by Jules Watson
“Cúchulainn let him go because he himself is crumbling,” Levarcham said to Maeve as they climbed the hill. “It is the loss of Ferdia that has at last struck the blow.”
They crested the shoulder of the mount and the rays of sunrise flooded Maeve. She gazed down the slopes of dewy heather and wet, brown ferns that glittered all the way to the shining lake. The sun set the far bracken slopes on fire. On the still air she could hear the clash of arms. Cúchulainn. She had brought him here, and now she alone held him here.
The heat soaked into her, melting all the horrors of the night. And so her heart unfolded once more, vast and filled with light.
“What you felt by the stream with the child, when the gods touched you.” Levarcham was also gazing down the slope, shading her eyes. “It made anything possible.” She turned, and her eyes were glowing, the wrinkles in her haggard face softened by dawn. “Anything is possible.”
Maeve’s breath rushed out. Conor is dead. We are free.
Enough blood had been spilled in these hills. If she was to be a mother of the land, then she must heal the land. Maeve closed her eyes, spread her arms and let the sun pour through. When she opened her eyes, Levarcham was gone.
You would bend fate to your will. Ferdia’s words.
And Deirdre. See to all your children.
Cradle them in light.
Maeve turned and climbed higher, coming over the crest of the hill above the ford. She followed the sound of trickling water to the rill that tumbled down the slope, squatted and combed its current through her fingers. Come to me. She summoned the memory of being filled again, of flowing out into Source. Unfocusing her eyes, she watched the sun-glints blur into a stream of silver that rushed up her arm.
It sheathed her in another form, a shimmering outline.
Ruán’s gift to her, twice over. For the third time, Maeve summoned it for herself.
She stood.
Now she held an echo of the sleek otter, able to glide through water both swift and silent. Maeve looked up at the fringe of stunted birches and bent rowans. They swayed like flickering flames. She slid into the rill, her muscles fluid. She did not feel the cold or the sword along her thigh.
She was more than human Maeve now—she was a creature of bright water.
She wove between the rocks in the stream, through the ferns. No one below saw her, for the roars of the men went on. When she next flickered back to awareness, the stream was rushing in threads of foam to the ford below.
Maeve gazed in wonder. She saw two worlds at once. There were the shapes she knew, rocks, trees, and people, but their solid forms were now ghostly. Brighter and more real were the streams of sparks that made them, swirling and flaring. The trees and men were fire-blooms, the water silver filaments, the air a wash of light.
She looked down, and her breath rushed out. The Hound of the Ulaid had always been dark in her mind, even when she glimpsed his flame on the raid. He was a death-wielder to her, forged of the same blackness as Conor.
Now Cúchulainn’s brilliance was blinding.
Maeve had watched stars fall, the only things she had ever seen as bright as he was now. A towering flame, incandescent.
Summoning the otter essence, she melted back into the stream and poured down the slope, gliding around rocks. Her own woman-shape broke into ripples, curls of water and glinting light. Cúchulainn’s fire remained bent upon his latest opponent as they both fought in the shallow ford.
Only when she was closer did Maeve see that, as before, Cúchulainn’s soul-fire was also rent with streaks of blood-red and black despair. He bellowed and struck at his enemy’s blade in such a rage he seemed blind to all else.
Maeve smoothed the boulders with her body, and slunk along the stream-bed.
Ahead, the struggling fighters sent up plumes of water. Cúchulainn stood on a band of gravel in the middle of the stream, flanked fore and aft by deeper pools. He was smashing blows upon the hapless Connacht warrior, who was up to his knees in one of the channels, his shield and helmet dented, arms running with blood.
Maeve glided around a boulder into the pool behind Cúchulainn. She pulled herself along the stream-bed, palms cupping the pebbles. Her chin flowed below the surface, her eyes above. She chanted a summoning inside. I am only sunlight on rippling water.
Cúchulainn was oblivious.
Maeve coiled up, otterwise. At that moment, perhaps the sun glinted off her sword, for the eyes of the Connacht warrior flicked toward her.
Cúchulainn immediately pounced on him, grabbing the man by his tunic and tilting his sword to stab it into his neck.
