Warrior's Daughter

by Holly Bennett

  Sky to the earth

  Earth to the water

  Water to the deep

  Wings in the air

  Legs on the earth

  Fins under the waves

  Night to day

  The seasons turn

  The firmament over all

  The words, strung from one person to the next into a web of meaning, released their power into the waiting darkness. We recreated the wheel of the sun, the wheel of the seasons, the wheel of life, and we turned as one with the wheel. For the first time, I understood what prayer could do.

  Afterward, we threw blankets over our shoulders and ran, shrieking and giggling and splashing, into the little stream that chattered behind the tents. Our hides were tingling pink and cold when we clambered out, but our hosts had seen to our needs. We found our clothes in a basket, waiting for us on the stream bank.

  My mother came to me in the night. She danced into my dream on silent feet, so that it seemed to me I simply turned and there she was. Emer was as beautiful as I remembered: hair a thick stream of dark gold, a form both straight and shapely, eyes as green as the silk of her dress.

  It was the silk that kept me from rushing into her arms. Green as the barley fields in spring, it was. The same green that had wrapped my father’s head. And as I gazed on it, my love for her turned sour in my breast. It was not hate I felt—hate would have been welcome, with its clean hot flame—but rather a bloated angry pain. You abandoned me. You left me to face everything alone.

  I turned my back to her, shoulders hunching stiff against the pull of her presence, the poison of memory.

  Yet there she stood again, in front of me, and though my face was turned away I saw all the same. The green eyes were sad and pleading. Her face was bright with love. Slowly, she compelled me to look full upon her. She raised her hands, cupped her palms together and breathed into the little bowl they formed. And then she offered it to me, a gift.

  I looked into her hands, and I saw a birth. My birth. There was my mother, her hair dark with sweat, features tender and fierce, reaching for the tiny body that slipped out from between her legs, pushing away the midwife’s hands to claim her baby girl. Then came a series of images that changed at a dizzying speed as Emer shuffled through her memories, deciding which to pick. Poignant glimpses of my childhood they were, but she hurried on. There was something more important she was looking for.

  At last she opened her hands wide and showed me. There was Emer, speaking earnestly to Eirnin, determined to persuade him to teach me. Next I saw her standing against the fence during my arms lesson, watching Berach wallop me into the mud while she swallowed her worry and showed me only encouragement. Now I was walking out our gate onto the plain, with Fintan on my shoulder, and I saw my mother wave Tullia back and let me go unhindered. I saw her meet with one girl after another, and their families too, until finally choosing Roisin to be my maid. And at the last, I stood with my mother on a hill that looked like a reclining woman, memorizing the location of a treasure, and this time I could read her intent.

  I understood. As Emer’s hands closed, and the little worlds winked out, I looked on my mother and found the poison was gone. She had left me alone, but she had not left me unprepared.

  I smiled at her. And as she faded back beyond the reach of dreams, her green eyes flashed at me, and her chin lifted in a gesture I suddenly realized was my own as well as hers. Her answering smile was full of pride—not for herself, but for me.

  My mother was proud of me.

  The blessing of that dream was short-lived, for I woke to a gray day and a mood to match. My jumpy stomach had returned while I slept, blown in, it seemed, on the wind that had risen in the night and the high, scudding clouds it chased across the sky.

  Tlachta rode in from Tara around midday, bringing with her the answer to our mysterious fears. I could not believe her news.

  “He is here? Now? But why?”

  If she minded the way I lost my manners and fired questions at her as if she were a servant, she didn’t show it. Tlachta is like that. She bends her mind to the problem at hand and shuts out all distractions. She was grim now, but focused. It would take much more than this—more than I can imagine, really—to throw her into a tizzy.

  “Lugaid has summoned the rulers of the four provinces,” she explained now, “and bid them attend Samhain at Tara. He asserts his rule and tests their allegiance.”

  “It is a test of trust, also,” she added. “For they will have to leave their own chief druids behind, and perhaps others of their most trusted men, to conduct the Samhain rites and judgments in their own territories.”

