by Jules Watson
‘Is it?’ He cocked his head. ‘It wouldn’t be spells, would it, aunt? Trying to turn me into a salamander as a pet for my beloved wife?’
Brónach drew herself up. ‘I would not betray my blood so; my work is on behalf of the people, whatever you choose to think. And there are no herbs of healing here beyond those I’ve used. It is the water that will cure her.’
‘Bah!’ Cahir held up his hands. ‘She must be well wrapped, and stay out for a few moments only. I will carry her.’
As soon as Cahir went to stable his horse, Brónach’s stillness fell from her like a discarded cloak. She sank on Minna’s bed, twisting the purple ring on her finger in agitation. ‘You seem past the worst, then. It must be youth.’
‘I … thank you …’ Minna faltered.
Brónach ignored her. ‘What you did was clever – and I never told you to do it. You know more than I thought.’ Her eyes were cold but watchful, like a snake.
Minna’s breath laboured in her tight chest. ‘It just … came to me … when I asked.’
‘It just came to you,’ Brónach repeated slowly. ‘Came from where?’
When Minna only shook her head Brónach crouched towards her, her tangled grey mane falling about her withered face. ‘From where?’
Minna shrank back. ‘A voice in my head … no, a picture of what to do.’ She forced herself to speak, for Brónach was the only one who might know what was happening, and why.
‘They speak to you? They help you?’ Brónach pushed herself up, pacing in swift strides to the fire and back. ‘Can it be true? A slave, not even of the blood?’ She paused, looking down at Minna. ‘Then for everyone’s sake you must indeed be touched by the Lady’s pool. It is the only thing that can help you.’
Minna’s heart leaped and then just as swiftly fell, confused at what she wanted. ‘Will it stop me hearing things and … and … dreaming things?’
Brónach turned away, one finger tapping her crossed arms. ‘Of course. The pool is where the Lady answers all questions, after all.’ She approached the shelves against the wall. ‘But first, have this draught for your chest, child. It will protect you in the cold.’
The pool had once stood in a clearing, but the crescent of dead birches around it was now overgrown with hazel scrub, feathered with catkins and tangles of ivy. A narrow path had been hacked through to the lip of a spring dammed by rocks.
Cahir placed Minna on the ground cushioned on hides, their breath misting the damp, freezing air. When he stepped back Brónach shouldered between them, resting her hand on Minna’s head. ‘Nephew, this is a woman’s place – a goddess place. You must leave here or I cannot give her the blessing.’
An impulse to keep Cahir close seized Minna, but when she tried to form words they spun away into dizziness. She held her hand up. The outline of her fingers blurred and she blinked, trying to shake off the invading stupor. What had Brónach done to her?
The pang of fear that came then was dulled, and slipped away into the depths of the water. The pool. Minna’s thoughts turned sluggishly. This pool once received offerings of gold rings, and shimmered with sacred oil and drifted with flowers … Her fingers gripped the rocks, the only solid thing. Everything else was fluid: ground, water, sky.
Cahir was arguing with his aunt, though Minna barely heard him beyond the roaring of her blood, and she could not look away from the pool. In the late sun it was a shield of copper etched with a tracery of bare birches, and in the centre, the pale moon of her face swam through the dark cloud of her hair. It called her. She heard little else now but the crystal singing of the water.
At last Cahir left and Brónach immediately leaned over Minna. ‘Look hard into the pool of seeing then, Roman girl,’ she hissed, ‘and tell me what comes! I know there must be something, I smelled something in you all along. Hurry!’ She forced Minna’s head down, her bony chest against her back. Minna struggled as her nose hovered above the shining water. ‘Go on!’ Brónach urged. ‘If they speak to you then they can make you see as well! Ask them. Ask them and show me!’
Minna whimpered, trying to force her head back. But the light on the water wavered and began to suck her in, and the black wells of her reflected eyes merged into one. Instead of the sky and clouds above there was only a swirling tunnel. A door opening, and she must pass through it. I … don’ t… I can’t!
Brónach crushed her against the rock lip as her mind fought, holding her on the threshold. But the singing was rising, high and clear. Come!
She wavered there for an age, but she had nothing to lose any more, nothing to keep her here. The voice beckoned, and finally, with a silent cry of surrender, Minna let go. Then there was no longer anything but that tunnel of song, of light, pulling her down into its depths.
Chapter 25
‘Am I dead?’ Minna asked faintly.
No. There was a smile in the air, if that were possible. You are far from dead.
Minna’s heart gave a great bound. ‘Mamo?’ she whispered.
A pause. No, child. But she is safe.
‘Safe? Where is she?’
She is resting, sleeping. Perhaps she will speak to you one day … but not now.
‘Then … where am I?’ Minna realized as she said it that she didn’t feel afraid. She should feel afraid. But it was warm now, and the warmth was a blanket that would let no fear in. She didn’t know if her eyes were open or shut because light was coming from all around her.
You are of the spirit now. It took this – effort, cold, exhaustion, sickness – to loosen the bonds of the body. To break open the shell and free the spirit.
‘Then I am dead.’
Again the amusement. No, dear one. Spirit and body can travel separately and still be joined, until the final sundering.
