Song of Ireland

by Juilene Osborne-McKnight

  But I shook my head; Airioch’s idea of the mating was as unlike mine as the moon is unlike the sun.

  “Hurry, Airioch,” called the wives of Eber Donn. “We have but little time.”

  Airioch groaned but he stood and dusted off his braichs.

  I grinned up at him. “You know that you were released from your promise to Eber Donn’s family three days ago. The period of punishment was one year. You need not oblige any longer.”

  Airioch grinned. “Well, I owe them at least this much, now don’t I?” He rubbed his hands together. “Ladies, what is your wish today?” He wrapped an arm around each waist, looked back over his shoulder at me, and winked.

  I shook my head. Still laughing, I stood and dusted off my braichs. I chose a flat stone from the beach and skipped it across the still bay. I could not fault Airioch his pleasures. For the past year, Airioch had been husband and father to a host of women and children, had built dwellings and walked his brother’s children along the shore and discharged all of his responsibilities like a man on a mission.

  I glanced up toward the headland. Perhaps Airioch would have done better with Bile this year. But I owed him at least my attempt to be a father.

  In a little while I would climb to the headland and sit beside Bile, give him my brotherly duty. I leaned back against the rock and sighed. In just a little while.

  CEOLAS DREAMS OF LONGING

  What am I but a man?

  A strange and lonely man,

  a man composed of Words and dreams.

  What am I but a dreamer

  in a world where no one dreams.

  I am as lonely as the wind,

  I am as vast as the sea.

  Oh, my beloved,

  sing to me as wind and sea,

  say that I will not be lonely forever.

  “Bile, I do not think that they will return among us. We frightened them terribly. As they did us. Perhaps we are better apart from each other.”

  He shook his head stubbornly.

  He had grown tall, this baby brother. At thirteen years, he approached six feet tall. His hair was a sweep of thick darkness, his eyes an expressive gray. His one good arm was well muscled and strong and his legs were thick with muscle. His stump he hid well behind tunics and cloaks. When he did not vocalize, one might think him a strong and well-made man of the Galaeci.

  We had long since run out of paper and chalks; Bile had exhausted what supply we had brought on our journey. Those that he carried so carefully rolled under his arm were the record of his life, the Internum Mare, the wild reaches of Spain, the towers of Galicia, our mother and father and Uncle Ith. Now he carved on rock and metal, imitating the spiraling patterns of the Danu, linking them with our own braidwork, incising ogham and spirals onto stones and cups and cauldrons. Our people much prized him for his craftsmanship.

  Now I walked around the portal, stood at the opposite side, facing him through the uprights.

  “Come back to the village, Brother. I do not think they will come.”

  He shook his head. He waved his arm at me and began to vocalize, “Ah, ah, ah.” His roll of drawings dropped to the ground.

  Suddenly there was a flash of blue light. Airmid stood in the doorway. Because I was behind the doorway, her back was to me.

  Bile went silent; his face turned crimson that she had seen him vocalizing. He stooped and gathered up his drawings. He shot a baleful look in my direction.

  Airmid followed the look, turned around to see me.

  “Well hello, Amergin. Have I startled you?” She sounded as though she had seen me only yesterday and not a year ago.

  “It is most difficult to accustom to the comings and goings of the Danu.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” she said brightly. “You have decided to accompany your brother, then? Are we ready?”

  “Ready for what?”

  An Scail appeared suddenly, moving through the forest, leaning hard on a beautifully carved cane covered with Danu braidwork. She was puffing with the effort.

  “You should have waited for me,” she said quietly to Bile when she reached us.

  He lowered his gaze. “We are ready,” she said to Airmid.

  “For what?” I asked again.

  “Bile has asked Airmid to evaluate his speech, to see if aught can be done. She has waited for three days past the year mark to accord you their respect of our law.”

  “It was nothing,” said Airmid, waving her hand. “What is three days more or less? Or three years for that matter? Except to this young man.”