  “And Conchobor has obeyed,” I marveled. After years of standing against the rest of Ireland, I could not imagine he was eager to serve another’s will.

  A curt nod. “He has come at the high king’s bidding, and left Cathbad and Sencha in charge at Emain Macha. He will be here, on this hill, by nightfall.”

  I am not by nature a flighty person, but at the first mention of Conchobor’s arrival my heart had thudded in alarm and my head felt as though no air were reaching it. I was afraid of his very name. And with that thought I became angry and ashamed, enough to pull my thoughts together. Calm. Control. I set myself to be like my mistress, and began to see the thing for what it was.

  “There is no reason,” I said slowly, “that he and I should even cross paths, is there?” I was glad, now, for the plain brown cloaks the Samhain helpers wore, cloaks I would not have been caught dead in before my life changed. Saraid had laughed at my distaste when I first saw them. “They are not designed for beauty,” she told me. “It is the rites themselves, and the Wise Ones conducting it, that the crowd should be watching, not us. If the helpers could be invisible, that would be best. As it is, we do our best to fade into the background.” With the thick brown wool pulled over my head and shading my face, I would be nothing in Conchobor’s eyes but an anonymous apprentice. For that matter, I could even stay in my tent for the night, though that would leave Tlachta short a hand.

  “Not if we are careful,” she agreed now. “You will keep your face shielded from the light of the flames, and you will do no task that brings you close to the men of Ulster. I will have Rathnait see to it.

  “Conchobor will not, in any event, interrupt the Samhain,” she said. “Should he come nose to nose with you, he will still wait until tomorrow. The danger will be during the judgment days. If Conchobor attends, you will have to miss observing them this year.”

  She was on the verge of dismissing me, halfway to her next task, when she turned back.

  “And Finscoth,” she cautioned, “your old name must not be uttered here. By the gods we honor, make sure the other girls are careful about that.”

  CHAPTER 25

  CUCHULAINN’S DAUGHTER

  The hardest part was not looking. I was glad Cathbad had not come, for the need to speak with him would have been a constant temptation. Even so, to keep my eyes averted through that long evening was a trial. What familiar faces had come from Emain Macha? Had Maeve traveled from Cruachan to answer Lugaid’s summons? The desire gnawed at me to look on the woman—she with her crimson cloak and long yellow hair—who had brought about my father’s downfall. And I longed to see if Berach stood in Lugaid’s honor guard. But I did not long to see Conchobor, and so I kept my head down, attended to my duties and strove to be invisible.

  We had no guests from other lands that night. It is the druids’ duty to deal with the Otherworld; it is our duty likewise to shield the people from its perils. On the Isle of Women we seek out the fair ones who wander our world, for such is our training and our craft. But the Samhain rites on the Hill of Tlachta, and on other hills all over Ireland, are not only a re-enactment of the sun’s decline and return; they also weave a spell of protection to rebuff the spirits who come through the veil on this night.

  I had seen Tlachta in her feathered robe, of course, on the isle. Our lives there are punctuated by ritual and, except fo
r the daily song to greet the sun’s rising and setting, every sacred or ceremonial function requires the robes of office. But to see her there, in front of the most powerful kings of Ireland, set above the druids of the high king himself! My heart was full of pride when she stepped forth and raised her arms to command the crowd’s attention. Though she was shortest of the Wise Ones assembled there, and a woman, in this she was counted greatest. And she was flawless, her voice ringing with power and assurance, her movements fluid and hypnotic. I could almost see the life force streaming into her from earth, sky, trees and water, so that she seemed to grow in stature and tower before the fire, commanding the attention of every eye.

