by Jules Watson
His heart beat five times, and the body of the fish fell slack in his hands. But Ruán could have sworn that its essence swam on through finer, invisible currents, disappearing beyond him. He gasped, and spun around.
The girl was perched astride a branch of an old birch tree, swinging her legs. For a moment her skin glimmered with the silver he held in his fingers.
The sunlight dimmed, and Ruán waded to the sand.
Hands … she always grasped his hands, making him delve for roots in the soil and mussels in the water. When the girl wanted to show him plants to eat, she crushed them to his nose. Among the reeds, she bade him listen to the splashes of the ducks in order to find their eggs.
Feel. Smell. Hear. Taste. Nothing more.
“Who are you?” he cried. “What magic is this?”
With one graceful leap, she hopped off the branch.
Looking into her liquid eyes, Ruán knew she understood his speech and always had. He flung the fish down and blundered toward her. “What are you?” A terrible dread overcame all sense, and he groped for her shoulders. “What am I?”
Touching her was like plunging into a thundering river.
Memories poured over him. The sand of his island home between his fingers. A leaden sky; whitecaps on the sea. The faces of his family, pinched and thin, and hunger gnawing his belly. And gulls on the wing, always glimmering above him, far out of reach.
No. An old instinct crushed that surge. He had always summoned silence and stillness, the cold of stone. Only then was he empty enough to hear the voices of the gods.
The girl was not silent. She leaned forward, cupping her hand around his ear. “Why did you not save the lord’s boy?”
That blow thrust Ruán back. His hands dropped away from her.
And then he was spinning around and stumbling back through the reeds. The glints of water were a blur now, as a growl of denial built in his throat. Past the little camp he staggered, falling on his knees in the pools of water and mud, before dragging himself back up.
The roaring grew louder around him. Grope. Hear. Smell. That is all she had ever bade him to do.
Ruán plunged through swamp-grass, farther than he had ever gone. The ground began to rise away from the lake as he neared the forest and, beyond, pasture.
Plunging through a scatter of trees, Ruán hit a wall of night. Everything went black, the glow of the water and sky snuffed out. He pitched forward and smacked into the mud, his body crumpling.
The truth burst from him in a great howl.
He was still blind, now and forever.
It was the second night of the Samhain feast.
The bonfires on the black plain of Cruachan were ringed by a whirl of carousing people. Boots thudded out spiral patterns on the frost as lines of dancers wove between the flames. Men slung arms around women, groping at breasts and nuzzling necks. Spilled ale gleamed in beards and stained tunics.
With darkness came the cold, and Maeve drew up the hood of her red mantle edged with stoat fur. On the way back to the women’s lodge, she passed a little campfire in the lee of some bent rowan trees. The plunk of a harp-string caught her ear. The listeners around the bard were hushed, and his voice carried to her on the clear air.
“… Conor mac Nessa …”
The night breathed ice over her, and Maeve halted.
“… the king’s wrath spreads over Emain Macha like a storm-cloud,” the bard intoned. “The maiden of dawn has taken the sun from him. His face is frost and twilight, his hair gray mist. His eyes are as black as stones of the hills beneath rain. And no one knows when the sun will return, for the maiden is gone into the dark woods.”
Maeve peered at the bard. Judging by his shabby clothes and inexpert playing, he was one of the traveling poets who plied their trade between cattle-lords, looking for a hearth for the long dark. She fancied she had seen this one before.
The moment the little group around him went in search of ale, Maeve swept in and dragged the harper aside. Before he could protest, she pressed a ring into his palm and folded his callused fingers over it. “What is this news of Conor mac Nessa?”
Bleary-eyed, the bard blinked at the iron ring.
“And make it to the point,” Maeve growled. “What ‘dawn maiden’?”
“The girl Deirdre, Conor’s betrothed. She has escaped her woodland prison, run away with Naisi and his brothers. They have been fleeing Conor’s wrath all sun-season, racing across the Ulaid from lake to hill, forest to sea.”
