by Jules Watson
Ach. Cúchulainn silenced that madness by striding before Conor, still crackling with the aftermath of battle-fire. Ferdia … gods, Ferdia. His absence had torn a hole in Cúchulainn’s heart. Did that weaken him in battle—did the hurt make him fail? Perhaps he did not summon the Source properly, or weave the threads with the other Red Branch strong enough.
Shaking with shame and fury, Cúchulainn brought up his sword.
Conor stepped back, his eyes striped by the sunlight that fell through narrow gaps in the walls. Cúchulainn glimpsed fear in those glazed depths.
The king’s gray hair was for once uncombed, and there was an ale stain down his robes. His cheeks, temples, and eyes were hollowed, the flesh being consumed from within.
That skull-like face invoked no pity in Cúchulainn. “I am talking of us, not of Maeve. If she was there, I did not see her. What matters is that after our scouts spotted the raiders, we took secret pathways to cut in front of them and set a trap. We were waiting for them—so we should have defeated them easily. Instead, our men died because of this rift between us!”
Conor worried a loose tooth with his tongue, his veined eyes hooded. “There would be no rift if the Red Branch turned their backs on that traitorous cub Naisi once and for all. The men should obey their king—”
“Are you so blind?” Cúchulainn’s roar made Conor flinch. “This sickness is rotting the very roots of the Red Branch. Connacht will see that we have lost strength, and they will come back again—with an army. Then you’ll have no chance to mourn Deirdre at all.”
Conor spread a claw over his chest. “The Red Branch will rally. They are the strongest, the bravest of all men. I spent my boyhood listening to that.” An expression of distaste bared his teeth.
Conor had never been a warrior, never been idolized that way. Dear gods, is that what it was about? Cúchulainn flipped his sword into both hands. “You still do not understand the mind of the Red Branch.”
Conor eyed the blade. “You are not the first to venture that.”
“Then listen. It is not only our skills, hard won as they are. In battle, we summon the Source. Our love for our land and each other weaves a net, and in that we are one. And this is the unity you now destroy with your lust and pride!”
Conor’s throat bobbed in denial … and Cúchulainn’s sword wavered closer.
“Unless you do something to right this,” the Hound whispered, “the Red Branch trunk will topple, and the way will lie open for the other kingdoms and Alba to fall upon us. People will be slaughtered in their beds, and there will be no more Ulaid. No one will remember us, or sing of us, or light fires for us.” The torrent burned Cúchulainn’s throat. “And if they ever speak of you, great king, it will be with scorn.”
Conor blanched, his collarbone straining through his wrinkled skin. “You threaten me, nephew?”
“Not with treason, uncle.” Cúchulainn dropped the sword. “My oath was to guard the Ulaid and whichever king sits on the throne. I pledged my sword to you only because you took oath as the land’s protector.” He sheathed his blade and at the door he stopped, reaching out to touch the sacking that contained a wealth of grain. “There is still time,” he added, “before you have broken that vow once and for all.”
A song trailed from Maeve’s cracked lips. Her mouth was muffled in horseflesh. The warm slab of it beneath her cheek tightened, sending a spasm down her side.
Her hand slipped but seemed to be bound in something that kept it from dangling, the other arm tucked beneath her belly. She could not lift her aching head or draw her thoughts into any sense.
The agony came in waves.
Her awareness circled that pain—endlessly, helplessly—bound to this heat that sucked her dry.
She sang, her eyelids pressed closed by a wad of saddle blanket, hoping she did not have to wake again.
CHAPTER 20
SUN-SEASON
Every day for a week Orla had followed Ruán while he gathered food, chattering of old times. She was quick to laugh, teasing him with a lilt in her voice. She spun memories of the innocent boy he once was—the Ruán who had only come alive again among the sídhe.
And beneath Maeve’s touch.
He could not bear to be cruel to her and so held his tongue, smiling as she reminisced of climbing the cliffs for gull eggs and lying in the sun listening to the roar of waves below. It was easier than facing Áedán and the recollections of Lord Mulach, which the druid must have known because he stayed away.