  It was a long night for the apprentices, for after all the kings and spectators had gone to their tents we stayed up and tended the fire, ensuring it did not die out until the first light of dawn. And so I rose late, after only a few hours of sleep, to the bustle of a camp being struck. The judgments would be held at Tara, where the high king’s guests could be housed in comfort, and everywhere I looked tents were being collapsed, horses packed, cook fires extinguished. I needed to pack up as well. Tlachta had found a guide to take me to Roisin’s house after everyone else had departed for Tara, and the four full days we would have together took the sting out of having to miss the high court. Still it galled me to be left behind. I pulled my cloak tighter against the chill and thought how strange it would feel to be the only person left on that sacred hill.

  The stream was crowded; servants rinsed out cook pots and watered horses while a few late risers woke their faces up in its cold waters. That had been my thought too, but a wash would have to wait. The chance of being recognized was too great.

  No one came near the druids’ tents though, not without an invitation. I pulled up my hood and ambled over to the handful of sleepy apprentices hunkered around a fire. Judging by the smell wafting from their iron pot, I was just in time for breakfast.

  “Luaine!”

  The word was shrieked out, knifing through the noise of the camp like a spear cast by Cuchulainn himself.

  I swear by all the gods of my people, nobody can part a crowd like Roisin. Here she came, black hair flying, pregnant belly outlined against her cloak and men and horses alike all but jumping out of her way. She hurtled into me, and there I was, hugging the same old Roisin with a different body, the taut bulge of a baby about halfway to being born pressing against me.

  Oh, and it was lovely to see her.

  “I couldn’t wait,” she laughed, breathless from her run. “I got the message that you were coming, and I thought, why not ride out to meet you? It’s certain you would end up on the wrong road without me to guide you!”

  She straightened and gave me a critical eye. “You look barely awake. Are you only after rising now, then? I didn’t realize the druid life was one of sloven and sloth.”

  I wonder if I will always cry and laugh together when I see Roisin. She and Berach are the only people left to me from my first life. Like Fintan, they bridge my past and my present. And however happy I am with my life now, there is still, I suppose, a loneliness for what was lost. Roisin awakens my memories.

  “For the love of the goddess, let me fix your hair!” demanded Roisin, and I submitted happily, spooning in the porridge while she combed and braided and exclaimed over how smoky it smelled.

  “That’s Samhain smoke,” I told her. “Breathe it with respect.” So there we were, joking and giddy and hanging off each other, lost in our news and gossip, when suddenly the dark hand in my belly clutched hard. I gasped with it, doubled over in pain, craning my head at the same time to try to see in every direction at once. This is it, I realized. I had thought the danger passed and safely avoided, but it was only now at my heels. And in my mind I heard again Roisin’s voice, cutting like a clarion through the crowd. Her voice, shouting out my name.

  “Luaine? What is it?” Roisin’s hand was under my elbow, helping me to straighten, her face anxious with concern.

  “Is the king still here, Roisin?”

  “King Lugaid?” Bewilderment clouded her features. I forced a slow breath, curbing the urgency.

  “Conchobor. Is Conchobor still here?”

  Her fist came up to her mouth as she understood the situation. And that was when I saw Conchobor’s standard, the fluttering colors of the Red Branch, marking the progress of the wedge of men riding toward us.

  The man who had stolen my lands and ordered me killed drew steadily nearer, and though I made myself stand tall, the fear was a live thing inside me. My mouth flooded with the taste of metal. I felt again the throbbing pain of my infected cheek, the fiery agony when Geanann cut away the rot. It was all I could do not to vomit.

  Just as Conchobor dismounted, Tlachta appeared out of nowhere and calmly placed herself before me, a solid implacable bulk.

  Conchobor strode over, looking like he meant to mow Tlachta down—but he did not. As though he had encountered an invisible wall, he came to an abrupt stop a good two feet from her.

  He was red with anger, his pouched eyes glittering. Would he kill me himself, I wondered, on the spot? He had killed the poets in a fit of feigned outrage. He could accuse me of any wild thing, play the wounded righteous husband...

  “Is there something I can help you with, King Conchobor?” If you dressed Tlachta in rags, her voice alone would mark her as druid. Respectful, calm, pleasant...and for all that it was, unmistakably, a voice filled with authority and laced with threat. A voice to remind Conchobor who it was that addressed him.

