The Children of Lir
Page 18
On the fourth day, I was beside myself. I walked between the huts, desperately wishing Sorcha were about, longing for her kind voice to comfort me. Even though I could barely keep a meal down, my servants assumed this was a sign of my distress, and I did not correct them. I wanted my husband to be the first to hear my news, for how well he took it would determine all that was to follow.
That evening, a whistle blew from the embankment. The gates were thrown wide and a group of riders appeared. My husband was at their head, my foster father close behind him with Eoghan of the Long Hill. Behind them rode Fionn mac Cumhaill and his men, and among them my sister.
“My husband!” I cried, running to greet Lir as he swung down from his horse.
Before I could ask where he had been, he struck his gloved hand across my face and I fell to the ground, blood seeping from my lip.
I stared in shock as he reached down to haul me to my feet.
As his face pressed to mine, I knew that my life was over.
Ailbhe
I had not wanted to believe it. I would not believe it. Yet when I saw my sister’s face, I knew that it was true. I had looked upon her from the day she was born, and I knew the way her eyes moved when she thought she was in trouble, when she was trying to hide her lies.
Oh, my sister. My dear sister. What have you done?
We had gone with Cumhaill to Loch Dairbhreach, and there we had seen the swans. It was a fearful thing to behold my father, King of all the Danann, up to his waist in the muddy waters. The swans came to him, their slender necks wrapped about his arms, their beaks nuzzling his vast stomach.
“Bodb, Bodb,” one of them called, its voice as sweet as heartbreak.
“Oh, Fionnuala!” he cried, caressing her snow-white cheek. “What has happened to you?”
“Aoife, Aoife,” the second largest replied.
“Watch,” Caílte said, removing a bone flute from his sleeve. “Listen.”
He began to play and the children fell to singing the softest, saddest dirge. Not a single eye was dry by the time they had finished. We had to rest ourselves by the bank, for the outpouring of sorrow drained us.
When we had regained our strength, Bodb called for bread and mead to be brought, and the swans ate of it hungrily, as though half-starved.
“I do not understand,” my father said. “How can such an enchantment be?”
He sent to Sidh-ar-Femhin for the druid, Bodbmall. She rode to Loch Dairbhreach upon a great white horse with flowing mane and tale. It were as though a goddess dismounted before us, the silver chain at her neck tinkling softly like the reeds.
We did not need to speak. She understood immediately what she looked upon, better than we had. Her white robes turned grey as she stepped into the water.
“Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiachra and Conn,” she said, gesturing so that we might know each by their name. “Come closer, children.” As with my father, they swam to her, embracing her with their necks. “This is strong magic,” she said. “They smell of sweet sage.”
“What does that mean?” my father asked, barely able to contain his impatience.
“It is magic of the Aos Sí, of the ancients.”
“Why did they say my sister’s name?” I asked.
“That, I do not know.”
“Well, how do you break the spell?” my father urged.
“First we must know what the spell is.”
“Three hundred upon Loch Dairbhreach,” Aodh spoke.
“Three hundred upon Sruth na Maoile,” Fionnuala spoke.
“Three hundred upon Irrus Domnann,” the twins chorused together.
“Three hundred moons?” Bodb asked.
“Years,” they said at once.
We fell silent.
It was Caílte who eventually stirred us, suggesting we should send for their father.
“Yes,” Bodb muttered. “Yes, send a rider at once.”
After the hooves of his horse had faded, we slumped by the water’s edge. None of us knew what we would say once Lir arrived. How could we tell him what we had found?
That night we lit lamps. The children were too afraid to approach the fire, for they were half-wild and remembered nothing of the nights they had danced beside the rising flames of their own fort. Whilst we huddled for warmth, they nested in the reeds, their dark eyes opening and closing in turns to check that we were still there, as though mortally afraid we might leave should they fall asleep.
Just after dawn, when all the world was white with mist, Lir and our rider appeared beside us. I had not heard his horse approach, for I had dreamed such awful dreams. I had dreamed that our entire camp had turned to swans, myself included, and that we were forced to fly forever, never able to land no matter how tired we became. Our wings ached yet we could not even speak words of comfort to one another for we had forgotten our language.
Lir slid from his horse like a ghostly shadow, his dark cloak brushing the dew from the grass.
“Father! Father! Father!” the swans cried in unison, climbing over themselves to approach. They were clumsy on shore, their large webbed feet and long necks causing them to trip. Each time they fell, mud stained their fine plumage until they arrived before him more like geese than swans.
“Can it be true?” he whispered.
“It is true,” spoke Bodbmall. “These are your children.”
He stood as still as a clay figure, his expression set hard. At his feet, his children stared up at him, their heads bobbing as they tried to assess his thoughts. Dread filled the pit of my stomach to see them so lost. This was their father. They craved his touch, his love, yet he offered neither.
“Fetch my saddlebags,” he ordered. “My children will return home with me this instant.”
The Fianna obeyed, unfastening four soft leather bags from their horses and returning to help strap the swans inside. The children offered no resistance, for they seemed more than happy to be returned to their place of birth.