Naisi. Maeve could not easily forget those three Red Branch brothers: tall and blue-eyed, with a startling coloring of black hair and fair skin. And Deirdre … Maeve searched her memories once more. There had been another rumor of the girl at Emain Macha, something dark. The Red Branch would not speak of it, clamming up when it was breached. Something of this Deirdre affected the Red Branch … and Naisi and his brothers were Red Branch. “Why have I not heard this before?”
“Ah, the Ulaid hide their troubles, lady. It has taken me moons to root out a bed at their fires, and as for getting them to speak—Lugh’s breath and fire! The servants know little, for though their masters glower, their tongues are bound.” He lowered his voice, glancing over his shoulder. “They are afraid of Conor, see. They say grief has twisted his mind. One lord harboring the fugitives was attacked by raiders, another stripped of his lands. The Red Branch have been chasing all over the North after the girl and the boys, and then …” His small eyes gleamed. “Some of them did run them to earth, and Naisi dueled with Leary, Winner of Battles, and killed him.”
Maeve’s mind was a storm. Red Branch warriors did not kill each other. They prided themselves on their unique fighting skills and their secret, mystical bond—the nature of which she’d never discerned. Now Red Branch not only stalked other Red Branch, but slayed each other?
The deadly heart of Conor’s war-bands was fracturing.
She nodded at the bard, uncramping her hand from her hood as she turned. Only then did it hit her. Another woman besides Maeve had scorned Conor—and this one had taken off with the most beautiful youth in the Ulaid.
Maeve stumbled as the king’s hollow eyes appeared in the ground mist at her feet. She was one of the few who knew what his coldness masked: an intense flame of jealousy and pride. She kneaded her temple. She had been so relieved when Deirdre turned Conor’s wrath from her. But instead the foolish chit had merely wounded him, and then unleashed him upon them all again.
Belly-sick, Maeve realized she was facing the dark mounds of Cruachan. Across a river of blackness, only the bonfire at the temple of Lugh flamed.
Maeve had decided long ago that the gods and the sídhe did not trouble themselves much over her—she fancied they had a mutual understanding to leave each other alone. Yet tonight, with the druids holding vigil over her father, the shrine was the one place she could find some quiet to think. And perhaps … some sign of what she should do?
She strode across the crackling grass and onto the track that wound between the houses outside the ramparts of the king’s hall, the stakes outlined against the glittering sky. Wind funneled along empty paths, for everyone was at the fires. She reached the last lodges before the temples. The thatch roofs were coated with crystals of frost, turning them gray under the stars. Maeve buried her chin in her cloak, head down.
The shadows came alive behind her.
Hard fingers bit into her arms, flinging her off her feet and onto her belly.
CHAPTER 5
Maeve kicked out, struggling to breathe.
She’d been thrown on a midden, her nose pressed into dung, rotting straw, and gnawed bones. Geese honked and dogs broke into a frenzy of barking.
Hands caught at her flailing arms, and knees ground them into the filth. She felt a needle of cold—they’d slit her layered skirts with a blade, baring her rump to the air. Maeve gagged, writhing, as harsh laughter broke out over her head.
The knife was replaced by something warm and muscular that jabbed the groove of her naked
back. Her gargle of fury was lost amid the jeers.
“We hear you beg for this,” someone hissed. “So this is where you’ll have it, in muck and piss.”
She tried to scream but her throat cramped, and then she thought she heard a distant thud of feet. “It’s that black-haired bastard,” one of her attackers spat. The knee holding her arm shifted, freeing her hand. Maeve’s mind gibbered, but some instinct of her body reached down for the knife in her boot.
“Come on!” When her attackers leaped and ran, one lagged behind. Maeve yowled and stabbed her dagger into his foot. The man cried out, hopping. She jumped up and blindly barreled into his belly, head down. They hit the ground in a tangle, his dagger flung from his grip onto a broken millstone outside someone’s door, striking with a clang.