  Bile regarded her solemnly, held his drawings forward.

  “I like it not,” I said.

  “It is not yours to like,” said An Scail. “Come then, Bile. Airmid and I have prepared a place to work.” And the twosome led Bile away through the woods. I made to follow, but An Scail held up her hand. “Bile will let you know when you may join us,” she said.

  I was dismissed.

  I sat down heavily and leaned my back against the stone.

  “Now I am the outsider with my tribe, my teacher, and my brother,” I muttered.

  Suddenly, there was a crack of blue and Eriu stepped forward into the forest. She was exactly as I remembered her, the long, curling red hair, the sweeping white dress. She looked away into the forest.

  “Are you following them?”

  She started back when I spoke, turned quickly to face me.

  “I did not see you there,” she said.

  “Well, I never see you or yours coming or going,” I replied.

  “Where did they go?” she asked.

  I gestured toward the forest. “Out there, and I was not invited to accompany them.”

  “Nor was I.”

  “I feel much better knowing that.”

  “A year has not improved your disposition,” she said tartly.

  “Nor yours it would seem,” I said.

  “I advised against this plan.”

  “I do not even know what this plan is.”

  “Our physicians have some skill with the … brain, with the … pathways of speech and movement.”

  “You need not speak as though you speak to a child. Mehmet explained all of this to me when both Bile and Ith became wounded. Pathways become blocked. Sometimes new pathways develop; sometimes they do not.”

  “Very well; we have techniques to allow new pathways to develop. Airmid told An Scail so and An Scail told Bile. Evidently Bile has petitioned An Scail, and An Scail and Airmid have decided that it would be a fine idea to see what they could do. These two Ancients are harder to control than … Morrigu!”

  At this I laughed aloud. “I doubt that, but I will say that they are very … strong willed, the pair of them. And my little brother becomes just like them, silent and stubborn.”

  “Airmid came through the portals, in defiance of the ruling. I was so afraid for her.”

  “Afraid for her? What? Do you think us barbarians that we would molest an Ancient wisdom keeper, wandering in the woods, accompanied by one of our own druids?”

  “I do not know,” she said, waving her hands at me. “What I have seen of you is dangerous and … ill-disposed. Hard to predict. We love Airmid; we have a responsibility to protect her. And off she goes, wandering around your world.”

  “And what if they damage Bile?”

  “They will not damage him! They are physicians of great skill! How could you think that of us?” Her eyes had actually begun to fill with tears.

  I stared hard at them; they seemed to me once again overlarge.

  “What do you stare at?”

  “Your eyes; when you are frightened or sad, they seem to shift shape within their orbs, changeable as the sea and nearly as large.”

  Now her eyes grew measurably larger; terror flitted across her face.

  “Do your people know?”

  “Know … what?”

  She glanced around at the forest as if she expected an answer suddenly to appear. “Do they know that Airmid
has been on the Green Isle in defiance of the year ruling?”

  “Only Airioch, and he will say nothing.”

  “Airioch will say nothing?”

  “Human beings have immense capacity for change, Eriu. Do not underestimate that capacity; it is larger than any of our other traits.”

  “For good and for ill, I am supposing.”

  I inclined my head. “But if we speak of ill, surely we must speak of Morrigu. Does she bear that same capacity?”

  “No. She is a constant, is Morrigu. Constant as darkness. Do your people … talk of her, talk of the Danu? What do they say in the year that has passed?”

  “At first they spoke of nothing else. What they had seen at the Plain of Mag Tuiread terrified them. They wanted to swim after the ships. They wanted to leave the cattle and the horses and the dogs behind and return home on rafts with sails made of their tents. Some of them wanted to run into the sea, preferring drowning to remaining here where the portals could open at any moment.”

  “She terrifies us as well.”

  “They were afraid of more than Morrigu, Eriu.”