In one fluid movement Maeve rose from the pool behind Cúchulainn, and now her wrist was about his throat, her sword pressed below his ear. Water streamed from her body.
“I have you,” she whispered.
At last someone had gotten past his guard and laid cold metal against his erratic pulse. Cúchulainn’s relief came in a wave. At last. An end had come to darkness.
His sword was still poised beneath the jawbone of the Connacht warrior, who was struggling to find a footing in the deeper water.
“Let him go.”
It penetrated Cúchulainn that it was a woman’s voice. Against all odds, he had been bested—by a woman. The delight of old coursed through him, to witness such skill in anyone, such bravery. Brilliantly done. In disbelief, there was only one thing he could do.
He laughed.
He’d been drowning in blood, the taint sickening. Triumph had long since turned to slaughter, and glory had fallen into the stink of piss and bowels carved open. And Ferdia. Cúchulainn’s wheeze faded. A gift of the gods, this must be. They laid a hand on his brow now and said, We are pleased … rest your grief …
Cúchulainn’s awareness still wavered between Thisworld and the Source. For the first time in his life he perceived behind him a spirit that flamed with a wildfire equal to his own.
“Maeve,” he said.
“The very one. Drop him, and throw your sword away.”
A tremor ran over him. If I turn and attack her, the warriors will rush me and I cannot fight them all. Cúchulainn’s mind and body ached. He was so tired of blood. He blinked as sweat ran in his eyes. Ferdia … where was Ferdia? “Are you replacing this challenger?”
“On my honor as a queen.”
Honor. He still had that.
Cúchulainn shoved the Connacht warrior away, and the youth groped for the bank and fell upon it, gasping, his face purple. “Go,” Maeve barked at him, and the boy scrabbled away.
Only then did Cúchulainn realize the lakeshore was at last hushed. He heard the faint cry of geese, their wings a glimmer over ruffled water. Maeve’s dagger pressed his neck, her chest and thighs molded to his back like a lover’s embrace. Her murmur tickled his ear. “Your sword.”
Cúchulainn smiled to himself. “My fate is to die young, anyway. What power can you wield over me?”
“You care for the Ulaid, for your wife and people. You care for Emain Macha and the Red Branch. Die like this, and they face only ruin. Listen to me, and you can change their fates.”
The Hound’s neck prickled. He detected something strange in her voice.
His soul was torn: to follow Ferdia through the veils, or stay with Emer and fulfill love and duty. Did Maeve sense that, too?
Listen to me.
The words floated from Maeve’s unconscious. The great hero Cúchulainn was at last in her hands. All the tangled paths of the past had led to this—a death blow.
And yet she was filled not with old pain and fear, but Ruán’s voice. Come to know your own heart so you can understand others. That is what will win you freedom.
Maeve was still. The faint murmurs of the war-band fell into silence. The wind on her cheek and the icy cold of the stream faded. She was for once the eye of the storm, not its tempest.
She closed her eyes, dropped her chin so it almost touched Cúchulainn’s shoulder. The glow inside her grew and spilled out, overflow
ing into the radiance of Source. I want only life—for me, for him, and all of them.
As she surrendered, something in Cúchulainn was also released, the tattered bonds of desperation and duty at last snapping. He sighed, and the light flooded between them and took away the last of sight and sound.
Maeve had felt the Goddess move in her now—the unformed seeds She nurtured in darkness, the moon-tides of oceans that birthed life. She had always cast Cúchulainn as the blade in Conor’s hand, part of his twisted darkness.
Clasped to him now, Maeve knew that she had been wrong.
The world swung them in an ancient dance about each other, for if she was the moon, then he was the sun. Brilliant flame and brightness … the fire that makes the seeds of the Goddess grow. The thirst to build, forge, and strengthen. The wielder of the blade that guards the fields and flocks, that shelters the young.
A man is also sacred.
She could not kill the God, now that she had been the Goddess.
“The name Cúchulainn stands for honor,” she whispered, “but the betrayals of men have riven you. So will you claim your true name again? For I offer you peace, Hound of Cullen.”
