In our victory rapture, some voiced the hope that the scouring would be concluded in a day, or a week at most. But that hope, like many another, was born to disappointment. Indeed, winter was hard upon us before a few wounded, bedraggled troops of the Dé Danann warhost returned with word that the harrowing of the south had finally begun and would likely last the winter. Aye, and a hard, hard winter it was, too. What the hateful chariots did not churn up, the evil-minded enemy burned: crops, orchards, settlements. The fields around Tara which had become the ground of battle lay fallow that year; though we worked long and hard to put them right, we could not plough them. The retreating Scálda killed the cattle and ruined the wells and wreaked every manner of destruction they could devise in every settlement that lay in their path on their flight to the sea or to the south. They poisoned pools and streams out of spite. I do believe the retreat was more devastating than the assault.
Folk made homeless when the wicked Scálda passed through and set fire to their farms came seeking refuge at Tara though we had little enough aid to give. Food ran short, dangerously so. Toward the end we lived on scavengings and whatever the hunters could bring in; but a buck or pig, a few birds snared, or a creel of fish from the lough or stream does not feed an entire tribe. And though we had stored what we could and others brought what they had saved or pulled from the flames, hunger became the unwanted guest at every meal. Parents grew gaunt and their young ones wasted away before our eyes.
Weakened by hunger and cold, or by the wounds they received from battle, many perished. We shared what we had and watched kinsmen and loved ones pass away. And now I say it: little Ciara died that winter. Food grew scarce. Everyone was hungry. I starved. We all did. My milk dried up and that precious tiny life could take no other nourishment. My baby, my child, grew sickly and died one night when fever took her. I held her in my arms as she breathed her last and saw the light of life go out of her eyes.
The bitter agony of it is raw even now. Two seasons have passed, and I ache with my baby’s absence. I still feel her warm infant body in my empty arms, and each new day dawns afresh with the knowing that she is not here. She will never be here.
Winter waned. Imbolc came and so did Eamon, dear Eamon—sent ahead of the returning warhost with the news that the enemy was at long last banished from our shores. The chariots were broken on the rocks, or mired in bogs, or otherwise lost and abandoned. The Scálda had been rooted out, like rabid badgers they had been pulled from their strongholds and settlements and either put down or disarmed and made captive. The Scálda remnant—the widows and children, the old men and women, the sick and injured—had been rounded up and herded onto the Black Ships and sent away. Their detestable fortresses, farms, and settlements had been put to the torch, their cattle, grain, and supplies confiscated to be portioned out and distributed to our own needy folk—though many, I reckon, would choke on the stuff if they knew where the gatherers had got it.
Only then did we count our victory complete.
One bleak, rain-rinsed day not long after, a delegation of nobles and battlechiefs arrived at Tara Hill with a petition sent by the conquering lords requesting that Conor honour their request and take the high king’s throne. He has agreed. So now, at Lughnasadh, Rónán and Chief Brehon Eoghan will come to perform the necessary rites to deliver the Sword of Sovereignty into Conor’s hand. No man alive deserves it more than my Conor, and that is the honest truth.
With the spring comes new hope. As soon as weather allowed, the farmers returned to the land to begin rebuilding their farms. Somehow—I know not how—the fields were planted, lambs and piglets were born, and the yearned-for peace bloomed with the flowers on Tara Plain where the blood of warriors had lately flowed. Slowly, slowly, warmth has settled over the island and slowly, slowly, the torment of the long Scálda nightmare is yielding to the thought that we might make of Eirlandia a better place than it has ever been before—a land where the druids are esteemed and respected for their wisdom and learning, and where the faéry can flourish in their own way without fear of mortals, where kings rule in friendship. We were always a people with a past; now we are also a people with a future.
Bards tell of a realm untouched by hardship, grief, or woe, and of a good beyond every imagining. The Kingdom of All Tomorrows they call it. I may be wrong, but I like to think my little Ciara has found her way to that place and is waiting for me there.