  “What do they think they saw?”

  “Not think. Saw. I saw it too. Your wounded warriors, those golden-haired Greeks. Our people saw them grow small and tall again, saw their eyes shift shape and return, as yours have just done.”

  “O you gods!”

  I stood, though that may not have improved anything, as I towered over her little frame. She cringed back into the doorway.

  “I will not harm you, Eriu,” I said softly. “Only tell me the truth. I do not fear the truth.”

  “The truth is that you very well might hurt me. When last we met, you held me as a shield.”

  “When last we met, I thought you responsible for all of our troubles on the sea. I was a fool.”

  “I was no wiser,” she said, though she did not leave the doorway. “It might have ended badly were it not for these two Ancients who so frustrate us.”

  I laughed aloud. “When I think of those two heaving into the circle on that horse.”

  She began to laugh too; her laughter tinkled like the soft bells that Galaeci women braid into their hair. Our laughter together seemed to make her less fearful. She stepped back out from the doorway and tipped her head up; her eyes were laughing.

  “And fearless Banba, asking someone to teach her to ride.”

  I shook my head. “And she got offers!”

  “O Danu, what fools we are, Amergin.”

  “We were afraid. We did not trust each other. We were strangers. People who act on their fear and their lack of wisdom often make foolish choices.”

  “A year was wise.”

  “It was? What do they say of us in your cities?”

  “That some of you are worthy of … consideration. Of course, Airmid has helped that opinion to prevail.”

  “What do you say, Eriu?”

  “What I say does not matter. It matters what the Danu say.”

  “It matters to me.” I actually put my hand up to my own lips, surprised. Having spoken the words, I knew them to be true.

  “I … think our life was simpler before you came.”

  I shrugged. “True enough. Ours was certainly simpler before we came.” I felt dismissed, turned to walk away.

  “Amergin,” she said quietly.

  I turned back.

  “Given time, I think that it might be more interesting now that you have come.”

  Her face was tipped up again.

  “Your eyes,” I said softly; “they are like the sea. They change color and mood and shape. They are … quite beautiful, Eriu. I do not fear them.”

  I watched as her face began to suffuse with color. She stepped back into the doorway.

  “I did not mean to offend you. Did I frighten you? I simply spoke the truth. You need not fear the truth with me.”

  She lifted her triangle.

  “Wait!” I commanded. She stopped, her hand held aloft.

  “Will you return?” I asked. She stood as if frozen. “Please?” I said it softly, so as not to frighten her.

  She smiled. “I will return, Amergin.”

  She nodded once, then slotted her triangle into the portal and was gone.

  I took to waiting at the portal, dressed in my finest tunic. I felt stupid and hopeful all at once, like a boy new with sap. Oh, I made pretense that I was accompanying Bile and An Scail to the doorway, awaiting the arrival of Airmid, but they were not fooled.

  Worse, Eriu did not come. For three days I stood there, dressed in my finery, Ceolas by my side, feeling like a great fool as Airmid came through the portal, as she and Bile and An Scail made their lopsided way through the forest, as content and as odd a threesome as ever had lived. On the third day Airmid took pity on me.

  “You await Eriu.”

  “She … indicated … that she would accompany you. I thought it only … courteous … that the bard should be here to greet the chief of the Sisters.”

  “Courteous.”

  I nodded, but I could feel the hot blood moving under my cheeks. I longed suddenly for Skena, for the sweet familiarity of her touch, for our easy movements together, for the long life that we had planned.

  What was I doing here?

  “Well.” I smiled brightly. “If she will not accompany you, then surely I am not obligated to appear. I have much work of the tribe to do.”

  “Obligated,” said An Scail, nodding. She met the eyes of her Ancient friend. Some message seemed to pass between them.

  “Eriu comes with me tomorrow,” said An Scail. “For these past days, she has had much work of the Danu to do.”