His emotions flared around them. “You lie.”
“Yesterday Conor took my daughter and would have slaughtered her like a deer. Instead, he tried to kill me when I was unarmed. My child pierced his lung with a dagger. Nessa’s son is dead.”
Maeve felt the leap of Cúchulainn’s heart in her own breast.
“What bound Conor to you is gone also. I have seen Deirdre with my own eyes. She and Naisi are free, and now we can be free.” Maeve let out a shuddering breath. “My darkness brought us here, and Conor and I trapped you. We killed Ferdia.”
To her astonishment, Maeve felt a tear drop onto her forearm.
Her voice broke. “Now Conor is dead, and I am reborn. You can be, too. Throw down your sword and let the kingdoms of Erin be strong together.”
Neither of them moved, Cúchulainn’s breathing labored. Maeve realized what she had to do. “So this is the only way you will trust me.”
And she released her hold.
CHAPTER 39
Cúchulainn spun about, dazzled by the sun above him.
“The remains of Conor’s war-band are nearby, Hound. Send your own man to seek the truth.”
The light shimmered, and Thisworld resolved itself about Cúchulainn. He saw a cloud of red hair, and a beautiful and harrowing face streaked with blood and dirt about her eyes, the rest of her skin washed clean by the stream.
“I will not surrender,” Cúchulainn croaked, swaying on his feet.
“Me neither. Our men must believe in our strength if we are to save Erin.” A wry smile touched Maeve’s mouth, but her eyes were a luminous blue.
The flame, thought Cúchulainn.
“At Emain Macha, Hound, I saw when an end had to be made of a duel at sundown, and neither man would back down. I saw what you did.”
Cúchulainn filled his lungs, taking in life as if for the first time. “So be it.”
Maeve threw down her dagger and unsheathed her sword, and both of them flowed into the same dance at the same moment, as if one person. Maeve spun and lifted her sword—Cúchulainn carved the air with his own weapon. Their blades met over their heads with a ring.
Maeve’s arm curved over Cúchulainn’s head. His stance matched hers. They made a frame, and inside it they stared at each other as if into a mirror. The silver Source was glowing in her face. “Well met, Hound,” Maeve murmured.
“And you, Maeve of Connacht.”
“Maeve of Erin.”
For a long moment they stood in the middle of the stream, between their two realms, gazes locked.
“Though they cost me dearly,” Maeve murmured, “your deeds these past days will be remembered and honored forever.”
Dazzled, Cúchulainn let all his breath out.
They dropped their arms as one, and each stepped back until they reached their opposing bank. Cúchulainn sheathed his sword.
Maeve’s eyes were drawn to Ferdia’s body, lying behind him in the shadows of the trees. She touched a fist to her brow. “I will send Ulaid-men to you. Then we will speak again.”
The ranks of Maeve’s warriors were a shining sea that parted, waves whispering as she slowly walked through them.
She had somehow bested Cúchulainn. The men were not sure what had happened. Even so, many went down on one knee before her, or bowed their heads and touched their chests with respect.
Maeve stopped. Her body vibrated with a deep song that seemed to resonate through the air about her and the ground beneath her feet. “An end is come of this fight. An end, for now, of death. Conor mac Nessa, our enemy, was slain by Finnabair, daughter of Connacht and Laigin, and the Red Branch is broken. While there is no surrender, the great Hound and I seek peace, for all our sakes.”
The whispering was broken by crests of exclamation and wonder and, as one, the flames of men that had been dim, worn down by death, now flared anew.
Maeve approached Cormac and searched his face. The pallor of despair had masked his youth, but it was lifting now as he absorbed her words. The stamp of Conor’s proud bones could perhaps radiate nobility from now on, and wisdom.
“The Ulaid will need a king,” she said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “But I think Cúchulainn needs only his hearth and his wife.”
Cormac nodded, dazed. He looked not at her eyes but around her, as if he glimpsed the remnants of that light. “It is well done, lady. I will go to the Hound myself.”
She smiled. “I will send him food and knit-bone salve for his wounds.” Clapping on his helmet, Cormac bounded down the slope like a boy.