Orla never fussed over him or pitied him, and that summoned a warmth Ruán could not resist. It was strange that just when he began to sink into the wildness of the woods and lake, the first person he shared that rush of life with appeared.
At night he asked the sídhe if they toyed with him now.
They never answered.
Maeve had also disappeared, which was confusing. He sent his senses out, searching for some glimpse of her, but there was nothing. They had shared such sweetness in the burgeoning of leaf-bud … and this was how she treated him? Played with him? And yet, lately she had seemed truly herself, an intoxicating mix of girl and woman. Not as if she was lying.
His mood grew darker.
One morning his frustration at the mystery of Maeve threatened to drive him mad. He dived into the lake to wash it away, and when he surfaced, Orla was waiting on the shore.
With a smile in her voice, she cajoled him to come with her to the steading where she and Áedán slept, to eat a proper meal. On a whim, Ruán gave in—anything to occupy his mind.
By the time they reached the huts in a fold of the hills, a thunderstorm was brewing. The shepherds avoided the lake of the sídhe, and as Ruán walked through the steading, he heard how their chatter fell into silence.
It was then he saw that the hue of fear in others was gray, a cloud that dimmed a person’s soul-flame.
Nevertheless, awed by their druid visitors, the villagers sat Ruán in a place of honor at the headman’s hearth. Cushioned by furs, cradled by thatch, he sat and listened to wind batter the roof and ate things he’d forgotten: mutton stewed with marsh-herbs and barley, and butter on coarse bread.
Áedán and Orla amused the herdsmen with tales of the islands, Orla sang fishing ditties, and others the tunes they hummed on the marsh, cutting reeds. No one demanded anything of Ruán, leaving him to his silence.
As the music wrapped him in drowsy warmth, he was surprised by a pang of loneliness. He missed singing, the beat of drums and ripple of laughter. There was a childhood pleasure that came from being nestled within strong walls while rain hammered outside.
The storm cleared, and near dusk, Ruán hurried back through the dripping woods, a frown on his brow.
“That was not painful, was it?” Orla trotted alongside. “You didn’t choke on the bread, did you?”
“No.” His steps quickened. Through the woods, down the slope, to where the reeds sang in the wind. He had to summon the sight back into his heart, for it had been broken by human speech. He needed that light or he would be alone when all others had left him …
“Bríd’s breath!”
Orla’s outburst halted him.
“There’s a horse by the water, Ru, and it’s got bronze rings all over it.”
Ruán’s belly swooped. “A red bay?”
“What’s a bay?”
Ruán broke into a lope, his senses focused. His sight flooded back. The path unwound before him in a spool of glowing white. The trees were pale flames, the lake molten silver. At the shore, Meallán was a flare against the grass—but beside him on the ground was a smear of darkness.
The horse snorted as Ruán reached him, tossing his head. Ruán smoothed Meallán’s neck and groped along his flank, dropping to his knees beside Maeve. His hand landed on her forearm. Her skin was burning.
“Maeve.” His fingers flew along her limbs, gently probing any flesh not bound by her leather armor. Beneath her breastplate along one flank, her tunic was stuck to her skin. At his
touch, she groaned. He cupped her face, moving his thumbs over her quivering eyelids. Her pulse was a panicked moth against his wrist. “Maeve.”
A strangled gasp. “The storm. Home … must close the gates. Conor …”
“Hush.” He tried to steady her, but her body was seized by a great shudder.
“Put me … d-down.” Her teeth chattered. “Let me go. Let me …” Her body curled up and she retched over Ruán’s arm. The fumes of vomit stung his nostrils.
“Oh.” Orla had come up behind him. “That doesn’t look good.”
Ruán plunged knee-deep into the lake, ignoring the shock of the icy water.