  I knew that they were laughing at me, two Ancient women with all the experience of love and change in their past. I hung my head like a stripling boy. Bile slid his hand into mine. I looked down at his face. He smiled, radiant, encouraging. He nodded. Something in his eyes made me feel less stupid, brave.

  “You are so brave,” I said to him suddenly.

  I saw the surprise flare up in his eyes, but I knew it to be the truth. He had moved through his life with determination, learning to walk, drawing with his weak hand. Now whatever work he did with An Scail and Airmid was brave as well. How could I do less than my broken brother? And suddenly I knew that Skena would want me to be here, would want me to heal, to change, to be brave in the world without her. I turned to Airmid.

  “Tell her that I will await her tomorrow,” I said. “Tell her that I request her presence.”

  A tiny smile played at the edges of An Scail’s lips. Never mind, Skena would say.

  Airmid met my eyes. “I will surely tell her, Amergin.”

  And so she came, her gown a soft sky blue, a vessel for the breeze, the spiraling red hair caught up at the sides, cascading down her back in glorious ringlets that lifted and curled in the wind, all of her seeming to me light as a breeze, vast as the sky. We sat by the portals when the Ancients had departed with Bile. I played Ceolas for her and she tilted her head back and regarded me as I sang. I swam into her eyes, into the secrets there, and I trusted that she would tell them to me when she knew that she could trust me as well. For the first time since Skena had died, I felt hope lift in me, a birdling, a breeze, but singing, singing.

  37

  CEOLAS SINGS OF AWAKENING DESIRE

  I did not think I would love again.

  Joy rises in me, trembling.

  I am the green force in the leaves,

  I am the turn of the tide.

  I have been winter, cold and still.

  My fires have been banked.

  Today, the earth smells green;

  the wind is full of promise and the sea.

  From behind the portal, from behind the doorway of time that separated them, Eriu could hear the harpsong of Amergin. She sighed deeply. She was, she knew, the source of the song. Had she skill with the harp, she too would have been singing. She closed her eyes to the soft sound of the song, muffled by the temporal distance bet
ween them. She hummed softly in accompaniment. Her heart lifted. She would see him again! In a moment, in a little moment of time, her tiny hand would rest inside his, like a ship coming safe into port. Today, she would tell him the truth. All of the truth. Today he would know who she was, know that she kept his child safe and well. Today she would trust the great soul of Amergin with the complicated truth. He would understand it; she knew this now.

  In that sudden knowledge another truth came suddenly to Eriu.

  She loved him. Eriu of the Three Sisters, ancient herself and stranger to the place as well, loved Amergin, son of Mil, poet of the Milesians. What would come of that love she knew not, but it moved through her with certainty, with joy. Surely Danu herself rejoiced at this, at the love that bloomed between the people of Mil and the people of the Danu.

  “Mother,” Eriu whispered. “Make my voice fearless; bless the truth that I will tell.”

  She stepped toward the portal, raised her triangle toward the key.

  “Eriu!” She turned. Banba stood behind her. “Where are you going?”

  “I …”

  Banba stepped up to the doorway, heard the harpsong on the other side of the portal. “Did you not hear it? He is there, the poet.”

  “Yes … I know.”

  Banba regarded her sister for a long moment. Eriu watched as disbelief flitted across her face, then knowledge, fear, disappointment.

  “Were you going to tell us, your Triad Sisters?”

  “You meet with him … every day?” Fodla’s tone was disbelieving.

  “For these past weeks, yes. I … escort Airmid to the portal, and he brings Bile and An Scail. And when they go off for their work, we sit at the portal and talk until they return.”

  “Every day? For weeks?”

  “I have said so, Banba; why do you taunt me?”

  “What do you talk of?” asked Fodla.

  “We talk of everything. The world. He tells me of Greece and Egypt. He has told me how Bile was injured so long ago and of how his people traveled in their wagons. I have told him of the earthquake and of how it destroyed our ancient city.”