  He is the King of Ulster, after all, and not so easily cowed. Still his manner changed, the explosive rage brought under control, the pale eyes turned calculating. I was not sure it was an improvement.

  His eyes drilled into me, though he spoke to Tlachta.

  “Why do you stand between a man and his wife? This is the Queen of Ulster, and her duty lies in Emain Macha. Luaine will return with me.”

  He bent all his heavy will into those words, and the armed honor guard ranged behind him was a persuasive reinforcement. I had no doubt he was willing to take me by force.

  Tlachta’s face was an impassive blank, giving away nothing.

  “You are mistaken, my king. This is Finscoth, one of my apprentices. She is nothing to do with you.”

  Conchobor’s veneer of civility dropped away then, and he began to rail at Tlachta, the spittle spraying from his mouth with the force of his outrage, his cheeks mottling with it. She simply remained planted before me, immovable as a tree.

  Even trees can be felled, I thought, and even as I became alarmed for my Mistress I felt Roisin beside me, wired with tension, breast heaving, and I realized she was near to flying at the King of Ulster in my defense.

  With that the paralyzing fear drained away from me, replaced by a cold resolve. No one would be hurt here on my behalf, nor would I hide any longer behind the skirts of my friends and teachers. I felt my chin lift and with it my strength. My hands, clenched almost into fists at my sides, touched and then curled around two objects—the hilt of my sword, and the pouch containing Liban’s crystal that hung now at my side. A gift from my father. A gift from beyond. And I felt Emer’s gifts, woven so deeply into my own fabric that there was no need for any token. The meaning and power of each gift hung in my mind. In that moment, Conchobor’s bluster and Tlachta’s cool replies faded to nothing, and I stood in a bubble of silent clarity.

  From that clear place, I stepped directly in front of the king.

  The first time rage took hold of me, and I but a girl of twelve, it burned me with its heat. This time the anger was not fiery but freezing, cold as a dead man’s blood. And this time the voice that spoke was my own.

  I felt such contempt for this man it repelled me to look upon him. Yet I did. I stood very close, turned just enough that he was forced to look full upon the ruin he had made. I locked my eyes upon his as if it were two blue spears of ice I was aiming. And he must have felt them, for he stepped back a pace, his threats and
curses frozen in his throat.

  And then I spoke, very quietly, making him listen. I dropped the words into his mind like heavy stones in a pond.

  “King Conchobor knows who I am.”

  I paused. Make him wait for it, I thought. My lips pulled into a smile that never reached my eyes—a smile that was very nearly an outright sneer.

  “And I know what he is.”

  I took his measure as the implications of my words made themselves felt. Ripples spreading across the pond. He had not known he was discovered, I was sure of it. He had thought his secret dead and buried with the two poets in their burning house. I addressed him directly now.

  “I am no longer Luaine. I am no longer your wife. I have left that life behind, and it would be well for you to do the same.

  “For there are more than a few in this land who know what was done to me, and by whom. Do you think the men of Ulster will follow you still, when they hear of the treachery and greed that led you to betray the daughter of your best champion, and she a girl of tender years and blameless honor? Do you think the high king, who was beloved by my father, will long suffer your presence?”

  I let the rocks sink into the water of his mind and watched the turbulence of his thoughts. Let him fear he might drown, before tossing him the line.

  “Luaine is dead, mourned and gone. You have your wife’s lands and herds. Do not seek for more. For however I am called, I will always be Cuchulainn’s daughter. And I swear on his good name that if I am killed, I will do you more harm from the grave than I ever would in life.”

  I made my eyes frozen iron. I made the Truth of my words into a weight he could not shrug off. I held him. Old and powerful as he was, I held him.

  And then I let him go.

  The surge of power left me shaky and sick as it drained away. I kept my legs until the last of Conchobor’s men was gone from sight, and then they folded of their own accord to the ground.