re such fragile little birds,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Nessa agreed. ‘They don’t look important.’
‘Maybe not, but the wren is king of the birds. Do you not know the tale of the wren and the eagle?’ asked Faelán.
The fosterlings shook their heads.
‘Then that will be the tale you learn today.’
When Maura brought her master a bowl of breakfast gruel, Faelán faced the fire and intoned, ‘Thank you, Spirit of the Hearth, for your heat.’ He looked towards the woods. ‘And thank you, Spirit of the Forest, for our sustenance.’
Ket peered into his own bowl and grimaced. It was hard to feel grateful for a few sprigs of chickweed floating in boiling water.
The druid took a sip, and steam wreathed his face as he told the tale.
‘Fortune favours those who recount a tale faithfully,’ he began, as he always did. ‘One day, all the birds of the forest gathered to choose their king. The birds agreed that the one who could fly highest would be their sovereign.’ Faelán cocked an eyebrow at his listeners. ‘Which bird do you think that will be?’
‘The eagle!’ they all answered together.
Faelán smiled and set down his bowl.
‘Well, the eagle strove his utmost. He beat his wings with all his might, and he rose wellnigh to the sun. “See me”, he called, “I am the king!” But when all the other birds were looking his way, another tiny head peeked out from the eagle’s crest. It was the wren, riding on the eagle’s back. Then the wren flapped his wings and raised himself above the eagle. The wren was king!’
‘Clever!’ said Nessa.
‘Tonight, as you know,’ said Faelán, ‘we hold a mock battle between the wren and the robin. The robin, with its fiery red breast, will take the part of the sun, and the robin will conquer the wren.’
‘This year, can I be the robin?’ asked Lorccán.
The druid regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Why not? And you, Ket, can be the wren. You can show me what you’ve been learning in your weapon-training with Maura. Now, finish your breakfast quickly. You must carry the message around the tuath.’
In a flurry of excitement, the four fosterlings wound holly sprigs through their hair. They looked at each other admiringly. The berries glowed in their hair like tiny crimson suns, and the lushness of the evergreen leaves was a promise of the rebirth that would come to the land with the strengthening of the sun.
Art and Bronal plunged among the gorse bushes and when they emerged, Bronal was clutching a brown, feathered shape in his fist. With solemn ritual, the druid laid it on the altar and called for the blessing of the spirits.
‘Now, Ket, I entrust this into your keeping,’ said Faelán.
The fosterlings hurried off, Ket proudly bearing the sacrificial wren, still warm, in his hands. The pathetic little bundle was a sign to all that today would see the death of winter. Every household they reached sent messengers to other ringforts and, in the brief hours of daylight, the word spread throughout the tuath.
Returning at nightfall, the fosterlings found the anruth stacking a mountainous heap of firewood on the plain. Goll fetched a flame from the druid’s fire and thrust it into the heap. For a moment, the little flame burned brightly, then it burrowed its way into the deep, dark mass of branches, and disappeared. Everyone held their breaths.
‘Come on, fire, come on,’ urged Nessa.
They waited in a tense, expectant circle.
‘It’s no good. It’s gone out,’ said Nath-í.
But Lorccán let out a shout. ‘Look!’ he cried, pointing. Then they all saw a tongue of flame licking the side of the pile.
Beyond it, a blaze of yellow crackled up, then another, and another. Lorccán was dancing around in excitement. ‘Look . . . look!’
A branch fell in a sputter of sparks, and now at last the whole, huge bonfire roared into life.
The druid joined them. He wore a massive gorget of flattened gold, crescent-shaped and wide as a hand span. Brilliant in the leaping flames, it looked like a sun hanging around his neck.
Dots of light, like fallen stars, pierced the distant darkness, and suddenly, from all around, a galaxy of tiny bobbing flames was flowing towards them. The people of the tuath were gathering. Ket felt excitement and pride blaze inside him, as fierce as the burning bog pine in his hand. As they reached the circle of firelight he could see the children, clinging to their mothers’ hands, or riding on their fathers’ shoulders, all wide-eyed with wonder, and every one of them carrying a torch or candle to coax back the sun.