36
‘Will it be finished in time?’ called Conor across the yard as he stood, leaning on Pelydr. The polished blade of the faéry spear gleamed like a shaft of fire in the noonday sun of a cold, bright day. Rónán, tall and straight in his grey druid robe, stood with Conla, the master builder, and his assistant as they discussed the work yet to be done. Nearby, workmen led horses pulling turf-laden wagons up the hill and into the yard. At Conor’s call, Rónán glanced over his shoulder, saw his brother, and, with a nod and a half smile, waved him over to join them.
‘Well?’ said Conor again when proper greetings had been exchanged. ‘Will it be finished in time?’
‘And is this not the very thing we are talking about?’ said Rónán. ‘We have every expectation that work will be finished in time. The funeral ceremony will take place as planned…’ His voice trailed off and he flicked a look at the builder, who was frowning.
‘If?’ said Conor. ‘Was I about hearing an if forming on your tongue, brother?’
‘Ach, well, the tomb will be finished if the carving can be completed for the entrance,’ said Rónán, nodding to Conla.
‘Aye, as soon as the carvers finish the pillar stone, we’ll see it planted,’ added Conla. ‘The last of the turves are going up top now and that’ll be finished by nightfall tomorrow latest.’
‘And there’s limewash to be applied,’ Rónán said.
‘There’s that, so there is,’ agreed Conla.
Leaving them to their discussion, Conor continued on to where the stone carvers had set up beneath a simple shelter behind the cookhouse. Nothing more than a roof of thatch atop four slender pine poles, the workspace housed three carvers, hard at work; the incessant tap, tap, tapping of their mallets could be heard from across the yard. At the Lord of Tara’s appearance, all three downed tools and stood. ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ Conor told them. ‘I’m only here to see if you require anything to speed your work to its completion.’
Credne, the craftsman overseeing the carving, shook stone dust from his leather apron and gestured toward the stone beside him, ‘Nearly done, lord, as you see,’ he replied. ‘There is only touching up left to do.’
‘Touching up?’ wondered Conor.
‘Aye, we’re just chasing the patterns with the fine point now,’ explained the carver. ‘See here…’
He motioned Conor to the massive stone standing upright in a wooden cradle: tall as a man and twice as wide, and smooth as a river pebble, the flat, honey-coloured surface had been grooved with a dizzying series of swirling maze patterns connected with such cunning there was no way to tell where one ended and the next began. On the narrower sides, a line of ogham script had been carved bearing the name of the king in whose reign the stone had been erected, and under whose inspection it now stood.
Conor stood admiring the work as Credne ran his fingers over the grooves, feeling for places left to chase and smooth. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think it is…’ Conor hesitated, choosing the right word and settling on ‘… magnificent.’ He turned a wide, satisfied grin to the other two carvers, who were watching his reaction with somewhat nervous interest. He moved on to the second stone: a smaller, oblong rock that would sit directly at the entrance to the tomb. This one was patterned with circles, sun disks, water symbols, and interlocking spirals indicating the eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
As the chief carver had done, Conor reached out and traced the patterned grooves, feeling the strength and permanence of the worked surface. ‘Well done, everyone,’ he declared, pressing his palm flat aga
inst the stone. ‘Well done.’ Turning once more to the chief carver: ‘Now then, Samhain is soon upon us. What help will you need to put these stones in place?’
Credne stroked his jaw with the end of the mallet for a moment and said, ‘Ach, well, I expect we’ll be needing about as many fellas as it took to haul the stones up here the first time.’
‘So, most of the fianna, then,’ said Conor. ‘Consider it done.’
‘And some horses would not be standing idle the while,’ added the master carver.
‘The fianna and as many horses as you need. Anything else?’
‘Just the holes, then.’ At Conor’s raised eyebrow, Credne quickly explained, ‘For the planting of the stones, you know.’
‘Ach, of course. Leave it with me. Is that all?’ Upon receiving assurance that digging and lining the foundation pits would speed the work to completion, Conor commended the carvers to their work and went to find Dearg or Donal, who could assemble a work crew to ready the foundations for the erection of the commemoration stones—going well out of his way to pass the tomb site one more time and examine yet again the state of the work as construction entered its final stage.