Maeve bucked, dragging her fingers free and jabbing at his balls, and he cursed and rolled off her. The distant footfalls sped up, and when her attacker was distracted, she stuck his thigh again, savoring the snap of skin and muscle. The man roared and clouted her, sending her reeling before staggering away.
The footsteps charged up to her. Dizzied, Maeve lunged at this new torment.
“Whoa!” Garvan curved away from her blade. “It’s me, spitfire!”
Maeve swiped at the shadows instead, and plunged the knife into the midden. She pushed a scream out before it choked her, stabbing the filthy straw until she could move no more, before lying there panting. After a moment she got to her knees, clenching her fist. She had grabbed her own knife awkwardly, and blood oozed between her fingers.
“Maeve.”
As her head cleared she became aware of the cold air playing over her bare buttocks. She tasted copper on her split lip. When Garvan tried to take her arm, she threw him off.
“By the gods, woman.” He scraped back his hair with both hands. “Innel heard everything you said, and knows everyone you’ve courted, thinking yourself so clever.” When a shiver wracked Maeve’s shoulders, he took hold of them. “Your father can no longer protect you.”
Maeve broke away and clambered up. “I thought … Innel was stupid …” Her brother knew she’d never reveal this outrage to the druids, for then everyone would see he had bettered her, that she was weak … a woman the lords could ignore. It was meant to silence her, and if she would not be silenced, then who would miss her if she disappeared one day in the woods? Everyone knew how wildly she rode. She coughed, picking straw from her bruised mouth. “I am the foolish one.”
“I’m glad you’ve figured that out, at last.” Garvan stepped closer. “I’ll take you back to the women’s lodge.”
Maeve limped in front of him with head up, cheeks burning. Garvan tailed her as they passed between the ramparts that encircled the mound of the royal hall and the small women’s lodge beside it.
When Garvan pulled open the oak door, Maeve turned. “Leave me,” she croaked.
“I’ll stay here on guard.”
Avoiding his eyes, she lifted the deerskins that covered the entrance. A murmur of women’s voices floated out—the servants who’d come back to stoke the fire. “Innel will never attack here. He prefers the dark for his games.” Her dead voice was someone else’s. She could not feel her body.
“I will stay.”
“If he finds out you guard me, you will be more than beaten.” When he still hesitated, she pushed him with the heel of her hand. “Now who’s foolish?”
“Then stay here. Promise me. I will see what I can find out.”
Head down, Maeve swept past the chattering servants, and climbing to her bed, tore off her dress. With shaking fingers she pulled on buckskins, her jerkin, and kilt. She splashed water from a jug and scrubbed her filthy face, swilling her mouth out before sinking on the bed. There, she thrust her hands between her thighs, rocking. Innel wanted her to be cowed. Each day he would have her followed, so his men could lie in wait for her again.
How could she protect herself against that?
She tucked wet strands of hair behind her ears, glaze-eyed. The next moment all sense fled, the need to get away overwhelmed her, and she was on her feet.
She had to find somewhere safe, away from here.
At the hearth, the women’s faces were a blur, no matter how she blinked her eyes. “Áine,” she addressed one of the younger servants. “Walk with me from the lodge, as if I am one of the maids and we are going back to the fires.”
Goggle-eyed, Áine and her friends leaped up. “Of course, lady.”
While they donned their cloaks, Maeve took from the porch one of the battered mantles of oiled leather the servants used to run errands on rainy days. It was hooded, dark and voluminous, and she disappeared into its depths with relief.
The little group emerged from the house, the girls giggling about the cold. Maeve kept her head down to hide her height and eventually peeled away from them among the narrow paths between the crafters’ houses, hiding until she knew she had not been followed.
She crept along dark lanes, then snuck to the stables for Meallán. All the horse-boys were at the fires, and the guards at the gates were used to maids slipping out to meet their lovers at Samhain, so paid her no heed.
Maeve lead her horse by deserted trails away from the ramparts. Only when she disappeared into the woods along the river did she break into a wild run, hauling Meallán along the path. The stars spun above her as if tossed by the wind, and her breath joined them in gusts.