His clothes reeked of the contents of Maeve’s belly and her sour sweat. He pulled off tunic and trews, swirling them in the water and throwing them to the sand, then splashing his face. The drips from his chin and hair counted out a rhythm—a heartbeat running down.
Time sliding from dawn to dusk, dawn to dusk, taking more of Maeve’s strength each time. Three days.
“She’s not getting better,” Orla said from the shore.
“I told you to stay with her.”
“The sacred smoke, the broth, the chants you bade me sing—nothing works. Áedán’s syrup stops her thrashing, but still she weakens.”
Ruán rubbed his face with cold hands. “It is a sword wound. They turn the blood and make people sick.” He breathed through the cage of his fingers. “They make warriors sick.”
And who was she fighting?
“Ru, who is she? I see she is noble. She must have kin that miss her. Don’t you think they should look after her? I mean, she must have healers and servants—”
“She has no one.” It fell from his lips. He dropped his hands. “No one who will fight hard enough to save her.”
Orla rinsed his tunic in the water again and squeezed it. She was always hovering, her hands moving alongside his in the same rhythm. “But if anything happens, you’ll get in trouble. They might hurt you again.”
Ruán waded out, shaking water from his bare legs. For Orla, he had taken to wearing a clout at his loins, though what he wanted was to wash the fear from every part of him. For there was one chance, a glimmer of light that was bound by a terrible darkness.
He might fail, as he did before.
“Orla,” he croaked. “Go to Áedán and do not come back until the dawn after tomorrow. Do not let Áedán come here. Swear it.”
“I swear,” Orla stammered. “But—”
“Orla.” Now his voice was that of a trained druid. After a moment, Orla threw down his wet tunic and stalked away.
Ruán strained to make sure she had gone. At last he turned from the lake. The woods before him were a wall of black. All the silver of his sight had bled away, because his heart was now tangled and dark.
He knew only a few of the plants that cleansed blood and cooled fevers. He did not know enough.
Ruán wavered. From the forest he caught a faint throb, the ancient heartbeat that beckoned him on another night like this—when Lord Mulach’s son died.
He bowed his head. “I am afraid.” Through the veils, he sensed a sigh at that last surrender of old pride. He eased the tightness in his throat.
He could almost hear Lord Mulach’s voice again, pleading with him as the boy failed. Send now for the wisewoman, Mulach had begged him, deep in the night.
A brute warrior he might be, but Mulach’s instincts understood that the crone who lived by the spring was more earth than human, her hair woven with leaves, her skin as creased as bark. She was a creature of soil and leaf-mold, mist and rain. She was the essence of earth in a human body.
The Mother.
And yet Ruán did not summon her, because he thought he knew better.
The answer, he was sure, was in the stars. The entrails of a hare. The carvings on the old tombs. He must seek a message from the gods that only he could read.
That night, Ruán left the boy’s sickbed, heading for the hilltop to gain a view of the stars. The path to its stony crest ran through the forest.
He had no choice but to plunge into that musty darkness.
He still remembered his feet sinking into the rich loam and how it sucked at him, the twigs and leaves of trees catching in his hair. The smells were overwhelming: rotting stalks, sour mud, and the tang of vegetation. Whispers swirled around him, and he kept glimpsing flashes of light, which he ignored as tricks of the sídhe.
Back then he thought of them as mere sprites. The gods were greater beings, distant and set apart in the Otherworld. Now he knew they were all one, and they were always close … the Otherworld eternally threaded through Thisworld.
Send for the wisewoman. Even the trees had murmured it to him that night.
Ruán, though, kept his head down as he ran, blotting out the heartbeat of the forest lest it drown him with its wild song. The rush of sap. The rustle of tiny creatures. The creep of roots and stalks. Scared of losing himself in that dark ocean of instinct and feeling, he panicked, wanting only to drag himself free of those cloying branches.
At last he had climbed free of the woods, relieved to reach the stony hilltop, so bare and cold. When he looked up, though, the stars appeared to be spinning, his mind unable to grasp their patterns. Panting, he raced along the ridge to one of the ancestor tombs, and lay in the dark summoning a trance, trying to free his thoughts to find answers.