As the warriors helped Lir, the rest of us struck camp, dousing the fire and dismantling the crude stick shelters. I could not fathom Lir’s cold silence. Had that been Bevan out there on that lonely lake, with only the fish for company, I would have been inconsolable. I would have knelt in the mud and beat my chest with grief. Yet the way men and women grieve is different. I came to recognise the warrior in Lir. Like the Fianna, he had been raised to fight, and in order to fight he had been taught to think. He still believed then, as did we all, that there would be some way to break that curse and return his children to him. His only thought was to protect them until such time arrived.
We secured the children across the saddles of the horses, Lir with his daughter across his lap, Caílte with Aodh, and the twins safely ensconced with two of Cumhaill’s trusted men. In this fashion we set off, the early sun burning through the white of morning, a chill breeze rustling the reeds as though they whispered their goodbyes. We trailed the edge of the shore, its water iron-grey against the rolling hills. When we came to the path to the West, we turned off, Lir kicking his mount into a trot.
We had not gone more than a few feet when Fionnuala opened her beak and issued forth an ear-splitting cry. Within moments the other children joined her, causing us to press our hands to our ears. The horses spooked and back-stepped, the rump of Caílte’s blood-red mount pushing into the face of my own grey mare. As he struggled for the reins, the tether that held Aodh’s saddlebag fell away and before the young Fianna had a chance to reach out, the swan had spread its wings and taken flight. His feathers spanned the length of a man’s arms as he glided down across the water, landing in a haze of droplets which caught the light, forming a rainbow that vanished in an instant.
Lir turned his own horse, our band of warriors following him back to the water’s edge. It was only then that the swans stopped their keening. He undid the strap of his own saddlebag and Fionnuala flew to join her brother. When the children were reunited, they watched us offshore, as though afraid we might try to abduct them
again.
“Three hundred years upon Loch Dairbhreach,” Bodbmall whispered, sweeping her silver-red braid across her shoulder. “They cannot leave.”
“It hurts them to try?” I asked.
“So it would seem.”
Lir left Bodbmall with five men of the Fianna to guard the children. He wished me to stay too, but I refused. This tragedy had been brought about by my own blood and I knew that I must bear witness.
We rode hard towards Sidhe Fionnachaidh. I had not ridden so since long before my son was born, and the saddle caused a great ache inside of me, but I would not slow my pace.
My father’s great red cloak streamed out before me until I thought myself riding along on a river of blood.
We rode all day and through the night, stopping only to water our horses. When Lir’s fort came into view I shivered to see it looming before us. I had never noticed what a desolate place it was, high atop its lonely hill where the coastal winds tore through it at night. Though it was no earthly cold that gripped me.
My sister ran to greet us in the yard. She was dressed in her sleeping gown, a thick shawl pulled about her shoulders. As she reached to wrap her arms around her husband’s neck, he caught her face with his hand, landing her heavy upon the hard ground.
I flinched, a shadow of doubt crossing my mind. My sister, my flesh and blood, lay bleeding before me. I went to take a step forward, but found my feet rooted like mighty oaks.
Lir pulled her to her feet, then thrust her at his shocked steward.
“Take her to the holding,” he commanded. “See that she has bread and water, but do not let her leave.”
Two of Cumhaill’s men went to her and hauled her away, one at each arm.
“Father—” I began, turning to Bodb, yet he held up a hand to silence me.
The two kings left us then. They mounted their horses and rode back through the gates. I knew they would be away in council for many hours, deciding Aoife’s fate. Eoghan came to my side and held my head against his chest.
“What would you do?” he asked me.
“I would speak with her.”
“My dear, sweet wife—”
“Eoghan, she is my sister. The only one I have left. We were taken from our homeland together, we lost our mother together, we grew into women together. This night may be her last, what would you have me do?”
He wiped a tear from my eye and kissed me gently on the lips.
Aoife
My sister came to me there, in that dreadful place. The mud smelled of piss where a hundred drunks had spent the night before me. There was no bed, only a pile of straw crawling with lice. Simply looking at it made me itch. When she entered, she looked around uncertainly, then had a man bring two wooden stools that we might sit more comfortably.
“Aoife,” she said stiffly, not offering me her touch.
We were silent a long time. In truth, I knew not what to say.
“Fionn mac Cumhaill’s men were passing Loch Dairbhreach. Can you tell me what they found there?”
I shook my head, for I could not.
“They found four swans,” she told me, watching my eyes for any sign of recognition. I simply hung my head. “Sister, heart that beats as mine does, what happened? Tell me of your misfortunes.”
“Which of my misfortunes?” I heard my words fall, edged with bitterness sharp as a sword. “Gifted to the Men of Dea, our father’s murderers, before I’d hardly left the breast. Cast across the sea, never to see my mother again. Raised by fat women and arrogant men, their eyes wandering my figure before my seventh birthday. My elder sister sold, myself tethered to the ground when my nature is to fly free. My womb barren for so many years when all around mothers nursed their newborn infants as though they grew like weeds, plentiful as apples in autumn.”
“That is why you did it, for jealousy?” she asked.