She emerged far upstream. A track led over the fields, the edges marked with white pebbles for the messengers that rode to Cruachan. The moon had blanched all color from the land but made the stones glow, and when she was sure of the footing, Maeve mounted up.
Ruán lay in a ditch of water, the rain battering his cheeks where before there had been sun. He was blind.
He knew now that they were not ancient people. They were the magical sídhe.
He sank facedown in the puddle, curling on his side. He was not saved by the gods—he was not forgiven. They had just been taunting him. He opened his mouth and the foul water rushed in.
Bubbles brushed his cheek, and he remembered swimming in the lake with the sun streaming through a trail of them. The memory ached. Had it even happened? Against his will, a yearning flared to feel the sun drying the water on his skin just once more, to feel that life soaking into him. Instead, all he had ever been came down to a lonely death in a filthy mire.
This would be all he left behind.
Pride flared in Ruán, maddening pride. He grappled with it, but suddenly he was clawing his way out of the ditch. His back spasmed, and his belly clenched as he retched the foulness back up. He curled there shivering, his hands tucked beneath his arms.
Dry ground, high ground … The feeble flame in him flickered, unwilling even now to let go into death. Get warm.
Afterward, Ruán barely remembered that nightmare of sucking mud and icy water. He slithered into stagnant pools and hollows of rotting weed, enduring the sting of nettles and brambles all over his face and hands. Rain hammered his head. Up he crawled, the ground growing harder beneath him.
At last his hands grasped the roots of a wizened oak tree, and he knew he was free of the mire. It had stopped raining. On the other side, the ground fell away without warning, and he tumbled down the slope and came to rest. The first birdsong pierced the still of dawn.
Ruán’s head went up, his nostrils flaring as he strained with all the senses left to him.
He reached out a shaking hand and it met a flat rock surface. He placed his palm on it. A low vibration came through it, a pulse. It was a standing stone, tall and upright, hewn and smoothed by human hands. The ancestors had raised them long ago to mark sacred ground.
Ruán clung to the rock. This was a better place to die.
As his fingers reached around the shoulder of the stone, they slid over a carving on its flank. His breath caught, and he traced it. A spiral. There were other symbols carved below it: diamonds within diamonds, and lines of ripples like sea-waves. Colla
psing against the rock, he shivered as he caught the faint throb of more uprights all around him.
A circle of stones.
As the mud dried on his skin, he crawled to each stone in turn, reaching up to stroke the carvings, trying to picture them. His mind was sluggish from the cold and the pain of the night, but he discovered more spirals, layers of rings, and starbursts of spreading rays inside circles.
He turned his head toward the heart of the stones. The ground seemed to keep sloping down toward the center, and inside that ring a vast stillness opened up.
Ruán hesitated, shame sweeping over him. He could not break the sacred boundary … surely he must be cursed. Yet as he wavered there on his knees, the ground gave beneath him again and he tumbled over before he could stop himself. He slid and came to rest once more, the fall jolting him out of his daze.
The symbols on the stones burst alight inside him. He knew them.
These carvings filled the tombs of the ancestors. He had lain beside them in trances, beating the drum as they swam around inside his head. He always thought they were keys to unlock some mystery of the gods that only he was meant to discover.
And so he had turned away from sunlight and the rush of life in the forests and seas, burying himself in dark caves where there was cold and silence. Banishing all bodily senses, he sought to force his way out of his flesh, out of Thisworld. He confined himself to his mind, hoping he could use it to pierce the veils of the Otherworld. Though he never gained more than glimpses, he pronounced to his people what he thought the visions meant as if it was truth.
Another jolt arrested Ruán.
When he nearly died in the lake, he remembered floating and … something hovering over him. A water-star. Sídhe. In those fever-dreams, as they healed him, he had glimpsed their true forms of radiating lights, crystal flames and sun-rays.
Rays in circles. Diamonds within diamonds.
The stone carvings.
The ancestors were carving the sídhe all along. They saw them for what they were: vast stars dancing between the veils of the worlds.