Nothing came.
He went back to Lord Mulach’s fort and sweated his son once more before bathing him in icy water. And yet still the boy’s life ebbed, until at last death brought him the silence and stillness Ruán sought in himself.
Now here he was again, and this time it was Maeve’s life in his hands.
Ceara.
Ruán touched his blindfold with shaking fingers. His sockets burned, as when Lord Mulach’s warriors thrust the poker into his eyes. “I am not that man anymore.”
The sídhe’s voice floated back to him. We are the Bridge between Worlds.
There was no room for fear.
Naked now, Ruán breached the dark trees, and this time let the veils of the forest wreathe about him. In a glade, he lay and breathed in the scent of loam and rich decay. He drank dew from the leaves, dug himself into the soil and let the ferns close over his body.
Gradually, his heart slowed and began to swing to a different rhythm. When his body instinctively fought that cloying air, he only drew it deeper into his lungs, until the forest itself was breathing from his pores.
I am yours now, he said to the Earth Mother. He would strain for answers no more: She would bless him, or kill him. And so Ruán at last let his soul bow down before Her.
He sank, his mind adrift, every muscle surrendering. The spark of his soul spiraled behind his eyes, and he became that flame and nothing else.
Light flooded the glade.
The silver filaments that wove the shape of Ruán’s spirit-body unraveled. He was conscious of them taking root, sending bright tendrils into the soil. His fingers appeared to unfold into shoots that spread among the other plants; his hair flowed over the damp ground. He became a riot of growth, the tendrils of his own self weaving through the threads of silver that made up the trees and flowers.
Heal her. That was the only conscious thought he could hold.
Ruán’s awareness hovered, watching as here and there on the forest floor a plant kindled into white fire, torches flaring to light the way of his spirit.
He must become sídhe now.
Ruán flung his tiny soul-spark at the nearest bloom of fire, and again, as on the night with the sídhe, he was dancing through the streams of motes within the plant. This time he noticed that his own spark radiated a certain hue and resonated with a particular note, as in a song. As he dived among them, some of the motes in the leaves began to vibrate in harmony with that note. He focused his will, calling them into patterns of his own making. As the plant-sparks swirled around him, they grew brighter.
He was summoning life into the plant. For Ma
eve.
Ruán woke only slowly from that dream.
His body gradually took shape around him. He was kneeling beside Maeve, and as his human senses returned he became aware of the heat that rose from her skin.
The blooms of fire were still scattered around him. He felt for them with tingling fingers. There were roots smeared with soil, bundles of leaves, and stalks still dripping with juice.
He had gathered what flamed the brightest—the healing plants that sang in harmony with human flesh and blood.
He knew the forest. He was the forest.
Ruán at last looked down at himself with his new sight. The glow of his body was more intense than his memory of the moon: as brilliant as the sídhe were in their dance upon the ridge. So he had not only picked healing leaves. Somehow, he had summoned the Source that ran through the woods, too, gathering it in this vessel of his body so he could bring it to Maeve.
In wonder, Ruán held up his arms, heart pounding. His flesh was radiant, the shape of his hands blurred with light. The ecstasy rushed up his body from his feet, as if he was a tree rooted in the Otherworld itself.
A bridge between worlds.
He laid his hands upon Maeve, and Source flowed from him, borne on an intense wave from his heart.
CHAPTER 21
The fever broke, and sweat washed the poison from Maeve’s blood.
Ruán did not take his attention off her, watching how the light of the plants was seeping into her through his healing brews and the poultices he bound over her wound.
For days, though, Maeve continued to slip between sleep and restless dreams in which she muttered as if delirious. At first Ruán wondered if he had missed something, and then realized it was the exhaustion of years, and the wanderings of a strained mind.
Orla returned with some mutton from the little steading, and together they coaxed trickles of broth between Maeve’s lips, stroking her throat until she swallowed.