Three years in the planning, gathering, digging, and raising, the new tomb atop Tara Hill was to be the culmination of Conor’s inauguration as high king: topping a nearby hill, a grand construction comprised of an enormous hollow mound with seven large chambers separated one from another by slabs of stone and linked by a central passageway. The entrance to the tomb was carefully oriented to the east so that sun rising on the first day of spring would shine through the doorway and illuminate the tomb and chambers within. Tall as a standing man, each chamber contained dozens of shelves, nooks, and alcoves built into the fabric of the walls, and the structure had been roofed with massive slabs of cut stone. Then, as the third year came to a close, earth dug from the riverbanks round about had been carted up the hill and the entire structure laboriously covered with dirt, tamped, smoothed, and turfed with fresh green grass. Inside the tomb would be placed the sun-bleached bones of all those who had died defending Eirlandia as well as those who had perished through the tribulation of suffering that followed.
Conor paused to watch the workers haul up the last loads of turf used to create the smoothly rounded artificial hill that rose like a green half-moon from the hilltop. It was an impressive structure and, not for the first time, Conor’s heart swelled with pride. For, in the graceful mound of stone and turf, he saw a suitably majestic tribute to the unquenchable valor of the Dé Danann in their staunch defiance of the Scálda invasion begun nearly twenty years ago. We fought the battles thrust upon us, thought Conor. We did not always win, but we did not give up. We did not surrender, and in the end we prevailed. There was honour in that.
One of the labourers saw Conor and put down his turves, causing the others to stop as well. Realising his presence was creating an unnecessary interruption, Conor lifted his hand in a wave of acknowledgement and continued on his way.
Four days later, the sun rose on a raw and rainy morning, and Conor fretted that the evening’s ceremony would be a dull, wet affair. ‘We’ll just build the fire that much higher,’ Aoife told him. ‘Worry instead that we will run out of mead.’ At Conor’s stricken expression, she laughed and said, ‘Worry about that and you’ll worry in vain, my heart. If the mead vat runs dry we will drink ale instead. Never fear.’
During the day, the bones of the deceased—washed, anointed, and carefully bundled in shrouds made from their own siarcs and cloaks—had been transported to the tomb and arranged in a double row to form a long aisle leading to the central pillar stone, which had been erected in front of the tomb the day before.
As the sun dipped below the horizon in the west, the drizzle ceased and the wind fell away, leaving a rapidly clearing sky decked with a scattering of orange and crimson clouds, and the first evening stars took light. An ovate sounded a long, low, blaring note on the carnyx, summoning Tara’s folk and visitors—lords Cahir, Toráin, Corgan, Aengus, Torna, and Liam, and other noblemen and warriors—to follow the rain-damp path to the tomb. Once there, they assembled along either side of the avenue of bone shrouds and stood in solemn witness as Rónán supervised the interment. One by one, ovates carried the shrouded bundles to the waiting hands of three ollamhs, who distributed them among the various chambers inside the tomb. Added to the remains of the defenders were the bones of those who had perished in the aftermath of the war. The smallest of these bundles were the bones of infants and children who could not endure the privations of the following winter and had not survived. Last to be entombed was the bone shroud belonging to little Ciara.
The tiny bundle disappeared into the low square of darkness that was the tomb’s doorway, and Aoife stifled a cry and buried her face in Conor’s sleeve; he put a comforting arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. The moment passed. Aoife straightened, dabbed at her eyes, and then smoothed her hands over the bump of her belly that had just begun to show.
When the last bundle had been entombed, the ollamh and ovates formed a line in front of the mound and turned to face the crowd. Rónán took his place before the pillar stone and, in a loud voice, cried, ‘People of Tara! Now is the propitious time! It is the time-between-times when the veil between this world and the next grows thin, when spirits may freely pass between realms without hindrance.’
One ovate appeared with an oaken bucket, and another bearing a branch of holly. Raising a fold of his cloak, Rónán covered his head and, taking the holly, dipped it into the bucket containing water in which mistletoe had been boiled and steeped for thirty days and nights. To the crowd of onlookers, he said, ‘With this water, I sain this tomb. It shall forever be sacred to the memory of those interred within.’