‘How?’
In dreams, in vision, in fevered sleep. While seeing, when you surrender.
An idea snagged and held. ‘Then it was you in the woods, not Mamo?’
Yes.
‘And you calling me, after Jared gave me the red flower …’
You had to have the courage to let the body go and step through the doorway. I didn’t want you thinking you would be alone when you did.
Emotions shouldn’t exist in this place, but the loneliness that bore Minna down then was greater than any before. For she had tasted it from the day she was born.
You’ve never been alone. I have been close, in dreams. And … in other ways.
‘But … what …’
There is so little time. For now, open your eyes.
‘My eyes?’
Do it, and see. Remember.
A tenderness in the voice touched Minna like a kiss on her brow. It felt female … but young? Old?
Stop thinking. Open your eyes and don’t be afraid. And the voice began singing sweetly, wordlessly.
When Minna thought of opening her eyes it seemed to happen, and she had to stop herself crying out. She was soaring through a blue sky, her arms spread – only they were not arms any more, but wings. Long feathers curled up at the tips, and a narrow head tilted so her keen eyes could gaze down. The breeze rushed under her, merging with the singing so she was lifted by both the voice and the wind. The sense of freedom was exhilarating, the power filling her chest as she cried, ‘An eagle!’ But no words came, only a screech flung from a feathered throat.
The singing continued as Minna dipped and banked. At long last the melody faded. Yes, it is fine, it is joy. No one was with her, no one flying beside her, but still she sensed those thoughts. Do not lose your focus, though. Look down now.
A land stretched beneath her, no longer covered in cloud or veils of mist, but a glorious melding of mountains, bracken, birches and heather. The air was clear as water, and smelled icy and sweet, of rock and streams and pine needles. It was Alba in leaf-fall.
It is beautiful. But study it closely.
There was Dunadd, and then the ancestor valley – Minna recognized the ancient tombs beading its length. To the north a long,
silver loch was studded with islands. Swooping low over its ruffled surface, Minna saw the sacred mountain Cruachan rearing up at its end, a mighty monarch. More, the voice urged. Go further.
She was flying faster than any eagle could. One wing-beat took her over the soaring slopes of the mountain. She could see a long chain of lochs reaching to an eastern sea, and to the south a region of high peaks and deep-delved valleys. She tilted to left and right in great arcs as she followed first one valley then another, her wing tips nearly brushing the rocks.
Then ahead reared an imposing ridge of many peaks that irresistibly drew Minna down. A cleft in its slopes faced west, and there a gnarled rowan tree clung on, its branches bare of leaves. With a great uplift of wings, Minna landed on the thickest branch, making the tree dip and sway.
Before she could assemble her thoughts her beak stretched up, and from her throat issued a cry she could not contain. It was a demand from the king of the mountains, the great eagle, sent to earth from its eyrie. And though Minna heard it as an eagle’s screech, the meaning of the words lit up her mind.
Awake, battle-lord,
For the war-horns cry!
Arise, for the sign is come!
Take the name sword-wielder
Blade-singer
Shield-bearer.
Hear your blood call you,
Raise the boar above you,
Make an end, battle-lord,
The red-crests come!
Minna found herself staring into the water, and there was the sky and the trees marked on the cold surface of the pool. Her breath misted the icy air beneath the bare branches, and the only other thing that moved was her blood, racing with the remnants of joy and awe. She stretched her aching neck and looked up.
The king and Brónach were both staring down at her, their faces frozen.
Minna shifted her gaze to Cahir, her mind untethered, and faltered at the horror in his eyes.
Then everything became confused. Cahir pushed Brónach aside to get to Minna between the overgrowth of brambles and thorn, crying out that the old woman had nearly killed her.
Brónach ignored him. ‘You saw,’ she whispered to Minna, fingers creeping to the moonstone around her neck. ‘You saw – with no training, fasting or chanting. But how can the Mother reveal herself to you, an untrained slip of a girl?’ The shock in her eyes was sharpening to anguish. ‘How can this be?’
The cold was coming up through Minna’s palms now, spread on the icy soil, and she began to shiver. ‘Silence!’ Cahir roared to his aunt, gathering Minna into his arms and straightening. ‘I will get her warm again, and as for you – leave this place. Now.’
The expression on Brónach’s face was unearthly, eager and torn at the same time. ‘But the words she spoke held truth, nephew. I sensed it, I know it!’
Cahir went rigid. ‘The words she spoke are no concern of yours.’
Cahir carried Minna back to the hut and set her on the bed, wrapping blankets about her shoulders. Brónach gathered her belongings and left without a word, though she darted a single bright, hard glance at Minna from the doorway.
A heavy silence descended over the room as Cahir stood by the fire with his hands by his sides, his back to Minna as she crouched in the bed, shivering uncontrollably.
Her soul had been split open, and so her joy and wonder were swiftly eclipsed now by all the other things she had suppressed for months, freed by the tenderness in that spirit-woman’s voice. And so came the grief for Mamo at last, undammed, uncontained and pure in its terrible power.
She turned her head to the pillow and fell down in darkness, weeping as if she would never stop.