“Did what?” I raised my eyes and smiled. Why shouldn’t I? What proof did they have of my crime? Even if swans could speak, they would have a difficult time proving me a witch capable of such strong magic.
My hubris melted before my sister’s stare. There was a look of disappointment such as I had never seen before.
“You are right, sister dearest,” she replied. “We have suffered many misfortunes, and your misfortunes have been mine. Yet the blackness that runs through your heart does not run through me.”
I swallowed hard.
“What will become of me?” I asked.
“When the sun sinks beneath the mountains, you will be brought before your husband, and our father, to answer for what you have done.”
“Will you wait with me?” I asked.
For a moment Ailbhe looked uncertain, and then she reached forward and took my hand in hers. She called for mead and a platter of meat and bread. We ate together there in that hovel, where the scent of sweat and fear lent the food a bitter quality. She did not ask me again about the children or what happened to them. Instead, we spoke of our childhood. She told me what she remembered of our mother, for she had been a little older than I, and remembered her more clearly, though we both admitted that our memories had faded with the years, her face turning from flesh to clay, moulded by our remembrance.
“She was a strong woman. Hard,” my sister told me. “She had courage beyond words to do as she did. I pray you have inherited that courage.”
We spoke of the journey across the sea, and my sister sang to me a little, those songs which my mother had sung to calm us on the rough voyage. In hearing them, I remembered what it was to feel protected and safe. To be loved. It brought tears to my eyes which I refused to shed. All my life I had yearned for freedom, to break the bonds that tied me to my kin. In so doing, I had imprisoned myself instead.
Ailbhe spoke of me as a young child at Sidh-ar-Femhin. How I had loved to chase the cats and the birds that gathered by the grain stores. She told me of myself in ways I could sparsely recall. She spoke of a corn dolly I had been given by an old storyteller, and how I had held it with me wherever I went until the stalks began to rot and it fell to pieces. She told me that in the night she and Aobh had taken it to the field to bury it, and in the morning replaced it with another dolly, one which they had woven themselves.
“When you awoke,” she told me, “you looked at it with love for no more than a moment before you recognised that it was not the same. In a tantrum, you threw it into the fire.”
“How old was I?”
“Too young to know how you pained us. In those days it was so different, we could forgive as easy as sun melts the snow, laughter came quick to our lips.”
“Yet you cannot forgive me now?”
“Those were not corn dolls, Aoife. Those were your children.”
Not mine, I was about to retort, but I bit back my tongue. I had not yet condemned myself, and would not do so for as long as I could help it.
As the sun began to faint, it cast long shadows across the floor. My sister grew restless, thinking on her own son and wishing to return to him, yet she did not voice her thoughts. She stayed with me, and for that I loved her.
Eventually my husband’s men came to the door, Ailill mac Ailfrid and Dinsmore the Dark, with his round moon face.
“It is time,” Ailill announced, taking me by the arm and raising me roughly to my feet.
“I will walk with you,” Ailbhe reassured, taking my arm from his ham-sized fist.
The main fire of Sidhe Fionnachaidh had been dimmed that night, its flames burning low and blue, casting an eerie light across the faces of the crowd who had gathered to watch. Lir stood tall in his finest black furs, half-man, half-shadow. I saw in him then the warrior of his youth and it caused my legs to weaken. I leant against my sister for support.
Beside him, my foster father stood, his cheeks as red as his cloak. Even from where we were, several feet before them, I could smell the sharp scent of strong wine on his breath.
To either side of them the Fianna stood, their cold expressions set as stone.
“My lord,” I replied, bending my knee before him. “My sister tells me the children have been turned to swans, that they are not dead–”
“As good as,” Bodb replied, curtly.
“If this is so, it has taken wicked magic to bring about their transformation. Look at me father,” I pleaded, meeting his eyes. “I am no witch.”
“You say you have no part in this?”
“None,” I whispered.
Bodb stepped back, pulling his cloak against the cold.
“You heard my daughter, Lir. She speaks true. She is no witch, she has no training in the dark arts. I have seen her grow from a sapling, and you have taken her to bed. You know as well as I that she wields no such spells.”
“My lord,” Dinsmore spoke, appearing at Lir’s side. “We searched her rooms, as you instructed. Beneath the rug in her private hut, we found fresh-turned soil. Here,” he said, placing the druid’s rod in his hand. Its wood was no longer white, but black, as though it had been charred.
“Elatha,” my husband commanded, his voice rough as shale. “What can you tell me of this?”
The druid stepped forward, her feet bare beneath her robes, as though she no longer felt the threat of winter. She took it in her hands, her eyes rolling back as she muttered sacred words.
“Strong magic of the Aos Sí. Sweet sage and carrion, my king.”
“The same spell cast upon my children?”
“As sure as day gives way to night.”
All eyes turned to me, a soft murmur rippling through the onlookers.
“An explanation,” Bodb demanded.
For a moment, I fell speechless.
Finding my voice, I could only shake my head and deny all knowledge.
“Guennola,” I replied. “She must have been the one to summon the wolf.”
“Your maid?”
“Yes. There was always something strange about her. Ask anyone.”