Finn. Maeve needed to feel her warmth, see Fraech alive with her own eyes.
She turned her back on her warriors, all muttering in wonder and relief. As she floated along the track toward the camp, light-headed, for a moment a shadow darkened her heart.
Maeve halted, her unfocused eyes on the trees. They bent in a cold wind from the west, and above their canopies of brown and gold, great gray clouds scudded by. It was no more than that, she realized. A cloud shadow. The wind. She was back in Thisworld now, the land gripped by leaf-fall.
With an effort of will she shook off her trance, pulling herself firmly back into this body, this place, this time.
Her men needed her.
Maeve sent swift riders to the Gates of Macha—a man of Connacht and one of the Ulaid to halt the fighting there.
Before sunset, meanwhile, the Ulaid messenger that Cormac and Cúchulainn charged with seeking news of Conor returned to them. Cúchulainn listened to the scout’s report of Conor’s death, staring into the burnished light on the lake.
Cormac slumped on a rock, the tension going from him, and taking off his helmet, he scratched his sweat-streaked hair and looked up at the sky.
Cúchulainn nodded and walked to Ferdia’s body. The Hound had wrapped his friend in furs and set his chariot horses to guard him. Now he squatted beside Ferdia, his head low on his own breast.
After a time he took a bundle of cloth from his chariot and approached the stream, his gaze intense on the water, as if there was no one around. Heedless of the Connacht warriors, he began to strip off his armor. He threw down his tarnished helmet, unbuckled his mail-shirt, and laid aside his blades. Finally, he peeled off his boots, his filthy, torn tunic, blood-encrusted trews, and the leather breechclout warriors wore into battle.
Cúchulainn was pale and naked now, and even from a distance Maeve could see the red weals that marred his body.
Striding proud, the great Hound of the Ulaid waded into the deepest pool and plunged in. He stayed underwater for many heartbeats. Maeve could just see him turning and scouring himself with silt from the stream-bed.
Washing away all the deaths.
At last he emerged, his fair hair dripping, and just as carefully dressed himself in the clean clothes he had put by. Trews of checked wool. A tunic of blue
. He left the helmet and mail-shirt on the ground, and strapping on his sword, crossed to Maeve’s side of the water.
She met him there.
The Hound was chilled and wet, hair plastered to his brow. His eyes were red-rimmed, though as calm as a bright sea. “Peace cannot last forever. Warriors must win renown and gold from their kings, or they will not be there to fight when needed.”
Maeve nodded. “If we are lucky, peace will last as long as our oaths are remembered. That still gives the Ulaid time to rebuild, time for us all to heal. For in the light of Source, I sensed that the battles to come are not of Erin’s making. She will need the strength of all her children to endure that darkness.”
Cúchulainn stared into her eyes. The Source they had shared still flowed between them. “Then let us forge peace now, whatever comes after.”
Maeve’s shoulders lowered, and her hand fell from its customary grip on her sword-hilt. “The oaths should be marked with a sacrifice to the gods. I have already sent riders to drive Finnbennach, the royal bull of Connacht, to us.”
Cúchulainn blinked, his mouth quirking. “So your bull has been that close to our border all this time?”
“I hid him some time ago, in case a Hound came sniffing. You Red Branch were always casting too far from home.”
Cúchulainn smiled, dragging a hand through his hair to squeeze the water out.
Maeve sobered. “What will you give in return?”
Cúchulainn gestured to the north. His hands were webbed with cuts. “The Donn Cuailgne is our finest bull. He was Conor’s, and is quartered not too far. Let us make a great feast of both beasts, send their blood to the gods, and then Ulaid- and Connach-men alike can share their meat as a mark of peace.”
A few nights later, druids of Connacht, Laigin, and Mumu reverently slit the throats of the White Bull of Connacht and the Brown Bull of the Ulaid, and laid their bodies to sleep.
On the smoke of their livers, the prayers of the warriors were lifted to the gods. Their blood was mixed with mead, and brought strength to men who were wounded and drawn. Finally, they were roasted on spits of oak saplings, the meat shared among every warrior gathered from the four kingdoms.