Turning to the tall pillar stone, Rónán shook the dripping holly branch at the stone, scattering drops of holy water over it. This he did three times and then moved on to the smaller, oblong stone established at the entrance to the tomb, where he dipped the holly sprig again, and shook it three times. Wetting the branch a final time, he shook sacred water on the post and lintels of the tomb’s low doorway. Then, putting aside the holly and bucket, Rónán removed the fold of cloth and, raising his hands shoulder high with palms outward, he called in a loud voice that would echo and reverberate across Tara Hill and down through the years:
‘In the dying of the day, the night is born, and night’s last embers are extinguished in the flames of a new morning. So it is for these, our friends of heart and hearth, who closed their eyes on this world and woke in a world warmed by a different sun. That the Dé Danann triumphed in the Scálda War, they will surely know. Aye, from their high place they will look upon us and they will see an Eirlandia much changed because of their sacrifice and that of so many others who, like themselves, perished in the long struggle to wrest the land of our birth from the cruel oppression of the invader. And I tell you that though they may not share in the victory they helped to win, they will rejoice in it and they will be glad.
‘From this day to the end of days, let all who come after celebrate their memory with food and drink and laughter, and with stories and songs of their valor, remembering also the work of their hands, the dear ones they held close to their hearts, the children they bore and raised, their grievous mistakes and righteous judgements, their sorrows and the small things of life that gave them joy. Though they no longer walk the Land of the Living, they will be remembered by those of us who knew them because it was for us that they lived, and it was for us that they died.
‘In the same way, we will remember those who have fallen to hunger, whose bodies were weakened by want, whose injuries could not be healed. Also, we will remember those who perished through illness or age because it was their time—they are part of this story, too. May all of these who were known to us in life, remain alive forever in our hearts.
‘One day, each of us here will find a resting place in this great tomb. Here we will lie with our brothers and
sisters, our mothers and fathers, our neighbours and friends. As we mourn today, so we will be mourned in the day of our passing by those who loved us. We do not know when that day will arrive, so in the time that is left to us, may we who mark this day live lives worthy of remembrance.’
* * *
When the ceremony had ended, everyone moved on to the hall and yard to celebrate Samhain with ale and cakes; roast pork and venison; bread sweetened with walnuts, dried berries, and honey; and cups, bowls, jars, and horns full of rich, heady mead. But Conor still lingered within the sacred precinct of the new tomb, watching as evening deepened around him and peace settled over the hills and plains.
He saw a dull, flickering reflection on the pillar stone and a moment later, Fergal and Donal were there beside him. ‘They are asking for you,’ Donal announced.
‘They don’t want you to miss the feast,’ added Fergal, ‘and the mead horn has already passed you by—twice.’
‘It is a fine thing, is it not?’ said Conor, gazing at the gentle curve of the mound against the darkening sky.
‘It is that,’ said Donal. ‘A fine and handsome thing.’
Fergal clapped him on the back. ‘You have done well, brother, building this. Your father would be proud of you.’
‘I didn’t do this for him, or for me,’ Conor said, ‘but for all of us—that we should be remembered—as Rónán has said.’ Extending his hand toward the monument, now lit by the glow of torchlight, he added, ‘When Tara’s hall is dust, and Eirlandia herself but a distant memory, this tomb and these stones will remain to remind the world that the Dé Danann passed this way.’
EPILOGUE
From the
Eirlandia Poetica
OF PATRICK, AT TARA
Patrick, best beloved of Ireland, decided to spend Lughnasadh on Tara Hill, also called Cnoc na Teamhair, to bless that hill and dedicate it to the Lord of Hosts. So, on the eve of the celebration, Patrick, along with his priests and attendants, three princes and their servants, arrived to begin chanting psalms and blessings. But as the servants set about making camp in the shadow of the Tomb of the Kings, the sainted one became much troubled.
In the Kingdom of All Tomorrows--Eirlandia, Book Three Page 30