When the whole tuath was assembled, Faelán heaved an oak log into the heart of the flames. A shower of bright red embers swirled through the air. The throng fell silent.
‘May the log burn
May the wheel turn
May the sun return,’
chanted the druid.
And so the vigil for the longest night of the year began. Hour upon hour the people sang, talked and kept watch. The lights of their torches and candles slowly dwindled, but the fire still burned bright.
‘Ket!’ Nessa exclaimed, coming to sit beside him. ‘I asked Uncle Tirech what happened. And you’ll never guess! Gortigern wouldn’t let him take a calf – of course – but he paid a pledge instead, and do you know what that bully used for a pledge?’
Ket blinked with tiredness. ‘Tell me.’
‘His own baby! Can you imagine? Gortigern handed over his two-year-old son!’ Nessa’s eyes glittered in the firelight.
Ket tried to look interested, but before he could prevent it, his jaws stretched open in a huge yawn. He glanced at Nath-í curled up on the ground asleep, and his own body sagged. Propping his head against Nessa’s shoulder, he closed his eyes.
‘Just for a moment,’ he murmured.
When he opened them again, Nessa was asleep too, and the singing had stopped. There was darkness all around, except for the bonfire. The anruth were busy stoking up the flames, and Ket saw, with a pang, that Lorccán was helping them. Lorccán was the only fosterling who had not fallen asleep.
‘Here, Ket, spread the light,’ said Maura. ‘I was just about to wake you.’ She handed him a bundle of peeled rushes soaked in grease. ‘Kindle these, and hand them around. And rouse the others. They can help.’
In a few minutes, there was a ripple of light spreading through the crowd, an
d a stir of anticipation. Ket was alert now, taut and on edge.
‘Lorccán and Ket, it is time for your battle,’ said Faelán.
Ket watched with envy as Lorccán, the robin, was dressed in a red léine. In one hand he carried a shield gleaming with white paint, and in the other a shiny new sword. When Lorccán pranced into the cleared space by the fire, the crowd roared its approval.
Now it was Ket’s turn. He pulled a face as a torn, faded tunic was tugged over his head. The wren was supposed to look feeble and old. He was given a battered shield, the wood split and unpainted, and a rusty, bent sword with a wobbly hilt.
When Ket stepped into the light, and heard the hisses and boos of the audience, he wanted to throw down his arms and run. Instead, he tightened his grip and turned to his opponent.
Lorccán grinned. ‘You’ve got to lose, remember.’
Ket scowled and clattered his sword against his shield, the way the real warriors did. It rattled loudly, then half the shield broke off and dropped to the ground.
The crowd erupted into laughter and Ket felt his cheeks burning.
‘Yah!’ yelled Lorccán. He flourished his sword and stabbed at Ket.
‘Watch it!’ Ket skipped to the side, and took the impact on his broken shield.
‘You lose!’ screamed Lorccán, thrusting again.
Ket just managed to parry with his wobbly sword.
‘Hey, this is just pretend!’ he cried, but Lorccán laughed, and lunged again.
Their swords clanged and the next instant they were pressed together, Lorccán’s shield against Ket’s chest.
The crowd was screaming.
‘You’re dead!’ roared Lorccán. He stepped back and raised his sword.
Ket took one look at the fervour in Lorccán’s eyes and threw himself on the ground. ‘All right, I’m dead!’ he screamed, as Lorccán’s blade plunged towards him. It shuddered to a halt, the point almost piercing his neck.
Ket lay rigid, staring into Lorccán’s triumphant face, and remembered his father, sprawled on the ground at Morgor’s feet.
Lorccán’s shield reflected the red of the fire, and his sword flashed gold as he hoisted it in victory.