Cahir crouched by the flames and fed them with hazel branches, listening to Minna’s sobs being almost bodily wrenched from her. It was better to leave someone like that, sometimes – he remembered holding his daughters through such things.
He stayed squatting there as the fire caught and began to eat the wood, his eyes glazed. It took a long time for Minna’s sobs to ease, but at last they faded, and she slept.
Cahir waited for her to wake as night fell, pacing the floor at first slowly, and then faster and more agitatedly as his thoughts gnawed on him.
When she stirred, he paused only to hand her a cup of water and then stood over her. He wanted to give her more time, but he could not. ‘Minna,’ he said, as she drank and lay back against the pillow, her face pale and bruised by tears. ‘You must tell me immediately how you know that which you cried at the pool.’
Minna’s fingers went to her swollen cheeks. Though she had wept until she could cry no more and should be empty, she found the absence of grief had left her full of wonder instead, and she felt Mamo close by, for she was no longer turning away from her.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she answered slowly. The time by the water was now a blur. ‘What did I say?’
Cahir did not hesitate, throwing back his head like a wolf howling.
Awake, battle-lord,
For the war-horns cry!
Arise, for the sign is come!
Take the name sword-wielder
Blade-singer
Shield-bearer.
Hear your blood call you,
Raise the boar above you.
Make an end, battle-lord,
The red-crests come!
The delivery was both bitter and passionate, the words a summons that set her blood alight. But he didn’t give her a chance to feel them, pointing at her accusingly. ‘No one knows this but me. It is the most forbidden, the most private legacy of my lineage. How can you know this? Why?’
Her tongue wet her cracked lips. ‘I … it came from the vision …’
He loomed over her, his face haunted. ‘If you play me for a fool, Minna, there is no telling what I will do. If they put you up to this, Maeve, Brónach, anyone …’ He left that hanging, shook his head. ‘The war cries and the Hill of a Thousand Spears were one thing; they are known by some, at least. But no one knows this. Do you have any idea what fire you play with?’
I would never betray him. Minna tasted that shocking rush of feeling, kneeling up on the covers. The exhaustion and aches were gone, washed from her by tears, and in their place her blood sang. ‘No one told me anything, I swear. I was an eagle in the dream and I flew over Alba, and then the eagle cried those words to the sky.’
His fists clenched. ‘If this is a joke, death is its price – even for you.’
Curiously, Minna was utterly unafraid, seized by the absurd urge to reach out and smooth that pain from his brow. ‘I would accept death if I dishonoured you,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘but I have not, whatever this means.’
After a long moment, Cahir groped blindly for the bench and sank to it. ‘So it has come. The call was a whisper, now it is a roar.’ His shoulders rose and fell in a great sigh of surrender. ‘The sign of the prophecy has come, and I cannot hide from it any longer. All the gods help me.’
Chapter 26
Minna drew the blanket around her and knelt by Cahir’s side. He was surprised at her boldness, but then saw that her bones had somehow shifted in the firelight, her eyes holding the shimmer of the pool. She looked older, as if something dark and pained had been bled from her and had changed her.
Her gaze was forceful. ‘My lord, what is this … prophecy, you called it?’ When he hesitated, she rushed on, ‘This is about me as well.’
So he told her. It was passed from Rhiann to her nephew King Gabran, and thence gifted from king to king’s son. Only his father knew it, and he only told Cahir. But Cahir’s throat closed up at the rest, and he could not explain the tangle of emotion that surrounded these lines of old poetry.
How his father had scorned them, and the boy Cahir followed his lead even though he felt inexplicably ashamed. How as he grew his rational mind argued it was just a story, while his heart continued to wonder and yearn. And then when the dreams came he pushed them aside, thought himself mad, while longing and fearing for it all to be true.
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And now, at last, the promised sign had come.
For the prophecy itself was the sign it foretold, issuing from the throat of a stranger who could not know it; drawn out by the waters of a sacred pool. It was undeniable.
He made Minna tell him exactly what she saw, and when she’d finished he could not sit still any longer. ‘They sent this dream, these words, as they sent all others – my ancestors Eremon, Conaire, Rhiann. They cry out to me: I, their son, who have been so wilfully deaf and blind!’
She pulled the blanket closer about her shoulders. Draughts made the fire flicker, reflecting in her eyes. ‘But I don’t understand who the red-crests are.’
Pacing, Cahir placed a hand on the shelf by the door, staring into nothing. ‘The red-crests are the Romans, Minna, named because long ago they wore scarlet crests on their helmets, though no more. After they defeated Eremon they withdrew for a time, but they always came back to Alba: back and forth, always hungry for our land, our blood. Then my grandfather gave them land for their outposts, and my father awarded them passage through our seas, signing the treaties that have become my shackles.’ He sighed heavily. ‘The Roman-kind used to march north with armies: now they creep with taxes, meting out secret deaths to those who resist. So the Empire still rolls closer, only in a different guise.’
‘But my brother said there have been attacks on the Wall.’
He turned, his smile bitter. ‘Others strike at them: the Picts, even some Erin kings. But I have not.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘These have been tied, and I have done nothing.’